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Modelling with Ergons

How can we model the world so that it elucidates how power is exercised, obtained and lost?

Panarchists analyse the world into 'ergons' which are functional units which do work (use energy to transform their environment).

Ergons may refer to individuals or groups or larger organisations that can be considered as one. Ergons have a cognitive map of the world, goals or missions, stores of possible plans of action, and capabilities to transform their environmentin particular ways. Ergons are energised by their perceived environment. (e.g. if their perceived environment is threatening they will be energised with anxiety and then act accordingly).

Ergons can be more or less free to act. If they are fully autonomous they are known as 'autonic ergons' or 'autons'. If fully controlled then they are known as 'doulonic ergons' or 'doulons'. A fully 'monocratic society' is a totalitarian one, where all ergons are doulonic except the ruling ones (who thus control everything else like a machine).

Ergons can be persuaded to act in different ways by the communication they receive from others. They can gain greater freedom by becoming more mature and enlightened about the nature of the world and possible manipulative tricks that might be played against them. They also need to learn how to persuade others to change their behaviour.

Original October 2005 with some later amendments

N.B. Panarchism originally had several separate streams of thought which have become mixed:

1. Ergons as 'beings which do work' (as opposed to beings defined in some other way)

2. The idea of Holarchy (whole-rule) (later renamed Panarchy) as a political system opposing Monocracy (absolute monarchy).

3. Holons ('partial-wholes') which can be surrounded by peers with which they exchange (like cells in a body) and can also nested in a pyramidal holonic hierarchy of systems and sub-systems (called a Holarchy by other authors).

4. A distinction between people who are free and working for themselves, and those who are captured and working for others, (originally called Holons and Cyberons, and now as Autons and Doulons).