Society as a complex system: Can we find a safe and just operating space for humanity?

Abstract

The concept of "planetary boundaries" that surround a "safe and just operating space" for humankind is a powerful framing of the problems of global sustainability but implies that we can describe the dynamics of the human-earth system. After defining complex systems in general and introducing the idea of system attractors, we assert that the human-earth system can be understood as a complex system with a set of societal attractors. We show that at a high level its dynamics have been controlled by a powerful 'Malthusian' attractor through most of history but that it left that state in the Industrial Revolution. We go on to model the post-industrial world as a dynamical system with population, economic output, societal state and impact on the biosphere as state variables. A novel aspect of this model is its overt incorporation of political dynamics. Finally, we ask whether this system has an attractor that constitutes a safe and just space for humanity in the future.