This chapter will present a new fractal "metric" for social responsibility,
designed to teach planners, administrators, and political decision-makers, within a
reasonably short time frame, how to design and implement socially responsible plans
and policies. Fractal design provides a common denominator for socially responsible
work in economics, politics, international relations, environmental sustainability, etc.,
by helping to solve scale problems that typically are not well solved in current practice.
All of the above functional systems are characterized by inter-scale linkage problems,
i.e. poor linkages between the large, intermediary, and small components. Fractal design
provides a metric that requires many more small and intermediary components than
large ones, with richer nodal connections for the large ones. In addition, the fractal
principle of self-similarity provides the basis for energy, information, and money
transfer between the different scales, thus promoting system sustainability. Fractal
design also provides the basis for democratic institutional arrangements and decisionmaking
not rigidly controlled by oligarchies and empires.
Fractal design, exemplified by branching structures in nature, provides a sustainable
balance between system resilience and system efficiency that can be measured (see the
eco-systems work of Robert E. Ulanowicz). The same measurement principles can be
applied to social systems. Fractal design thus becomes a mathematical systems’ subspecialty
that links social and natural systems. In turn, fractal design provides an
important component of what is needed to achieve the fifth phase of development, as
articulated by Matjaž Mulej, based on mutually beneficial social development.
Keywords: Democracy, democratic institutional arrangements, eco-systems, empire,
fractal design, social responsibility, institutional arrangements, inter-scale linkage,
ISO 26000, mathematical system, measurement, mutually beneficial social development, natural system, oligarchy, social development social system, system
efficiency, system resilience, system sustainability, the fifth phase of
development.
