Systems Theory as an Appropriate Tool for Understanding Human Population Systems

We began the previous chapter by discussing the difference between models that illuminate and those that obfuscate. There are two classes of models with which economists can theorize about human societies: masses or fields on the one hand and systems of interacting agents on the other. While the historical development of economic and social theory has taken shape through field-based or mass-based thinking, recent developments have started to move in the direction of systems of interacting agents, with EpsteinEpstein, J.M. and AxtellAxtell, R.L. (1996) leading the way. This book continues the pursuit of models based on interacting agents in place of reducing societies to massed objects.