"Distinguished cyberneticist Stafford Beer states the case for a new science of systems theory and cybernetics, examining such issues as “A Liberty Machine in Prototype,” “Science in the Service of Man,” and “The Free Man in a Cybernetic World.”"
DIAGNOSING THE SYSTEM In Brain of the Firm and Heart of Enterprise Stafford Beer worked out the scientific laws that govern any viable system. They constitute the basis for this book which is concerned solely with the application of those laws to the understanding of any particular enterprise. In the form of a Handbook or Manager's Guide, Diagnosing the System deals with the fundamental problem of management - how to cope with complexity itself. It shows you how to design (or redesign) an enterprise in conformity with the laws of viability, and will help you to diagnose faults in your organizational structure.
THE HEART OF ENTERPRISE This book is addressed to managers and their professional advisors. When it introduces new terms, it carefully explains them. It replaces the underlying mathematics of cybernetics with topological diagrams that are intended to reflect mathematical rigour so that anyone can understand it. Many examples are used throughout the text, which is enlivened by discussions of the concepts and arguments couched in terms of 'bar talk' between imagined readers. But the final part on implementation 'goes into detail about a group of related applications.
PLATFORM FOR CHANGE This book is addressed to executives of all kinds of organizations and to their professional advisors. Platform for Change is an exhilarating unusual and ingenious book by one of the most creative minds and rigorous thinkers of the 20th century envisioning new concepts for a new sort of world ... Platform is about coping with profound change and most notably about courageous alteration by applying the innovative findings of the science of cybernetics and complexity. The reader is enlightened by reflecting on the author's thinking about a better state of the world.