The course of French society (1955-73) — a simulation

Abstract

This paper analyzes the course of French society in terms of the time path of a set of variables: exoge nous politico-military pressure, economic growth, unemployment, price rise, population growth, ethnic tension, public unrest, administrative effectiveness, expectations of socii, and an overall measure of societal viability termed Government Stability (Z or GS). The variables reflect the performance of interacting societal institutions that together constitute a complex adaptive total-society system. Government operates as the regulatory subsystem of society.

The values of the variables during a given period represent the state of the system. They are ob tained through a simulation algorithm which simu- Zates a societal flow graph representing the pattern of internal system dynamics. The extension of simulation to past and future periods permits retrodictive confirmation and predictive inference. The correspondence and consistency of the generated results with the reported and available data makes possible the validation of the analysis. The simu lation algorithm, which is applicable to all socie tal systems, is here applied to chart the course of French society for the two decades from 1955 to 1973. Values of economic growth, price rise, unemployment, and change of government generated by simulation are directly confirmable from known empirical facts. The confirmation of qualitative variables like ethnic tension, administrative effectiveness, and expectations of socii as gener ated by the model is, however, based on inference. They conform to the broad empirical pattern as outlined in the secondary sources of data.