Douglas Raybeck Looking Down the Road: A Systems Approach to Future Studies. Prospect Hights, Waveland Press, 2000. 131pp., bibliog., index, ISBN 1-57766-116-8

The author claims that humans have always tried to predict the future. He even goes so far as to suggest that the development of culture is paralleled by the "development of increasingly refined means to anticipate the future" (p.3). The aim of the book is to give us some tools and ideas to help us predict social change, while keeping in mind that all such attempts are doomed to failure, partly because of social complexity and partly because there is always the problem of radical innovation or unexpected catastrophe. Despite this constant probability of failure, Raybeck suggests that prediction is worthwhile because it helps refine our understanding of social dynamics, and allows us some way of testing our understanding of current and past social processes. Bringing our models to the data does not prove our assumptions or models are true, but it does indicate how useful or appropriate they might be. It is of course conceivable that one could take a strong position and argue that interpretations invent the data, but in practise we generally hope that our interpretations are more adequate in some way than other interpretations, and it is not unreasonable to suggest that our ability to deal with the processes of change gives some idea of the adequacy of these interpretations. The book also, I suspect, hopes to make social science relevant to undergraduate students by demonstrating how it can anticipate future problems, and this might also explain the slightly irritating 'smartness' of the style. 

The tools that Raybeck presents come from 'systems theory', as this theory is held to help us have a fuller picture of how elements are interrelated, to help us discover unanticipated relationships, and to allow us to compare systems for common features (p10). Systems theory also is claimed to help us avoid reducing the system to a lower level in which non of the features that we are actually interested in are present (p17-18). The book's intended undergraduate audience might explain why there is little attempt by Raybeck to deal with the attacks that have been made on systems theory, or to explain, why anthropologists have generally neglected such theory despite its presence in the discipline since at least the 1940s. Though I would agree that some of these attacks have overstated the case (system does not necessarily imply harmony or unification, for example), it is disappointing that such problematics are not raised at all. Likewise Raybeck presents his tools as if 'elements' could easily be isolated from 'systems', rather than possibly be constituted by them.

The parts of systems theory that Raybeck uses are fairly straightforward. He explains the importance of positive and negative feedback loops. He distinguishes between first order change in which the system changes to emphasise those negative feedback loops which prevent positive loops from getting out of control, and second order change in which there are dramatic transformations of the system often from relationships with systems we have previously thought were 'external', or from the introduction of some new elements and relationships. Despite this, in his examples Raybeck surprisingly almost completely ignores the importance of negative feedback loops. Whereas arrows drawn between elements in his diagrams indicate a positive or magnifying effect, there is no obvious annotation introduced for a negative or diminishing effect. This is a major and unexpected failing.

Raybeck then goes on to introduce levels of analysis which perhaps should be considered as heuristically important, but which are implied to be 'real'. These levels, in terms of diminishing importance, are: Ecology, Techno-Economics, Social Structure and Ideology. 

Ecology includes the environment and other social systems. He admits that the other levels can possibly transform ecology, but considers that it is "sufficiently basic" to limit the range of possible social adaptations. Techno-Economics deals with modes and means of production and the consequences of the allocation of control of these factors which then limit, or more easily enable, social structures. Social Structure is considered to be the rules and patterns which structure relations between people (such as kinship), whether achieved or ascribed. Clearly this feeds into Techno-Economics and, as is well known, it can be difficult sometimes to distinguish between these two modes of organisation. Finally Ideology includes most of what is commonly called culture, symbols or cognition. It is used by humans to explain the other levels and is the most subject to change. Raybeck claims that, despite his assertion of graded importance, each level affects the other levels, or at the least the level immediately 'beneath' (p18-20). He also argues in favour of careful description of these 'levels' and their 'elements', whilst assessing the links between them (p43).

I don't think that Raybeck would claim there is anything particularly profound, or non-obvious to most anthropologists here, even though they might disagree with his levels and dispute the implied unity within them, but this does not imply his remarks are not useful. Their usefulness is demonstrated when he attempts to explain trends and processes in the contemporary western world - a complex task, as any who have tried it will realise. There is not enough space in this review to elucidate his analyses, which take up most of the rest of the book, except to say that they are clear and well put together, and indeed show that simple tools can help link large amounts of usually unmanageable data in very clear ways. However, his appendix giving accounts of unforeseeable change such as produced by the introduction of fusion power are disappointingly simplistic, as he himself recognises.

Despite the reservations expressed in the review, it still has to be said that with a little more elaboration this could be an excellent introduction to a way of dealing with social change. It would be particularly useful as a course text or as recommended reading, and it is not unlikely that more practised anthropologists could find benefit from it. However, I hope that we might see a more sophisticated text from the author sometime in the future - even though we might have few tools for predicting that event.