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HOW TO MANAGE CHAOS IN THE DYNAMICS OF CAPITALIST SYSTEM
Fernando Alcoforado *
Capitalism is the social system based on division of labor and private property of the
means of production. All economic agents act on their own. This system is driven by the
market that guides the activities of economic agents in ways that enable better serve
‘investors' expectations. The State uses its coercive power solely for the purpose of
preventing people undertake detrimental to the preservation and proper functioning of
the market economy. Thus the State creates and preserves the environment in which the
market economy can function safely. The Marxist slogan that characterizes the capitalist
system as anarchic correctly depicts this social structure.
In the market economy, the majority of economic output (goods and services) is
following the decision by private companies controlled by private citizens in industry,
commerce, infrastructure and service delivery. In the market economy, the state
interferes in economic activity primarily to regulate and in some countries, provide
services in sectors such as energy, security, education, health, among others. The state
planning of the economy is only indicative. The desired performance standard of a
nation is measured in a market economy, basically by its performs in the economy using
as benchmarks of progress the size and growth of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) and
inflation rate.
Capitalism is a complex, dynamic, adaptive and nonlinear system because it has
elements or agents that interact in large numbers together forming one or more
structures that arise from interactions between such agents. Complex systems are
systems that are characterized by being dynamic as key features that have their sensitive
dependence on initial conditions for which, minimal differences at the beginning of a
process whatsoever, can lead to completely opposite situations over time.
The opinion of Ervin Laszlo, Ph.D. from the Sorbonne and president of the Club of
Budapest, presented in the book O Ponto do Caos (The Point of Chaos) (São Paulo:
Editora Cultrix, 200), is that "a dynamic system, whether occurring in nature, in society
or in a computer simulation, is governed by attractors. These define the 'phase portrait'
of the system: how it behaves over time. Stable attractors pull the trajectory of system
development into a recurring and recognizable pattern, taking it to converge at a given
point (if the system is governed by point attractors) or describe cycles through different
states (when it is under command of periodic attractors). However, dynamical systems
can also achieve a state in which the attractors that emerge are not stable, but 'strange'.
Are chaotic attractors".
It should be noted that an attractor is the set of points in phase space to which a system
tends to go as it evolves. The attractor can be a single point, a closed curve (threshold
cycle) which describes a system of periodic behavior, or a fractal (also called strange
attractor), when the system presents chaos. In chaotic systems the motion never repeats
itself, though often having to occur within certain limits. Thus, only an infinitely
complex figure - a fractal - can handle represent this trajectory never repeats itself in
phase space. Change and time are the two fundamental aspects of Chaos.
Chaos mainly refers to something that evolves over time. Chaos theory explains the
operation of complex and dynamic systems. In such systems, many elements are
interacting in unpredictable and random. This is the case of the capitalist market

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economy because there is no effective governance of the economic system. Note that,
Ilya Prigogine, commenting on “As leis do Caos” (Laws of Chaos) about bifurcation
points in chemical reactions, states that "they demonstrate that even in our macroscopic
level prediction of the future mix determinism and probability. At the bifurcation point,
the prediction is probabilistic, whereas among the bifurcation points, we can speak of
deterministic laws" [PRIGOGINE, I. As leis do caos (The laws of chaos). São Paulo:
Editora da UNESP, 2002].
It´s the thesis of Ervin Laszlo that "the systems go into a state of chaos when
fluctuations that were until then corrected by negative feedbacks self-stabilizing get out
of control. The development trajectory becomes nonlinear: prevailing trends collapse
and in its place various complex developments arise. Rarely chaos is a prolonged
condition; in most cases is only a transitional period between more stable states. When
the fluctuations in the system reach levels of irreversibility, the system reaches a critical
point where it collapses into its individual components stables (collapse) or undergoes a
rapid evolution toward a resistant state fluctuation that destabilized (breakthrough). If
this path of breakthrough is selected, the system evolves to a state in which it has a
processing capacity of intensified information and more efficient use of free energy as
well as more flexibility, greater structural complexity and additional levels of
organization".
When is subject to "fluctuations", a dynamic system such as economic system of a
country leads to a bifurcation point from which the system reaches a new dynamic
stability (breakthrough) or collapses. At the bifurcation point, the system has to be
restructured or collapse. This is the situation faced by many countries, including Brazil,
which, after the crisis that erupted in 2008 in the United States and spilled over the
planet, there wasn´t a restructuring of the national economy and global economic
systems. The path of breakthrough that would lead to overcoming the global economic
crisis that erupted in 2008 and was not resolved until today, require the restructuring of
the world economic system by turning it into an open complex system, self-organizing
and sensitive feedback that, contributing for the exchange of input or energy with the
environment, become the system susceptible to changes resulting from feedback,
adapting to the new environment and learning through experience.
Instead of breakthrough that would lead to overcoming the global economic crisis, the
scenario of the global economic collapse was predicted by the great thinker and French
economist Jacques Attali who predicts the occurrence of four steps to the unfolding
economic crisis that erupted in 2008 in United States and that spilled over the world: 1)
the public debts become heavier; 2) the failure of the euro and the global depression; 3)
the failure of the Dollar and the return of global inflation; and, 4) the depression and
ruin of Asia (ATTALI, J. Tous dans dix ans Ruines - Dette publique: La dernière
chance. Artheme Librairie Fayard, 2010). Currently, the world economy is facing step 1
in which public debt swelled worldwide.
According to Jacques Attali, the international financial system no longer works. The
neoliberal model that ruled the world in the last 40 years died and there will be
depression that will last many years. Given the existence of chaos that dominates the
world economy, it is time for each country and humanity equip themselves as urgently
as possible the tools necessary to take control of your destiny. To have control of your
destiny mankind must exercise their governance of the economic systems and of the
world economy. This is the only means of survival of the human species.

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* Fernando Alcoforado , member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor of Territorial
Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, a university professor and
consultant in strategic planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is
the author of Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova
(Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São
Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado.
Universidade de Barcelona, http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e
Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX
e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of
the Economic and Social Development-The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Muller
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe
Planetária (P&A Gráfica e Editora, Salvador, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e
combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011)
and Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012),
among others.