Elizabeth Daskalakis, Eve Smith, Emily Maher, Ryan Gifford

   Leverage Points: Places to Intervene in a System

  
   As I mentioned at the presentations, I particularly liked the fact
   that you wanted to do a project on a topic of your own design, and
   the discussion of leverage points in systems that you developed is
   very good on the whole.  

   

   The only significant weak point here is that your paper does not 
   have an overall conclusion.  It just sort of "peters out" without
   tying together the points you have made.  I know it can be hard to 
   do that when you are "writing by committee," but the paper as a whole
   could really have used a more focused summation at the end.  

   Specific comments (see comments written on the paper copy as well):

   1)  Top of page 2 -- in writing like this when you are making multiple
       references to one source, it's not necessary to repeat the title
       or the author's first name.  Just introduce the full citation once
       and then use the author's last name after that.  

   2)  First full paragraph on page 2:  The first sentences could be
       reorganized a bit to make this flow better.

   3)  Extended quote on page 3:  Since Meadows does not discuss this 
       aspect of inventory planning in any detail, I think it would have
       been good to say a few more words about the "just-in-time"
       philosophy and exactly what that means.

   4)  Page 6:  The items in your list of examples of reinforcing feedback
       loops are not all equivalent in effects.  For instance, the erosion
       example is a "negative" example of reinforcing feedback.  It's also
       very much related to some the environmental damage that Jared Diamond
       discusses in "Collapse" in some of his case studies.  

   5)  Page 8:  The point that some information flows carry the risk of 
       causing malfunctions in systems is a very timely one, what with 
       the recent news about Facebook giving access to user information
       to the data mining firm Cambridge Analytica and the possible effects
       that had on political advertising campaigns in the 2016 Presidential
       election.  It's harder in a way to restrict access to information 
       than it was in the past.

   6)  Page 9:  I'm not sure I understand what you meant by the sentence
       I marked here.  In fact, I think it's at least partially true to say 
       that the massive lobbying efforts that go on in current-day Washington 
       are actually subverting or corrupting the political system.  They make 
       the opinions of rich corporations and individuals count much more than
       the opinions of average citizens.  I don't think that's the way
       the legislative branch was supposed to work (according to the writers
       of the Constitution).  

   7)  Page 10:  I think U.S. corporations have been much less willing to try 
       "self-organization" ideas than some European and Japanese companies
       (and as a result through the 1980's or so, they tended to be 
       much less nimble and flexible in reacting to changes in markets
       and manufacturing technologies). Many of those foreign companies 
       view their workers as collaborators rather than adversaries.  They 
       regularly take suggestions from their workers of how processes and 
       techniques could be improved and they have tended to benefit greatly 
       from that extra input.   

   8)  Page 10:  I'm not so sure about your Hitler example.  I think that
       there had to be a predisposition to "follow the rules" in the Germans,
       plus a wide basic agreement (at least on some level) with his anti-Semitic
       policies.  The Holocaust could never have happened without a level of
       basic bad feeling against the Jews that was widespread through the 
       population.  

   Grade:  95  (A)