Living systems theory and social entropy theory

Abstract Although Living Systems Theory (LST) has been widely recognized for its major contributions to scholarship in general and systems theory in particular, the full extent of its contribution has never been explicitly presented. The purpose of this paper is twofold: first to discuss LST, and then to relate it to Social Entropy Theory (SET). The paper first presents 20 major contributions of LST. This is not an exhaustive list, but is simply designed to present simultaneously the wide range of contributions made by Miller, some of which have not been sufficiently recognized nor appreciated. Miller's contributions focused upon the actions of concrete components in fulfilling the critical subsystems processes required by systems at each level. He placed less emphasis on the key systems variables such as population and technology. Fortunately, Social Entropy Theory has explicated a set of key variables. The second part of the paper discusses Social Entropy Theory, and shows how it complements and extends LST. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.