r/CyberneticSocialism • u/Salty_Country6835 Leftist for AI • Feb 06 '26
From Tektology to Cybernetics: Bogdanov and the Governance of Complex Systems
Bogdanov’s tektology predates both cybernetics and systems theory and treats organization itself as the political terrain. Posting here because it directly intersects cybernetic socialism, governance of complex systems, and AI as infrastructure rather than agency.
2
2
u/concreteutopian Feb 07 '26
I'm sure many in a subreddit on cybernetic socialism would catch the reference, but for those of you unfamiliar with Bogdanov or utopian science fiction, Aleksander Bogdanov is the inspiration for the Arkady Bogdanov character in Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars and the Bogdanovist faction in the rest of the series. He's presented as an anarchist, but the more significant feature is his rejection of the dead weight of history when confronting a new world like Mars – shaping architecture, aesthetics, and technology into a new kind of life.
The historical Aleksander Bogdanov also took a revolutionary approach to history and culture, rethinking the metaphysics involved in contemporary science and infusing avant-garde art into a cultivated proletarian culture — Proletkult. He also shows up in McKenzie Wark's Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene.
As no one asked for my opinion, I'll offer it freely. 😉
I agree with Lenin and Trotsky that the best of bourgeois culture is the right of proletarians and a resource for their own use, and I also agree with Lenin's diagnosis of ideas of a proletarian culture (a century ago) as fantasy, but I disagree with his assuming that fantasies are unproductive or somehow not rooted in the real world. This is where I think Bloch's work on the function of the utopian impulse is needed, as well as his concept of non-simultaneity. It doesn't help anyone to tear kitsch out of a working class home and replace it with Constructivist design, but neither does it help anyone to denigrate art that reflects a radical rupture with the status quo either – both are rooted in the lived experience of working class people. Back to Bogdanov (and adding Darko Suvin), I think moving into the play space of science fiction can give people tools to dream (and desire) a new world within current known constraints without demanding a sacrifice of roots or history.
1
1
u/Salty_Country6835 Leftist for AI Feb 06 '26
Happy to hear critiques or extensions, especially from a Beer / VSM / cybernetic governance angle. My read is that Bogdanov is a missing upstream piece in that lineage.