Affiliations: California State University, Sacramento, CA 95819, U.S.A.
Note: [*] This paper was originally submitted as a field project and term paper in Dr. J.P. van Gigch's seminar in Systems Analysis, School of Business and Public Administration, California State University, Sacramento, CA 95819, USA, December 1982. In 1983 it was submitted for and won the Student Competition for the ‘Sir Geoffrey Vickers Memorial Lecture’, 27th Annual Meeting of the Society for General Systems Research, Detroit. The paper originally appeared in The Relation Between Major World Problems and Systems Learning, Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Society for General Systems Research, ed. G. Lasker, Detroit, May 1983, Seaside, CA, Intersystems Publications, 1983. Used with perrnission.
Abstract: The metasystem approach, where decision-making is studied from a control point of view, is applied to the system of Environmental Pollution Control in Japan. Through a defined theoretical framework and methodology, this approach leads to identification and diagnosis of failures and malfunctions in the system, which are classified into failures of rationality, of translation and/or transduction, of behavior, and of evolution. The metasystem approach reveals serious problems which could lead the Environmental Pollution Control system to failures and disasters, and shows that this system may not be in a position to withstand environmental changes.
Keywords: Metasystem, failures, ecology, pollution control, Japan
