assembly-economics/references/LiteratureComparison.md

Literature Comparison v0.1

Status: first orientation map. Bibliographic details are unverified. Check each entry against the original before citing it.

Purpose: place the Generative Assembly Society framework, GADM and the information-organism lens relative to existing work, so that the project (a) does not reinvent existing results, (b) borrows established methods, and (c) states clearly what is new.

Each entry gives the overlap, the difference from this project, and what to borrow.

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1. Assembly and complexity

Work	Overlap	Difference	Borrow
Assembly Theory (L. Cronin, S. I. Walker and colleagues; e.g. Sharma et al., Nature 2023)	Objects as assemblies built from reusable components; selection as the source of complex objects	A physical and chemical theory with a measurable assembly index. INTENT.md explicitly does not require accepting it.	The idea of quantifying "assembly depth" as a reuse measure for X
The adjacent possible (S. Kauffman, Investigations, 2000)	Future combinations reachable from current components ≈ viable future assembly space	Biological and theoretical, not institutional	Vocabulary for reachable futures; combinatorial growth arguments
Technology as combination (W. B. Arthur, The Nature of Technology, 2009)	Technologies built from existing technologies; recursive composition	Descriptive history of technology, no institutional model	Evidence for R1 (generative reuse)
Economic complexity (C. Hidalgo & R. Hausmann, e.g. PNAS 2009; The Atlas of Economic Complexity)	Capabilities as recombinable building blocks; diversity × ubiquity	Measures national capability structures from trade data	Empirical proxies for N and X

2. Agency, capability and freedom

Work	Overlap	Difference	Borrow
Capability approach (A. Sen, Development as Freedom, 1999; M. Nussbaum)	Effective agency as reachable functionings, not formal liberty	Normative development framework, no dynamic model	Operationalization of G; lists of central capabilities
Real freedom / basic income (P. Van Parijs, Real Freedom for All, 1995)	Existence principle; participation decoupled from labor	Focused on income; does not model domination or commons	Arguments for D_s and the Existence principle
Republican non-domination (P. Pettit, Republicanism, 1997)	Domination as capacity for arbitrary interference, separate from wealth	Political philosophy	Conceptual grounding for modeling P separately from wealth

3. Commons, institutions and power

Work	Overlap	Difference	Borrow
Governing the commons (E. Ostrom, 1990)	Commons as institutions; polycentric governance	Natural-resource commons. Assembly commons are mostly non-rival.	Design principles for commons governance (WS-06, WS-11)
Commons-based peer production (Y. Benkler, The Wealth of Networks, 2006)	Non-rival knowledge commons; open source	Network economy, pre-AI	Evidence for ρ and I_X mechanisms
Inclusive vs. extractive institutions (D. Acemoglu & J. Robinson, Why Nations Fail, 2012)	Institutional configurations determine whether success broadens or closes access	Historical, macro-institutional	Framing for the R3 / B1 loop (success becomes control)
Capital concentration (T. Piketty, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, 2014)	Concentration of returns when r > g	Wealth-focused	Data and dynamics for W_c in the GADM-0.3 power extension
Entrepreneurial state (M. Mazzucato, 2013)	Public risk-bearing in innovation	Focused on the state	Evidence for public risk pools (F)

4. Automation and distribution

Work	Overlap	Difference	Borrow
Task-based automation (D. Acemoglu & P. Restrepo, e.g. "Automation and New Tasks", Journal of Economic Perspectives, 2019)	Automation displaces tasks, new tasks reinstate labor	Labor-market focus, assumes wage-based participation	Labor share dynamics for w_L
AI and income distribution (A. Korinek & J. Stiglitz, NBER working paper, 2017)	Redistribution needs when automation concentrates returns	Standard welfare economics	Distribution regimes for claims I

5. Systems, cybernetics and viability

Work	Overlap	Difference	Borrow
System dynamics (J. Forrester, Industrial Dynamics, 1961; D. Meadows et al., The Limits to Growth, 1972)	Stock-and-flow modeling, feedback loops	GADM is a direct descendant in method	Method: causal-loop diagrams, stock-flow conventions, validation practice
Requisite variety (W. R. Ashby, An Introduction to Cybernetics, 1956)	A regulator needs as much variety as what it regulates; the membrane as variety filter	Abstract cybernetics	Theoretical basis for membrane design
Viable System Model (S. Beer, Brain of the Firm, 1972)	Viability, recursion, regulation of organizations	Organizational cybernetics, not learning systems	Recursion and viability vocabulary for the AIPN and the organism lens
Resilience and panarchy (C. S. Holling; L. Gunderson & C. S. Holling, Panarchy, 2002)	Adaptive cycles, release and reorganization ≈ disassemble/reassemble	Ecological systems	Adaptive-cycle framing for transition dynamics (WS-12)
Planetary boundaries (J. Rockström et al., Nature, 2009)	Non-tradeable ecological floors	Earth-system science	Grounding for the E floor
Doughnut economics (K. Raworth, 2017)	Social floor plus ecological ceiling as a viability corridor	No dynamic model of generativity	Corridor framing for constitutional constraints

6. Attention

Work	Overlap	Difference	Borrow
H. A. Simon, "Designing Organizations for an Information-Rich World" (1971)	"A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention"	Organizational design	Founding statement of attention as the scarce resource
Attention economy (T. Davenport & J. Beck, The Attention Economy, 2001)	Attention as an economic resource	Managerial, treats attention as something to capture	Contrast case for x_att
Surveillance capitalism (S. Zuboff, 2019)	Extraction-funded attention, discovery concentration	Critical, not modeled	Scenario grounding for the attention-oligopoly regime
Goodhart's law / Campbell's law	Metric gaming	—	Basis for the metrics catalog's Goodhart risks

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7. What appears new in this project

To be confirmed by an actual literature search:

1. Generativity as the objective. Using viable future assembly space (rather than welfare, output or capability sets alone) as the target of institutional design.
2. Information organisms as a distinct capital class, with learning with use, lineage inheritance, membranes and metabolism, coupled into a macro model. Related work treats AI as automation capital or as a labor substitute.
3. Membrane and lineage control as domination channels, separate from wealth.
4. Attention headroom as a stock inside a macro diagnostic, with an explicit guard against counting captured attention.

8. Next steps

• Run a real literature search (WS-01, WS-07, WS-14 priorities) and verify the bibliographic details above.
• Look specifically for prior macro models that treat AI systems as learning, inheritable capital; any such work would affect claim 2.
• Review system-dynamics validation practice (e.g. structure-verification and extreme-condition tests) and apply it to GADM-0.2.