Editing Stafford Beer (section)

===Cybersyn===
[[File:CyberSyn-render-106.png|250px|thumb|[[Project Cybersyn]] was an early form of computational [[economic planning]].]]
[[File:Portrait of Leon Trotsky.jpg|200x200px|thumb|left|Leon Trotsky’s critique of the [[Soviet Union]] influenced Beer’s shifting political views and the design of the Cybersyn model]]

In mid-1971, Beer was approached by [[Fernando Flores]], then a high-ranking member of the Chilean Production Development Corporation ([[CORFO]]) in the newly elected [[Chile under Allende|socialist government]] of [[Salvador Allende]], for advice on applying his cybernetic theories to the management of the state-run sector of the [[economy of Chile|Chilean economy]].<ref>Third Richard Goodman Memorial Lecture, [[Brighton Polytechnic]], [[Moulsecoomb]], [[Brighton]] 14 February 1973.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|last=Beer|first=Stafford|date=1973-02-14|title=Fanfare for Effective Freedom: Cybernetic Praxis in Government by Stafford Beer|url=http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/cybernetics/Platform/platform.pdf|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180503180805/http://ada.evergreen.edu/~arunc/texts/cybernetics/Platform/platform.pdf|archive-date=2018-05-03|url-status=live|access-date=2021-07-02|website=evergreen.edu}}</ref>

This led to Beer's involvement in the never-completed [[Cybersyn]] project, which aimed to use computers and a [[telex]]-based communication network to allow the government to maximise production while preserving the autonomy of workers and lower management.

Beer also was reported to have read and been influenced by [[Leon Trotsky]]'s critique of the [[nomenklatura|Soviet bureaucracy]].<ref>"Beer also read Trotsky and found inspiration in Trotsky's critique of the Soviet bureaucracy".{{cite book |last1=Medina |first1=Eden |title=Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile |date=10 January 2014 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-52596-1 |page=292 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VBC3AgAAQBAJ&dq=Stafford+beer+Trotsky&pg=PA292 |language=en}}</ref> According to another senior member of the Cybersyn team, Herman Schwember, Beer's political background and readings completely derived from works written by Trotsky and [[Trotskyists]]. Schwember himself disapproved of Trotsky's approach.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Medina |first1=Eden |title=Cybernetic Revolutionaries: Technology and Politics in Allende's Chile |date=10 January 2014 |publisher=MIT Press |isbn=978-0-262-52596-1 |page=292 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VBC3AgAAQBAJ&dq=Stafford+beer+Trotsky&pg=PA292 |language=en}}</ref>  

Although Cybersyn was abandoned after Allende's death during the [[Augusto Pinochet|Pinochet]] [[Chilean coup of 1973|coup]] in 1973, Beer continued to work in the Americas, consulting for the governments of [[Canada]], [[Mexico]], [[Uruguay]] and [[Venezuela]].