ABSTRACT
Mihajlo Mesarovic and Eduard Pestel are more concerned than the authors of The Limits to Growth with the questions of income redistribution on a global scale. One new aspect of the world futures debate is the application of computer models to the analysis of global trends. Jay Forrester's computer model essentially described five interlinked "global subsystems": population, natural resources, capital, agricultural and pollution. Mankind at the Turning Point by Mesarovic and Pestel outlines the content of a global computer model far grander than that of the Meadows' team. The numerical projections are, in fact, largely exponential extrapolations of recent economic and demographic trends with modest growth rate adjustments to account for the peculiarities of particular nations. Although The Limits to Growth computer models and the world-wide publicity they received provided a powerful stimulus to the futures debate, both the techniques and the underlying theories were subjected to strong criticism.
