A Simple Luhmann Economy

The idea behind a simple Luhmann economy is a prototypical agent based model of a market as characterized by Niklas Luhmann in his publications about the economic function system of modern society. In line with sociological systems theory the cohesive or topological structure of communication (i.e. one communicative act - many understanding observers) is analysed. Niklas Luhmann's proposition, that the economy starts from and produces further inequality in order to continue could be reproduced by computer simulation. Together with the introduction of a formal notation for basic elements of Niklas Luhmann's theory this work tries to open a path for further explo­ration of sociological systems theory by computational methods.