Open system (systems theory)

Such interactions can take the form of information, energy, or material transfers into or out of the system boundary, depending on the discipline which defines the concept.

In the social sciences an open system is a process that exchanges material, energy, people, capital and information with its environment.

French/Greek philosopher Kostas Axelos argued that seeing the "world system" as inherently open (though unified) would solve many of the problems in the social sciences, including that of praxis (the relation of knowledge to practice), so that various social scientific disciplines would work together rather than create monopolies whereby the world appears only sociological, political, historical, or psychological.

[4] David Harvey uses this to argue that when systems such as capitalism enter a phase of crisis, it can happen through one of a number of elements, such as gender roles, the relation to nature/the environment, or crises in accumulation.

[6] Structural functionalists such as Talcott Parsons and neofunctionalists such as Niklas Luhmann have incorporated system theory to describe society and its components.