The basic assumption of the question itself, namely that there is a best method for organizing a social system independent of the needs, resources, or purpose(s) of that social system, could certainly be debated, but as stated the question's importance largely speaks for itself.
The need to develop a better (or best) method of organizing social systems for the contemporary era can be seen from many different perspectives. The technological advances of the last century, and of the last two decades especially (namely with the rise of the Internet and cell phones, and their new combined form in the data phone) have drastically changes the way social systems come into existence and operate. Globalization also demands greater conscious attention be paid to the development of social systems; increasing environmental concerns, corporate ethics issues, increasing divorce rates, and a plethora of other prominent social issues each suggest that we are in a time of social flux, and new methods of organizing the changing social system must be examined and developed for proper planning and meaningful policy to be brought into existence.
Materials and objective:
The objective in undertaking this line of inquiry would be to better understand the way contemporary social systems are formed, and the dynamics of individual interaction within these systems. This would lead to better conscious planning methods for structuring social systems in a purposeful and meaningful way. The Internet has drastically changed the way in which social systems operate, and the increasing decentralization of and equality of access to social systems has had a major impact on the organization of these systems and the behaviors of individuals within these systems that, though long projected, is only now coming into a period of true understanding (Wiley & Edwards 2002). This line of questioning would be aimed at furthering this understanding,...
Some studies have suggested that social systems, which are always inherently self-organizing, have become explicitly and consciously so in the recent past and in the contemporary world, making it even more difficult to study the phenomenon of social organization as the number of participants, purposes, and behaviors essential to this understanding have grown exponentially (Bach 2002; Wiley & Edwards 2002). This does not man that an understanding will be impossible to attain, only far more difficult.
References
Bach, J. (2002). "Evolutionary guidance system: A community design project." The journal of general evolution 58(5/6), pp. 417-23.
Meunier, H.; Leca, J.B.; Deneubourg, J.L.; Petit, O. (2006). Group movement decisions in capuchin monkeys: the utility of an experimental study and a mathematical model to explore the relationship between individual and collective behaviours." Behaviour 143(12), pp. 1511-27.
Omran, E. & Van Etten, J. (2007). "Spatial-Data Sharing: Applying Social-Network Analysis to study individual and collective behaviour." international journal of geographical information science 21(6), pp. 699-714.
Robbins, G. (2009). "Understanding individual behaviors within covert networks: the interplay of individual qualities, psychological predispositions, and network effects." Trends in organized crime 12(2), pp. 166-87.
Wiley, D. & Edwards, E. (2002). "online self-organizing social systems: The decentralized future of online learning." Quarterly review of distance education 3(1), pp. 45-59.
