Microcosms can serve as representations of larger populations, which is helpful when conducting experiments at a macrocosm level would cost too many resources or is impractical. However, the microcosm is not necessarily a representation of the larger society.
Microcosms allow people to understand ideas that would be too complex to understand on a macrocosm level. For example, economists may have an easier time studying the effects of economic policies on a small village, since that village has fewer businesses, thus having fewer variables.
Microcosms allow for experiments that would be highly destructive on the macrocosm level. For example, environmentalists may want to know what effects pollution has on a specific pollution. They can look at the environmental damage the pollution has in a smaller ecosystem and extrapolate the effects to a larger ecosystem.
Macrocosms encompass the entire population as a whole. In economics, a macrocosm could be the entire global economic system. Some elements can only be understood at a macrocosm level. For example, a global economy may rely heavily on the currency of one country. Economists may not be able to understand a microcosm without considering the macrocosm. Economist Böhm-Bawerk said that people could not ignore microcosms when trying to understand economic macrocosms.
People have been discussing microcosms and macrocosms since the time of Plato, a philosopher who wrote between 423 and 347 B.C. Plato referred to the macrocosm as the “Great Universe.” He saw everything in the cosmos as ordered, beautiful and moving in harmony. While things seem harmonious at a large scale, they become more chaotic at a smaller scale, with earthquakes, epidemics and war. However, those in ancient Greece believed there was a correspondence between the macrocosm and the microcosm, with the world of humans mirroring the cosmos.
Humans are seen as a part of the microcosm, which is often called the little world. Robert Fludd was a physician, astrologer, mathematician and cosmologist and argued that humans were microcosms and that God came from the macrocosm. People were placed in the center of the universe and were believed to contain essences from all parts of the universe.