The Entropy of Capitalism

by Biel, Robert

• ISBN13: 9789004204300
• ISBN10: 900420430X
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-12-31
• Publisher: Brill Academic Pub

Summary

The project of applying general systems theory to social sciences is crucial in today's crisis when social and ecological systems clash. This book concretely demonstrates the necessity of a Marxist approach to this challenge, notably in asserting agency (struggle) as against determinism. It similarly shows how Marxism can be reinvigorated from a systems perspective. Drawing on his experience in both international systems and low-input agriculture, Biel explores the interaction of social and physical systems, using the conceptual tools of thermodynamics and information. He reveals the early twenty-first century as a period when capitalism starts parasitising on the chaos it itself creates, notably in the link between the two sides of imperialism: militarism (the ;war on terror') and speculative finance capital.

Excerpts

INTRODUCTIONThe structure of this book reflects how the theory was actually developed: in a concrete way, derived from facts and referring back to them. In this introduction, I will briefly summarise the main lines of the argument in a more abstract way, but the reader must bear in mind that this general exposition could only have been written at the end of the process, not at the beginning. The 21st century opens up what is possibly the most difficult and decisive period in human history. The ruling capitalist mode of production is hitting violently against its limits: it manufactures unmanageable amounts of poverty, and depletes the ecosystem more than the latter can bear. These violent shocks threaten immense deprivation ... but they also open up possibilities for renewal, if we can grasp them. By employing the term entropy, in our title and as a central theme of the book, we aim to capture the flavour of a ;demise' of something. But is it the demise of humanity itself, or of the capitalist mode of production, whose decline might on the contrary herald a rebirth of humanity? Radicals often speak of ;the system' to signify the socio-economic entity which currently oppresses us. The term implies that something (not just economic exploitation but ideological alienation, militarism etc.) has built up a momentum of its own and become a self-propagating force, severed from rational control and consuming the society which produced it. The premise of this book is that this intuition is exactly on the right lines, but will only reveal its true potential if we really push the systems notion to a point where we can be rigorous about its implications. The task of a systems critique of capitalism could validly have been posed at any point of its history, but has special significance today, entering as we do a crisis of a new type where two systems ; human and ecological ; come into conflict and capitalism now consumes not just society itself, but its physical environment, to a point where neither can regenerate. Systems are not fated to acquire a runaway ;bad' dynamic, it is possible for them to function sustainably. To understand this, systems theory suggests two complementary conceptual approaches: thermodynamics and information. Information applies to internal structure, the extent to which an ensemble ;makes sense' and functions coherently. Thermodynamics addresses the energy flows. There must be an exchange of energy with a surrounding system (environment) if we are to maintain or improve society's internal coherence; otherwise (i.e., as a closed system) we would be condemned to degenerate in the direction of greater entropy. We can represent this entropy either as disorder, or, in a complementary formulation, as a descent into the wrong kind of ;orderedness', i.e. uniformity: a homogenised system which has lost the rich variety of signs is in no position to carry information. Because we are lucky to have an environment, we can pursue a normative commitment to bettering the human condition. But we have to do this carefully. If we exhaust either the energy source or the environment's capacity to absorb disorder (heat, waste), the entropy will return to haunt us. Today, with peak oil and climate change, both kinds of revenge impinge together, and interact. The Green movement recognises such external limits, but what we must emphasise is the drive from within pushing againstthem. This is where Marxism is essential. Our strategic goal of eventually stabilising humanity's relations with its environment must never be confused with stabilising the capitalist mode of production: were we side-tracked into attempting the latter (which is impossible anyway), we would disastrously amplify the causes of the problem. Only Marxism posits this distinction clearly.As a basis for our subsequent argument, we therefore begin by re-stating the Marxist vision of capitalism's internal contradictions, re-interpreting it to emphasise the manipulation of, and ultimately surrender to, entropy. Thus, conflicts which would tear society apart are kept at bay only through massively unsustainable environmental demands: the symptoms of poverty are managed only through unnaturally cheap food, relying on artificial inputs which are ultimately unsustainable, each ;solution' being merely a temporary shuffling-off of the problem into a different region, or into the future. In particular, the core-periphery angle is emphasised: the system's worst features, the disorder from which the privileged seek to shield themselves, are shoved onto the colonies or the marginalised. Systems of domination have always exploited fears of chaos to convince people that an iron hand is needed to maintain society's structure or predictability. Here, ;security' is equivalent to repression. Capitalism is no different: while actually quite chaotic, it presents itself as a bastion of order. This is one aspect of the ruling discourse, the centralist one. We can refute it because systems theory shows that self-organisation is not only possible, but preferable to centralised order: society would not just fall into chaos if no longer ruled from the top, a superior self-organisation can be achieved, the condition being simply that we draw energy from our environment in a sustainable way. This is encouraging for the future. But the discourse of top-down rule is only one option for maintaining dominance. The notion of self-organised order can also, in a strange way, be co-opted so as to disempower resistance. In some forms of structuralism, the emergent order may be recognised as alienating but nevertheless hard to shift, so this can lead to fatalism or an undervaluing of agency. More recent forms of capitalism perform this trick somewhat differently: neo-liberalism exploits the proposition (true in itself) that self-generated order is better than designed, as an excuse to outlaw social projects or any attempt to better the human condition. Our answer to this would have to focus on a particular aspect of information theory which emphasises ;information about the future': in human systems, structural emergent order inevitably has a strong dose of agency. The future is not predetermined; we can choose it, on the basis of existing possibilities. Having established a systems reading of Marxism (or, a Marxist reading of systems theory), the book's main task is to address a question of burning contemporary relevance: if we view capitalism as an adaptivesystem, how, might it adapt to the symptoms of its own decay (entropy)? Out of all the lessons of Marxism relevant to today's crisis, and its likely future development, surely the greatest is the emphasis on struggle. Although objective limits hover around somewhere (environmental carrying capacity, peak oil, exploiting society to a point where it cannot regenerate), the force which really bounces back the news of impending entropy is not, in some abstract way, the limits themselves, but rather the struggles (class struggle and social or national movements of various oppressed groups, which might be against exploitation or in favour of resource stewardship) which signal a refusal to tolerate the existing trajectory. The issue is thus in an immediate sense political. In this context, it is significant that Marxism did begin to address a question of the declining phase of a mode of production, in the shape of its notion of imperialism. In affirming the centrality of imperialism, our book clearly identifies itself as Leninist, not just Marxist. But what is the relationship between imperialism and entropy? This is a vital question. Again, we re-interpret certain formulations of imperialism theory from a systems angle: the notion of a ;highest stage' surely implies an era in which themes of decay are already manifested. But, we argue, this does not mean