Resisting Entropy: Power Dynamics in a Changing World

As the established global framework—characterized by capitalist, neoliberal policies led by the U.S.—begins to unravel, regional powers are pushing back against disorder. They are centralizing their authority, leveraging advancements in surveillance, digital economics, and precision weaponry. In essence, power can be understood as the ability to counteract entropy.

The Nature of Power and Entropy

At its core, power is the capability to resist or adapt to a system’s entropy. All systems, whether biological, technological, or institutional, are inclined toward disintegration and chaos due to their inherent life cycles. Biological factors often necessitate changes in material conditions, compelling systems to adapt or risk extinction.

Understood as an organizational principle that governs individual elements or simpler systems, a system must resist or adapt to entropy to uphold the status quo. Thus, power can be defined as the ability to maintain a specific organizational principle while navigating external changes. Resisting entropy may offer fleeting success; however, adaptation is usually the more effective strategy.

Breakdown of Systems

A system collapses either when its organizational principle can no longer withstand change or when it fails to adapt appropriately. In complex systems, smaller or simpler systems beneath the larger structure tend to increase their own order to counteract the chaos initiated by the breakdown of the overarching organizational principle.

In this context, increasing order equates to acting against entropy. If rising entropy signifies disorder among system elements, then order pertains to the elements interacting under a shared organizational principle. In social structures, particularly institutional ones, this often translates to increased centralization.

The Drive Toward Centralization

Every system generally gravitates towards centralization, arranging its components according to an overarching organizational principle to resist or adapt to entropy. Such a principle functions as a mechanism for prioritizing interests, establishing hierarchies, and defining system goals.

The U.S., serving as a guiding organizational principle, set hierarchies and objectives within the international rules-based system that enabled other states to function. While this structure encountered resistance and conflict, the U.S. possessed the authority to maintain order by advocating for compliance with this principle, thereby staving off entropy.

This overarching principle can be broadly categorized as “neoliberal capitalism,” a specific manifestation of liberal democracy intertwined with market capitalism. However, the inertia inherent in the system, alongside China’s ascendance, Russia’s distancing from U.S. influence, and the heightened complexity of subsystems, has generated tensions that U.S. neoliberal capitalism now struggles to manage.

Attempts to Reverse Change

The U.S.’s attempts to counteract entropy have been characterized by an effort to reverse change. This is particularly evident in its strategies toward China and Russia, where the objective has been to rein in Chinese advancement or to reshape Russia’s role. Such a logic extends to U.S. relationships with Europe and Latin America, where there is a continuous drive for greater centralization.

Nonetheless, as change is intrinsic and irreversible, these efforts are often impotent, leading to heightened tensions within the system and exacerbating entropy. When an organizing principle ceases to impose order effectively, maintaining existing priorities and hierarchies tends to accelerate systemic erosion as smaller systems vie for their own hierarchies and objectives.

The Response of Smaller Systems

Upon the disintegration of a larger system, previously subordinate simpler systems will typically exhibit opposing inertia, moving toward greater centralization. Freed from the constraints of an external organizing principle, these systems will reinforce their own hierarchies and priorities to combat the systemic entropy they are experiencing.

The current shift toward centralization in various nations, such as Türkiye, India, and Israel, exemplifies this dynamic. These states, previously influenced by the U.S. as an organizing principle, are becoming more centralized as that influence wanes, thereby adapting to systemic challenges.

Ordering Foreign Elements

A system expands by organizing foreign elements or simpler systems according to its own principles, and this does not necessarily require dismantling existing structures unless they conflict with its goals. Most systems tend to grow, as expansion serves as a countermeasure against their own entropy.

Expansion will persist as long as there are smaller systems available for reorganization. Nevertheless, all systems must contend with entropy. When a system finds itself unable to expand further due to a lack of manageable elements, it will resort to opposing entropy—a strategy likely to fail.

The Evolution of Social Systems

When an organizing principle loses efficacy, it can no longer impose its hierarchies on emerging systems, resulting in the displacement of the old structure by a new, more complex one. This rough theoretical framework for social system growth and decay, along with its definition of power in relation to entropy, holds significant explanatory potential for understanding and possibly predicting the evolution of social systems.

The Future of International Relations

Should we consider this framework valid, albeit with necessary caveats, it paints the current state of international relations as an ending of sorts—an epochal shift, to borrow a term from Goethe. This shift signifies that the organizing principle of the neoliberal capitalist system can no longer maintain order over the systems that have emerged under it.

While it may appear that the neoliberal capitalist order is actively opposing entropy—through military action in Ukraine against Russia and attempts to contain China—it is actually in a phase of transformation. It risks being subsumed by a smaller system with a more potent organizing principle, thereby birthing a new order with distinct hierarchies and priorities.

Reflections on Systematic Elements

One crucial caveat to this analysis is that, despite the evident erosion of the neoliberal capitalist order, certain systematic elements—like banking and the state—remain constant and are shared across all competing systems. These two elements are prevalent in the existing framework as well as in emerging systems around the globe.

If we treat banking and state structures as a singular complex system—owing to their interconnected evolution since the seventeenth century—this could imply that their organizing principle is creating order across various systems. Consequently, we may be witnessing, on one hand, the decline of a simpler system and, on the other, the adaptation of a more intricate one.

Conclusion

In summary, the dynamics of global power are shifting as various systems respond to changes in their organizing principles. While challenges to the existing neoliberal capitalist framework are rising, the interplay of institutional elements like banking and governance ensures that a complex system persists. Understanding these shifts can provide insights into the future trajectory of international relations and the nature of power itself.