Wherever there exists difference of temperature, motive power can be produced.
Sadi Carnot
Phi the Symbol for Value in Use
Thermodynamics is the branch of physics concerned with the transformation of energy and matter and the understanding of change. The fields elemental concepts - energy is the capacity of a systems to do work, and heat is the the transfer of energy caused by a difference in temperature.
The First Law of Thermodynamics, that captured the imagination of those seeking to solve the exchange value problem, states that energy is always conserved in closed or isolated systems. The quantity of energy stays the same, the rest is accounting. The pursuit of equilibrium in supply and demand found its perfect metaphor in the thermodynamic equilibrium.
The Second Law of Thermodynamics is concerned with the quality of energy. Described in many ways, at its most basic “if you have a system that is isolated, any natural process in that system progresses in the direction of increasing disorder, or entropy, of the system.”. A law that has obvious and practical implications for systems- social, economic and otherwise.
Given that thermodynamics is the science of change, and value in use is concerned with how things can be used to effect change, it seems natural to apply this branch of physics, and more particularly, The Second Law of Thermodynamics, to solve the Value Problem . However, as tempting it is to clothe/disguise my ideas in the complex fashion of today’s physics, my initial approach is no more developed than the elementary physics of the early 19th century . To do otherwise would be a mistake for several reasons:
First, as explained in Part 3 of this series, I am a corporate lawyer and not a physicist. I owe my knowledge of physics to what I have read and reflected on. Any attempt to artificially apply sophisticated concepts and physical laws beyond my modest understanding would be full of errors and quickly exposed.
Second, in any event, having studied the history of science for the longest time, my expectation is that what I describe will eventually be found to be wrong in part. But in keeping it simple, there is enough in the remaining part to provide those with a more advanced understanding of physics and other fields to correct and advance.
Finally, and and of far more importance, is that if my analysis is not consistent with the elemental concepts and laws present at the dawn of physics, there is no hope for it. If we can not see the ghost of Carnot in the idea that value in use represents the capacity of a thing to effect change, my work would be nothing more than a crude analogy or metaphor with only limited heuristic value. Or worse, be accused of physics envy by creating the pretense of a science of value in use without any scientific merit.
To be clear, my solution to the Value Problem is not based on an analogy with the science of change. I am not arguing that there is a similarity between thermodynamics and value in use, in the same way as there is a formal similarity between neo-classical consumer choice theory and classical thermodynamics ( Mayumi 2017). Rather, the basis of my work is that value in use is a manifestation of The Second Law of Thermodynamics. Thus, the branch of science that deals with change is the natural foundation for understanding why the difference in value in use between things supplies the motive force of social change.
To understand the relevance of thermodynamics to the problem of the best use of a thing, we must therefore start at the beginning.
The Motive Power of Fire
Sadi Carnot died in 1832 at the age of 36. The victim of another epidemic. Despite living a short life, many lifetimes ago, and some of his ideas being found to be incorrect, he is considered the founder of The Second Law of Thermodynamics.
He opens “Reflections on the motive power of fire, and on machines capable of developing that power” with the statement that “EVERYONE knows that heat can produce motion”. But then expresses the view that: “the phenomenon of the production of motion by heat has not been considered from a sufficiently general point of view”.
Black coal burns in the fire box, Water turns into steam, And the piston moves stubbornly Back and forth, back and forth. The hot steam condenses, Turning the heavy wheels. The engine-driving fire Presents several riddles.
Motivated to better understand the secrets of the steam engine that had propelled England’s industries at a rate unmatched in France, Carnot makes a number of prescient observations:
“we have considered it only in machines the nature and mode of action of which have not allowed us to take in the whole extent of application of which it is possible.”
“in such machines the phenomenon is, in a way, incomplete. It becomes difficult to recognize its principles and study its laws.”
“in order to consider in the most general way the principle of the production of motion by heat, it must be considered independently of any mechanism or any particular agent. It is necessary to establish principles applicable not only to steam engines, but to all imaginable heat engines, what ever the working substance and what ever the method by which it is operated.
He then calls for a new a new science before laying the foundations for the discovery of the second law of thermodynamics and the branch of physics that directly explains why change occurs.
Carnot’s breakthrough was to recognize that the heat engine was a device operating in a cycle between two heat reservoirs. Demonstrating that the production of motive power is possible wherever there is a difference of temperature . The motive power being due to a transfer of heat-energy from the hotter to the colder reservoir. Heat alone was not sufficient to produce movement. Rather it was the difference in temperature between the boiler and the radiator that solved the riddle engine-driving fire.
Moreover, he showed that the motive power was independent of the agents employed to develop it (the heat engine), but depending solely upon the temperatures of the bodies between which the transfer occurs and the presence of flow. Carnot explains by comparing the motive power of heat with the motive power of a waterfall:
The motive power of a waterfall depends on its height and on the quantity of the liquid; the motive power of heat depends also on the quantity of caloric used and on what may be termed the height of its fall, that is to say, the difference of temperature of bodies between which the exchange of caloric is made.
Heat flows downhill, like a waterfall.
Despite only being partly correct (the caloric theory of heat being obsolete), Schneider and Sagan (2005 ) note that, “ Carnot’s conclusions led to an understanding of how to better extract energy from the environment:
“with the benefit of hindsight we can see the importance of his observations: gradients not only run heat engines and man made machines, but also the source of the cyclical buildup of energy in natural machines that then seek out more energy to keep themselves going - gradients run organisms. Organisms, however, as natural machines that are grown rather than made, never extract their energy from temperature gradients, as heat engines do….(they) derive their energy from chemical gradients”
Carnot had discovered not just the motive power of fire, but the motive power of entropy. Typically associated with the idea of chaos and disorder, The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that “as one goes forward in time, the net entropy (degree of disorder) of any isolated or closed system will always increase (or at least stay the same).”. Put another way, energy of any type disperses from a high allocations and spreads out, if it is not constrained (Lambert 2002). Moreover, energy can only be used once to do mechanical work because once dispersed it cannot be recycled (Mayumi 2017).
Formulated as a harbinger of death, the entropy law has cast a dark shadow over attempts to solve the Value Problem. Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, at the forefront of the ecological economics movement that for 50 years has forewarned of the danger of a neo-classical solution to the exchange vale problem that ignored the role of energy and entropy in economics. Georgescu- Roegen succinctly summarizing the problem “From the viewpoint of thermodynamics, matter-energy enters the economic process in a state of low entropy and comes out in s state of high entropy”. Implying the need for an economics of constraint, circularity and survival within planetary boundaries.
But, entropy can also be formulated as the driver of life within systems (Wicken 1987). As noted by many, life is the exception to the entropy law that says that entropy inevitably increases and all things eventually lose their ability to do work. Described as Schrödinger's paradox, living systems tend to increase their organization despite the Second Law of Thermodynamics. But there is arguably nothing contradictory between the two. Rather, in the same way that the entropy law explains the flow of hot to cold down a temperature gradient to explain how engines become animate and perform work, the entropy law can be used to understand how biological engines become and remain animate:
I'll say it again. The universe is full of sources of energy. Nonequilibrium processes and structures of increasing diversity and complexity arise that constitute sources of energy that measure, detect, and capture those sources of energy, build new structures that constitute constraints on the release of energy, and hence drive nonspontaneous processes to create more such diversifying and novel processes, structures, and energy sources.
Stuart Kauffman (2000)
Bertalanffy ,Priogogine and Schneider and Sagan (who,amongst other things introduced me to the work of Jeffrey Wicken) have enabled us all to understand the fundamental relationship between life, energy, entropy and general and dissipative systems .
My proposition in this series is that value in use behaves according to the same basic principle - The Second Law of Thermodynamics reformulated as a positive motive power of social change. Implying a different kind of economics - one not associated with material growth and destruction (neo-classical economics) or degrowth, scarcity and constraints (ecological economics) but one primarily affiliated with life - growth and even de-materialization.
The Relevance of Carnot to the Value Problem
Most people who have encountered thermodynamics blanch at its mention, because it is an awesomely tedious discipline both to learn theoretically and to investigate experimentally. This is a shame, because it is also one of the most astonishing theories in science. Think of it: here is a field of study initiated to help nineteenth-century engineers make better engines, and it turns out to produce some of the grandest and most fundamental statements about the way the entire universe works Thermodynamics is the science of change, and without change there is nothing to be said.
Philip Ball 2004 (italics are mine)
Carnot’s discovery that gradients produce motive forces may help solve the riddle of why change (good and bad) occurs in the presence of value in use.
It is conceivable that social systems derive the energy to impel change from the existence of an equivalent form of gradient. But it is neither heat nor chemical. As discussed in part 5 of this series, value in use is distinguishable from exchange value in two ways:
change occurs in the presence of value in use; and
value in use exists in unequal measure - things with the same value in use are never exchanged.
My contention is that difference in value in use that exists between things may explain not only why social change occurs but also, based on the idea of gradients, the rate and magnitude of change. Put another way, social systems may extract their energy to do the work of positive social change from gradients found within things that accumulate value in use. The difference in value in use and the flow between things providing the motive force of change within such systems. Value in use, may be nothing more, than the energy concept in its social form.
Moreover, based on Carnot’s observations, I will argue this principle operates independently of the machine or engine that produces the change. The market that plays a central organizing role in theories of exchange value, can be seen nothing more than one method and commodities and money one example of working substances capable of producing change. As we shall see in future parts in this series, there are other methods and other working substances that appear far more efficient at extracting socially useful energy to performs socially useful work from the environment than markets.
To restate, unlike exchange theories of value that draw on the First Law of Thermodynamics by way of crude metaphor and analogy. There being no equivalent of “energy” concept in the their fictional construct. My approach, being grounded in change, will look to develop a theory of value in use that is a manifestation of The Second Law of Thermodynamics.
In the next three parts in the Millennia Challenge series, I begin the awesomely tedious task of describing value in use in all its states, varieties and forms, also known as capitals before going on to discuss their gradients.