Published December 10, 2025 | Version v3
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A Socio-Economic Thermodynamic Entropy (SETE) Model: The Political-Economy as an Inertial Mass Orbiting a Systemic Entropy Singularity

Authors/Creators

  • 1. Independent Researcher

Description

UPDATE: A new enhanced version of this model is avaliable here: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.18882696

This paper presents a refined Socio-Economic Thermodynamic (SETE) model to analyse the dynamic relationship between the human political-economy and its biophysical constraints. Conventional economic models, rooted in the Strong Enlightenment tradition — defined as the belief in axiomatic myths of perpetual progress, human-technological omnipotence, and the separability of the economy from biophysical laws — fail to capture material limits, mandating a scientific-method-based re-evaluation.

We propose a two-body orbital mechanics framework embedded within thermodynamic laws:

  1. The Central Earth-System: Contains the Resource Entropy Singularity (S_crit), the critical thermodynamic collapse point, preceded by the Entropic Event Horizon (H).
  2. The Orbiting Political-Economy (PE): Defined by an inertial mass (M) (accumulated material stock M_M and institutional/ideological stock M_I ).

The core finding is that growing inertial mass (M) drives path dependency, while ”Entropic Drag” (F_drag) diverts useful Exergy into ”Maintenance Power” (P_maint), creating biophysical inflationary pressures. The Entropic Event Horizon (H) is the point where political and ideological inertia (M_I ) makes the required structural change (vrequired) unattainable, as M_I dictates the maximum politically feasible velocity of change
(v_political−feasible).

Analysis of the IPCC Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) shows that only structural reductions in inertial mass and a shift toward use-value–driven economic activity—valuing durable, repairable, andfunctional products—provides a thermodynamically viable escape trajectory from collapse by reducing M and the Entropy Generation Coefficient (γ), assuming the H boundary hasn’t already been crossed. This approach is consistent with ecological critiques of political economy (Foster, 2009) while remaining grounded in physical law.

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Related works

Is continued by
Preprint: 10.5281/zenodo.18882696 (DOI)
References
Preprint: 10.5281/zenodo.17881470 (DOI)

References

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