SETE 2.0: The Phase-Space Dynamics of Circulating Surplus, Ideological Goal-Seeking, and Systemic Collapse

This paper expands upon the Socio-Economic Thermodynamic Entropy (SETE) model to formally integrate the mechanisms of structural inequality and ideological goal-seeking. Whilst the original SETE framework established the political economy as an inertial mass orbiting a Resource Entropy Singularity (S_crit), it left the distribution of surplus exergy and the system’s directional imperatives largely implicit. Here, we introduce the ‘Wealth Siphon’ coefficient (α), decomposing it to explicitly model rent-seeking, wealth hoarding, and the temporal blockages of financialisation, thereby establishing the baseline for Effective Circulating Power (P_eff). We map these variables, alongside an Ideological Control Function (G), into the original orbital mechanics equations. We demonstrate that a civilisation’s phase-space trajectory towards collapse can become mathematically locked at the Entropic Event Horizon (H) long before absolute energy depletion occurs. This framework proves that under the ‘Strong Enlightenment’ paradigms of continuous expansion, increases in gross exergy (Pgross ) and financialisation actively accelerate systemic instability by amplifying Entropic Gravity.