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, information theory, 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, establishing the baseline for Effective Circulating Power (P_eff). We demonstrate that α acts as a Shannon Entropy filter, whilst Institutional Mass (M_I) functions as a measure of information density that actively warps socio-economic phase-space. By apping these variables alongside an Ideological Control Function (G) into the orbital mechanics equations, we prove that a civilisation’s trajectory towards collapse becomes mathematically locked at the Entropic Event Horizon (H) long before absolute energy depletion. Under the ‘Strong Enlightenment’ paradigms, increases in gross exergy (P_gross) and financialisation actively accelerate systemic instability by amplifying Entropic Gravity.