Two views on equilibrium

In our discussion of chemical reductionism we used a perspective of thermodynamic flows, viewing systems through the resources which flow into them and the waste they excrete. In this perspective, we would see entropy as ‘untucked loops’. This is an important definition, but a bit limited: we also need to understand what is going on within the system, essentially its processes of organisation. Fundamentally, the two perspectives converge, in that low entropy permits self-organisation, and vice versa: thus, ‘The entire fabric of life on Earth requires the maintaining of a profound and subtle organization, which undoubtedly involves entropy being kept at a low level.’ (Penrose, 2010, p.77). However, there are interesting differences of emphasis, notably on how we regard equilibrium, and therefore ‘rift’.

Let us first consider the good side of equilibrium. For example, in the soil system there are three loops: nutrient input/release; soil erosion/production; and carbon sequestration/emission. In an undisturbed natural setup these are kept in balance and the result is no erosion (Amundson, et al., 2015). With the arrival of industrial society, however, things were disrupted, leading to linear flows with many untucked loops (c.f. De Rosnay, 1979), of which erosion is one expression. To set things right, we can strive to restore balance – a realisation which led von Liebig to remark: ‘Can the art of agriculture be based upon anything but the restitution of a disturbed equilibrium?’ (von Liebig, 1844). Another example is the natural equilibrium between insects that might damage our crops (‘pests’) and their natural predators, an equilibrium destroyed by chemicals. When the author was obliged to leave his plot unattended for a whole month during the growing season, a natural ecology took over: in response to a surfeit of slugs (Arion hortensis) lurking in overgrown grass paths, toads (Bufo bufo) took up residence. Some Mexican scientists were recently astounded to find that, when a certain farmer stopped using pesticides, a natural ecology stepped in to do the job (Entomological Society of America, 2016); they then invented the term ‘autonomous pest control’ for something which nature and traditional farmers have been doing forever! Even built systems, as we will see later, can be redesigned, through biomimicry, around loops and flows.

In all these ways, we could say the goal is for things to be integrated and harmonious. Conventional attempts to connect Marxism with general systems theory have tended to focus on this particular angle of thermodynamic flows (for example Burkett and Bellamy Foster, 2006; Martinez-Alier, 2011), and accordingly, in eco-Marxist literature, ‘what went wrong’ with the advent of capitalism is often expressed in the notion of ‘metabolic rift’. This term was developed particularly by Bellamy Foster (2009), who chose to translate Marx’ term Stoffwechsel (Marx and Engels, 1968, p.198) as ‘metabolic interaction’ (Bellamy Foster, 2009, p.177) in place of the more usual ‘exchange of matter’ (Marx, 1954 [1887], pp.183–4).

The above argument, though important, is, however, only partial: the downside is to over-emphasise the desirability of equilibrium, and therefore perceive the sense of ‘rift’ as something bad. That is why we should complement this with the complexity perspective where, in a sense, instead of looking at the flows entering and leaving a system, we focus on what happens within it: self-organising processes. In this perspective we encounter a different angle on entropy: too much equilibrium.

Thus ‘We now know that simplicity and stability are exceptions’, beyond which we encounter ‘an unexpected intrinsic structure of reality...’ (Prigogine and Stengers, 1985, p.216; italic original). The beauty of a system far from equilibrium is that it attains this realm of creative self-organisation where it self-generates structure. This is closely linked to complexity, in that ‘A universe in equilibrium cannot be complex, because the random processes that bring it to equilibrium destroy organization’ (Smolin, 2013, p.202). In the pre-Socratic Greek philosophy, which strongly influenced the origins of general systems theory in the twentieth century, change and flux are the only absolutes. Therefore, unchangingly stable systems don’t achieve much; rather, what counts is the equipment which allows them to regulate their instabilities (c.f. Wallace, 2015). It follows that, when a system’s stability veers towards stagnancy, what it really needs is disruptive forces.

This implies a duality in the notion of ‘rift’. In the sense of losing touch with nature and, more specifically, of breaking the loops which recycle the waste from one process as an input to another, rift is bad, but, where it means ripping apart a static and outmoded equilibrium, it is good. Imbalance and unpredictability should be accepted as expressions of the dynamic character of systems but, of course, the environmental justice dimension is to avoid their ill-effects being shunted onto the poor and vulnerable.

The juxtaposition of these conflicting definitions of entropy, equilibrium and rift helps explain why the progression of a system through time is not gradualist or smooth, but instead lumpy and marked by qualitative leaps: during some phases stability prevails, at others, disturbance. We notably find such a view central to the work of ecologist C.S. Holling (b. 1930), who showed how systems explore the potential of a particular phase until it is exhausted, whereupon an intense disruption ushers in a new phase (Holling, 2001). The process is cyclical in that such phases alternate in succession, as they do in evolution where environmental rifts often trigger rapid bouts of diversification; evolution is definitely not gradualist (Gould and Eldredge, 1977, p.141). Indeed, Holling and colleagues interestingly remark that the image of a nature in delicate balance is actually Malthusian; in refuting this argument, they say: ‘natural ecological systems have the resilience to experience wide change and still maintain the integrity of their functions’ (Holling, et al., 2002, p.19). Indeed, in a sense, the resilient capacity of any system can itself be considered a product of the disturbances it faces and surmounts.