The Entropy of Capitalism

"..For the "window in which we can make revolution" really is closing, as Biel demonstrates in The Entropy of Capitalism. More significantly, he demonstrates how and why this window is closing: using thermodynamics, Biel articulates the limits of the capitalist system and how it has passed the point of disarticulation, degeneration, and static disintegration. Without rejecting the mainstays of historical materialist analysis of the capitalist mode of production (i.e. the labour theory of value, the tendency of the rate of profit to fall), he proves this logic by resorting to systems theory. In some ways this recourse to thermodynamics functions as analogical logic to breathe new life into marxian language that often seems stale; in other ways this filter is not simply analogical or metaphorical––Biel really does intend us to understand capitalism as a closed, thermodynamic system that is moving towards an entropic destiny."
"..Biel's use of thermodynamics is a way in which to look at a mode of production as a system that breathes new life into old concepts that might seem stale. Moreover, it does provide a methodology in which to talk about a lot of things as interconnected phenomena. If the capitalist mode of production is understood as a thermodynamic system, and we can map out its core logic (tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the laws of capitalist accumulation and capitalist reproduction, the class structure, etc.) by examining this system as one that is both social and ecological, then we can also understand how its order cannot help but lead towards a static situation where it uses up its energy margins, fails to regenerate itself, offsets its closed and degenerating logic in "sinks" that hasten its degeneration."