scholarly journals Entropy and Wealth

Entropy ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 23 (10) ◽  
pp. 1356
Author(s):  
Demetris Koutsoyiannis ◽  
G.-Fivos Sargentis

While entropy was introduced in the second half of the 19th century in the international vocabulary as a scientific term, in the 20th century it became common in colloquial use. Popular imagination has loaded “entropy” with almost every negative quality in the universe, in life and in society, with a dominant meaning of disorder and disorganization. Exploring the history of the term and many different approaches to it, we show that entropy has a universal stochastic definition, which is not disorder. Hence, we contend that entropy should be used as a mathematical (stochastic) concept as rigorously as possible, free of metaphoric meanings. The accompanying principle of maximum entropy, which lies behind the Second Law, gives explanatory and inferential power to the concept, and promotes entropy as the mother of creativity and evolution. As the social sciences are often contaminated by subjectivity and ideological influences, we try to explore whether maximum entropy, applied to the distribution of a wealth-related variable, namely annual income, can give an objective description. Using publicly available income data, we show that income distribution is consistent with the principle of maximum entropy. The increase in entropy is associated to increases in society’s wealth, yet a standardized form of entropy can be used to quantify inequality. Historically, technology has played a major role in the development of and increase in the entropy of income. Such findings are contrary to the theory of ecological economics and other theories that use the term entropy in a Malthusian perspective.

Philosophies ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
pp. 57
Author(s):  
Antony Lesage ◽  
Jean-Marc Victor

Is it possible to measure the dispersion of ex ante chances (i.e., chances “before the event”) among people, be it gambling, health, or social opportunities? We explore this question and provide some tools, including a statistical test, to evidence the actual dispersion of ex ante chances in various areas, with a focus on chronic diseases. Using the principle of maximum entropy, we derive the distribution of the risk of becoming ill in the global population as well as in the population of affected people. We find that affected people are either at very low risk, like the overwhelming majority of the population, but still were unlucky to become ill, or are at extremely high risk and were bound to become ill.


1994 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
pp. 37-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sibel Bozdoğan

Deeply rooted in “the great transformation” brought about by capitalism, industrialization and urban life, the history of modern architecture in the West is intricately intertwined with the rise of the bourgeoisie. Modernism in architecture, before anything else, is a reaction to the social and environmental ills of the industrial city, and to the bourgeois aesthetic of the 19th century. It emerged first as a series of critical, utopian and radical movements in the first decades of the twentieth century, eventually consolidating itself into an architectural establishment by the 1930s. The dissemination of the so-called “modern movement” outside Europe coincides with the eclipse of the plurality and critical force of early modernist currents and their reduction to a unified, formalist and doctrinaire position.


2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Juli Antoni Aguado Hernández

La historia del antimilitarismo en el Estado español es, en gran medida, desconocida. El presente trabajo pretende subsanar parcialmente esta carencia mediante la compilación de la literatura y las fuentes existentes sobre la materia, parciales o basadas en períodos específicos, exponiendo estas resistencias desde el pacifismo inicial del siglo XIX hasta el final de la Guerra Civil. Esta labor se realiza desde la confluencia entre la historia y la sociología, insertando estas movilizaciones en los conflictos y los movimientos internacionales, mostrando cómo se influyen mutuamente, así como la convergencia entre el feminismo y el antimilitarismo. Asimismo, se constata cómo la defensa de la paz o la resistencia al servicio de armas y la militarización social sólo pueden ser movilizadas cuándo la narrativa del sometimiento puede ser percibida como opresión, al imponerse el principio democrático de libertad e igualdad en el imaginario social (tesis de los efectos de desplazamiento). De forma paralela, se evidencia cómo el antimilitarismo proporciona el espacio para la emergencia de nuevos conocimientos y prácticas de resistencia noviolentas (tesis de los movimientos como laboratorios de la sociedad civil), extendiendo la concepción prevaleciente del derecho.The history of antimilitarism in the Spanish State is largely unknown. The present work intends to complete particularly this lack by compiling literature and existing sources on the subject, partial or based on specific periods, exposing these resistances from the initial pacifism of the 19th century until the end of the Civil war. This work is carried out from the confluence between history and sociology, inserting these mobilizations in conflicts and international movements, and showing how they influence each other, as well as the convergence between feminism and antimilitarism.Furthermore, it can be seen how the defense of peace or resistance to arms service and social militarization can only be mobilized when the narrative of subjugation can be perceived as oppression by imposing the democratic principle of freedom and equality in the social imaginary (thesis of the displacement effects). Similarly, it is evident how antimilitarism provides the space for the emergence of new knowledge and practices of nonviolent resistance (thesis of movements as laboratories of civil society) extending the prevailing conception of right.


Author(s):  
Luidmila Pastushenko

The article presents the first attempt of a complete and systematic analysis of historic and theological publications of teachers and pupils of the Kyiv Theological Academy in the second half of the 19th – beginning of 20th century in the field of studying the history of relations of Catholicism and Protestantism with Orthodox on the Ukrainian lands. The specifics of Kyiv academic historians studies was determined by the social and-political circumstances in the middle of the 19th century and denoted by an attempt to comprehend this issue in the perspective of the history of interconfessional relations of two Western Christian traditions with the eastern tradition of Orthodoxy in the historical gap of the 16th – 17th centuries – the period of the largest confrontation in confessional relations in Ukraine. The author clarifies the characteristic features of researching the question of inter-confessional interaction in the 15th – 17th centuries, which are expressed in attempts to describe the coexistence of three denominations as multidimensional and provoking а variety of different interpretations. Historical studies present the attempt to show confessional interaction in the political and legal aspects and to provide historical interpretations to the ground of philosophy of history. The article proves the tendency of Kyiv academic researchers to move away from the established Russian historiography of the 19th century view at confessional relations in Ukraine through the prism of hard confrontation and outline in religious life Ukraine conditions and circumstances of inter-confessional dialogue. Also, historians in their studies repeatedly note the significant educational and outlook influence of Western Christian denominations on the formation of educational, cultural, theological, literary traditions in Ukraine.


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