Political entropy: Monarchy to “mobocracy”

ORIGINALLY introduced by Rudolf Clausius in 1865, entropy -- a Greek word meaning “turning into” -- is a well-defined quantity arising from the second law of thermodynamics. It is a quantitative measure of disorder for a microscopic system. According to the second law, the entropy of a naturally occurring process always increases and is “irreversible.” In other words, nature has an affinity for chaos. It moves from a state of less disorder towards a state of more disorder.
The concept of entropy is not confined to physics only. Although an abstract quantity, it has begged for universal application and has been widely applied in other disciplines, notably political and social sciences, psychology, evolutionary biology, and information theory, but often with different definitions and interpretations of the term. In the physical sciences, entropy has been characterised variously as randomness, “heat” death, energy dissipation, arrow of time, etc. In the social sciences, it carries the connotation of disorganisation, anarchy, dystopia and apocalypse.
Social scientists apply the concept of entropy to understand the degree of satisfaction and/or dissatisfaction in the human society. It is also used to determine whether a society will eventually decompose to a state of total disorder or anarchy as its complexity increases with time.
Political scientists, on the other hand, use entropy to study how nations, starting from monarchies, a state of less disorder, progress toward aristocracies, which in time gives way to autocracies. As the entropy increases, the political system changes from autocracies to democracies to dictatorships. Any dictatorial regime that is oblivious of its people's demand contributes to the increase of the political entropy, thereby leading to “mobocracy.” Unlike thermodynamic entropy, political and social entropies are “reversible.”
The transition from dictatorship to mobocracy depends on the psychodynamics of the dictators. Most of the dictators are egoistical, narcissistic maniacs, completely detached from their people, surrounded by stooges and overzealous, greedy enablers. Their mind is programmed to believe that they are indispensable to the stability and well-being of their nations. Hence, they control the entire machinery of the state and its security apparatus.
Dictators use patriotism as a trump card to gain the support, or at least the acquiescence, of the citizens. They use state terrorism to wield their power and consolidate their reign. They fill the torture chambers with those who take their opposition beyond the limits fixed by them. While the repressive acts of the dictators remain as ruthless as ever, their image makers are busy giving them a face-lift and portray them as crusaders of democracy.
To perpetuate their rule, dictators fine tune the constitution more to their liking by eliminating amendments after amendments and introducing new amendments with the argument that times have changed and surely the founding fathers wouldn't want them to live in an age that is horribly out of sync with the digital age. Moreover, with the manipulation of public employees, the unlimited state-funds available for political campaign, the terror, the provocation, the favours and the promises repeated incessantly, the dictators rewrite Machiavelli's The Prince to prevent their opponents from participating in elections.
The behaviour of the enablers, the so-called sophisticated and cultured political Harlequins, is anything but honourable. Before an election, their words are the most beautiful ever uttered on behalf of democracy. Their objectives respond to the deepest needs of the country. Their moral attitude is admirable, courage is moving and patriotism is above reproach. But once elected or perhaps selected, they conveniently become amnesiac and their eyes become focused on the nation's treasury.  
When dictatorships tend to become hereditary, the country descends into mobocracy which is a state of high entropy. Once the maximum is reached, dictatorship comes to a violent end and its leaders are either exiled, or do time at The Hague. Examples of a few tyrants who met the above fates are Idi Amin of Uganda, Charles Taylor of Liberia, Ceausescus of Romania and Gaddafi of Libya.

The writer is a Professor of Physics at Fordham University, New York.