"Carrol Cox" <[email protected]> wrote: > I'm utterly bewildered by this thread.
> Entropy refers to the entire universe. This is wholly compatible with > steadily greater order in one little nook of the universe. > The idea that entropy is even remotely related to social life is absurd. ... It's a matter of physics envy. If only economics was as simple as physics. Some have advocated energy as a measure of value and that can work for some special situations in solar, water, and wind power but Marx made the observation: "However, if we take a look at the machine in its elementary form, there can be no doubt that the industrial revolution originates, not from motive power, but from that part of machinery called the working machine by the English, i.e. not from, say, the use of water or steam in place of the foot to move the spinning wheel, but from the transformation of the actual spinning process itself, and the elimination of that part of human labour that was not mere exertion of power (as in treadling a wheel), but was concerned with processing, working directly on the material to be processed. Nor, on the other hand, can there be any doubt that, once we turn our attention from the historical development of machinery to machinery on the basis of the present mode of production, the only decisive factor is the working machine (e.g. in the case of the sewing-machine). For, as everyone knows today, once this process is mechanised, the thing may be moved, according to size, either by hand, water or a steam-engine." -- Ron
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