The second law of thermodynamics

The End of History, Francis Fukuyama, 1989

“What we may be witnessing is not just the end of the Cold War, or the passing of a particular period of post-war history, but the end of history as such: that is, the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government.”

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Russians vote in general election, 2 December 2007

Eleven parties are competing for places in the lower house, the Duma – though it is not clear how many will secure the 7% needed to qualify for seats.

President Vladimir Putin’s party is predicted to win, boosting his bid to retain power after leaving the Kremlin.

Opposition parties have accused the government of stifling their campaigns.

Casting his vote at a polling station in Moscow, Mr Putin said that people should “vote for those people that you can trust”.

Venezuelans vote on constitution, 2 December 2007

Voters have been turning out in numbers in Venezuela’s referendum on far-reaching constitutional changes sought by President Hugo Chavez.

The raft of proposed reforms would see the end of presidential term limits and the Central Bank’s autonomy removed.

Mr Chavez says the proposed changes would return power to the people, but opponents accuse him of a power grab.

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Entropy: The energy form of a system that relates to its internal state of disorder. High entropy levels are disordered states, low entropy levels are characteristic of ordered states.

Western societies always assumed that free markets and political liberalism go hand in hand because we in the West – especially the sons of Albion – think of political rights and personal rights (perhaps especially property rights) as being inextricably interwound. Put another way, a government of the people cannot take from the people that which the people themselves do not willingly agree to share. Non-democratic free market economies such as those found in Singapore and Hong Kong were deemed insular exceptions that proved the general rule.

Vladimir Putin’s Russian compatriots seem eagerly willing to cede more and more of their political rights for economic stability and predictability, even as Putin himself tolerates a light hand on the markets so long as his political power remains unchallenged. In Venezuela, a comfortable majority seems ready to cede control over their constitution, government and economy to a personality-driven socialist/statist model that has failed everywhere else it has been attempted. Both are underwritten less by any intellectually defensible model of political thought than by the fortuitous existence of “found wealth” under their feet in the form of energy supplies.

Meanwhile, back in the West, forward movement in progressive circles is described as identity group empowerment based on ethnicity and gender, just to name two examples. These groupings hope to supersede the previous, well-ordered system under which laws exist and rights are enshrined in order preserve the rights of individuals against government. The progressive model is a new, more ad hoc (and therefore disordered) system that uses government as a tool to redistribute the property of non-favored identity groups to those that can build effective confiscatory coalitions.

History is not dead after all.