Stratification: An Entropic View of Society’s Structure

Abstract

In human societies, we observe a wide range of types of stratification, i.e., in terms of financial class, political power, level of education, sanctity, and military force. In financial, political, and social sciences, stratification is one of the most important issues and tools as the Lorenz Curve and the Gini Coefficient have been developed to describe some of its aspects. Stratification is greatly dependent on the access of people to wealth. By “wealth”, we mean the quantified prosperity which increases the life expectancy of people. Prosperity is also connected to the water-food-energy nexus which is necessary for human survival. Analyzing proxies of the water-food-energy nexus, we suggest that the best proxy for prosperity is energy, which is closely related to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita and life expectancy. In order to describe the dynamics of social stratification, we formulate an entropic view of wealth in human societies. An entropic approach to income distribution, approximated as available energy in prehistoric societies, till present-day economies, shows that stratification can be viewed as a stochastic process subjected to the entropy maximization principle and occurring when limits to the wealth of society are set, either by the political and economic system and/or by the limits of available technology.

Entropy and Wealth

“…We can thus say in conclusion that for Ω > 2µ, the entropy increases both with the mean µ and the technological limit Ω. In this respect, entropy constitutes a measure of society's wealth (see also [119]). 18) for constant mean µ and varying technological limit Ω = Aµ, along with two exact solutions * (#2, #4) calculated by Equation ( 21) for c = 2 −3 and c = 2 3 , respectively.…”

“…When studying the material wealth (or income) in a certain society, current or past, we assume two characteristic quantities: the mean µ, which is related to the total energy available to the society [119], and the upper limit of wealth (or income) Ω, which is mainly determined by the available technology (knowhow), and can thus be called the technological upper limit. We define the ratio: A interesting patterns, much more admirable than steam engines.…”

“…This has recently been introduced as an index of inequality by Sargentis et al [119] (albeit denoted as ∆Φ[x]). The quantity Φ µ [x] cannot exceed a maximum value of 1, corresponding to an exponential distribution.…”

“…As suggested in the recent paper by Sargentis et al [119], in prehistoric societies wealth could be measured in terms of available energy per person. Following this idea, we identify the income x, and set x = 0 to represent the energy that will cover the most basic bodily energy needs (through food intake), thus keeping a human alive.…”

“…The empirical investigation in this section provides a comparison of the theoretical framework developed with the real-world data. Sargentis et al [119] made similar comparisons, also intercomparing with the Lorenz curve [146][147][148] and the Gini coefficient [149][150][151], which are more standard measures of income distribution and socioeconomic inequality [152][153][154][155]. In their comparisons, they used data given in tenths of the share of people from the lowest to the highest income versus the share of income earned.…”