The Physics of Politics

As conservatives seek to counter the hard-left turn taken by the Democratic Party, it will not be enough to simply point out the grim failures of Marxist-inspired philosophies everywhere they have been tried.

True believers remain dedicated to socialism and communism – time to ask why

If the soul-crushing and deadly record of Soviet and Chinese communism, of Castro’s regime in Cuba, and Chavismo in Venezuela, haven’t convinced true believers that ideology belongs in the ash heap of history by now, it probably won’t happen anytime soon.

Instead of focusing on the left’s miserable track record, conservatives should ask why this failed ideology remains appealing to so many.

A chief reason is how the left responded to the decline of religion – which Karl Marx called the “opiate of the people” – by concocting its own witches’ brew to transfix the masses. In a godless world, communist theorists posited that human life still has a higher purpose – that there’s an arc to history that provides meaning. The idea that we are part of something bigger than ourselves provides an attractive anchor for our lives.

While many conservatives remain grounded in faith, the religious argument can only go so far in our increasingly secular nation. What’s missing is a worldview that offers purpose and meaning that does not require either God or rejection of religion.

Folks, I bring you good news.

Grounding the meaning of life in – physics

For 30 years, a professor at Duke University named Adrian Bejan has developed a school of thought that bridges the gap between science and humanity’s deepest yearnings. Through hundreds of peer-reviewed papers and dozens of books, which have earned him many of science’s biggest prizes and honors, Bejan has shown that there is a direction and purpose to life, one grounded in physics rather than philosophy or faith. He has also shown how core concepts of conservatism – especially freedom, self-interest, and the wisdom of crowds – reflect the natural order. They are ideas made by people, but descriptions of reality.

Bejan’s “eureka” moment came in 1996, when he discovered what he called “the constructal law.” Challenging the prevalent view among scientists that nature is governed by random processes in a universe ruled by disorder and decay, he theorized that the harmony and unity of nature we see with the naked eye does not happen by accident.

This design in nature, which was the title of the 2012 book I co-wrote with him about his work, is real. It occurs because of the natural tendency of everything that moves to create evolving configurations with a specific and predictable purpose: to provide easier access to what moves and flows (in physics terms, more movement per unit of power spent). These ever-evolving designs morph in one direction, to create greater flow access.

Observations from rainfall – and human behavior

Bejan observed, for example, that the mindless raindrops do not just sit or seep on the ground – which would be a difficult way to move. Instead, those individual drops coalesce over time to create the tree-shaped river basins that cover our planet because that is a good design for moving water from the plain to the sea. This natural tendency also explains why air currents form jet streams in the atmosphere – it is an efficient design to move hot to cold and why tree-shaped lightning bolts fill the sky to move electrical currents from the clouds.  

This phenomenon is an illustration of human behavior, too, from the wisdom of crowds to acting in self-interest. No one is directing these raindrops or air currents. There is no master plan. Yet these individual entities, each with the freedom to seek access and move more efficiently, naturally construct a remarkably complex design.

Nature invented the free market. The constructal law is the invisible hand.

Hierarchy

Note that these predictable designs exhibit hierarchy. The river basin, for example, has one larger channel (the Mississippi, the Danube) and many smaller ones (streams, brooks, rivulets). As Bejan notes in his new book, “Diversity through Freedom,” this inequality is crucial to the performance of the entire system – the small benefit from the large, and vice-versa, just as a road system is not simply a collection of highways but of secondary roads, avenues, lanes, and cul-de-sacs that together make transportation easier for everyone.

Hierarchy is natural; it is good for everyone and everything. Hierarchy is a natural liberator, the universal design for equal access. Nature does not work so splendidly because it erases differences, but because it generates them. Big and small, fast and slow, all have value; all are crucial to the performance of the whole. This is true diversity.

Bejan’s constructal law dissolves the false dichotomy between the inanimate world of water, heat, and electricity with the animate world of biology by showing, for example, that the same tree-shaped designs that characterize river basins also define the circulatory systems in our bodies. Vascular (hierarchical) design is a good way to move oxygenated blood to every cell in our bodies.

Because we are part of nature, we are governed by its laws. This is the oneness of nature.

Physics as an expression of the law of nature

Most profoundly, Bejan shows how human behavior is governed by the constructal law. He and the many scholars who contributed to this school of thought have shown that the evolution of language, roads, cities, information systems, and so much more reflect the natural tendency to create increasingly better designs to move more stuff more easily. Yes, we have thought about and planned these artifacts. But the constructal law shows that our instinct to move across the landscape more easily – our impulse to build and create things that improve life – is part of a universal tendency that governs everything that moves in nature, including human life.

It shows that life has a purpose and direction– and that it is beneficent. What people have long called opportunity and advancement are names for our tendency to create better designs to move more easily, farther, and with greater staying power. When each of us acts out of self-interest, we collectively make a better world.

Finally, Bejan notes that freedom is the key physical feature of everything that is. While philosophers and politicians usually define this concept in terms of specific rights, in physics terms, it is the ability of a system to change and evolve. No freedom, no evolution, no future.

The political and philosophical left try to violate this physics of politics

Marxist-inspired ideologies are at odds with this natural tendency. And history shows the human cost of that discordance with the natural world. At bottom, Communists aim to impose artificial designs that severely constrain possibility. They insist on man-made plans instead of natural freedom.

As Bejan, who grew up in Romania under communism, has noted (and history confirms), such systems are doomed to failure because they are not so much at war with competing ideas but with physics. The urge to move freely is natural and, in the long run, unconquerable.

The constructal law provides a powerful lens for viewing life, politics, and the future, because it is verifiable – because it is true. Understanding it allows us to see the world as it is, not how we wish it to be. While it does not offer the false hope of a coming paradise, it urges us to look at all around us, right here, right now, with awe and wonder. It taps into our deepest emotions by showing that we truly are connected to everything else.

Conclusion

Our lives have purpose and direction because we are part of the dynamic, ever-evolving design of nature. This is our gift to the next generation. But – and this is the hard part, especially for ideologues – the constructal law urges us to be humble. None of us is a titan; we are all just raindrops. But together, naturally and freely, we can create great things.

That is something we should all believe in.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.