Is there such a thing as society?

Margaret Thatcher is famous for saying „There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first.”

I rephrased that into a question because the answer to that question determines which policies benefit the many and which benefit the few, and which few. If society or other collectives do exist, individualistic or economically liberal policies only benefit rich individuals or a small elite, but if society doesn’t exist, it is exactly the other way round.

The majority of ideologies, which includes leftists, nationalists, environmentalists, many conservatives in Continental Europe, religious activists, and even technocrats—who often claim to be unpolitical—argue as if there was a society. And despite all the differences and rivalries between these groups, they all silently agree on this. They will talk of executing the will of the people or at least the good of the people, just disagreeing on what sort of collective is expressing its will or needs through them: The nameless, faceless masses of a nation, of a religion, of a skin color or sexual orientation—consider the Critical Social Justice adherents—or even of mankind as a whole—just look at the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals. If that was true, they could enact the good of the masses. The German constitution even says that private property “shall also serve the public good”, implicitly assuming that there is such a thing as “the public good” and that it can be enacted by someone.

The second, much smaller group of ideologies includes classical liberals and libertarians. To most of them, there is no society, only individuals and again it underlies their entire argumentation. They declare they want to free these individuals from collective actions and argue that there is no collective good—only individuals can determine what is good for them, individually. This would mean that every collectivist who argues to act in the name of society is simply acting for his own good, essentially using force (the violence of the state) to enrich himself with money or power. If this is true, it would ironically be best for the masses if no one tried to enact the good of the masses, because everyone who does would at the very least steal from the average person, and at worst sabotage their well-being and livelihood through oppression.

It is noteworthy that Thatcher herself is between these two groups, in a way which might be compared to some American conservatives. For her, while there is no society, there are not only individuals, but also families. To me, unless we want to assume that there is something magical about families, this should be generalized to include other small groups that share some observable qualities with families. We will address which qualities these could be later on. For now, we will call them “qualified small groups”. If both individuals and qualified small groups exist, individual judgments, well-being and decisions would sometimes, but not always, take a second rank behind those of these small groups. But even then, the individual good would never be irrelevant, since it would always exist, and societal good would always be irrelevant, since it would never exist.

Is there society?

Answering the question boils down to thermodynamics: If society (or any collective) had a will or good, expressing that will or enacting that good would mean a reduction in the entropy of society. This is because both cannot be random processes. Matter and radiation randomly moving around, as is the case when entropy increases, does not put out coherent information, like a text expressing a will. Neither will matter and radiation randomly moving around improve any economic or social conditions, instead it is what constitutes decay¹. Most of the matter and radiation in and around us is in itself information since it has not reached thermodynamic equilibrium (i.e. maximum entropy) yet², and ordering it to reach an even higher information content on a societal level would require monumental information processing. In other words, it would require a monumental reduction in entropy. 

When someone who believes in the will or good of society, i.e. a collectivist, speaks of this, he attempts to assess the entropy change in something incredibly large, namely millions of people and hundreds of square kilometers of landscape.

This is forbidden by Halbe’s Razor, namely Postulate 5. It is far beyond the capacity of the human brain to measure the entropy or entropy change of something that large (cf. Hayek), which is why Halbe’s Razor calls society nonexistent. Who talks of it is instead talking of something else that is within capacity. 

As such, we could shorten this part of the essay and simply say society doesn’t exist. 

However, Halbe’s Razor allows extrapolation from lower orders of magnitude (Derivation 2) to estimate entropy changes at a higher one. However the will or good of society could look like—which we can never know because it would be too complex—we at least know that it cannot be random. However, at any given time, we will find a lot of small groups and/or individuals in any given society who have an increasing entropy. As Adam Smith said, “There is a great deal of ruin in a nation”. Because of the connection between randomness and entropy, these elements have a randomizing effect so large that it is likely to thwart any information processing that could result in an even theoretical will or good. 

Additionally, and also at any given time span, we are likely to find a lot of small groups and/or individuals that gain lower entropy, but do so by increasing entropy in other individuals and small groups in this “society” (Postulate 10). This means that the will or good of some elements is at odds with one of others. This means that arriving at an even hypothetical  common will or good is impossible, since these elements are themselves the information processing units that are supposed to calculate such a thing.

Thus, we conclude that society and especially a “common will” or “common good” are not just impossible to talk about, but can never exist.

Are there individuals?

Similarly, the question whether there are individuals boils down to thermodynamics. Erwin Schrödinger made clear that all living beings need to lower entropy within themselves which forces them to increase it in their surroundings (see “What is Life?”). In the words of Halbe’s Razor, living beings need to be self-organizing (Postulate 6). 

Humans and other living beings do that by taking in something with low entropy from their surroundings (food for heterotrophic organisms, radiation for plants), but giving back something with a higher entropy (like heat and excrements).

However, humans do not only order their own body, but also what is immediately and regularly around them. In Halbe’s Razor, I called this close-by area where entropy gets decreased the “environs” (Postulate 3) as opposed to the surroundings where it gets increased. It is obvious that humans succeed at ordering their surroundings, just look at houses, gardens and items, which always are far from the highly random mixture of atoms entropy would make us expect.

Additionally, neuroscience tells us that these environs heavily influence the brain. For example, the brain uses regular things outside of the body in order to calibrate the senses against one another. Memory is also permanently corrected by what we perceive. This allows the brain to not only deal with its inevitable internal noise, but also to save a lot of space (for brain cells), nutrients and energy: Why waste such things on some sort of accurate internal storage and internal correction mechanisms when it can be vague and always get better information for example on how a chair looks from the outside, literally at the blink of an eye? Similarly, what people in the environs say is also used for such calibration. This is, again, very efficient, because the processing done by other brains is used to shorten the processing needed from one’s own. However, it means that other people can always influence us, even when it comes to something as basic as visual perception (commonly called gaslighting).

Most of the time however, these mechanisms are crucial for our survival and continued success because they allow us to quickly process a lot of information and act. 

As such, it isn’t surprising that people invest that much into ordering their environs. It is indeed a part of them, and too much entropy in it would be harmful, it would increase entropy in the brain, too.

Additionally, while looking at a lower order of magnitude resulted in a damning judgment for the concept of “society”, looking at a lower order of magnitude will just reaffirm what we said regarding individuals. The human body consists of a lot of cells, which on average manage to keep their entropy low as long as the body is well-fed and healthy. And for neurons, this involves using outside references as described above. 

Thus: Yes, individuals exist! It is possible for a human brain to distinguish their (that is their body and environs) entropy content from that of their surroundings, which makes them objects according to Postulate 1 of Halbe’s Razor, and their information processing (including their judgment of what is good for them and their decisions to act upon that) are stable and self-organizing occurrences according to Postulate 2 of Halbe’s Razor. In both cases, the environs should be included in the definition of an individual. Individuals can only exist by increasing entropy in their surroundings, i.e. outside of their environs. Halbe’s Razor calls the part of the surroundings where entropy is dumped the “impacted surroundings” (Postulate 9).

They can do that

• either through economic activity, which means the impacted surroundings are for example where ore is mined, crops are harvested or waste is brought. In this case, the impacted surroundings are “nature” and not human-containing systems. This economic activity does not only include the people who do the physical work, but also those who enable and coordinate it through financing, planning and supervision.
• Or through parasitic means, which means that it increases entropy in other human-containing systems (Postulate 10). This includes everything that involves one-sidedly taking money or labor from others, for example through criminal or political means. 

The same individual might sometimes engage in non-parasitic, sometimes in parasitic self-organization. Sometimes, the two forms are very closely mixed up. For example, an individual who engages in a business which partially dumps entropy on non-human surroundings as part of proper economic activity, but also receives subsidies and thus dumps entropy on taxpayers.

Are there qualified small groups?

For small groups to exist, assessing their entropy and their entropy change should be humanly possible, else they would fail Postulate 5 as “society” did. Since we already included the environs for individuals, the environs of a small group should also be included in this entropy assessment. This could be something like a family home including the garden if the small group we look at is a family, an office building or workshop if the small group we look at is a small company, or a village including the landscape immediately around it for a village community.

Comparing the entropy level of these to their surroundings and judging the entropy change in one of these seems humanly possible since the scale is far smaller than “society”. We thus cannot outrightly say that they don’t exist.

However, to exist as a political entity similar to individuals—as Thatcher suggested—small groups would have to be capable of judging things as a group and acting upon them as a group. In other words, they would need to be able to do information processing, i.e. have a reduction in their entropy, i.e. be self-organizing. 

This means a random group of five people who just met on the street don’t qualify as such a small group. They would have to interact regularly and in a way that can reliably reduce entropy within the boundaries drawn around them and their environs, and increase it outside of it. This is the quality a small group must have to turn it into one of the aforementioned “qualified small groups”. Examples of how this pushing away of entropy can work are smart business decisions, long-term commitment of members, good organization of responsibilities and division of labor and so on. Families, for example, can often achieve this because biological mechanisms lead to more trust and long-term commitment. They regularly coordinate decision making between adult members, for example when it comes to spending money, planning the house, or moving for a new job. Children are also commonly considered, and their entropy is regularly lowered through these coordinated actions. But small businesses or village communities can also achieve this qualification. In the realm of politics, NGOs are an example of a qualified small group.

Looking at the average change in entropy at a lower order of magnitude, i.e. at the constituting individuals, allows us to estimate the stability of the small group. If some individuals (again including their environs) gain entropy, maybe even to pay an entropy decrease of other individuals of the small group, the stability is dwindling and we will soon have a smaller small group, or maybe none at all.

If the small groups get too large, there will doubtlessly be more and more such cases, as described for “society” above. This means a small group cannot grow too large, it will not only eventually leave a size that is describable by the human brain, but also leave a size where it is possible that all elements regularly lower their entropy together. For example, a tribal family, a massive corporation or NGO, or a town cannot be described as a qualified small group anymore. Instead, we will find several qualified small groups within it, for example the leadership of the corporation, NGO or political party, or one neighborhood within the town: People who interact regularly.

To sum it up: Thatcher was right. There is no society, but individuals and qualified small groups. Just like individuals, they have to dump entropy on their surroundings in order to continue existing, and they can do that in parasitic or non-parasitic ways.

Political implications

This means that the will of the government is never the will of society (because that, or that of any proposed collective, does not exist) but the will of individuals or small groups who somehow acquired political power with regards to this specific issue. That does not mean that these are always the same people, different people can become powerful in different situations. But the origin of political will is never larger than a small group or at most the result of a conflict or compromise between several small groups. Political proposals and actions are of course judged in “public opinion”, but the participants in this discourse also are small groups. Political will thus is expressed or enacted by small groups and judged by small groups, which aren’t necessarily the same, but “society” in the sense of the faceless millions which happen to live on the territory never factors in. “Public opinion” is in fact small group opinion, the agency to discuss it originating from whatever small groups somehow acquired the presence in the media to join in. 

Self-organization works through positive feedback loops of entropy reduction. Information processing that manages to dump entropy onto the surroundings can improve future such information processing. Such feedback loops drove biological evolution. 

However, for small groups active in politics, this feedback loop makes them more and more parasitic. If an NGO or political party acquired more money, power and well-paid jobs from being one of the small groups that impacted “political will” and “public opinion”, they are well-set to do more of that in the future. This will put more and more entropy on everyone who is active in actual value generation, i. e. in the dumping of entropy on nature.

Therefore, policies that are said to favour “society” or another collective are in fact detrimental to most people and only benefit an elite in politics and media. For most people, it is best if as many self-organizing occurrences as possible are non-parasitic, i. e. have nature, and not other people (like the taxpayers) as their impacted surroundings. To achieve this, economic liberalism and a minimal state are required. A minimal state limits the ability for NGOs, political parties, technocrats and administrators, but also for economic interest groups, to influence laws in their favour and get subsidies or other money. But through its law enforcement, it also curtails the other big form of parasitism next to the political: Crime.

In order to achieve these political changes, it is important to spread the word that public good and public will do not exist, just as society doesn’t exist, and to eventually erase any mention of public good or will as well as any other notion of the existence of collectives or societies from media, laws and constitutions

Footnotes

1. For the importance that getting rid of entropy has for all living beings, see Erwin Schrödinger’s seminal book “What is Life?” (1944). ↩︎
2. For the relation between entropy and information, see Claude E. Shannon’s seminal book “The Mathematical Theory of Communication” (1948).  ↩︎