New Historical Materialism
= theoretical approach of Peter Pogany, rooting human society and economies in thermo-dynamic realities.
Description
Peter Pograny: "NHM considers human evolution a thermodynamic phenomenon in which the combined substance of the human biomass and objects created through the economic process represents the central variable, called GLOPPE -- global population plus economy.
GLOPPE is a dissipative material entity, which, as a result of its growth over the eons, demanded global-scale self-organization towards the end of the 18th century. As has been observed in many natural phenomena and demonstrated in physics and mathematics, dissipative material entities undergo alternating phases of relative (dynamic) steady states and chaotic transitions as they expand.
The parameters or control variables of a given level of self-organization allow their growth only to a certain point. When they get in the way, the system breaks down (―bifurcates‖) and the search for a new set of growth-accommodating parameters/control variables begins. Transition from one form of self-organization to another is chaotic per force since conflicting alternatives compete to become the new system‘s ―blueprint. World history reflects this pattern."