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To the Journal editor:
The Second Law of Thermodynamics states that, in a closed system, entropy--or disorder--increases over time. As a political metaphor, this principle can be used to describe the effects of leftist policy: not because progressives consciously seek disorder, but because many of their preferred policies weaken the institutions, incentives, and social norms that impose structure on collective life.
In a free society, millions of economically empowered individuals make decisions according to their own rational self-interest. Like Adam Smith's invisible hand, these decentralized choices can produce coordination without a central authority directing every transaction. Prices communicate scarcity, competition rewards efficiency, and personal responsibility encourages people to plan for the consequences of their actions. Individual freedom spontaneously produces order.
Leftist policies move in the opposite direction. By expanding centralized control, redistributing wealth, weakening traditional standards, and insulating individuals from the consequences of their choices, they disrupt the feedback mechanisms that make society self-correcting. When government guarantees outcomes regardless of effort, incentives become distorted. When rules multiply, personal initiative gives way to bureaucratic dependence. When cultural standards are treated as oppressive rather than necessary, shared expectations erode. The result is not necessarily intentional chaos, but a social environment in which fewer forces encourage responsibility, restraint, and cooperation.
This process resembles entropy. Every institution requires energy--discipline, trust, sacrifice, and enforcement--to maintain order. If those forces are neglected, disorder gradually spreads. Families become less stable, communities less cohesive, and public spaces less governed by mutual expectations. Government then responds by imposing still more regulations, creating a cycle in which centralized control expands while genuine social trust declines.
Conservative policies, by contrast, seek to preserve the structures that organize human behavior. Limited government, secure property rights, strong families, religious and civic traditions, personal accountability, and the rule of law establish boundaries within which freedom can flourish. These principles do not eliminate conflict or inequality, but they channel human impulses toward productive ends creating a framework where people pursue their interests without destabilizing society around them.
The comparison should not be understood as a literal scientific law. Human societies are not physical systems, and political disagreements cannot be settled by equations alone. Yet the metaphor captures an important conservative argument: order does not maintain itself. It requires inherited institutions, moral expectations, and incentives that reward responsibility. When policy weakens those foundations, disorder becomes easier to produce, even when disorder was never the stated goal.