The Big Bang of inequalities

Has it ever happened to you to open your laundry drawer and wonder at the mess in there? Single socks, pyjamas parts mixed with t-shirts, underwear spread everywhere ... but how could this happen? Actually you tied up just a month ago: the socks on the right side divided between long and short ones, pyjamas neatly folded in the middle together with the tank tops, on the left side the underwear stacked by colour ... and now? what did I do or did not do to generate this chaos in such a short time? Am I terribly messy? Well no, it's not your fault: it's simply the effect of the second principle of thermodynamics.

The second principle of thermodynamics has different formulations, but this one is the most fascinating: the degree of disorder, or entropy, of an isolated system always tends to increase. In order to regain the initial configuration, work must be carried out, or, in other words, a certain amount of energy has to be spent. For example, it is extremely easy to break a plate into a thousand pieces, but the opposite process, going from the disorder of the fragments to the order of the single piece, requires considerable effort. Exactly as for the linen drawer: in order to tidy up we have to spend an hour to fold clothes. The second principle of thermodynamics is a fundamental law of physics, it cannot be questioned by giving our own opinion. It is not even a theorem, something that can be demonstrated. That´s how world works, and that's it.

Let's do a theoretical experiment: let's take 10,000 young people and put them in a newly built city. We give them a home and the same initial capital, say € 50,000, so that everyone has the same potential. Anyone who wants to study at the University can do it. Those who wants to go on vacation are free to go. Those who prefer to find immediately a job can do it. Everyone has the possibility to follow his own inclinations without limitations due to external factors, such as lack of money.

After fifteen years we return to the city: what chance is there that all the 10,000 (not so young anymore) still have the same capital? None. The second law of thermodynamics tells us this. The disorder of the system is relentlessly increased and, well, social inequality has been created. Some of the inhabitants have invested profitably and now have much more than the initial € 50,000. There are those who have bought a new car each year and now are having trouble paying their bills. One has won the lottery and now is a millionaire. Some poor devil had to sell the house assigned to him at the beginning and now has to pay the rent to another, who has spent the fifteen years without leaving home, just saving and saving... Terrible scenario? No, only the consequence of a law of physics.

At this point the author of the experiment judges this situation as profoundly unjust: he begins to apply over-proportional taxes for the wealthiest and establishes tax-free rates for the less wealthy. With revenues from taxes he builds new housing and offer a cheap accommodation to those who could not pay their bills. Meanwhile the population increases: the merciful author assigns the few places available in public kindergartens to those who have at least one unemployed parent, while the other families have to pay a private one. He acts in the name of a principle which states that social differences must be minimized. In short, he is spending work (or energy) trying to rebalance a system that by its nature tends to imbalance.

Every year new statistics come out according to which the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. The common morality says that we should be scandalized, not taking into account that this inequality is written in the DNA of the universe, as well as the constant of universal gravitation, the speed of light and the chaos in your drawers.