Traditional economics remains confined to the superficial cognition of material stocks and monetary accounts, unable to explain three ultimate questions: What determines the hierarchy of wealth? What constitutes the underlying barrier of national strength? What is the nonlinear and disordered root of economic crises? Relying on the complete axiomatic system of the Zeroth, First, Second, and Third Laws of Social Thermodynamics, combined with scientific cognition of energy, the essential nature of technological energy transformation, and the Belousov–Zhabotinsky (BZ) nonlinear oscillation mechanism, this paper achieves multi-level theoretical breakthroughs. This system takes the core thermodynamic state parameters — social system internal energy , heat exchange flux , social work, entropy , and social temperature — as the quantitative base, whose mathematical foundation is strictly defined by the standard mathematical expressions of the four laws: 1. Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics: If social subsystem reaches steady-state equilibrium with , and reaches steady-state equilibrium with , then must reach equilibrium with . Its mathematical expression is: 2. First Law of Thermodynamics (Energy Conservation): The increment of internal energy of the social system equals the external energy flux absorbed by the system plus the work done on the system by the outside world, satisfying the energy conservation constraint: 3. Second Law of Thermodynamics (Entropy Increase Principle): The entropy change of the social system satisfies . For a closed social system, the total entropy increases unidirectionally with time, and the disorder evolves irreversibly: 4. Third Law of Thermodynamics: When the technological transformation level of the social system approaches the minimum threshold infinitely, the entropy of the system tends to the theoretical extreme value, satisfying: This paper establishes the underlying chain of civilizational national power: The essence of science is the cognition of the laws of cosmic energy flow. The essence of technology is the capacity to convert disordered natural energy into controllable ordered energy for human society. The real wealth level and upper limit of national power of a country depend solely on the technological transformation level and energy conversion efficiency of the whole society. On this core foundation, this paper reconstructs the dynamic wealth theory: Social wealth is not static material accumulation, but a dynamic equilibrium closed-loop steady state of continuous transformation, circulation, consumption, and dynamic balance. Individual wealth belongs to the dimension of static material possession, while social wealth belongs to the dimension of three-dimensional flow equilibrium. This paper points out the physical essence of economic crises: Local failure of the social technological transformation chain, reduced smoothness of wealth energy conversion, resulting in accumulated output materials, failure of energy dissipation and closed-loop, and the system falling into BZ-type intermediate-state disordered oscillation and wealth congestion. Finally, it is established that the core measure of national strength is the thermodynamic temperature of the social system, which can be objectively verified through night-time light density and urban infrared thermal radiation, achieving a fraud-proof, quantifiable, and cross-comparable national power indicator. This study completely connects the complete axiomatic chain of science–technology–energy transformation–wealth generation–economic stability–civilizational strength, realizing the thorough physicalization, axiomatization, and deductibility of macroeconomics and civilizational evolution.
Xijiang Hu (Sun,) studied this question.