Energy and spirit: Extraction,thermodynamics, and change

This article suggests new ways to think about energy and thermodynamics beyond an extractive, fossil-fuel model. The predominant economic model of the modern world has been driven by the extraction and exploitation of fossil fuels—first coal and then oil. These are powerful forces, although their development is more complicated than we might suspect. At the same time, they influence the new science of thermodynamics, which is tied to heat and heat engines that are fueled by carbon-based inputs extracted from the earth. By attending to the work of Nicolas Georgescu-Roegen, however, we can see how energy and thermodynamics can be linked to a different economic model that is not primarily extractive. And this opens up to new perspectives on energy and change, including one that views energy more explicitly in terms of spirit. We can think about energy as something that avoids the dichotomy of matter and spirit in a way such that it participates in both.     

Congress as a Deviant Organization: An Application of Ermann and Lundman’s Organizational Deviance Framework

ABSTRACT

In 1978, Ermann and Lundman put forth the most sophisticated organizational deviance framework to date. They conceptualized organizational deviance as actions by an organization that interfere with the flow of benefits to actors with legitimate claims upon that organization. Further, they stipulated that these claims are protected by “controlling organizations.” We apply Ermann and Lundman’s framework to Congress and conclude that it is a deviant organization. We then contemplate the challenges to social control that congressional deviance poses, and contend that the “exempt status” enjoyed by Congress – in that it writes its own rules and polices itself – should be removed.