According then to the negentropic formulation the correct entropy change for any given cyclical process is the following

(8.19)

In the previous equation work gained means work produced. It should also be noted in equation (8.19) that on reason of being the entropic effect produced by every unit of work lost is larger than the negentropic effect associated to every unit of work gained. If the image is allowed it may very well be said that the punishment for losing work is larger than the reward for gaining it.
Keeping in mind the admonishment of McGlashan [1966], we will skip the temptation of using equation (8.19) to pontificate about the fate of the universe as a whole, directing our attention instead to its connection with the terrestrial affairs centered on human organizations and their evolution. In this context the message of eq. (8.19) can be interpreted as the entropy of human societies being the resultant of the interplay between chaos and order, between progress and regress. This perception finds sustenance in the fact that what appears as work gained in the previous equation comes as the product of increased efficiencies in the production as well as the utilization of the ordered energy we call work, and because of this it also represents increased access, or better, access to increased levels of negentropy, order, structure, organization and development. This is the work which through the creative powers of man’s brain and its coupling with the transforming powers of man’s hands has given us knowledge, techniques, and through them the possibility of improving the quality of life for increased numbers of human beings. The proper re-investment of gained work can be found behind the appearance of the wheel, the lever, the pulley, the development of agriculture and metal working, re-investment which in a truly dialectical fashion allowed us the access to increasing amount of gained work. It has been this increased access to gained work coupled with an increased efficiency in its utilization what has taken human societies through that path recognized as progress, development. This is what has led us to increased amounts and quality of foodstuffs, to schools, research centers, hospitals, vaccines, books, motors, cars, airplanes, boats, tractors, fertilizers, spaceships, the telephone, the computer, etc. In summary, it is gained work what propels human societies along the course of progress.
The lost work appearing in eq. (8.19) includes of course the tax nature imposes on us for the production of gained work, including that of maintaining our energy transforming engines in working condition, i.e. those losses and reinvestments of work necessarily accompanying our energy generation processes at each stage of technological advance. It is however the work lost beyond the one previously described the one that that in the human perspective can be associated with regress, with chaos and disorganization. It can be thought as that chunk of that in a manner similar to that represented in Figure 2(b), is generated only to be squandered. This the work that ends up propelling the machinery of consumerism, the same that provides all the gadgetry with which the bored denizen of so-called industrialized –and not so- nations escape the futility of a life whose success is measured not by the constructive contributions made to society, however modest these contributions might be, but by how much stuff can be bought, or how many material things can be possessed. This is also the work used to propel the military machinery, the same that manufactures guns, assault rifles, missiles, nuclear weapons as well as that lost in initiating and maintaining wars; but beyond this, it also represents the waste of human lives and human minds through famine, underdevelopment, corruption, illiteracy, disease, discrimination, pollution, drugs, usury; It also takes form in the dilapidation of human potential brought upon by the rampant stupidity of those governments curtailing, inhibiting the development of the creative powers of their population, as well using religion, gender, drugs, race, language, ‘music’, ‘literature’ and similar means to ignite and/or enhance barbaric, animalistic patterns of behavior on their populations. It is the relative weight of this lost work in comparison with the previously described gained work what, in the philosophical perspective of equation (8.19), separates entropic from negentropic societies. It serves to mention that those societies incapable of recognizing these facts face, inevitably, through the continuous misuse of its gained work, an inevitable regress from order to chaos, a situation currently being faced by more than one society on this Earth.
A shorter and definitely more eloquent rendition of the above ideas has been given by Eduardo Césarman, as follows:

La entropía, como una fuerza prevalente, se hace sentir cuando la violencia triunfa sobre la paz, el odio sobre el amor, la locura sobre la razón, la enfermedad sobre la salud, la miseria sobre la abundancia, la muerte sobre la vida, la ignorancia sobre el conocimiento, la necedad sobre la sabiduría y la mentira sobre la verdad.
[E. Césarman, 1997, Hombre y Entropía, p. 17]