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Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (born Nicolae Georgescu, 4 February 1906 – 30 October 1994) was a Romanian mathematician, statistician and economist. He is best known today for his 1971 ''The Entropy Law and the Economic Process'', in which he argued that all
natural resource Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. ...
s are irreversibly degraded when put to use in economic activity. A
progenitor In genealogy, the progenitor (rarer: primogenitor; german: Stammvater or ''Ahnherr'') is the – sometimes legendary – founder of a family, line of descent, clan or tribe, noble house, or ethnic group.. Ebenda''Ahnherr:''"Stammvater eines ...
and a paradigm founder in economics, Georgescu-Roegen's work was decisive for the establishing of ecological economics as an independent academic sub-discipline in economics. Several economists have hailed Georgescu-Roegen as a man who lived well ahead of his time, and some historians of economic thought have proclaimed the ingenuity of his work. In spite of such appreciation, Georgescu-Roegen was never awarded the
Nobel Prize in Economics The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...
, although benefactors from his native Romania were lobbying for it on his behalf. After Georgescu-Roegen's death, his work was praised by a surviving friend of the highest rank: Prominent Keynesian economist and
Nobel Prize laureate The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...
Paul Samuelson Paul Anthony Samuelson (May 15, 1915 – December 13, 2009) was an American economist who was the first American to win the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. When awarding the prize in 1970, the Swedish Royal Academies stated that he " ...
professed that he would be delighted if the fame Georgescu-Roegen did not fully realise in his own lifetime were granted by posterity instead. In the
history of economic thought History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...
, Georgescu-Roegen was the first economist of some standing to theorise on the premise that all of
earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's sur ...
's
mineral resources Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. O ...
will eventually be exhausted at some point. In his paradigmatic magnum opus, Georgescu-Roegen argues that economic scarcity is rooted in physical reality; that all
natural resource Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. ...
s are irreversibly degraded when put to use in economic activity; that the
carrying capacity The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as ...
of earth – that is, earth's capacity to sustain human populations and consumption levels – is bound to decrease sometime in the future as earth's finite stock of mineral resources is being extracted and put to use; and consequently, that the
world economy The world economy or global economy is the economy of all humans of the world, referring to the global economic system, which includes all economic activities which are conducted both within and between nations, including production, consumptio ...
as a whole is heading towards an inevitable future collapse, ultimately bringing about
human extinction Human extinction, also known as omnicide, is the hypothetical end of the human species due to either natural causes such as population decline from sub-replacement fertility, an asteroid impact, or large-scale volcanism, or to anthropogenic ...
. Due to the radical pessimism inherent in his work, based on the physical concept of
entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodyna ...
, the theoretical position of Georgescu-Roegen and his followers was later termed 'entropy pessimism'. Early in his life, Georgescu-Roegen was the student and protégé of
Joseph Schumpeter Joseph Alois Schumpeter (; February 8, 1883 – January 8, 1950) was an Austrian-born political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of German-Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at H ...
, who taught that irreversible evolutionary change and 'creative destruction' are inherent to
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
. Later in life, Georgescu-Roegen was the teacher and mentor of
Herman Daly Herman Edward Daly (July 21, 1938 – October 28, 2022) was an American Ecological economics, ecological and Georgism#Georgism and environmental economics, Georgist economist and professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, S ...
, who then went on to develop the concept of a
steady-state economy A steady-state economy is an economy made up of a constant stock of physical wealth (capital) and a constant population size. In effect, such an economy does not grow in the course of time. The term usually refers to the economy, national e ...
to impose permanent government restrictions on the flow of natural resources through the (world) economy. As he brought natural resource flows into economic modelling and analysis, Georgescu-Roegen's work was decisive for the establishing of ecological economics as an independent academic sub-discipline in economics in the 1980s. In addition, the degrowth movement that formed in France and Italy in the early-2000s recognises Georgescu-Roegen as the main intellectual figure influencing the movement. Taken together, by the 2010s Georgescu-Roegen had educated, influenced and inspired at least three generations of people, including his contemporary peers, younger ecological economists, still younger degrowth organisers and activists, and others throughout the world. The inability or reluctance of most mainstream economists to recognise Georgescu-Roegen's work has been ascribed to the fact that much of his work reads like
applied physics Applied physics is the application of physics to solve scientific or engineering problems. It is usually considered to be a bridge or a connection between physics and engineering. "Applied" is distinguished from "pure" by a subtle combination ...
rather than economics, as this latter subject is generally taught and understood today. Georgescu-Roegen's work was blemished somewhat by mistakes caused by his insufficient understanding of the physical science of
thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws ...
. These mistakes have since generated some controversy, involving both
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
s and ecological economists.


Life and career

The life of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (born Nicolae Georgescu) spanned most of the 20th century, from 1906 to 1994. In his native Romania, he lived through two world wars and three dictatorships before he fled the country. Living in political exile in the US in the second half of his life, he witnessed at a distance the rise and fall of socialism in Romania. He made many important contributions to mainstream
neoclassical economics Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a good ...
before he finally turned against it and published his
paradigmatic In science and philosophy, a paradigm () is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. Etymology ''Paradigm'' comes f ...
magnum opus on ''The Entropy Law and the Economic Process''. Although this work was decisive for the establishing of ecological economics as an independent academic sub-discipline in
economics Economics () is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics anal ...
, Georgescu-Roegen died disappointed and bitter that his paradigmatic work did not receive the appreciation he had expected for it in his own lifetime.


Childhood, adolescence and education

Nicolae Georgescu was born in
Constanța Constanța (, ; ; rup, Custantsa; bg, Кюстенджа, Kyustendzha, or bg, Констанца, Konstantsa, label=none; el, Κωνστάντζα, Kōnstántza, or el, Κωνστάντια, Kōnstántia, label=none; tr, Köstence), histo ...
, Romania in 1906 to a family of simple origins. His father, of Greek descent, was an army officer. His mother, an ethnic Romanian, was a sewing teacher at a girls school. The father spent time teaching his son how to read, write and calculate, and planted in the boy the seed of intellectual curiosity. By her living example, the mother taught her son the value of hard work. After having lost his position in the army for disciplinary reasons, the father died when Nicolae was only eight years old. Constanța was then a small
Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...
port with some 25,000 inhabitants. The mix of various cultures and ethnic groups in the town shaped Nicolae's cosmopolitan spirit from his earliest years. In primary school, Nicolae excelled at
mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
, and he was encouraged by a teacher to apply for a scholarship at a secondary school, the ''Lyceum Mânăstirea Dealu'' ("
Lycée In France, secondary education is in two stages: * ''Collèges'' () cater for the first four years of secondary education from the ages of 11 to 15. * ''Lycées'' () provide a three-year course of further secondary education for children between ...
of the Monastery of the Hill"), a new military prep school in the town. Nicolae won a scholarship there in 1916, but his attendance was delayed by Romania's entry into World War I. His widowed mother fled with the family to
Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ro, București ) is the capital and largest city of Romania, as well as its cultural, industrial, and financial centre. It is located in the southeast of the country, on the banks of the Dâmbovița River, less than north o ...
, the country's capital, where they stayed with Nicolae's maternal grandmother during the rest of the war. In these times of hardship, Nicolae had traumatic boyhood experiences of the agonies of war. He wanted to become a mathematics teacher, but he could barely keep up his schoolwork. After the war, Nicolae returned to his home town to attend the lyceum. Teaching standards were high, and many of the teachers later went on to become university professors, but the discipline was regimented, with mock-military physical exercises and wearing uniforms. Students were not permitted to leave the school except in summer and briefly during Christmas and Easter. Nicolae proved to be an excellent student, especially in mathematics. He later credited the five years of secondary education he received at the lyceum for providing him with an extraordinary education that would serve him well later in his career, but he also blamed the discipline and the monastic isolation of the place for having stunted his social abilities, something that would put him at odds with acquaintances and colleagues throughout his life. At the lyceum, it turned out that Nicolae Georgescu had a namesake. In order to avoid any confusion, he decided to create an addendum to his family name, made up of the first and the last letter of his first name, plus the first four letters of his last name, all six letters put in the reverse order: NicolaE GEORgescu → '-Roegen'. Georgescu-Roegen would retain this addendum for the rest of his life. Later in his life, he also changed his first name to its French and English form, 'Nicholas'. Georgescu-Roegen received his diploma from the lyceum in 1923. Thanks to a scholarship awarded to children from poor families, he was soon after accepted at the
University of Bucharest The University of Bucharest ( ro, Universitatea din București), commonly known after its abbreviation UB in Romania, is a public university founded in its current form on by a decree of Prince Alexandru Ioan Cuza to convert the former Princel ...
for further studies in mathematics. The curriculum there was conventional, and the teaching methods were much the same as those that had prevailed at the lyceum. At the university, he met the woman who would later become his wife for the rest of his life, Otilia Busuioc. To sustain himself during his studies, he gave private lessons and taught in a grammar school outside the city. After his graduation ''cum laude'' in 1926, he took the examination to qualify as a secondary school teacher and then accepted a teaching post for another year in his former lyceum in Constanța. At the university, Georgescu-Roegen became closely acquainted with one of his professors,
Traian Lalescu Traian Lalescu (; 12 July 1882 – 15 June 1929) was a Romanian mathematician. His main focus was on integral equations and he contributed to work in the areas of functional equations, trigonometric series, mathematical physics, geometry, mechani ...
, a renowned mathematician of the day who had taken a special interest in applying mathematical methods to economic reality using
statistics Statistics (from German: '' Statistik'', "description of a state, a country") is the discipline that concerns the collection, organization, analysis, interpretation, and presentation of data. In applying statistics to a scientific, indust ...
. Lalescu was concerned with the lack of adequate data needed to analyse Romania's economy, so he encouraged Georgescu-Roegen to pursue this line of research in further studies abroad. Georgescu-Roegen soon followed this piece of advice: In 1927 he went to France to study at the ''Institute de Statistique, Sorbonne'' in Paris.


Studying in Paris and London

Georgescu-Roegen's stay in Paris broadened his field of study well beyond pure mathematics. Not only did he attend the lectures of the best statistics and economics professors in France, he also immersed himself in the
philosophy of science Philosophy of science is a branch of philosophy concerned with the foundations, methods, and implications of science. The central questions of this study concern what qualifies as science, the reliability of scientific theories, and the ultim ...
, especially the works of
Blaise Pascal Blaise Pascal ( , , ; ; 19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662) was a French mathematician, physicist, inventor, philosopher, and Catholic writer. He was a child prodigy who was educated by his father, a tax collector in Rouen. Pascal's earliest ...
,
Ernst Mach Ernst Waldfried Josef Wenzel Mach ( , ; 18 February 1838 – 19 February 1916) was a Moravian-born Austrian physicist and philosopher, who contributed to the physics of shock waves. The ratio of one's speed to that of sound is named the Mach n ...
, and
Henri Bergson Henri-Louis Bergson (; 18 October 1859 – 4 January 1941) was a French philosopherHenri Bergson. 2014. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved 13 August 2014, from https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/61856/Henri-Bergson Le Roy, ...
. Daily life was not easy for a poor foreign student in a great city. The meager means he received from Romania could barely support even his most basic necessities, and French students habitually referred to all foreign students by the derogatory term ''métèques'', 'strangers'. But his studies progressed splendidly: in 1930, Georgescu-Roegen defended his doctoral dissertation on how to discover the cyclical components of a phenomenon. He passed with extraordinary honour.
Émile Borel Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel (; 7 January 1871 – 3 February 1956) was a French mathematician and politician. As a mathematician, he was known for his founding work in the areas of measure theory and probability. Biography Borel was ...
, one of Georgescu-Roegen's professors, thought so highly of the dissertation that he had it published in full as a special issue of a French academic journal. While studying in Paris, Georgescu-Roegen learned of the work of
Karl Pearson Karl Pearson (; born Carl Pearson; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) was an English mathematician and biostatistician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university st ...
at
University College In a number of countries, a university college is a college institution that provides tertiary education but does not have full or independent university status. A university college is often part of a larger university. The precise usage varies ...
in London. Pearson was a leading English scholar of the time, with a field of interests that coincided with Georgescu-Roegen's own, namely mathematics, statistics, and philosophy of science. Georgescu-Roegen made arrangements to lodge with the family of a young Englishman he had met in Paris and left for England in 1931. During his stay in London, his hosts not only accepted Georgescu-Roegen as their paying guest, but also taught him the basics of the English language, in preparation for his studies in the country. When he approached Pearson and the English university system, Georgescu-Roegen was amazed with the informality and openness he found. There was no more feeling like a ''métèque'', a stranger. Studying with Pearson for the next two years and reading Pearson's work on the philosophy of science, titled '' The Grammar of Science'', further shaped Georgescu-Roegen's scientific methodology and philosophy. The two became friends, and Pearson encouraged Georgescu-Roegen to carry on with his studies in mathematical statistics. They co-pioneered research on the so-called "problem of moments", one of the most difficult topics in statistics at the time, but neither was able to solve the problem. This was a great disappointment to Pearson, but Georgescu-Roegen was pleased by their joint effort nonetheless. While studying in London, Georgescu-Roegen was contacted by a representative of the US-based
Rockefeller Foundation The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropy, philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, aft ...
. Due to his past academic achievements, the foundation wanted to grant Georgescu-Roegen a research fellowship in the US. Georgescu-Roegen had earlier learned of the use of time series analyses by the then famous Harvard Economic Barometer at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
, so he accepted the grant. The trip was put off for about a year, however, as he had more pressing obligations in Romania: He needed to conclude his first national editorial project, a 500 page manual on ''Metoda Statistică'', and he had to care for his aging widowed mother who was in bad health.


Trip to the United States, meeting Schumpeter

In autumn 1934, Georgescu-Roegen went to the US. On arriving at
Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of highe ...
, he learned that the Economic Barometer had been shut down years before: The project had completely failed to predict the
Wall Street Crash of 1929 The Wall Street Crash of 1929, also known as the Great Crash, was a major American stock market crash that occurred in the autumn of 1929. It started in September and ended late in October, when share prices on the New York Stock Exchange coll ...
, and was soon abandoned altogether. After several failed attempts to find another sponsor for his research, Georgescu-Roegen finally managed a meeting with the professor at the university teaching
business cycle Business cycles are intervals of expansion followed by recession in economic activity. These changes have implications for the welfare of the broad population as well as for private institutions. Typically business cycles are measured by examin ...
s to see if there were any other opportunities available to him. This professor happened to be
Joseph Schumpeter Joseph Alois Schumpeter (; February 8, 1883 – January 8, 1950) was an Austrian-born political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of German-Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at H ...
. Meeting Schumpeter at this point completely changed the direction of Georgescu-Roegen's life and career. Schumpeter warmly welcomed Georgescu-Roegen to Harvard, and soon introduced him to the now famous 'circle', one of the most remarkable groups of economists ever working at the same institution, including Wassily Leontief,
Oskar Lange Oskar Ryszard Lange (27 July 1904 – 2 October 1965) was a Polish economist and diplomat. He is best known for advocating the use of market pricing tools in socialist systems and providing a model of market socialism. He responded to the econo ...
, Fritz Machlup, and
Nicholas Kaldor Nicholas Kaldor, Baron Kaldor (12 May 1908 – 30 September 1986), born Káldor Miklós, was a Cambridge economist in the post-war period. He developed the "compensation" criteria called Kaldor–Hicks efficiency for welfare comparisons (1939), ...
, among others. Georgescu-Roegen was now in a stimulating intellectual environment with weekly evening gatherings and informal academic discussions, where Schumpeter himself presided as the 'ringmaster' of the circle. In Schumpeter, Georgescu-Roegen had found a competent and sympathetic mentor. Although Georgescu-Roegen never formally enrolled in any economics classes, this was how he became an economist: "Schumpeter turned me into an economist ... My only degree in economics is from ''Universitas Schumpeteriana''." While at Harvard, Georgescu-Roegen published four important papers, laying the foundations for his later theories of consumption and production. The scholarly quality of these articles impressed Schumpeter. Georgescu-Roegen's trip to the US was not all spent at Harvard. He managed to obtain a modest stipend for himself and his wife Otilia that enabled them to travel about the country, journeying as far as California. Through Schumpeter's contacts, Georgescu-Roegen had the opportunity to meet
Irving Fisher Irving Fisher (February 27, 1867 – April 29, 1947) was an American economist, statistician, inventor, eugenicist and progressive social campaigner. He was one of the earliest American neoclassical economists, though his later work on debt de ...
,
Harold Hotelling Harold Hotelling (; September 29, 1895 – December 26, 1973) was an American mathematical statistician and an influential economic theorist, known for Hotelling's law, Hotelling's lemma, and Hotelling's rule in economics, as well as Hotelling's ...
, and other leading economists of the day. He also met
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...
at
Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...
. During his stay, Georgescu-Roegen's relationship with Schumpeter developed. Realising that Georgescu-Roegen was a promising young scholar, Schumpeter wanted to keep him at Harvard. He offered Georgescu-Roegen a position with the economics faculty, and asked him to work with him on an economics treatise as a joint effort, but Georgescu-Roegen declined. He wanted to go back to Romania in order to serve his backward fatherland that had sponsored most of his education so far; besides, his return was expected at home. Later in his life, Georgescu-Roegen would regret having turned down Schumpeter's generous offer at this point in his career. In spring 1936, Georgescu-Roegen left the US. His voyage back to Romania came to last almost a year in itself, as he paid a long visit to
Friedrich Hayek Friedrich August von Hayek ( , ; 8 May 189923 March 1992), often referred to by his initials F. A. Hayek, was an Austrian–British economist, legal theorist and philosopher who is best known for his defense of classical liberalism. Hayek ...
and
John Hicks Sir John Richards Hicks (8 April 1904 – 20 May 1989) was a British economist. He is considered one of the most important and influential economists of the twentieth century. The most familiar of his many contributions in the field of economic ...
at the
London School of Economics , mottoeng = To understand the causes of things , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £240.8 million (2021) , budget = £391.1 milli ...
on the way home. He was in no hurry to return.


The Romanian 'exile' and the flight from there

From 1937 to 1948, Georgescu-Roegen lived in Romania, where he witnessed all the turmoil of World War II and the subsequent rise to power of the communists in the country. During the war, Georgescu-Roegen lost his only brother due to a fatal reaction to a tuberculosis vaccine. Upon his return from the US to Bucharest, Georgescu-Roegen was soon appointed to several government posts. His doctoral dissertation from ''Sorbonne'' as well as his other academic credentials earned him a respectable reputation everywhere, and his fine French and English skills were needed in the foreign affairs department. He became vice-director of the Central Statistical Institute, responsible for compiling data on the country's foreign trade on a daily basis; he also served on the National Board of Trade, settling commercial agreements with the major foreign powers; he even participated in the diplomatic negotiations concerning the reassignment of Romania's national borders with Hungary. Georgescu-Roegen engaged himself in politics and joined the pro-monarchy
National Peasants' Party The National Peasants' Party (also known as the National Peasant Party or National Farmers' Party; ro, Partidul Național Țărănesc, or ''Partidul Național-Țărănist'', PNȚ) was an agrarian political party in the Kingdom of Romania. It w ...
. The country's economy was still underdeveloped and had a large agrarian base, where the mass of the peasantry lived in backwardness and poverty. Substantial land reforms were called for if the most appalling inequalities between the rural and the urban parts of the population were to be evened out. Georgescu-Roegen put a persuasive effort into this work and was soon elevated to the higher ranks of the party, becoming member of the party's National Council. Georgescu-Roegen did only little academic work during this period of his life. Apart from co-editing the national encyclopedia, the ''Enciclopedia României'', and reporting on the country's economic situation in some minor statistics publications, he published nothing of scholarly significance. Although he did reside in his native country, Georgescu-Roegen would later refer to this period of his life as his Romanian 'exile': The exile was an intellectual one for him. By the end of the war, Romania was occupied by the Soviet Union. A trusted government official and a leading member of an influential political party, Georgescu-Roegen was appointed general secretary of the Armistice Commission, responsible for negotiating the conditions for peace with the occupying power. The negotiations dragged out for half a year and came to involve long and stressful discussions: During most of the war, Romania had been an Axis power allied with
Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
, so the Soviet representatives treated the commission as nothing but a vehicle for levying the largest possible amount of war reparations on the Romanian people. After the war, political forces in the country began encroaching on Georgescu-Roegen. Before and during the war, Romania had already passed through three successive dictatorships, and the fourth one was now imminent. Plenty of items on Georgescu-Roegen's track record were suitable for antagonising both the native Romanian communists and the Soviet authorities that still occupied the country: His top membership of the Peasants' Party, in open opposition to the Communist Party; his chief negotiating position in the Armistice Commission, defending Romania's sovereignty against the occupying power; and his earlier affiliation with capitalist US as a Rockefeller research fellow at Harvard University. Political repression in the country intensified as the rise to power of the communists was completing, and Georgescu-Roegen finally realised it was time to get away: "... I had to flee Romania before I was thrown into a jail from which no one has ever come out alive." By the aid of the Jewish community – he had earlier risked his neck by helping the Jews during the Romanian part of the Holocaust – Georgescu-Roegen and his wife got hold of counterfeit identity cards that secured them the passage out of the country, surrounded by bribed smugglers and stowed away in the hold of a freighter heading for Turkey. Having visited Turkey before on official business, Georgescu-Roegen was able to use his contacts there to notify Schumpeter and Leontief at Harvard University in the US about his flight. Leontief offered Georgescu-Roegen a position at Harvard, and made the necessary arrangements for the couple in advance of their arrival there.


Settling in the United States, years at Vanderbilt University

After a journey from Turkey through continental Europe, Georgescu-Roegen and his wife reached
Cherbourg Cherbourg (; , , ), nrf, Chèrbourg, ) is a former commune and subprefecture located at the northern end of the Cotentin peninsula in the northwestern French department of Manche. It was merged into the commune of Cherbourg-Octeville on 28 Febr ...
in France, from where they crossed the Atlantic by ship. Georgescu-Roegen's arrival at Harvard in summer 1948 was something of a return for him there. Only now, the circumstances were very different from what they had been in the 1930s: He was no longer a promising young scholar on a trip abroad, supported and sponsored by his native country; instead, he was a middle-aged political refugee who had fled a communist dictatorship behind the
Iron Curtain The Iron Curtain was the political boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1991. The term symbolizes the efforts by the Soviet Union (USSR) to block itself and its ...
. Yet, he was welcomed at Harvard just the same, obtaining employment as a lecturer and research associate, collaborating with Wassily Leontief on the Harvard Economic Research Project and other subjects. This was not a permanent employment, however. While working at Harvard, Georgescu-Roegen was approached by
Vanderbilt University Vanderbilt University (informally Vandy or VU) is a private research university in Nashville, Tennessee. Founded in 1873, it was named in honor of shipping and rail magnate Cornelius Vanderbilt, who provided the school its initial $1-million ...
, who offered him a permanent academic chair as economics professor. Georgescu-Roegen accepted the offer and moved to Vanderbilt in
Nashville, Tennessee Nashville is the capital city of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the seat of Davidson County. With a population of 689,447 at the 2020 U.S. census, Nashville is the most populous city in the state, 21st most-populous city in the U.S., and ...
in 1949. It has been argued that Georgescu-Roegen's decision to move from Harvard to the permanence and stability of the less prestigious Vanderbilt was motivated by his precarious wartime experiences and his feeling of insecurity as a political refugee in his new country. It has also been argued that
Joseph Schumpeter Joseph Alois Schumpeter (; February 8, 1883 – January 8, 1950) was an Austrian-born political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of German-Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at H ...
had at this point lost most of his former influence that could have secured Georgescu-Roegen a permanent position at Harvard (Schumpeter died in 1950). Georgescu-Roegen remained at Vanderbilt until his retirement in 1976 at age 70. Except for short trips, he would never leave Nashville again. During his years at Vanderbilt University, Georgescu-Roegen pursued an impressive academic career. He held numerous visiting appointments and research fellowships across the continents, and served as editor of a range of academic journals, including the ''
Econometrica ''Econometrica'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal of economics, publishing articles in many areas of economics, especially econometrics. It is published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the Econometric Society. The current editor-in-chief is ...
''. He received several academic honours, including the distinguished Harvie Branscomb Award, presented in 1967 by his employer, Vanderbilt University. In 1971, the very same year his magnum opus was published, he was honoured as Distinguished Fellow of the American Economic Association. In the early-1960s, Georgescu-Roegen had
Herman Daly Herman Edward Daly (July 21, 1938 – October 28, 2022) was an American Ecological economics, ecological and Georgism#Georgism and environmental economics, Georgist economist and professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, S ...
as a student. Daly later went on to become a leading ecological economist as well as the economists profession's most faithful, persistent and influential proponent of the economics of Georgescu-Roegen. However, Georgescu-Roegen, for his part, would later turn critical of his student's work ( see below). The publication of Georgescu-Roegen's magnum opus in 1971 did not trigger any immediate debates in the mainstream of the economics profession, and the only review in a leading mainstream journal warned the readers against the "incorrect statements and philosophical generalisations" made by the author; but Georgescu-Roegen did receive four favourable reviews from heterodox, evolutionary economists. Through the 1970s, Georgescu-Roegen had a short-lived cooperation with the
Club of Rome The Club of Rome is a nonprofit, informal organization of intellectuals and business leaders whose goal is a critical discussion of pressing global issues. The Club of Rome was founded in 1968 at Accademia dei Lincei in Rome, Italy. It consists ...
. Whereas Georgescu-Roegen's own magnum opus went largely unnoticed by mainstream (neoclassical) economists, the report on '' The Limits to Growth'', published in 1972 by the Club of Rome, created something of a stir in the economics profession. In the heated controversies that followed the report, Georgescu-Roegen found himself largely on the same side as the club, and opposed to the mainstream economists. Teaming up with a natural ally, he approached the club and became a member there. Georgescu-Roegen's theoretical work came to influence the club substantially. One other important result of the cooperation was the publication of the pointed and polemical article on ''Energy and Economic Myths'', where Georgescu-Roegen took issue with mainstream economists and various other debaters. This article found a large audience through the 1970s. Later, the cooperation with the club waned: Georgescu-Roegen reproached the club for not adopting a definite anti-growth political stance; he was also sceptical of the club's elitist and technocratic fashion of attempting to monitor and guide global social reality by building numerous abstract computer simulations of the
world economy The world economy or global economy is the economy of all humans of the world, referring to the global economic system, which includes all economic activities which are conducted both within and between nations, including production, consumptio ...
, and then publish all the findings to the general public. In the early-1980s, the parties finally split up. In continental Europe, Georgescu-Roegen and his work gained influence from the 1970s. When Georgescu-Roegen delivered a lecture at the
University of Geneva The University of Geneva (French: ''Université de Genève'') is a public research university located in Geneva, Switzerland. It was founded in 1559 by John Calvin as a theological seminary. It remained focused on theology until the 17th centur ...
in Switzerland in 1974, he made a lasting impression on the young and newly graduated French historian and philosopher Jacques Grinevald. The ensuing cooperation and friendship between the two resulted in the French translation of a selection of Georgescu-Roegen's articles entitled ''Demain la décroissance: Entropie – Écologie – Économie'' ("Tomorrow, the Decline: Entropy – Ecology – Economy"), published in 1979. Similar to his involvement with the Club of Rome ( see above), Georgescu-Roegen's article on ''Energy and Economic Myths'' came to play a crucial role in the dissemination of his views among the later followers of the degrowth movement. In the 1980s, Georgescu-Roegen met and befriended Catalan agricultural economist and historian of economic thought Juan Martínez-Alier, who would soon after become a driving force in the establishing of both the
International Society for Ecological Economics The International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) was founded in 1989, based heavily on the work of Herman Daly to promote ecological economics and assist ecological economists and related societies. In 1996, the Right Livelihood Aw ...
and the degrowth movement. Since the degrowth movement formed in France and Italy in the early-2000s, leading French champion of the movement Serge Latouche has credited Georgescu-Roegen for being a "main theoretical source of degrowth." Likewise, Italian degrowth theorist Mauro Bonaiuti has considered Georgescu-Roegen's work to be "one of the analytical cornerstones of the degrowth perspective." Apart from his involvement with the Club of Rome and a few European scholars, Georgescu-Roegen remained a solitary man throughout the years at Vanderbilt. He rarely discussed his ongoing work with colleagues and students, and he collaborated in very few joint projects during his career. In addition, several independent sources confirm the observation that Georgescu-Roegen's uncompromising personality and bad temper made him a rather unpleasant acquaintance to deal with. His blunt and demanding behaviour tended to offend most people in academia and elsewhere, thereby undermining his influence and standing. On Georgescu-Roegen's formal retirement in 1976, a symposium in his honour was organised by three of his colleagues at Vanderbilt, and the papers presented there were later published as an anthology. No fewer than four Nobel Prize laureates were among the contributing economists; but none of the colleagues from Georgescu-Roegen's department at Vanderbilt participated, a fact that has since been taken as evidence of his social and academic isolation at the place.


Retirement, later years and death

After Georgescu-Roegen's formal retirement from Vanderbilt in 1976, he continued to live and work as an
emeritus ''Emeritus'' (; female: ''emerita'') is an adjective used to designate a retired chair, professor, pastor, bishop, pope, director, president, prime minister, rabbi, emperor, or other person who has been "permitted to retain as an honorary title ...
in his home in Nashville until his death in 1994. Through these later years, he wrote several articles and papers, expanding on and developing his views. He also corresponded extensively with his few friends and former colleagues. In 1988, Georgescu-Roegen was invited to join the editorial board of the newly established academic journal '' Ecological Economics'', published by the
International Society for Ecological Economics The International Society for Ecological Economics (ISEE) was founded in 1989, based heavily on the work of Herman Daly to promote ecological economics and assist ecological economists and related societies. In 1996, the Right Livelihood Aw ...
; but although most of the people organising the journal and the society recognised and admired Georgescu-Roegen's work, he turned down the invitation: He regarded both the journal and the society as nothing but vehicles for promoting concepts like
sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The ...
and steady-state economics, concepts he himself dismissed as misdirected and wrong (see below, both
here Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to: Software * Here Technologies, a mapping company * Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Television * Here TV (formerly "here!"), a ...
and
here Here is an adverb that means "in, on, or at this place". It may also refer to: Software * Here Technologies, a mapping company * Here WeGo (formerly Here Maps), a mobile app and map website by Here Television * Here TV (formerly "here!"), a ...
). Georgescu-Roegen had more ambitious goals in mind: He wanted to overturn and replace the prevailing, but flawed, mainstream paradigm of
neoclassical economics Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a good ...
with his own 'bioeconomics' ( see below); to downscale (degrow) the economy as soon as possible ( see below); and ''not'' merely be relegated to some arcane and insignificant – so he believed – economics sub-discipline such as ecological economics. Georgescu-Roegen lived long enough to survive the communist dictatorship in Romania he had fled earlier in his life ( see above). He even received some late recognition from his fatherland: In the wake of the
fall of the Berlin Wall The fall of the Berlin Wall (german: Mauerfall) on 9 November 1989, during the Peaceful Revolution, was a pivotal event in world history which marked the destruction of the Berlin Wall and the figurative Iron Curtain and one of the series of eve ...
and the subsequent
Romanian Revolution The Romanian Revolution ( ro, Revoluția Română), also known as the Christmas Revolution ( ro, Revoluția de Crăciun), was a period of violent civil unrest in Romania during December 1989 as a part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred ...
in 1989, Georgescu-Roegen was elected to the
Romanian Academy The Romanian Academy ( ro, Academia Română ) is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 active members who are elected for life. According to its byl ...
in Bucharest. He was pleased by his election. His last years were marked by seclusion and withdrawal from the world. By now, Georgescu-Roegen was an old man. Although he had a productive and successful academic career behind him, he was disappointed that his work had not received the dissemination and recognition he had expected for it in his own lifetime. He believed he had long been running against a current. As he likened himself to one unlucky
heretic Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, in particular the accepted beliefs of a church or religious organization. The term is usually used in reference to violations of important relig ...
and legendary
martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...
of science out of the
Italian Renaissance The Italian Renaissance ( it, Rinascimento ) was a period in Italian history covering the 15th and 16th centuries. The period is known for the initial development of the broader Renaissance culture that spread across Europe and marked the trans ...
, Georgescu-Roegen grumbled and exclaimed: " ''E pur si muove'' is ordinarily attributed to
Galileo Galileo di Vincenzo Bonaiuti de' Galilei (15 February 1564 – 8 January 1642) was an Italian astronomer, physicist and engineer, sometimes described as a polymath. Commonly referred to as Galileo, his name was pronounced (, ). He was ...
, although those words were the last ones uttered by
Giordano Bruno Giordano Bruno (; ; la, Iordanus Brunus Nolanus; born Filippo Bruno, January or February 1548 – 17 February 1600) was an Italian philosopher, mathematician, poet, cosmological theorist, and Hermetic occultist. He is known for his cosmolog ...
on the burning stake!" He came to realise that he had failed in his life's work to warn the general public and change people's minds about the looming mineral resource exhaustion he himself was very concerned about. He finally grasped that
philosophical pessimism Philosophical pessimism is a family of philosophical views that assign a negative value to life or existence. Philosophical pessimists commonly argue that the world contains an empirical prevalence of pains over pleasures, that existence is onto ...
may well be a stance favoured by a few solitary intellectuals like himself, but such a stance is normally shunned like a
taboo A taboo or tabu is a social group's ban, prohibition, or avoidance of something (usually an utterance or behavior) based on the group's sense that it is excessively repulsive, sacred, or allowed only for certain persons.''Encyclopædia Britannica ...
in wider human culture: " considered pessimist is looked upon as a bearer of bad news and ... is not welcomed ever ...", he lamented. Yet, in spite of his deep disappointment and frustration, he continued to write down and propagate his views as long as he was physically able to do so. By the end, his health deteriorated. He was becoming rather deaf, and complications caused by his diabetes rendered him unable to climb stairs. In his final years, he isolated himself completely. He cut off all human contact, even to those of his former colleagues and students who appreciated his contribution to economics. He died bitter and (almost) lonely in his home at the age of 88. His wife Otilia survived him by some four years. The couple had no children. In his obituary essay on Georgescu-Roegen,
Herman Daly Herman Edward Daly (July 21, 1938 – October 28, 2022) was an American Ecological economics, ecological and Georgism#Georgism and environmental economics, Georgist economist and professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, S ...
wrote admirably of his deceased teacher and mentor, concluding that "He demanded a lot, but he gave more." In another obituary article, Georgescu-Roegen was hailed for the "novelty and importance of his contributions", for which he should have been awarded the
Nobel Prize in Economics The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...
.


Work

In his work as an economist, Georgescu-Roegen was influenced by the philosophy of Ernst Mach and the later school of
logical positivism Logical positivism, later called logical empiricism, and both of which together are also known as neopositivism, is a movement in Western philosophy whose central thesis was the verification principle (also known as the verifiability criterion o ...
derived from Mach. Georgescu-Roegen found that two of his other main sources of inspiration, namely
Karl Pearson Karl Pearson (; born Carl Pearson; 27 March 1857 – 27 April 1936) was an English mathematician and biostatistician. He has been credited with establishing the discipline of mathematical statistics. He founded the world's first university st ...
and
Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theor ...
, also had a largely Machian outlook. "My philosophy is in spirit Machian: it is ... mainly oncernedwith the problem of valid analytical representations of the relations among facts." Much of his criticism of both
neoclassical economics Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a good ...
and of
Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
was based on this outlook. Coming to the US after World War II, Georgescu-Roegen's background soon put him at odds with the dominant theoretical school of
neoclassical economics Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a good ...
in the country. Having lived in Romania, an underdeveloped and peasant-dominated economy, he realised that neoclassical economics could explain only those social conditions that prevailed in advanced capitalist economies, but not in other institutional settings. He was also critical of the increasing use of abstract algebraic formalism grounded in no facts of social reality. Both of these issues made him attentive to social phenomena that were either overlooked or misrepresented by mainstream neoclassical economic analysis. It has been argued that an unbroken path runs from Georgescu-Roegen's work in pure theory in the early years, through his writings on peasant economies in the 1960s, leading to his preoccupation with entropy and bioeconomics in the last 25 years of his life.


Magnum opus on ''The Entropy Law and the Economic Process''

According to Georgescu-Roegen's own recollection, the ideas presented in his
paradigmatic In science and philosophy, a paradigm () is a distinct set of concepts or thought patterns, including theories, research methods, postulates, and standards for what constitute legitimate contributions to a field. Etymology ''Paradigm'' comes f ...
magnum opus were worked out in his mind over a period of twenty years or so before the final publication. The three most important sources of inspiration for his work were
Émile Borel Félix Édouard Justin Émile Borel (; 7 January 1871 – 3 February 1956) was a French mathematician and politician. As a mathematician, he was known for his founding work in the areas of measure theory and probability. Biography Borel was ...
's monograph on
thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws ...
he had read while studying in Paris ( see above);
Joseph Schumpeter Joseph Alois Schumpeter (; February 8, 1883 – January 8, 1950) was an Austrian-born political economist. He served briefly as Finance Minister of German-Austria in 1919. In 1932, he emigrated to the United States to become a professor at H ...
's view that irreversible evolutionary changes are inherent in
capitalism Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, private ...
; and the Romanian historical record of the large oil refineries in Ploiești becoming target of strategic military attacks in both world wars, proving the importance of natural resources in social conflict.


The shortcomings of both neoclassical economics and of Marxism

Georgescu-Roegen outlines that both main streams of economic thought having dominated the world since the end of the 19th century – namely
neoclassical economics Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a good ...
and
Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
 – share the shortcoming of not taking into account the importance of natural resources in man's economy. Hence, Georgescu-Roegen engages himself in an intellectual battle with two fronts.


The relevance of thermodynamics to economics

The physical theory of thermodynamics is based on two laws: The first law states that energy is neither created nor destroyed in any isolated system (a conservation principle). The second law of thermodynamics – also known as the entropy law – states that energy tends to be degraded to ever poorer qualities (a degradation principle). Georgescu-Roegen argues that the relevance of
thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws ...
to economics stems from the physical fact that man can neither create nor destroy matter or energy, only transform it. The usual economic terms of 'production' and 'consumption' are mere verbal conventions that tend to obscure that nothing is created and nothing is destroyed in the economic process – everything is being transformed. The science of thermodynamics features a
cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in Latin by German philosopher ...
of its own predicting the
heat death of the universe The heat death of the universe (also known as the Big Chill or Big Freeze) is a hypothesis on the ultimate fate of the universe, which suggests the universe will evolve to a state of no thermodynamic free energy, and will therefore be un ...
: Any transformation of energy – whether in nature or in human society – is moving the universe closer towards a final state of inert physical uniformity and maximum
entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodyna ...
. According to this cosmological perspective, all of man's economic activities are only speeding up the general march against a future planetary heat death locally on earth, Georgescu-Roegen submits. This view on the economy was later termed 'entropy pessimism'. Some of Georgescu-Roegen's followers and interpreters have elaborated on this view.


Conceptions of scarcity

Introducing the term 'low entropy' for valuable
natural resource Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. ...
s, and the term 'high entropy' for valueless
waste Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste pr ...
and
pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, th ...
, Georgescu-Roegen explains that all the economic process does from a physical point of view is to irreversibly transform low entropy into high entropy, thereby providing a flow of natural resources for people to live on. The irreversibility of this economic process is the reason why natural resources are scarce:
Recycling Recycling is the process of converting waste materials into new materials and objects. The Energy recycling, recovery of energy from waste materials is often included in this concept. The recyclability of a material depends on its ability t ...
of material resources is possible, but only by using up some energy resources plus an additional amount of other material resources; and energy resources, in turn, cannot be recycled at all, but are dissipated as
waste heat Waste heat is heat that is produced by a machine, or other process that uses energy, as a byproduct of doing work. All such processes give off some waste heat as a fundamental result of the laws of thermodynamics. Waste heat has lower utilit ...
(according to the entropy law). Georgescu-Roegen points out that the earth is a
closed system A closed system is a natural physical system that does not allow transfer of matter in or out of the system, although — in contexts such as physics, chemistry or engineering — the transfer of energy (''e.g.'' as work or heat) is allowed. In ...
in the thermodynamic sense of the term: the earth exchanges energy, but not matter (practically) with the rest of the universe. Hence, mainly two sources of low entropy are available to man, namely the stock of mineral resources in the crust of the earth; and the flow of radiation, received from the sun. Since the sun will continue to shine for billions of years to come, the earth's mineral stock is the scarcer one of these two main sources of low entropy. Whereas the stock of minerals may be extracted from the crust of the earth at a rate of our own choosing (practically), the flow of solar radiation arrives at the surface of the earth at a constant and fixed rate, beyond human control, Georgescu-Roegen maintains. This natural 'asymmetry' between man's access to the stock of minerals and the flow of solar energy accounts for the historical contrast between urban and rural life: The busy urban life, on the one hand, is associated with industry and the impatient extraction of minerals; the tranquil rural life, on the other hand, is associated with agriculture and the patient reception of the fixed flow of solar energy. Georgescu-Roegen argues that this 'asymmetry' helps explain the historical subjection of the countryside by the town since the dawn of civilisation, and he criticises
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
for not taking this subjection properly into account in his theory of
historical materialism Historical materialism is the term used to describe Karl Marx's theory of history. Marx locates historical change in the rise of class societies and the way humans labor together to make their livelihoods. For Marx and his lifetime collaborat ...
. Georgescu-Roegen explains that modern
mechanised agriculture Mechanised agriculture or agricultural mechanization is the use of machinery and equipment, ranging from simple and basic hand tools to more sophisticated, motorized equipment and machinery, to perform agricultural operations. In modern times, po ...
has developed historically as a result of the growing pressure of population on arable land; but the relief of this pressure by means of mechanisation has only substituted a scarcer source of input for the more abundant input of solar radiation:
Machinery A machine is a physical system using power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolecul ...
, chemical fertilisers and
pesticide Pesticides are substances that are meant to control pests. This includes herbicide, insecticide, nematicide, molluscicide, piscicide, avicide, rodenticide, bactericide, insect repellent, animal repellent, microbicide, fungicide, and ...
s all rely on mineral resources for their operation, rendering modern agriculture – and the industrialised food processing and distribution systems associated with it – almost as dependent on earth's mineral stock as the industrial sector has always been. Georgescu-Roegen cautions that this situation is a major reason why the
carrying capacity The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as ...
of earth is decreasing. In effect, overpopulation on earth is largely a dynamic long run phenomenon, being a by-product of ever more constraining mineral scarcities.


The production process and the flow-fund model

Georgescu-Roegen's model of the economy grew out of his dissatisfaction with neoclassical production theory as well as the
input-output model In computing, input/output (I/O, or informally io or IO) is the communication between an information processing system, such as a computer, and the outside world, possibly a human or another information processing system. Inputs are the signal ...
of the economy, developed by
Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...
laureate Wassily Leontief. Georgescu-Roegen realised that production cannot be adequately described by stocks of equipment and inventories only, or by flows of inputs and outputs only. It was necessary to combine these two descriptions. In order to complete the picture, it was also necessary to add the new concept of a "fund". In Georgescu-Roegen's flow-fund model of production, a fund factor is either labour power, farmland, or man-made capital providing a useful service at any point in time. A "stock" factor is a material or energy input that can be decumulated at will; a "flow" factor is a stock spread out over a period of time. The fund factors constitute the agents of the economic process, and the flow factors are used or acted upon by these agents. Unlike a stock factor, a fund factor cannot be used (decumulated) at will, as its rate of utilisation depends on the distinct physical properties of the fund (labour power and farmland, for instance, may run the risk of overuse and exhaustion if proper care is not taken). Contrary to neoclassical production theory, Georgescu-Roegen identifies nature as the exclusive primary source of all factors of production. According to the
first law of thermodynamics The first law of thermodynamics is a formulation of the law of conservation of energy, adapted for thermodynamic processes. It distinguishes in principle two forms of energy transfer, heat and thermodynamic work for a system of a constant am ...
, matter and energy are neither created nor destroyed in the economy (the conservation principle). According to the
second law of thermodynamics The second law of thermodynamics is a physical law based on universal experience concerning heat and energy interconversions. One simple statement of the law is that heat always moves from hotter objects to colder objects (or "downhill"), unle ...
 – the entropy law – what happens in the economy is that all matter and energy is transformed from states available for human purposes to states unavailable for human purposes (the degradation principle). This transformation constitutes a unidirectional and irreversible process. Consequently, valuable
natural resource Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. ...
s ("low entropy") are procured by the input end of the economy; the resources flow through the economy, being transformed and manufactured into goods along the way; and unvaluable
waste Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste pr ...
and
pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, th ...
("high entropy") eventually accumulate by the output end. Mankind lives in, by, and of nature, and we return our residues to nature. By so doing, the entropy of the combined nature-economy system steadily increases. The presence of natural resource flows in Georgescu-Roegen's model of production (production function) differentiates the model from those of both Keynesian macroeconomics,
neoclassical economics Neoclassical economics is an approach to economics in which the production, consumption and valuation (pricing) of goods and services are observed as driven by the supply and demand model. According to this line of thought, the value of a good ...
, as well as
classical economics Classical economics, classical political economy, or Smithian economics is a school of thought in political economy that flourished, primarily in Britain, in the late 18th and early-to-mid 19th century. Its main thinkers are held to be Adam S ...
, including most – though not all – variants of
Marxism Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...
. Only in ecological economics are natural resource flows positively recognised as a valid theoretical basis for economic modelling and analysis. Later, Georgescu-Roegen's production model formed the basis of his criticism of neoclassical economics ( see below). From the 1980s, numerous economists have been working on Georgesu-Roegen's flow-fund model. In 1992, Mario Morroni presented a development of the flow-fund model for applied analysis. This model has been implemented in some case studies regarding the textile industry, electronic devices for telecommunication industry, shoe industry, and tie industry.


Man's economic struggle and the social evolution of mankind (bioeconomics)

In his social theory, Georgescu-Roegen argues that man's economic struggle to work and earn a livelihood is largely a continuation and extension of his biological struggle to sustain life and survive. This biological struggle has prevailed since the dawn of man, and the nature of the struggle was not altered by the invention of
money Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money ar ...
as a medium of exchange. Unlike animals, man has developed exosomatic instruments, that is, tools and equipment. These instruments are produced by man and are not a part of his body. At the same time, production is a social, and not an individual, undertaking. This situation has turned man's struggle to sustain life and survive into a social conflict which is unique when compared to animals. Contrasting his own view with those of
Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
, Georgescu-Roegen asserts: When man (some men) attempts to radically change the distribution of access to material resources in society, this may result in wars or revolutions, Georgescu-Roegen admits; but even though wars and revolutions may bring about the intended redistributions, man's economic struggle and the social conflict will remain. There will be rulers and ruled in any social order, and the ruling is largely a continuation of the biological struggle of sustaining life and survive, Georgescu-Roegen claims. Under these material conditions, the ruling classes of past and present have always resorted to force, ideology and manipulation to defend their privileges and maintain the acquiescence of the ruled. This historical fact does not end with
communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...
, Georgescu-Roegen points out; quite the opposite, it goes on during communism, and beyond it as well. It would be contrary to man's biological nature to organise himself otherwise. Later, Georgescu-Roegen introduced the term 'bioeconomics' (short for 'biological economics') to describe his view that man's economic struggle is a continuation of the biological struggle. In his final years, he planned to write a book on the subject of bioeconomics, but due to old age, he was unable to complete it. He did manage to write a sketch on it, though.


Population pressure, mineral resource exhaustion and the end of mankind

Georgescu-Roegen takes a dismal view on
human nature Human nature is a concept that denotes the fundamental dispositions and characteristics—including ways of thinking, feeling, and acting—that humans are said to have naturally. The term is often used to denote the essence of humankind, or ...
and the future of mankind. On the one hand, his general argument is that the
carrying capacity The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as ...
of earth – that is, earth's capacity to sustain human populations and consumption levels – is decreasing as earth's finite stock of
mineral resources Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. O ...
are being extracted and put to use; but on the other hand, he finds that restraining ourselves collectively on a permanent and voluntary basis for the benefit of future generations runs counter to our biological nature as a species. We cannot help ourselves. Consequently, the
world economy The world economy or global economy is the economy of all humans of the world, referring to the global economic system, which includes all economic activities which are conducted both within and between nations, including production, consumptio ...
will continue growing until its inevitable and final collapse. From that point on, he predicts, ever deepening scarcities will cause widespread misery, aggravate social conflict throughout the globe, and intensify man's economic struggle to work and earn a livelihood. A prolonged 'biological spasm' of our species will follow, ultimately spelling the end of mankind itself, as man has already become completely and irreversibly dependent on the industrial economy for his biological existence. We are not going to make it. We are doomed to downfall, destruction, and demise. Predicts Georgescu-Roegen: Georgescu-Roegen's radically pessimistic 'existential risk' perspective on global mineral resource exhaustion was later countered by Robert Ayres ( see below).


Work after magnum opus

In the years following the publication of his magnum opus in 1971 and until his death in 1994, Georgescu-Roegen published a number of articles and essays where he further expanded on and developed his views.


Criticising neoclassical economics (weak versus strong sustainability)

Criticising neoclassical economics, Georgescu-Roegen argues that neoclassical production theory is false when representing the economy as a mechanical, circular and closed system, with no inlets and no outlets. A misrepresentation such as this fails to take into account the exhaustion of
mineral resources Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. O ...
at the input end, and the building up of
waste Waste (or wastes) are unwanted or unusable materials. Waste is any substance discarded after primary use, or is worthless, defective and of no use. A by-product, by contrast is a joint product of relatively minor economic value. A waste pr ...
and
pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause adverse change. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, th ...
at the output end. In Georgescu-Roegen's view, the economy is represented more accurately by his own flow-fund model of production ( see above). In addition, Georgescu-Roegen finds that neoclassical economics tends to overlook, or, at best, to misrepresent the problem of how to allocate the exhaustible mineral resources between present and future generations. Georgescu-Roegen points out that the market mechanisms of supply and demand are systematically unable to work out the intergenerational allocation problem in a satisfactory way, since future generations are not, and cannot be, present on today's market. This anomaly of the market mechanisms – or ecological market failure – is described by Georgescu-Roegen as 'a dictatorship of the present over the future'. On this issue, notable economists and Nobel Prize laureates
Robert Solow Robert Merton Solow, GCIH (; born August 23, 1924) is an American economist whose work on the theory of economic growth culminated in the exogenous growth model named after him. He is currently Emeritus Institute Professor of Economics at th ...
and
Joseph Stiglitz Joseph Eugene Stiglitz (; born February 9, 1943) is an American New Keynesian economist, a public policy analyst, and a full professor at Columbia University. He is a recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences (2001) and the J ...
, Georgescu-Roegen's two main adversaries in academia in the 1970s, have stated their account of the mainstream neoclassical approach to the economics of exhaustible resources: They both claim that across the board substitutability of man-made capital for natural capital constitutes a real possibility. Hence, any concern with intergenerational allocation of the mineral stock should be relaxed somewhat (according to Solow); or even ignored altogether (according to Stiglitz). The position of Solow and Stiglitz (as well as other, like-minded theorists in the neoclassical tradition) was later termed 'weak sustainability' by environmental economist Kerry Turner. In response to the position of Solow and Stiglitz, Georgescu-Roegen argues that neoclassical economists generally fail to realise the important difference between material resources and energy resources in the economic process. This is where his flow-fund model of production comes into play ( see above). Georgescu-Roegen's point is that only material resources can be transformed into man-made capital. Energy resources, on the other hand, cannot be so transformed, as it is physically impossible to turn energy into matter, and matter is what man-made capital is made up of physically. The only possible role to be performed by energy resources is to assist – usually as
fuel A fuel is any material that can be made to react with other substances so that it releases energy as thermal energy or to be used for work. The concept was originally applied solely to those materials capable of releasing chemical energy b ...
or
electricity Electricity is the set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and motion of matter that has a property of electric charge. Electricity is related to magnetism, both being part of the phenomenon of electromagnetism, as describe ...
 – in the process of transforming material resources into man-made capital. In Georgescu-Roegen's own terminology, energy may have the form of either a stock factor (mineral deposits in nature), or a flow factor (resources transformed in the economy); but never that of a fund factor (man-made capital in the economy). Hence, substituting man-made capital for energy resources is physically impossible. Furthermore, not all material resources are transformed into man-made capital; instead, some material resources are manufactured directly into consumer goods having only a limited durability. Finally, in the course of time, all man-made capital depreciates, wears out and needs replacement; but both old and new man-made capital is made out of material resources to begin with. All in all, the economic process is indeed a process with steadily increasing entropy, and the 'mechanical' notion of across the board substitutability prevalent in neoclassical economics is untenable, Georgescu-Roegen submits. Contrary to the neoclassical position, Georgescu-Roegen argues that flow factors and fund factors (that is, natural resources and man-made capital) are essentially complementary, since both are needed in the economic process in order to have a working economy. Georgescu-Roegen's conclusion, then, is that the allocation of exhaustible mineral resources between present and future generations is a large problem that cannot, and should not, be relaxed or ignored: "There seems to be no way to do away with the dictatorship of the present over the future, although we may aim at making it as bearable as possible." Georgescu-Roegen's followers and interpreters have since been discussing the existential impossibility of allocating earth's finite stock of mineral resources evenly among an unknown number of present and future generations. This number of generations is likely to remain unknown to us, as there is no way – or only little way – of knowing in advance if or when mankind will ultimately face extinction. In effect, ''any'' conceivable intertemporal allocation of the stock will inevitably end up with universal economic decline at some future point. This approach to mankind's prospects is absent in neoclassical economics. The position of Georgescu-Roegen, including his criticism of neoclassical economics, was later termed 'strong sustainability' by Kerry Turner. Later still, Turner's taxonomy of 'weak' and 'strong' sustainability was integrated into ecological economics. However, contrary to the widely established use of Turner's simplifying taxonomy, Georgescu-Roegen never referred to his own position as 'strong sustainability' or any other variant of sustainability. Quite the opposite. Georgescu-Roegen flatly dismissed any notion of
sustainable development Sustainable development is an organizing principle for meeting human development goals while also sustaining the ability of natural systems to provide the natural resources and ecosystem services on which the economy and society depend. The ...
as only so much '
snake oil Snake oil is a term used to describe deceptive marketing, health care fraud, or a scam. Similarly, "snake oil salesman" is a common expression used to describe someone who sells, promotes, or is a general proponent of some valueless or fraudu ...
' intended to deceive the general public. In his last years, he even denounced the notion bitterly as "one of the most toxic recipes for mankind": There can be no such thing as a 'sustainable' rate of extraction and use of a finite stock of non-renewable mineral resources – ''any'' rate will diminish the remaining stock itself. Consequently, the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
has brought about unsustainable economic development in the world ( see below).


Criticising Daly's steady-state economics

Leading ecological economist and steady-state theorist
Herman Daly Herman Edward Daly (July 21, 1938 – October 28, 2022) was an American Ecological economics, ecological and Georgism#Georgism and environmental economics, Georgist economist and professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, S ...
is a former student and protégé of Georgescu-Roegen. In the 1970s, Daly developed the concept of a
steady-state economy A steady-state economy is an economy made up of a constant stock of physical wealth (capital) and a constant population size. In effect, such an economy does not grow in the course of time. The term usually refers to the economy, national e ...
, by which he understands an economy made up of a constant stock of physical wealth (man-made capital) and a constant stock of people (population), both stocks to be maintained by a minimal flow of natural resources (or 'throughput', as he terms it). Daly argues that this steady-state economy is both necessary and desirable in order to keep human environmental impact within biophysical limits (however defined), and to create more allocational fairness between present and future generations with regard to mineral resource use. In several articles, Georgescu-Roegen criticised his student's concept of a steady-state economy. Georgescu-Roegen argues that Daly's steady-state economy will provide no ecological salvation for mankind, especially not in the longer run. Due to the
geologic Geology () is a branch of natural science concerned with Earth and other astronomical objects, the features or rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which they change over time. Modern geology significantly overlaps all other E ...
fact that mineral ores are deposited and concentrated very unevenly in the crust of the earth, prospecting for and extraction of mineral resources will sooner or later be faced with the principle of
diminishing returns In economics, diminishing returns are the decrease in marginal (incremental) output of a production process as the amount of a single factor of production is incrementally increased, holding all other factors of production equal ( ceteris pari ...
, whereby extraction activities are pushed to still less accessible sites and still lower grades of ores. In the course of time, then, extraction costs and market prices of the incremental amount of resources will tend to increase. Eventually, all minerals will be exhausted, but the ''economic'' exhaustion will manifest itself long before the ''physical'' exhaustion provides the ultimate backstop for further activity: There will still be deposits of resources left in the crust, but the geologic concentration of these deposits will remain below the critical
cutoff grade Cutoff grade is the minimum grade required in order for a mineral or metal to be economically mined (or processed). Material found to be above this grade is considered to be ore Ore is natural rock or sediment that contains one or more v ...
; hence, continued extraction will no longer pay off, and the market for these resources will then collapse. This long-term dynamics will work itself through any economic (sub-)system, regardless of the system's geographical location, its size and its state of development (whether a progressive, a steady or a declining state). In effect, the arguments advanced by Daly in support of his steady-state economy apply with even greater force in support of a declining-state economy, Georgescu-Roegen points out: When the overall purpose is to ration and stretch mineral resource use for as long time into the future as possible, zero economic growth is more desirable than growth is, true; but negative growth is better still! In this context, Georgescu-Roegen also criticises Daly for not specifying ''at what levels'' man-made capital and human population are to be kept constant in the steady-state. Instead of Daly's steady-state economics, Georgescu-Roegen proposed his own so-called
minimal bioeconomic program
, featuring quantitative restrictions even more severe than those propounded by Daly. Herman Daly on his part has readily accepted his teacher's judgement on this subject matter: In order to compensate for the principle of
diminishing returns In economics, diminishing returns are the decrease in marginal (incremental) output of a production process as the amount of a single factor of production is incrementally increased, holding all other factors of production equal ( ceteris pari ...
in mineral resource extraction, an ever greater share of capital and labour in the economy will gradually have to be transferred to the mining sector, thereby skewing the initial structure of any steady-state system. Even more important is it that the steady-state economy will serve only to postpone, and not to prevent, the inevitable mineral resource exhaustion anyway. "A steady-state economy cannot last forever, but neither can a growing economy, nor a declining economy", Daly concedes in his response to Georgescu-Roegen's criticism. In the same turn, Daly confirms Georgescu-Roegen's general argument that earth's
carrying capacity The carrying capacity of an environment is the maximum population size of a biological species that can be sustained by that specific environment, given the food, habitat, water, and other resources available. The carrying capacity is defined as ...
is decreasing as mankind is extracting the finite mineral stock. Likewise, several other economists in the field besides Georgescu-Roegen and Daly have agreed that a steady-state economy does not by itself constitute a long-term solution to the 'entropy problem' facing mankind.


Technology assessments in historical perspective

In his technology assessments, Georgescu-Roegen puts thermodynamic principles to use in a wider historical context, including the future of mankind. According to Georgescu-Roegen's terminology, a technology is 'viable' only when it is able to return an energy surplus sufficiently large to maintain its own operation, ''plus'' some additional energy left over for other use. If this criterion is not met, the technology in question is only 'feasible' (if workable at all), but not 'viable'. Both viable and feasible technologies depend on a steady flow of natural resources for their operation. Georgescu-Roegen argues that the first viable technology in
human history Human history, also called world history, is the narrative of humanity's past. It is understood and studied through anthropology, archaeology, genetics, and linguistics. Since the invention of writing, human history has been studied thro ...
was
fire Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction products. At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition point, flames ...
. By controlling fire, it was possible for man to burn a forest, or all forests. It was also possible to cook food and to obtain warmth and protection. Inspired by the ancient Greek myth of
Prometheus In Greek mythology, Prometheus (; , , possibly meaning " forethought")Smith"Prometheus". is a Titan god of fire. Prometheus is best known for defying the gods by stealing fire from them and giving it to humanity in the form of technology, kn ...
, the
Titan Titan most often refers to: * Titan (moon), the largest moon of Saturn * Titans, a race of deities in Greek mythology Titan or Titans may also refer to: Arts and entertainment Fictional entities Fictional locations * Titan in fiction, fictiona ...
who stole fire from the gods and gave it to man, Georgescu-Roegen terms fire 'the first Promethean recipe'. According to Georgescu-Roegen, a later important Promethean recipe (technology) of the same (first) kind was
animal husbandry Animal husbandry is the branch of agriculture concerned with animals that are raised for meat, fibre, milk, or other products. It includes day-to-day care, selective breeding, and the raising of livestock. Husbandry has a long history, starti ...
, feeding on grass and other biomass (like fire does). Much later in the history of man, the
steam engine A steam engine is a heat engine that performs mechanical work using steam as its working fluid. The steam engine uses the force produced by steam pressure to push a piston back and forth inside a cylinder. This pushing force can be ...
came about as the crucial Promethean recipe of the ''second'' kind, feeding on
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...
. The invention of the steam engine made it possible to drain the groundwater flooding the mine shafts, and the mined coal could then be used as fuel for other steam engines in turn. This technology propelled the
Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...
in Britain in the second half of the 18th century, whereby man's economy has been thrust into a long, never-to-return overshoot-and-collapse trajectory with regard to the earth's mineral stock. Georgescu-Roegen lists the
internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal co ...
and the
nuclear fission reactor A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction or nuclear fusion reactions. Nuclear reactors are used at nuclear power plants for electricity generation and in nuclear marine propulsion. Heat from nu ...
as other, later examples of Promethean recipes of the second kind, namely
heat engine In thermodynamics and engineering, a heat engine is a system that converts heat to mechanical energy, which can then be used to do mechanical work. It does this by bringing a working substance from a higher state temperature to a lower stat ...
s feeding on a mineral fuel ( oil and
uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
(plus
thorium Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately soft and malleable and has a high ...
), respectively). By a Promethean recipe of the ''third'' kind, Georgescu-Roegen understands a solar collector returning a net energy output sufficiently large to supply all the energy input needed to manufacture an additional solar collector of the same kind, thereby constituting a full serial reproduction with regard to solar energy only. The fact that solar collectors of various kinds had been in operation on a substantial scale for more than a century without providing a breakthrough in energy efficiency brought Georgescu-Roegen to the conclusion that no Promethean recipe was yet around in the world in his day. Only feasible recipes for solar collectors were available, functioning like what he labelled 'parasites' with regard to the terrestrial inputs of energy for their manufacture and operation – and like any other parasite, these recipes cannot survive their host (the 'host' being the sources of the terrestrial inputs). Georgescu-Roegen believed that for a worldwide solar-powered economy to be truly energy self-supporting, a Promethean kind of solar collector had yet to be invented. Later, some scholars have argued that the efficiency of solar collectors has increased considerably since Georgescu-Roegen made these assessments. Georgescu-Roegen further points out that regardless of the efficiency of any particular kind of solar collector, the major drawback of solar power ''per se'' when compared to terrestrial
fossil fuel A fossil fuel is a hydrocarbon-containing material formed naturally in the Earth's crust from the remains of dead plants and animals that is extracted and burned as a fuel. The main fossil fuels are coal, oil, and natural gas. Fossil fuels ma ...
s and
uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...
(plus
thorium Thorium is a weakly radioactive metallic chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. Thorium is silvery and tarnishes black when it is exposed to air, forming thorium dioxide; it is moderately soft and malleable and has a high ...
) is the diffuse, low-intensity property of solar radiation. Hence, a lot of material equipment is needed as inputs at the surface of the earth to collect, concentrate and (when convenient) store or transform the radiation before it can be put to use on a larger industrial scale. This necessary material equipment adds to the 'parasitical' operation of solar power, Georgescu-Roegen maintains. Assessing
fusion power Fusion power is a proposed form of power generation that would generate electricity by using heat from nuclear fusion reactions. In a fusion process, two lighter atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus, while releasing energy. Devices de ...
as a possible future source of energy, Georgescu-Roegen ventured the opinion that, regarding magnetic confinement fusion, no reactor will ever be built to be large enough to effectively withstand and confine the vehement thermal pressure of the plasmic deuterium/tritium fusion processes through an extended period of time (which is a prerequisite for the 'viability' of this technology). He did not assess the other one of the two major fusion power technologies being researched in his day – and still being researched – namely
inertial confinement fusion Inertial confinement fusion (ICF) is a fusion energy process that initiates nuclear fusion reactions by compressing and heating targets filled with thermonuclear fuel. In modern machines, the targets are small spherical pellets about the size of ...
. All of these technology assessments have to do with energy resources only, and not with material resources. Georgescu-Roegen stressed the point that even with the proliferation of solar collectors throughout the surface of the globe, or the advent of fusion power, or both, any industrial economy will still depend on a steady flow of material resources extracted from the crust of the earth, notably
metals A metal (from Greek μέταλλον ''métallon'', "mine, quarry, metal") is a material that, when freshly prepared, polished, or fractured, shows a lustrous appearance, and conducts electricity and heat relatively well. Metals are typical ...
. He repeatedly argued his case that in the (far) future, it will be scarcity of terrestrial material resources, and not of energy resources, that will prove to impose the most binding constraint on man's economy on earth. As he held no
space advocacy Space advocacy is supporting or advocating for a human use of outer space. Purposes advocated can reach from space exploration, or commercial use of space to even space settlement. There are many different individuals and organizations dedicat ...
views, Georgescu-Roegen failed to assess the (still) emerging technology of
asteroid mining Asteroid mining is the hypothetical exploitation of materials from asteroids and other minor planets, including near-Earth objects. Notable asteroid mining challenges include the high cost of spaceflight, unreliable identification of asteroids ...
or any other known type of space colonisation as potentials for compensating for this future scarcity constraint facing mankind: He was convinced that throughout its entire span of existence, our species will remain confined solely to earth for all practical purposes. His paradigmatic vision concluded thereby.


Controversies

Georgescu-Roegen's work was blemished somewhat by mistakes caused by his insufficient understanding of the physical science of
thermodynamics Thermodynamics is a branch of physics that deals with heat, work, and temperature, and their relation to energy, entropy, and the physical properties of matter and radiation. The behavior of these quantities is governed by the four laws ...
. While working on ''The Entropy Law and the Economic Process'' ( see above), Georgescu-Roegen had the firm understanding that the entropy law applies equally well to both energy resources and to material resources, and much of the reasoning in the opus rests on this understanding; but, regrettably for Georgescu-Roegen, this understanding was – and still is – false: In thermodynamics proper, the entropy law does apply to energy, but not to matter of macroscopic scale (that is, not to material resources). Later, when Georgescu-Roegen realised his mistake, his reaction passed through several stages of contemplation and refinement, ultimately leading to his formulation of a new physical law, namely the fourth law of thermodynamics. This fourth law states that complete recycling of matter is impossible. The purpose of Georgescu-Roegen's proposed fourth law was to substantiate his initial claim that not only energy resources, but also material resources, are subject to general and irreversible physical degradation when put to use in economic activity. In addition, he introduced the term 'material entropy' to describe this physical degradation of material resources. Georgescu-Roegen himself was not confident about this tentative solution to the problem. He remained embarrassed that he had misinterpreted, and consequently, overstretched the proper application of the physical law that formed part of the title of his magnum opus. He conceded that he had entered into the science of thermodynamics as something of a bold novice. Dedicated to
interdisciplinarity Interdisciplinarity or interdisciplinary studies involves the combination of multiple academic disciplines into one activity (e.g., a research project). It draws knowledge from several other fields like sociology, anthropology, psychology, ec ...
, he was worried that
physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate cau ...
s would dismiss all of his work as amateurism on this count. The predicament would trouble him for the rest of his life. In one of his last published articles before his death, Georgescu-Roegen described his encouragement when he had once earlier come across the concept of 'matter dissipation' used by German physicist and
Nobel Prize laureate The Nobel Prizes ( sv, Nobelpriset, no, Nobelprisen) are awarded annually by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Swedish Academy, the Karolinska Institutet, and the Norwegian Nobel Committee to individuals and organizations who make out ...
Max Planck Max Karl Ernst Ludwig Planck (, ; 23 April 1858 – 4 October 1947) was a German theoretical physicist whose discovery of energy quanta won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1918. Planck made many substantial contributions to theoretical p ...
to account for the existence of irreversible physical processes where no simultaneous transformation of energy was taking place. Georgescu-Roegen found consolation in the belief that the concept of 'matter dissipation' used by a physicist of Planck's authoritative standing would decisively substantiate his own fourth law and his own concept of material entropy. Georgescu-Roegen's formulation of a fourth law of thermodynamics and the concept of material entropy soon generated some controversy, involving both physicists and ecological economists. A full chapter on the economics of Georgescu-Roegen reviews this controversy and has approvingly been included in one elementary physics textbook on the historical development of thermodynamics, and the details (Georgescu-Roegen's mistakes) about the fourth law and material entropy are omitted there. Modelling a possible future economic system for mankind, Robert Ayres has countered Georgescu-Roegen's position on the impossibility of complete and perpetual recycling of material resources. According to Ayres, it is possible to develop what he conceptualises as a 'spaceship economy' on earth on a stable and permanent basis, provided that a sufficient flow of energy is available to support it (for example, by an ample supply of
solar energy Solar energy is radiant light and heat from the Sun that is harnessed using a range of technologies such as solar power to generate electricity, solar thermal energy (including solar water heating), and solar architecture. It is an essen ...
). In this spaceship economy, all waste materials will be temporarily discarded and stored in inactive reservoirs – or what he calls 'waste baskets' – before being recycled and returned to active use in the economic system at some later point in time. It will not be necessary, or even possible, for materials recycling to form its own separate and continuous flow to be of use – only, the waste baskets in question have to be large enough to compensate for the rate and the efficiency of the recycling effort. In effect, complete and perpetual recycling of material resources will be possible in a future spaceship economy of this kind specified, thereby rendering obsolete Georgescu-Roegen's proposed fourth law of thermodynamics, Ayres submits. In a later article, Ayres restated his case for a spaceship economy. In ecological economics, Ayres' contribution vis-à-vis Georgescu-Roegen's proposed fourth law was since described as yet another instance of the so-called 'energetic dogma': Earlier, Georgescu-Roegen had attached the label 'energetic dogma' to various theorists holding the view that only energy resources, and not material resources, are the constraining factor in all economic activity. Ayres appears to be the odd man out on this subject matter: Whatever the scientific status and validity of Georgescu-Roegen's fourth law may be, several other economists in the field besides Georgescu-Roegen deny the practical possibility of ever having complete and perpetual recycling of all material resources in any type of economic system, regardless of the amount of energy, time and information to be assigned to the recycling effort.


Prizes and awards


The Georgescu-Roegen Prize

Each year since 1987, the Georgescu-Roegen Prize has been awarded by the
Southern Economic Association The Southern Economic Association (SEA) is a regional-based scholarly economic An economy is an area of the production, distribution and trade, as well as consumption of goods and services. In general, it is defined as a social domain that e ...
for the best academic article published in the Southern Economic Journal.


The Georgescu-Roegen Annual Awards

In 2012, two awards in honour of Georgescu-Roegen's life and work were established by
The Energy and Resources Institute The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) is a research institute in New Delhi that specializes in the fields of energy, environment and sustainable development. Established in 1974, it was formerly known as the Tata Energy Research Institute. ...
in New Delhi, India: The Georgescu-Roegen Annual Awards. The awards were officially announced on Georgescu-Roegen's 106th birth anniversary. The awards have two categories: The award for 'unconventional thinking' is presented for scholarly work in academia, and the award for 'bioeconomic practice' is presented for initiatives in politics, business and grassroots organisations. Japanese ecological economist Kozo Mayumi, a student of Georgescu-Roegen from 1984 to 1988, was the first to receive the award in the 'unconventional thinking' category. Mayumi was awarded for his work on energy analysis and hierarchy theory.


Famous quotes


See also

* Ecological economics * Degrowth movement: Lasting influence on * Steady-state economy: Herman Daly's concept of it * '' The Limits to Growth'' * Sustainability: Carrying capacity *
Human overpopulation Humans (''Homo sapiens'') are the most abundant and widespread species of primate, characterized by bipedalism and exceptional cognitive skills due to a large and complex brain. This has enabled the development of advanced tools, cultu ...
*
Peak minerals Peak minerals marks the point in time when the largest production of a mineral will occur in an area, with production declining in subsequent years. While most mineral resources will not be exhausted in the near future, global extraction and pro ...
* Market failure: Ecological market failure * Sustainable development: Insubstantial stretching of the term *
The Energy and Resources Institute The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI) is a research institute in New Delhi that specializes in the fields of energy, environment and sustainable development. Established in 1974, it was formerly known as the Tata Energy Research Institute. ...
(TERI) *
Entropy Entropy is a scientific concept, as well as a measurable physical property, that is most commonly associated with a state of disorder, randomness, or uncertainty. The term and the concept are used in diverse fields, from classical thermodyna ...
*
Heat death of the universe The heat death of the universe (also known as the Big Chill or Big Freeze) is a hypothesis on the ultimate fate of the universe, which suggests the universe will evolve to a state of no thermodynamic free energy, and will therefore be un ...
* Pessimism: Philosophical pessimism


Notes


References


Further reading

* * * (Special issue) * * *


External links

* (Italian website) * (Introduction to the interview in Spanish (Castilian), the interview itself in English) * (Obituary) * (A thorough account of the historical development of ecological economics, including Georgescu-Roegen's contribution) * (A brief perspective on Georgescu-Roegen's entropy view) * (Blog lamenting the fact that Georgescu-Roegen was never awarded the
Nobel Prize in Economics The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, officially the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel ( sv, Sveriges riksbanks pris i ekonomisk vetenskap till Alfred Nobels minne), is an economics award administered ...
) * (Article speculating on one possible source of inspiration for the pontiff's controversial encyclical on ecological concerns) * (Article shedding some light on 'the famous entropy pessimist') * {{DEFAULTSORT:Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas 1906 births 1994 deaths 20th-century American economists 20th-century American mathematicians People from Constanța 20th-century Romanian mathematicians 20th-century Romanian economists Romanian refugees Romanian emigrants to the United States University of Bucharest alumni University of Paris alumni Alumni of University College London Rockefeller Fellows Fellows of the Econometric Society Distinguished Fellows of the American Economic Association Vanderbilt University faculty University of Bucharest faculty Ecological economists Energy economists Degrowth advocates People associated with criticism of economic growth Philosophical pessimists Romanian expatriates in France