The entropy law and the economic process
by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen · first published 1971
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…one of the most important books of the 20th century. 5. Formulator of the maxim, "anyone who believes in infinite growth on a finite planet is either mad or an economist". 6. Georgescu-Roegen's The Entropy Law and the Economic Process is excellent, but also famously impenetrable. Still recommended. The work is in many ways similar to Frederick Soddy's, though G-R doesn't cite this, see: Wealth, Virtual Wealth, and Debt https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth,_Virtual_Wealth_and_Deb...…
on “Galactic-Scale Energy (2011)” ↗…read him until now, to be honest, but this discussion and some other recent threads from HN make me really want to start reading Georgescu-Roegen's work [1]: > He is best known today for his 1971 The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, in which he argued that all natural resources are irreversibly degraded when put to use in economic activity. A progenitor and a paradigm founder in economics, Georgescu-Roegen's work was decisive for…
on “'Asymptotic burnout' of planet-scale civilizations may explain Fermi Paradox” ↗There’s also almost the entire economics-related work of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. From his Wikipedia page: > He is best known today for his 1971 magnum opus The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, in which he argued that all natural resources are irreversibly degraded when put to use in economic activity. A progenitor and a paradigm founder in economics, Georgescu-Roegen's work was decisive for…
on “The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2025” ↗> His main idea, exposed in The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971), was that economic organisation is a continuation of biological organisation. Why? Because all machines are necessarily made of materials and use energy, and because all labour involves our biological…
on “Examples of Post-Growth Practices” ↗