User:Gaeanautes/Brief career

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In the history of economic thought, Georgescu-Roegen was the first economist of some standing to theorise on the premise that all of Earth's mineral resources will eventually be exhausted at some point. In his magnum opus, Georgescu-Roegen argues that economic scarcity is rooted in physical reality; that all natural resources are irreversibly degraded when put to use in economic activity; that the carrying capacity 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 presently being extracted and put to use; and consequently, that the world economy as a whole is heading towards an inevitable future collapse, leading to the demise of human civilisation itself. Due to the radical pessimism inherent in his work, based on the concept of entropy, the theoretical position of Georgescu-Roegen and his followers was later termed 'entropy pessimism'.

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Retirement, later years and death

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Georgescu's later years were marked by seclusion and withdrawal from the world. By now, Georgescu 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 and legendary martyr of science out of the Italian Renaissance, Georgescu grumbled and exclaimed: "E pur si muove is ordinarily attributed to Galileo, although those words were the last ones uttered by Giordano Bruno 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 may well be a stance favoured by a few solitary intellectuals like himself, but such a stance is normally shunned like a taboo in the wider human culture: "[A] 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.

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The relevance of thermodynamics to economics

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The science of thermodynamics features a cosmology of its own predicting the heat death of the universe: 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. 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 submits. Later, some of Georgescu's students and followers have expanded on this theme.

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

Marx was a past master of social conflict and change; but he was optimistic about the future communist society.

In his social theory, Georgescu 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. ...

Population pressure, mineral resource exhaustion and the end of mankind

See also: Global catastrophic risk, Human extinction, and Pessimism § Philosophical pessimism

Georgescu takes a dismal view on the future of mankind. On the one hand, his general argument is that the carrying capacity of Earth — that is, Earth's capacity to sustain human populations and consumption levels — is decreasing as Earth's finite stock of mineral resources is presently 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 supposed benefit of unknown future generations is running counter to our biological nature as a species considered: We cannot help ourselves. Consequently, the world economy will continue growing until its inevitable and final collapse in the future. From that point on, 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 now 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:

“ If we abstract from other causes that may knell the death bell of the human species, it is clear that natural resources represent the limitative factor as concerns the life span of that species. ... By using these resources too quickly, man throws away that part of solar energy that will still be reaching the Earth for a long time after he has departed. And everything man has done during the last two hundred years or so puts him in the position of a fantastic spendthrift. ... The realization of these truths will not make man willing to become less impatient and less prone to hollow wants.
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Population pressure and technological progress bring ceteris paribus the career of the human species nearer to its end only because both factors cause a speedier decumulation of its dowry [of mineral resources]. ... [W]e must not doubt that, man's nature being what it is, the destiny of the human species is to choose a truly great but brief, not a long and dull, career. ”

Georgescu's radically pessimistic 'existential risk' perspective on global mineral resource exhaustion was later countered by Robert Ayres (see below).

Famous quotes

• "One baby born now means one human life less in the future. But also every Cadillac produced at any time means fewer lives in the future. Up to this day, the price of technological progress has meant a shift from the more abundant source of low entropy — the solar radiation — to the less abundant one — the Earth's mineral resources."
• "One thought has persisted in my mind ever since I became interested in the entropic nature of the economic process. Will mankind listen to any program that implies a constriction of its addiction to exosomatic comfort? Perhaps, the destiny of man is to have a short, but fiery, exciting and extravagant life rather than a long, uneventful and vegetative existence. Let other species — the amoebas, for example — which have no social ambitions whatever inherit an Earth still bathed in plenty of sunshine."

See also

• Heat death of the universe
• Pessimism: Philosophical pessimism