Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (born Nicolae Georgescu, 4

Nicholas Georgescu-
February 1906 – 30 October 1994) was a Romanian
mathematician, statistician and economist. He is best known today Roegen
for his 1971 magnum opus The Entropy Law and the Economic Nicolae Georgescu
Process, in which he argued that all natural resources are Born February 4, 1906
irreversibly degraded when put to use in economic activity. A
Constanța,
progenitor and a paradigm founder in economics, Georgescu-
Romania
Roegen's work was decisive for the establishing of ecological
economics as an independent academic sub-discipline in Died October 30, 1994
economics. (aged 88)
Nashville,
Several economists have hailed Georgescu-Roegen as a man who Tennessee, United
lived well ahead of his time, and some historians of economic
States
thought have proclaimed the ingenuity of his
work.[8]: 7 9 [9]: 1  [10]: 1 02  In spite of such appreciation, Georgescu- Resting place Bellu Cemetery,
Roegen was never awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, Bucharest
although benefactors from his native Romania were lobbying for it Alma mater University of
on his behalf.[11]: 2 70f  After Georgescu-Roegen's death, his work Bucharest, Paris
was praised by a surviving friend of the highest rank: Prominent Institute of
Keynesian economist and Nobel Prize laureate Paul Samuelson
Statistics,
professed that he would be delighted if the fame Georgescu-
University College
Roegen did not fully realise in his own lifetime were granted by
London
posterity instead.[12]: x vii 
Known for Utility theory,
In the history of economic thought, Georgescu-Roegen was the consumer choice
first economist of some standing to theorise on the premise that all theory, production
of earth's mineral resources will eventually be exhausted at some
theory, biophysical
point.[5]: 1 3 [13]: 1 64f [9]: 1 60–171  In his paradigmatic magnum opus,
economics,
Georgescu-Roegen argues that economic scarcity is rooted in
ecological
physical reality; that all natural resources are irreversibly degraded
when put to use in economic activity; that the carrying capacity of economics
earth  – that is, earth's capacity to sustain human populations and Spouse Otilia Busuioc
consumption levels – is bound to decrease sometime in the future Awards The Harvie
as earth's finite stock of mineral resources is being extracted and
Branscomb Award
put to use; and consequently, that the world economy as a whole is
heading towards an inevitable future collapse, ultimately bringing Scientific career
about human extinction.[14] Due to the radical pessimism inherent Fields Economics,
in his work, based on the physical concept of entropy, the mathematics,
theoretical position of Georgescu-Roegen and his followers was statistics
later termed 'entropy pessimism'.[15]: 1 16 
Institutions University of
Early in his life, Georgescu-Roegen was the student and protégé of Bucharest (1932–46),
Joseph Schumpeter, who taught that irreversible evolutionary Harvard University
change and 'creative destruction' are inherent to capitalism.[4]: 1 38f  (1934–36)
, Vanderbilt
Later in life, Georgescu-Roegen was the teacher and mentor of University (1950–76),
Graduate Institute
Herman Daly, who then went on to develop the concept of a of International
steady-state economy to impose permanent government restrictions Studies (1974),
on the flow of natural resources through the (world) economy.[16] University of
Strasbourg (1977–
As he brought natural resource flows into economic modelling and 78)
analysis, Georgescu-Roegen's work was decisive for the
establishing of ecological economics as an independent academic Academic Traian Lalescu,
sub-discipline in economics in the advisors Émile Borel, Karl
1980s. [17]: 
1 50f 
[ 18]: 
6 5–68 [19]: 
4 22 
[ 20]: 
3 02f  In addition, the Pearson, Joseph
degrowth movement that formed in France and Italy in the early- Schumpeter
2000s recognises Georgescu-Roegen as the main intellectual figure
Doctoral Herman Daly
influencing the movement.[21]: 1 742 [22]: x i [23]: 1 f  Taken together,
students
by the 2010s Georgescu-Roegen had educated, influenced and
inspired at least three generations of people, including his Other notable Muhammad Yunus
contemporary peers, younger ecological economists, still younger students
degrowth organisers and activists, and others throughout the Influences Aristotle,[1] Rudolf
world.
Clausius,[2]: 187f 
The inability or reluctance of most mainstream economists to Ernst Mach,
recognise Georgescu-Roegen's work has been ascribed to the fact Maurice Allais
that much of his work reads like applied physics rather than Influenced Herman Daly,
economics, as this latter subject is generally taught and understood Jeremy Rifkin,
today.[24]: 7 1  [7]: 6 95  [25]: 1 06–109  Cutler J.
Cleveland,[3] John
Georgescu-Roegen's work was blemished somewhat by mistakes
caused by his insufficient understanding of the physical science of M. Gowdy,[4] André
thermodynamics. These mistakes have since generated some Gorz,[5]: 13  Joan
controversy, involving both physicists and ecological Martinez Alier,
economists.[26]: 2 1–28 [27][28]: 5 6f [29]: 1 215–1218  Jacques Grinevald,
Serge Latouche,

Life and career Malte Michael

Faber,[6]: 105f 
The life of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (born Nicolae Georgescu) Stefano
spanned most of the 20th century, from 1906 to 1994. In his native Zamagni,[7]: 695 
Romania, he lived through two world wars and three dictatorships Mauro Bonaiuti
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 before he finally turned against it and
published his paradigmatic 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, 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, 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. His father spent time teaching him how to read, write and calculate, and planted in the boy the seed
of intellectual curiosity. By her living example, Nicolae's mother taught her son the value of hard work.
After having lost his position in the army for disciplinary reasons, his father died when Nicolae was only
eight years old.[14]: x iv [1][30]: 1 –3 

Constanța was then a small Black Sea 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, and he was
encouraged by a teacher to apply for a scholarship at a secondary
school, the Lyceum Mânăstirea Dealu ("Lycée 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 City of Constanța in 1909
the family to Bucharest, 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.[31]: 9 –11 [32]: 1 6–20 [22]: 1 –3 

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 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
University of Bucharest c. 1921
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,
a renowned mathematician of the day who had taken a special interest in applying mathematical methods to
economic reality using statistics. 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, especially the works of Blaise Pascal, Ernst Mach, and Henri Bergson. 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, 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.[31]: 1 1f [33]: 1 29f [22]: 3 –5 [32]: 2 0–23 

While studying in Paris, Georgescu-Roegen learned of the work of Karl Pearson at University College 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 Pearson's field of interests

representative of the US-based Rockefeller Foundation. Due to his past coincided with Georgescu-
academic achievements, the foundation wanted to grant Georgescu-Roegen Roegen's own.
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, 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, 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, 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 cycles to see if there were any other opportunities available to him. This professor
happened to be Joseph Schumpeter.[31]: 1 1–13 [30]: 3 –5 [32]: 2 2–24 [22]: 5 –8 

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,
Fritz Machlup, and Nicholas Kaldor, 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."[33]: 1 30  Schumpeter became
Georgescu-Roegen's mentor
While at Harvard, Georgescu-Roegen published four important papers,
at Harvard.
laying the foundations for his later theories of consumption and
production.[34][35][36][37] 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, Harold
Hotelling, and other leading economists of the day. He also met Albert Einstein at Princeton University.

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.[33]: 1 32 [22]: 7 f 

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 and John Hicks at the London School of Economics 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.[31]: 1 3f [30]: 5 –7 [22]: 8 –10 

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
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.

During most of the war, Romania
was an Axis power allied with Nazi
Germany "... against Bolshevism."
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, 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 As the communists rose to power,
against the occupying power; and his earlier affiliation with the leading members of the National
capitalist US as a Rockefeller research fellow at Harvard Peasants' Party were rounded up
University. Political repression in the country intensified as the rise and put on show trial in 1947. Many
to power of the communists was completing, and Georgescu- were sentenced to life imprisonment.
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."[33]: 1 33  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 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. 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.[31]: 1 4–18 [32]: 2 4–27 

While working at Harvard, Georgescu-Roegen was approached by Vanderbilt University, who offered him
a permanent academic chair as economics professor. Georgescu-Roegen accepted the offer and moved to
Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tennessee 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.[31]: 1 4f  It has also been argued that Joseph Schumpeter 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).[22]: 1 1  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. 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 Vanderbilt University
Fellow of the American Economic Association.[31]: 1 6 

In the early-1960s, Georgescu-Roegen had Herman Daly as a student.[20]: 3 05  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.[16]: 7 –12 [17][38][39]: 6 1–76 [40][41]: 5 45f 
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.[42]: 2 274 

Through the 1970s, Georgescu-Roegen had a short-lived cooperation with the Club of Rome. 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.[43] 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.[44] 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 Meadows was the director
computer simulations of the world economy, and then publish all the of the Club of Rome project
findings to the general public. In the early-1980s, the parties finally split at MIT in 1970–72.
up.[42][22]: 3 3f [45]: 1 1f 

In continental Europe, Georgescu-Roegen and his work gained influence

from the 1970s. When Georgescu-Roegen delivered a lecture at the
University of Geneva in Switzerland in 1974, he made a lasting impression
on the young and newly graduated French historian and philosopher
Jacques Grinevald.[46]: 1 5f  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.[47][note 1] 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 Martínez-Alier has been a
the later followers of the degrowth movement.[44][41]: 5 44  In the 1980s, driving force behind both
Georgescu-Roegen met and befriended Catalan agricultural economist and ecological economics and
historian of economic thought Juan Martínez-Alier, who would soon after the degrowth movement. He
become a driving force in the establishing of both the International Society has also published a
for Ecological Economics and the degrowth movement.[20]: 3 07–310 [48]: 2   historical study of various
Since the degrowth movement formed in France and Italy in the early- ecological theorists
2000s, leading French champion of the movement Serge Latouche has preceding Georgescu-
credited Georgescu-Roegen for being a "main theoretical source of Roegen.[9]
degrowth."[49]: 1 3–16  Likewise, Italian degrowth theorist Mauro Bonaiuti
has considered Georgescu-Roegen's work to be "one of the analytical
cornerstones of the degrowth perspective."[22]: x i 

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.[31]: 1 6–18 [38]: 1 26f [12]: x vii [20]: 3 10f [32][42]

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.[50] No
fewer than four Nobel Prize laureates were among the contributing economists;[17]: 1 50  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.[32]: 1 4f 

Retirement, later years and death

After Georgescu-Roegen's formal retirement from Vanderbilt in 1976, he continued to live and work as an
emeritus 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.[51][52][53][54][2] He also corresponded
extensively with his few friends and former colleagues.[22]: 2 22–241 

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; 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 and steady-state economics, concepts he
himself dismissed as misdirected and wrong (see below, both here and here). Georgescu-Roegen had more
ambitious goals in mind: He wanted to overturn and replace the prevailing, but flawed, mainstream
paradigm of neoclassical economics 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.[41]: 5 47 [42]: 2 271 [22]: 4 1–48 [55]: 1 46 

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 and the subsequent Romanian Revolution in 1989, Georgescu-Roegen was elected to the
Romanian Academy in Bucharest. He was pleased by his election.[31]: 1 6 

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 and
legendary martyr of science out of the Italian Renaissance, Georgescu-Roegen 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!"[33]: 1 54  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
wider human culture: "[A] considered pessimist is looked upon as a bearer of bad news and ... is not
welcomed ever ...", he lamented.[56]: 1 65  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.[8]: 7 9 

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.[17]: 1 54 [31]: 1 8 [22]: 3 7  At his express request, his ashes were brought to
Romania and deposited at Bellu Cemetery, in the sector reserved for academics.[57]
In his obituary essay on Georgescu-Roegen, Herman Daly wrote admirably of his deceased teacher and
mentor, concluding that "He demanded a lot, but he gave more." [17]: 1 54  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.[7]: 7 05 

Work
In his work as an economist, Georgescu-Roegen was influenced by the philosophy of Ernst Mach and the
later school of logical positivism derived from Mach. Georgescu-Roegen found that two of his other main
sources of inspiration, namely Karl Pearson and Albert Einstein, also had a largely Machian outlook. "My
philosophy is in spirit Machian: it is ... mainly [concerned] with the problem of valid analytical
representations of the relations among facts."[33]: 1 29f  Much of his criticism of both neoclassical economics
and of Marxism was based on this outlook.[31]: 4 0 

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 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.[33]: 1 29f [42]: 2 273 

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.[4]: 1 37f 

Magnum opus on The Entropy Law and the Economic Process

According to Georgescu-Roegen's own recollection, the ideas presented in his paradigmatic magnum opus
were worked out in his mind over a period of twenty years or so before the final publication.[14]: x iv  The
three most important sources of inspiration for his work were Émile Borel's monograph on thermodynamics
he had read while studying in Paris (see above); Joseph Schumpeter's view that irreversible evolutionary
changes are inherent in capitalism; 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.[33]: 1 46, 1 53 [56]: 1 61f [4]: 1 39f [2]: 1 85f, 1 96f [30]: 6  

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 and Marxism – share the shortcoming of not
taking into account the importance of natural resources in man's economy.[14]: 2   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 in an isolated system, entropy, a measure of
the disorder in a system, normally cannot decrease.
Georgescu-Roegen argues that the relevance of thermodynamics 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.[14]: 2 80 

Thermodynamics has relevance to cosmology via the hypothesis of the heat death of the universe.
Georgescu-Roegen sees the transformation of energy – whether in nature or in human society – as moving
the universe closer towards a final state of inert physical, statistical uniformity and maximum entropy.
Georgescu-Roegen argues from this inspiration from cosmology that humanity's economic activities shorten
the time frame to planetary heat death, locally on Earth.[14]: 2 76–283  This view on the economy was later
termed 'entropy pessimism'.[15]: 1 16  Some of Georgescu-Roegen's followers and interpreters have
elaborated on this view.[58]: 3 3–43 [6]: 1 07–112 [28]: 4 6–49 [25]: 1 06–109 

Conceptions of scarcity

Georgescu-Roegen's principal argument is that economic scarcity is rooted in physical reality. Introducing
the term 'low entropy' for valuable natural resources, and the term 'high entropy' for valueless waste and
pollution, 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 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 (according to the entropy law).[14]: 2 77–282 

Georgescu-Roegen points out that the earth is a closed system 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 The sun will continue to shine on
arrives at the surface of the earth at a constant and fixed rate, earth for billions of years to come.
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 for not taking this subjection properly
into account in his theory of historical materialism.[14]: 3 13 

Georgescu-Roegen explains that modern mechanised agriculture 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,
chemical fertilisers and pesticides 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 of earth is
decreasing.[14]: 3 03 [58]: 1 36–140 [13]: 1 63f [9]: 2 0–44 [59]: 1 0f  In effect,
overpopulation on earth is largely a dynamic long run phenomenon,
being a by-product of ever more constraining mineral
scarcities.[14]: 2 0f [60]: 3 2–34 

The production process and the flow-fund model

Georgescu-Roegen's model of the economy grew out of his

Modern mechanised agriculture
dissatisfaction with neoclassical production theory as well as the
relies heavily on mineral inputs.
input-output model of the economy, developed by Nobel Prize
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".[31]: 6 5–71  [4]: 1 47–149  [39]: 7 0–72  [61]: 1 06–109 

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, matter
and energy are neither created nor destroyed in the economy (the
conservation principle). According to the second law of
thermodynamics – 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 resources ("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 and pollution ("high entropy") eventually Natural resources flow through the
economy and end up as waste and
accumulate by the output end. Mankind lives in, by, and of nature,
pollution.
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, as well as
classical economics, including most  – though not all  – variants of Marxism.[note 2] Only in ecological
economics are natural resource flows positively recognised as a valid theoretical basis for economic
modelling and analysis.[9]: 1 –3 [18]: 5 7–62 [11]: 2 66–268 

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.[note 3]
In 1992, Mario Morroni presented a development of the flow-fund model for applied analysis.[67] This
model has been implemented in some case studies regarding the textile industry, electronic devices for
telecommunication industry,[67][76] shoe industry,[77] and tie industry.[78]

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 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, Georgescu-Roegen asserts:

Marx was optimistic about

[L]ike Marx, I believe that the social conflict is not a mere the future communist
creation of man without any root in material human conditions. society; but Georgescu-
But unlike Marx, I consider that, precisely because the conflict Roegen objected that
has such a basis, it can be eliminated neither by man's decision social conflict will never
to do so nor by the social evolution of mankind.[14]: 3 06  be eliminated.

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, 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.[14]: 3 06–315 [31]: 1 20–124 [79]

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. [44]: 
3 69 
[ 33]: 
1 52–154 
[ 4]: 
1 49 
[ 28]: 
1 f  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.[31]: 1 20  He did manage to write a sketch on
it, though.[52]

Population pressure, mineral resource exhaustion and the end of mankind

Georgescu-Roegen takes a dismal view on human nature and 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 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 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:

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.[14]: 2 1 
...
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.[14]: 3 04 

Georgescu-Roegen's radically pessimistic 'existential risk' perspective on global mineral resource

exhaustion was later countered by Robert Ayres (see below).[80]

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.[note 4]

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.[44]: 3 47f  A misrepresentation such as this fails to take into account the exhaustion of mineral
resources at the input end, and the building up of waste and pollution 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'.[44]: 3 75 [81]: 1 05 [60]: 3 3f [9]: 1 56–160 [55]: 1 43f  On this issue, notable economists and Nobel Prize
laureates Robert Solow and Joseph Stiglitz, 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);[82]: 3 66f  or even ignored altogether
(according to Stiglitz).[83]: 6 1f 

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.[84]: 9 –13 

In response to the position of Solow and Stiglitz, Georgescu- Solow is a leading growth theorist in
Roegen argues that neoclassical economists generally fail to realise the neoclassical tradition.
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 or electricity – 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 The Breit–Wheeler process
(resources transformed in the economy); but never that of a fund represents the only known example
factor (man-made capital in the economy). Hence, substituting man- of a process where energy (photons)
made capital for energy resources is physically impossible. is transformed into mass (positron-
electron pairs); but even in this
Furthermore, not all material resources are transformed into man- special experimental case, the
made capital; instead, some material resources are manufactured resulting elementary particles cannot
directly into consumer goods having only a limited durability. combine to form atomic structures
Finally, in the course of time, all man-made capital depreciates, having economic value. A process
wears out and needs replacement; but both old and new man-made where pure energy is transformed
capital is made out of material resources to begin with. All in all, the into useful materials remains to be
economic process is indeed a process with steadily increasing discovered.
entropy, and the 'mechanical' notion of across the board
substitutability prevalent in neoclassical economics is untenable,
Georgescu-Roegen submits.[44]: 3 59–363 [81]: 9 8 [38]: 1 27–136 [79]

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."[81]: 1 05 
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.[16]: 3 69–371 [58]: 2 53–256 [13]: 1 65 [9]: 1 68–171 [4]: 1 50–153 [25]: 1 06–109 [41]: 5 46–549 [55]: 1 42–145  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.[84]: 1 3–15  Later still, Turner's taxonomy of 'weak' and 'strong'
sustainability was integrated into ecological economics.[3]: 2 05–209 [85]: 1 4–19 [15]: 1 15f [86][87] 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 as only so much 'snake oil'
intended to deceive the general public.[4]: 1 53 [41]: 5 47  In his last years, he even denounced the notion
bitterly as "one of the most toxic recipes for mankind": It is a gross contradiction in terms to speak of a
'sustainable' rate of extraction and use of a finite stock of non-renewable mineral resources – any rate will
obviously reduce the remaining stock itself.[22]: 2 39f  Consequently, the Industrial Revolution as a whole 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 is a former student and protégé of
Georgescu-Roegen. In the 1970s, Daly developed the concept of a steady-state economy, 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.[16] In
several articles, Georgescu-Roegen criticised his student's concept of a steady-state
economy.[44]: 3 66–369 [51]: 2 70 [81]: 1 02–105 [56]: 1 67f [2]: 1 94 [41]: 5 47 [55]: 1 40–148 

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 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,
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 Mining activities are subject to
before the physical exhaustion provides the ultimate backstop for diminishing returns.
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; 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 (https://people.unipi.it/tommaso_luzzati/economia-ambiente-e-politiche-ambientali/pr
ogramma-bioeconomico-minimale/746-2/)', featuring quantitative restrictions even more severe than those
propounded by Daly.[44]: 3 74–379 [4]: 1 50–153 [45]: 1 3f [55]: 1 42–146 [note 5]

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 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 is decreasing as mankind is
extracting the finite mineral stock.[16]: 3 69–371 

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.[60]: 3 0–34 [13]: 1 65–167 [88]: 9 0f [6]: 1 05–107 [8]: 7 5f [89]: 2 70 [41]: 5 48 [59]: 3 7 

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.[53]: 1 041–1055  [90][54]: 1 4–18  [2]: 1 95f  [3]: 2 18f 
[31]: 1 24–126 

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

was fire. 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, the Titan
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, feeding on grass and other biomass (like fire does).

Much later in the history of man, the steam engine came about as the crucial
Promethean recipe of the second kind, feeding on coal. 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 in Prometheus I: The
Britain in the second half of the 18th century, whereby man's economy has mastering of fire in the
been thrust into a long, never-to-return overshoot-and-collapse trajectory Palaeolithic Era.
with regard to the earth's mineral stock. Georgescu-Roegen lists the internal
combustion engine and the nuclear fission reactor as other, later examples of
Promethean recipes of the second kind, namely heat engines feeding on a mineral fuel (oil and uranium
(plus thorium), 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
Prometheus III: Solar collectors
reproduction with regard to solar
returning a sufficiently large energy
energy only. The fact that solar
output. Georgescu-Roegen believed
collectors of various kinds had
that no technology of this kind was yet
Prometheus II: The steam been in operation on a substantial
around in the world in his day.
engine of the Industrial scale for more than a century
Revolution. 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.[53]: 1 053–1055 [33]: 1 51 [2]: 1 96  Later, some scholars have argued that the
efficiency of solar collectors has increased considerably since Georgescu-Roegen made these
assessments.[80]: 4 79f [27]: 1 76f 

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 fuels and uranium
(plus thorium) 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. [53]: 
1 050 
[ 58]: 
1 96–204 
[ 3]: 
2 19 
[ 59]: 
1 2f 

Assessing fusion power 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).[2]: 1 96  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.

All of these technology assessments have to do with energy resources

By the 1990s, the technology
only, and not with material resources. Georgescu-Roegen stressed the
of fusion power was still in the
point that even with the proliferation of solar collectors throughout the
making. The research &
surface of the globe, or the advent of fusion power, or both, any
development continues today...
industrial economy will still depend on a steady flow of material
resources extracted from the crust of the earth, notably metals. 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.[44]: 3 77 [51]: 2 68f [53]: 1 049 [81]: 9 8f  As he held no space advocacy
views, Georgescu-Roegen failed to assess the (still) emerging
technology of asteroid mining 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.[52]: 3 61f  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 Will mankind remain confined
thermodynamics. While working on The Entropy Law and the to earth forever ... ?
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;[14]: 1 87–195, 2 77–282, et passim  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). [91]: 
2 39–276 
[ note 6] 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.[note 7] 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
The entropy law does not
to general and irreversible physical degradation when put to use in
apply to material resources.
economic activity. In addition, he introduced the term 'material entropy' to
describe this physical degradation of material resources.[31]: 1 04f 

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, he was worried that physicists would
dismiss all of his work as amateurism on this count. The predicament would
trouble him for the rest of his life.[33]: 1 48f [2]: 1 96f [1][22]: 2 38  In his last
published article on the subject matter before his death, Georgescu-Roegen
recollected his encouragement when he had once earlier come across the
concept of 'matter dissipation' used by German physicist and Nobel Prize
laureate Max Planck 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 Planck had used the
'matter dissipation' used by a physicist of Planck's authoritative standing concept of 'matter
would decisively substantiate his own fourth law and his own concept of dissipation' in some of his
material entropy.[2]: 1 97 [28]: 5 7–60  work.

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.[92][93][31]: 1 03–107 [26]: 2 1–28 [27][28]: 5 6f [94]: 2 5–29 [95][96]: 1 10 [97][29]: 1 215–1218 
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.[25]: 9 5–112 

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). 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 Ayres countered
recycling to form its own separate and continuous flow to be of use – only, the waste Georgescu-
baskets in question have to be large enough to compensate for the rate and the Roegen's
efficiency of the recycling effort. In effect, complete and perpetual recycling of pessimism and
material resources will be possible in a future spaceship economy of this kind argued in favour
specified, thereby rendering obsolete Georgescu-Roegen's proposed fourth law of of a 'spaceship
thermodynamics, Ayres submits.[80] In a later article, Ayres restated his case for a economy'.
spaceship economy.[98]: 2 90–294 

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':[41]: 5 47  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.[53]: 1 024–1029 [3]: 2 11f [79][note 8]
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.[58]: 3 6f  [13]: 1 64–167  [6]: 1 05–107  [99][28]: 6 0–64  [63]: 1 55–161  [100][59]: 2 92–294  [101]: 1 0f 
[102]: 4 6–49 

Prizes and awards

The Georgescu-Roegen Prize

Each year since 1987, the Georgescu-Roegen Prize has been awarded by the Southern Economic
Association for the best academic article published in the Southern Economic Journal.[103]

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 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.[104]: 4 1–44 

Famous quotes
"'Bigger and better' motorcycles, automobiles, jet planes, refrigerators, etc., necessarily
cause not only 'bigger and better' depletion of natural resources, but also 'bigger and better'
pollution."[44]: 357 
"William Petty was right in teaching that 'Nature is the mother and labour is the father of all
wealth' — only, he should have said '... of our existence'."[53]: 1042 
"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."[44]: 378f 

See also
Romania portal

Biography portal
Business and
economics portal
Ecology portal
Environment
portal
Physics portal

Energy portal
Technology
portal
 Ecological economics
Degrowth movement: Lasting influence on
Steady-state economy: Herman Daly's concept of it
The Limits to Growth
Carrying capacity
Human overpopulation
Peak minerals
Market failure: Ecological market failure
Sustainable development: Critique
The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)
Entropy
Heat death of the universe
Pessimism: Philosophical pessimism

Notes
1. The translation of the French term décroissance has evolved over time. An account of the
politics and semantics involved in the development is provided here.
2. Some Marxist scholars have made bold attempts at integrating Marxism and
ecology.[62][63][64]
3. See, for example:[65][66][67][68][69][70][71][72][73][74] For a critical review of this literature,
see:[75]
4. A selection of these articles has been edited and republished by Italian degrowth theorist
Mauro Bonaiuti, who also provides an introduction and an afterword.[22]
5. Among other issues, Georgescu-Roegen calls for the gradual lowering of world population
to a level that can be adequately fed and sustained by organic farming only.
6. Although the entropy law does not apply to matter of macroscopic scale, it does apply to
microscopic matter, per the kinetic theory of gases.[25]: 57–60 
7. The third law of thermodynamics states that the entropy of a system approaches a constant
value as the temperature approaches zero. This third law had long since been firmly
established in physics when Georgescu-Roegen realised his mistake about the second law
(entropy law). Hence, Georgescu-Roegen chose to enumerate his new law as the fourth one
in the line, although at this point the Onsager reciprocal relations had been enumerated thus
already.
8. The subject of 'energetics' itself originated in the second half of the 19th century.

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Further reading
Tang, Anthony M.; et al., eds. (1976). Evolution, Welfare and Time in Economics: Essays in
Honor of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. Lexington, Massachusetts: Lexington Books.
Drăgan, Joseph C.; Demetrescu, Mihai C.; et al., eds. (1993). Entropy and Bioeconomics.
Milan: Nagard Publishers.
Daly, Herman E., ed. (1997). "The Contribution of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen" (https://ww
w.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/09218009/22/3). Ecological Economics. 22 (3).
(Special issue)
Beard, T. Randolph; Lozada, Gabriel (1999). Economics, Entropy and the Environment: The
Extraordinary Economics of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar.
ISBN 978-1840641226.
Mayumi, Kozo; Gowdy, John M., eds. (1999). Bioeconomics and Sustainability: Essays in
Honor of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar. ISBN 978-1858986678.
Bonaiuti, Mauro, ed. (2011). From Bioeconomics to Degrowth: Georgescu-Roegen's "New
Economics" in eight essays. London: Routledge. ISBN 978-0203830413.

External links
"Bibliography of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen" (http://www.georgescuroegen.org/?page_id=
2). Associazione Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. Retrieved 19 October 2016. (Italian website)
Antonio Valero (1991). "An interview with Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen" (http://habitat.aq.up
m.es/boletin/n4/aaval.html) (Location: Nashville, Tennessee). Boletín Cf+S (4). Retrieved
15 August 2016. (Introduction to the interview in Spanish (Castilian), the interview itself in
English)
Sylvia Nasar (1994). "Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Leading Economist, Dies at 88" (https://
www.nytimes.com/1994/11/05/obituaries/nicholas-georgescu-roegen-leading-economist-die
s-at-88.html). New York Times. Retrieved 15 August 2016. (Obituary)
Robert Nadeau (2008). "Environmental and ecological economics" (http://editors.eol.org/eoe
arth/wiki/Environmental_and_ecological_economics). The Encyclopedia of Earth. Retrieved
11 February 2017. (A thorough account of the historical development of ecological
economics, including Georgescu-Roegen's contribution)
Rex Weyler (2010). "Deep Green: Entropy and Ecology" (http://www.greenpeace.org/internat
ional/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/deep-green-entropy-and-ecology/blog/31985/).
Greenpeace International. Retrieved 15 August 2016. (A brief perspective on Georgescu-
Roegen's entropy view)
Lars P. Syll (2012). "Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and the Nobel Prize in economics" (http
s://larspsyll.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/nicholas-georgescu-roegen-and-the-nobel-prize-in-e
conomics/). WordPress. Retrieved 23 November 2017. (Blog lamenting the fact that
Georgescu-Roegen was never awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics)
Jonathan Mingle (2015). "Pope Francis would love the obscure theories of this dead
Romanian economist" (http://qz.com/510096). Quartz. Retrieved 15 August 2016. (Article
speculating on one possible source of inspiration for the pontiff's controversial encyclical on
ecological concerns)
Martin Sers (2017). "Georgescu-Roegen: The Genius Pessimist and the Philosopher of
Process" (https://e4a-net.org/2017/03/29/georgescu-roegen-the-genius-pessimist-and-the-p
hilosopher-of-process-by-martin-sers/). Economics for the Anthropocene. Retrieved
31 August 2017. (Article shedding some light on 'the famous entropy pessimist')
 "Facebook profile of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen" (https://www.facebook.com/georgescu.ro
egen/). Facebook. Retrieved 15 August 2016.

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