Publication Date
6-15-2023
Document Type
Working Paper
Advisor
Professor John Hall
Journal of Economic Literature Classification Codes
O44, Q01, Q32, Q57
Key Words
Ecological Economics, Entropy Law, Indigenous Conservation, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen
Abstract
This inquiry seeks to establish that ideas advanced by economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen fall short and are deserving of a critique. Certainly, Georgescu-Roegen provided a foundation for the area of inquiry known as Ecological Economics. As suggested with the title, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971), in this book Professor Georgescu-Roegen relates the Law of Entropy drawn from Physics to the economic process, in an effort to raise his concern over the finiteness of resources. In the modern, industrial economic system that he considers, he regards that goods with low entropy are consumed, and that their entropy increases until reaching a state of annihilation. While indeed Georgescu-Roegen offers novel ideas, his efforts fall short by failing to consider economic systems of selected Indigenous communities that have been able to prevent the entropy process from reaching a state of annihilation within their ecosystems through conservation techniques.
Rights
© 2023 Chloe Kneedler
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Persistent Identifier
https://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/40465
Citation Details
Kneedler, Chloe. "Some Challenges to Ideas Advanced by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Working Paper No. 81", Portland State University Economics Working Papers 81. (5 June 2023) i + 16 pages.