The Entropy Law and the Economic Process.

GEORGESCU-ROEGEN, Nicholas (1906-1994):

ISBN 10: 0674257804 / ISBN 13: 9780674257801

Published by Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971., 1971

About this Item

First Edition. xv, 1 leaf, 457 pp. Original cloth. Near Fine, in very good dust jacket. '. . . His ideas were further developed and consolidated in his magnum opus, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971). Georgescu-Roegen's claims, among others, were that an economy faces limits to growth, for which he invoked the Second Law of Thermodynamics ('useful energy gets dissipated'). Although generally ignored by mainstream economics, he was hailed by the fledlging environmental movement and, until the end of his life, never ceased to speak out on his ideas for a new approach to economic theory. Today, his work is gaining influence, and his insights are being grafted into the new field of evolutionary economics' (History of Economic Thought Web site). Seller Inventory # 10868

Bibliographic Details

Title: The Entropy Law and the Economic Process.

Publisher: Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971.

Publication Date: 1971

Binding: Hardcover

Condition: Near Fine

Dust Jacket Condition: Very Good

Edition: 1st Edition

About this title

Synopsis:

"Every few generations a great seminal book comes along that challenges economic analysis and through its findings alters men's thinking and the course of societal change. This is such a book, yet it is more. It is a "poetic" philosophy, mathematics, and science of economics. It is the quintessence of the thought that has been focused on the economic reality. Henceforce all economists must take these conclusions into account lest their analyses and scholarship be found wanting.

"The entropy of the physical universe increases constantly because there is a continuous and irrevocable qualitative degradation of order into chaos. The entropic nature of the economic process, which degrades natural resources and pollutes the environment, constitutes the present danger. The earth is entropically winding down naturally, and economic advance is accelerating the process. Man must learn to ration the meager resources he has so profligately squandered if he is to survive in the long run when the entropic degradation of the sun will be the crucial factor, "for suprising as it may seem, the entire stock of natural resources is not worth more than a few days of sunlight!" Georgescu-Rogen has written our generation's classic in the field of economics."—Library Journal