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From Bioeconomics to Degrowth

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1906–94) is considered one of the founders of ecological economics, which he himself, however, defined as bioeconomics. Based on a profound rethinking of the epistemological foundations of neoclassical economics, bioeconomics represents a new paradigm compared to both the standard and the Marxist approaches. Opening up economics to natural sciences led Georgescu-Roegen to point out the biophysical limits to growth. On the other hand, his positive approach to the analysis of social reality, with the careful attention he paid to the institutional and cultural premises that have characterized the history of development since the very beginning of time, led him in the latter years of his life to criticize very strongly the paradigm of sustainable development, which rapidly became dominant within ecological economics. Thus it was that his criticism disappeared when he died only to re-emerge recently thanks to research into his archives and to the interest in his viewpoints within the new framework of “sustainable degrowth.” As a result, Georgescu-Roegen’s bioeconomics is now considered one of the analytical cornerstones of the degrowth standpoint. This book aims to pick up the original spirit that characterized Georgescu-Roegen’s bioeconomic project in two ways: first, by collecting Goergescu-Roegen’s main contributions to bioeconomic theory, some of which are still unpublished, and, second, by recuperating that “full multidisciplinarity” that involves both the biophysical and the socioanthropological analyses that represent the essential characteristics of the bioeconomic approach. Today the world is facing an unprecedented crisis in both the ecological and the social fields. If the analysis proposed here is correct, within a few decades the basic economic institutions will be very different from those dominant today as a consequence of a process of adaptation to new ecological and social constraints. This is the reason that induced the editor, in the concluding essay, to attempt to individuate some “fundamental processes” that, in the interface among physical, biological and social organizations, may help to understand the long term evolutionary dynamics of the system. In this framework, the process of the formation of a new social imaginary is showed to play a decisive role in determining, among the various eventual scenarios, which future path humanity will choose to follow. This volume therefore makes an important contribution to the literature on this topic and will be of great benefit to researchers and professionals alike. Mauro Bonaiuti is one of the first scholars to devote his research to the field of sustainable degrowth and is also considered one of the major experts on Georgescu-Roegen. At present he is teaching at the University of Turin, Italy.

Routledge studies in ecological economics

Sustainability Networks Cognitive tools for expert collaboration in social–ecological systems Janne Hukkinen Drivers of Environmental Change in Uplands Aletta Bonn, Tim Allot, Klaus Hubaceck and Jon Stewart Resilience, Reciprocity and Ecological Economics Northwest coast sustainability Ronald L. Trosper Environment and Employment A reconciliation Philip Lawn Philosophical Basics of Ecology and Economy Malte Faber and Reiner Manstetten Carbon Responsibility and Embodied Emissions Theory and measurement João F. D. Rodrigues, Alexandra P.S. Marques and Tiago M. D. Domingos Environmental Social Accounting Matrices Theory and applications Pablo Martínez de Anguita and John E. Wagner Greening the Economy Integrating economics and ecology to make effective change Bob Williams Sustainable Development Capabilities, needs, and well-being Edited by Felix Rauschmayer, Ines Omann and Johannes Frühmann

The Planet in 2050 The Lund Discourse of the future Edited by Jill Jäger and Sarah Cornell From Bioeconomics to Degrowth Georgescu-Roegen’s “New Economics” in eight essays Edited by Mauro Bonaiuti

From Bioeconomics to Degrowth Georgescu-Roegen’s “New Economics” in eight essays Edited by Mauro Bonaiuti

First published 2011 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon, OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2011 selection and editorial matter, Mauro Bonaiuti; individual chapters, the contributors. The right of Mauro Bonaiuti to be identified as editor of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patent Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data 1. Introduction (Mauro Bonaiuti) 2. The Entropy Law and the Economic Problem 3. Energy and Economic Myths 4. The Steady State and the Ecological Salvation: A Thermodynamic Analysis 5. Inequality, Limits and Growth from a Bioeconomic Viewpoint 6. Energy Analysis and Economic Valuation 7. Bioeconomics and Ethics 8. Feasible Recipes Versus Viable Technologies 9. Quo vadis homo sapiens-sapiens 10. From Bioeconomics to Degrowth (Mauro Bonaiuti) ISBN: 978–0–415–58700–6 (hbk) ISBN: 978–0–203–83041–3 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by RefineCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk

Contents

Acknowledgements Preface

ix x

Introduction: Georgescu-Roegen, the man and scientist

1

MAURO BONAIUTI

1 The Entropy Law and the economic problem (1970)

49

NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN

2 Energy and economic myths (1972)

58

NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN

3 The steady state and ecological salvation (1977): a thermodynamic analysis

93

NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN

4 Inequality, limits and growth from a bioeconomic viewpoint (1978)

103

NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN

5 Energy analysis and economic valuation (1979)

114

NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN

6 Bioeconomics and ethics (1983)

142

NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN

7 Feasible recipes versus viable technologies (1983) NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN

146

viii Contents

8 Quo vadis Homo sapiens sapiens? (1989): a query

158

NICHOLAS GEORGESCU-ROEGEN

Conclusion: from bioeconomics to degrowth

171

MAURO BONAIUTI

Notes Correspondence Georgescu-Roegen’s books and papers General bibliography Index

195 215 241 256 273

Acknowledgements

I should like to thank Serge Latouche, Joan Martinez-Alier, David Lane and the group of researchers at the Autonomous University in Barcelona, in particular Federico Demaria, Giorgos Kallis and François Schneider, for having read and offered me their comments on the proofs of this work. I am also grateful to my friends Roberto Burlando, Paolo Cacciari, Marco Deriu, Chiara Marchetti, Fiorenzo Martini, Ferruccio Nilia, Dario Padovan, Auretta Pini and Gianni Tamino for the continual observations, and criticisms, with which in the course of recent years they have enlivened all the times we have met to discuss the questions of degrowth. My thanks also go to Carmel Ace for her help with the English edition of the work and to Hariton C. Sprinceanu for authorizing the publication of the hitherto unpublished material from the G-R Archive in the Special Collection Library at Duke University. Finally, I am greatly indebted to Dalma for our daily discussions, particularly on the theme of the imaginary. However, I probably owe my most particular thanks to Georgescu himself: even today, after so many years of familiarity with his ideas, the combination of his faith in intellectual endeavor with his awareness of its (natural) limits, not to mention his undying love for human beings, which is to my mind the profoundest characteristic of his personality (together, obviously, with all his bitterness), continues to be a source of stimulation and inspiration for me.

Preface

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen is considered one of the founders of the field of multidisciplinary studies known today as ecological economics, which he himself, however, defined as bioeconomics. Georgescu-Roegen was an eclectic, original author1 and is to be credited with numerous seminal contributions in several fields of economic theory, ranging from consumer and production theories to the analysis of agricultural, non-capitalist economies. However, his most original and controversial contribution, which in the course of time has been recognized as the most significant, is his bioeconomic theory. Based on a profound rethinking of the epistemological foundations of neoclassical economics, bioeconomics represents a completely new paradigm compared with both the standard and the Marxist approach.2 It is, therefore, not surprising that, particularly by members of the profession, Georgescu-Roegen has been considered a “heretic.” He himself did not reject this label although for a long time, before resigning from the American Economic Association and drawing closer to militant ecology, he had in vain hoped to obtain the most prestigious acknowledgements, in particular the Nobel Prize. Opening economics to natural sciences, especially to thermodynamics and biology, led him towards the elaboration of a new economic approach, which was the first to point out, on a sound scientific basis, the biophysical limits to growth. The heart of standard economics with its aims (unlimited growth) and methodological premisses (utilitarianism) being questioned, the theorists of growth and progress could not but be disturbed. However, the standard economists’ reply to the shock of his first articles in the 1970s (which, moreover, seemed to be supported by the 1973 energy crisis) was silence. With the triumph of the neo-liberalism in the 1980s, above all in the United States, Georgescu-Roegen was almost completely forgotten. It was only after almost twenty years, with the publication of the review Ecological Economics (1989) that the themes faced by Georgescu-Roegen began to be reconsidered, not, however, without some significant changes to his line of thought. The review, in fact, edited by Robert Costanza and co-edited by Herman Daly, while promoting an interdisciplinary dialogue between economics and natural sciences, became in those years the promoter of the new paradigm of sustainable development. This is the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall, of globalization and of

Preface xi the “win–win” environmental policies that very enthusiastically surrounded the new formula. As we shall see,3 G-R bitterly criticized the sustainable development paradigm in a few letters and papers, which for a long time remained unpublished (correspondence to Berry, 1991).4 By this time, however, G-R was an old man and decidedly isolated from the scientific community. What happened, therefore, was that his criticism disappeared together with him (he died in 1994), only to re-emerge recently thanks to research among his archives and to the interest his viewpoints awoke within the framework of “degrowth” (Bonaiuti, 2001; Latouche, 2004). It is not merely by chance that the first collection of texts on this theme, presented at the conference in Lyon in 2003,5 should open by quoting his sharp criticism: “There are no doubts, sustainable development is one of the most toxic recipes.” Be that as it may, from that moment on, G-R’s bioeconomics is considered one of the analytical cornerstones of the degrowth perspective. In the last years of his life, G-R intended to publish a text entitled Bioeconomics, which was to represent an initial systematic arrangement of this alternative doctrine to the mainstreams. The present book aims to pick up this project in two ways: on the one hand, it publishes G-R’s main contributions to bioeconomic theory, collecting scattered and unpublished material,6 with an introduction that, first, critically presents the man and the scientist, and, second, tackles the principal controversial nubs of the discipline, recuperating those parts that until now have been ignored, particularly his criticism of the paradigm of sustainable development.7 On the other hand, the work means to recuperate that full multidisciplinarity that, as we shall see, represents the profoundest characteristic of the bioeconomic theory (Gowdy and Mesner, 1998). In this perspective, economic behavior (we might also say human behavior in general) may be seen as the outcome, on the one hand, of the complex network of relationships/constraints at the physical and biological level (i.e., the dissipation of matter/energy), and, on the other, as the result of the evolutionary changes in social structures and cultural frameworks. In other words, in a bioeconomic perspective, the economic processes maintain relationships with both these levels of complexity, without, however, being reduced by either of them. This is the great strength, but also the great difficulty that characterizes the bioeconomic approach. This is also the reason why the concluding essay, in tracing an ideal path from bioeconomics to degrowth, starts with “eight theses” on the science of complexity. When interpreted in the most authentic way, they outline the most suitable epistemological framework to develop precisely that full multidisciplinarity that characterizes G-R’s bioeconomic approach.

Complexity and multidimensional crisis At the present time, the world is facing an unprecedented multidimensional crisis. The context is unquestionably characterized by high complexity and uncertainty; furthermore, the stakes at risk are very high. Despite the fact that our knowledge of the dynamics of social systems is still extremely limited, our capacity, as a species, to interpret what is happening in this phase of particular instability may

xii Preface well turn out to be crucial for millions of people. This is the reason that I was induced, in the concluding essay, to attempt to individuate some “fundamental processes” that, in the interface among physical, biological and social organizations, may explain the reasons for the multidimensional crisis we are facing. In this framework, the process of growth/accumulation and innovation—as a longterm self-increasing process—seems to play a highly significant role. The exponential growth is, in fact, both cause and effect of the main transformations that the social and economic organizations have shown: the emergence of a labor market, the concentration of production, and the financialization of the economy are only a few examples of the emergent structures that have characterized the various “scale leaps” of industrial economies. Moreover, economic growth lies, as we shall see, at the root of today’s ecological and social crisis. Needless to say, we present here only a few hypotheses. Research in this field has only just begun, and even gross mistakes may be made in individuating which processes will reveal themselves as the most significant. However, G-R’s bioeconomic theory, interwoven with recent developments in complex system theory, has allowed us to come to some temporary conclusions, at the same time leaving some important questions open. The first conclusion is somehow obvious but generally ignored by standard economists and policy-makers: within a few decades the basic economic institutions will probably be very different from those dominant today. This is because they will have to adapt to a profoundly different context, conditioned by the presence of long-term biophysical limits (climate change, peak oil, exhaustion of key materials). The great question is how economic and social institutions will react to the presence of such limits. One possible scenario is that in which economic and social organizations will have to operate in a context of zero growth or even of economic decline. What we can be fairly sure of, if our hypotheses are correct, is that whereas the institutional forms (great multinational enterprises, widespread systems of transport, health, education, etc.) have adapted very well to an economy of growth, they will certainly not be suitable in the new context of zero growth or even decline. This opens up new, extraordinary space for imagination and social experimentation. A second conclusion is that, whatever forms it assumes, the process of degrowth will not simply be the opposite of growth and development, but will be characterized by irreversible, frequently discontinuous transformations, sensibly conditioned by more recent changes (that is to say by the decisions made in the near future). A third provisional conclusion is that the evolution of social organizations will not follow a “Darwinian account,” i.e., (slow) evolution by (small) variations and selection, but will probably concern the specific ways in which social systems evolve, where “representations of the world,” and the capacity to “negotiate” shared values and aims, are crucial (Lane et al., 2009). In other words, the process of the formation of a new social imaginary will play a decisive role in determining, among the eventual, possible scenarios, which future path humanity will

Preface xiii choose. In this sense degrowth is a “hopeful monster idea” that may provoke major changes in the collective imaginary. The present work, however, does not intend to define what a degrowth society should be, let alone give any indications of policy about the most opportune tools with which to effect it. That is not the aim of the present work.8 However, I think that social movements, solidarity economy organizations, committed researchers, NGOs, civil societies and institutions have a desperate need to negotiate a coarse grain shared representation of the multidimensional process underlying the present crisis. Even if we do not understand yet how it may happen, I still believe that some sort of common framework, some form of shared imaginary, is a necessary precondition for any common actions and, hence, for any social change. This work intends to be a first contribution in this direction. MB Turin and Bologna, May 2010

Notes 1 There are now quite a few studies on Georgescu-Roegen. Among the most significant, the monographs by O. Carpintero (2006), M. Bonaiuti (2001), K. Mayumi (2001), G. Lozada and R. Beard (1999), K. Mayumi and J. Gowdy (1999), J. C. Dragan and M. C. Demetrescu (1986), the Special Issue of Ecological Economics (Vol. 22–3), the contributions presented at the conference in Strasbourg dedicated to GeorgescuRoegen’s work (November 1998), and the collection of essays published after the EABS conferences (Roma, 1991; Palma de Mallorca, 1994) besides several articles which have appeared in particular in Ecological Economics. 2 G-R included in the notion of standard economics both the neoclassical theories and those deriving from Keynes, i.e., practically everything that constituted twentieth century mainstream economic thought. The relationships between G-R and Marx are more complex. Briefly we can say that G-R appreciated Marx as a comprehensive social scientist, and shared his idea of the evolutionary nature of the economic process. He further accepted his theory of capitalist accumulation, with its circular nature and consequent unfair distribution of wealth (see G-R, “Bioeconomics and ethics,” Chapter 5 this volume). Partly similar, but partly distinct, as we shall see, are their notions of dialectics, which Marx in his turn had derived from Hegel. G-R definitely did not accept the Marxist doctrine of a revolutionary class, in the sense that he was well aware that the abolition of private property, and the replacement of one class with another in wielding power, would not solve the problem of the relationship between the rulers and the ruled (cf. the section “The evolution of bioeconomics,” page 33 below and Chapter 4 “Inequality, limits and growth from a bioeconomic viewpoint”). Above all, G-R rejected the emancipatory vision of growth and progress found in Marx and Marxism. 3 Cf. the following paragraph on G-R’s criticism of sustainable development. 4 The extremely rich archive of the Special Collections Library (Duke University), besides conserving almost all the articles (over 200), contains extensive correspondence, which helped me reconstruct the relationships between Georgescu-Roegen not only with his masters (J. Schumpeter, K. Pearson) and colleagues (W. Leontief, P. Samuelson), but also, and above all, with those who were later to become the main scholars in the new field of ecological economics, such as: H. Daly, R. Costanza, J. Martinez Alier, J. Grinevald, K. Mayumi, J. Gowdy, G. Lozada and many others. Some extracts from his correspondence are published here.

xiv Preface 5 See Serge Latouche, À bas le développement durable! Vive la décroissance conviviale! In Objectif Décroissance, Parangon, Lyon, 2003. 6 The most recent text published by G-R in English, Energy and Economic Myths (1976a), contains only the first two essays on the bioeconomic theory, “The Entropy Law and the economic problem,” 1971a, and “Energy and economic myths,” written in 1972. From 1972 to 1994 G-R published more than 100 papers (see “Georgescu-Roegen’s books and papers”, page 241 this volume) most of which are on bioeconomics. This book aims, as far as possible, to account for the complete evolution of bioeconomic theory from the first essays in the 1970s to the last contributions in the 1990s. 7 The present work is the fruit of several years’ study going back to the author’s PhD thesis (1996) and to later research at Duke University (1998). The results of this research are published in two books (in Italian): La Teoria Bioeconomica, Carocci, Rome, 2001, and the collection of N. Georgescu-Roegen’s essays, Bioeconomia, Bollati Boringhieri, Turin, 2003. The “Introduction” that follows is to a large extent derived, with some important more recent details, from the former works. 8 A few works on “Degrowth and politics” have already been published: see S. Latouche, Farewell to Growth, Wiley, New York, 2009; Le pari de la décroissance, Fayard, Paris, 2007 and P. Ariés, Un Nouveau Projet Politique, Golias, Lyon, 2007; M. Bonaiuti, Degrowth and Politics: Searching for a Shared Imaginary, 2008, available at www. decrescita.it. See also: Journal of Cleaner Production, Volume 18, Issue 6, April 2010.

Introduction Georgescu-Roegen, the man and scientist Mauro Bonaiuti

His childhood and the years at the Monastery on the Hill (1906–23) Nicholas St. Georgescu was born in Constanta, Romania, on 4 February 1906. “Just as A. Burck was to become A. Bergson,” Georgescu confesses in his Autobiographical Notes,1 in the same way his legal name became Nicholas GeorgescuRoegen (hereafter G-R), and it is in this name that his works written after 1933 were to appear. At the time, his hometown had 25,000 inhabitants and was an insignificant port on the Black Sea. However, as he himself stresses, there was a mixture of various cultures and ethnic groups, from Germans, Jews and Armenians to Turks, Tartars and Bulgarians: “Because the environment of my childhood was truly cosmopolitan, my ethos has remained so ever since.” His family lived in what he would later describe as “decent” circumstances, while being in many respects strict. His father was a captain in the army, a respectable position, which he was forced to renounce before retirement when Nicholas was only two years old, due to a clash with a superior officer. After giving up his job, his father was able to dedicate a great deal of his time to his son’s education, but this relationship came to an early end because his father died when the boy was only eight. We do not know much about his mother, either. She taught needlework at a girls’ school, and Georgescu describes her as “an extraordinary worker.” Yet we can intuit from various passages in his autobiography that her silent presence beside young Nicholas was very important, at least until he went to university. Georgescu first came into contact with war at the age of seven. To avoid the fighting, the family moved to his maternal grandmother’s modest house in Bucharest, a city that was then occupied by the Germans. It was not far from the front, and Nicholas was not spared the sight of the wounded and dying who were taken behind the lines piled onto wagons. In the afternoon, when he got out of school, he carried out small jobs, such as selling newspapers or removing rubble from ruined buildings. From the very first years of primary school he showed a predilection for mathematics, which was noticed and encouraged by a young teacher, Gheoghe Rãdulescu, who played an important role in his education. It

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was he who convinced and prepared Nicholas to sit the entrance examinations for the Lycée of the Monastery on the Hill, then very much in demand because of its excellent standards. The Lycée of the Monastery on the Hill was so called because it was situated on the top of a hill, around a monastery church dating back to 1499. The school buildings, partly built on the foundations of the old cells, consisted just in classrooms, a dormitory, a mess hall, a gymnasium, an infirmary, a couple of houses for teachers, a soldiers’ barracks, a stable for the carthorses and a powerhouse. It was, in a nutshell, virtually self-sufficient and isolated from the outside world. The students were not permitted to leave the school at all except for the summer holidays or the shorter ones at Easter and Christmas. We wore a uniform and were submitted to a mock-military discipline. [. . .] Between reveille at six and breakfast (of wholemeal bread and tea), they had to run up and down the hill for half an hour, unless there had been a heavy snowfall. Five hours every morning, except on Sundays, were dedicated to basic courses, two hours every afternoon to physical education and, after tea, three hours to study. “There was nothing else one could do but study, even in the few non-programmed hours. And that is what I keep doing.” (Georgescu-Roegen, 1988b, pp. 6–7) Later in life he would criticize the strictness of such an educational system: living isolated from the social context, set in a system of rigidly predetermined relationships, certainly does not help to model people skilled “in the art of developing cordial relationships with new acquaintances.” It is a limitation that he personally recognized in himself. However, the overall judgment he has left us of these years is decidedly positive. Teaching standards were high: many teachers had PhDs and later became university professors. Yet this is not all: the general education he acquired during this experience was such that when, twenty-five years later, Georgescu-Roegen left Harvard for Vanderbilt University, he confessed that the Monastery on the Hill was to be thanked for most of what he had learnt. Such a statement reveals something that goes beyond a simple recognition of having gained a solid basic culture. Needless to say, any hard test gives those who pass it greater faith in their own abilities; moreover, one may surmise that a desire for knowledge, then as now, is inversely proportionate to its availability. To have some idea of what provincial Romania might have had to offer in the 1920s, it is enough to think that the University of Bucharest at the time did not even have a library. We can understand why, in such circumstances, peasants’ children walked many miles to school, in the rain and snow, revealing an inordinate desire to learn. The awareness of the fact that in any case what was offered was an exceptional opportunity, besides the atmosphere of solidarity that develops among pupils in that sort of all-inclusive institute, probably justifies the importance that G-R gave to this experience seventy years later. Georgescu’s penchant for mathematics increased in this period, so much so that in the same year as he obtained his diploma (1923) he won the first prize offered

Introduction: Georgescu-Roegen, the man and scientist 3 by the Gazeta Matematicã, a periodical for young mathematicians; some of his school teachers had also intervened on his behalf on this occasion.

From Bucharest to London (via Paris) (1923–32) Three successive phases follow G-R’s educational experience at the Monastery on the Hill: the university in Bucharest (1923–26), his doctorate in Paris (1927–29) and what we may call his post-doctorate under the guidance of Karl Pearson in London (1930–32). His choice of studies at university posed no problem for young Georgescu: from his early childhood he had always dreamt of becoming a mathematics teacher. Although his mother tried to persuade him to go in for a safer career as an engineer, he had his way and enrolled in the Mathematics Department at the University of Bucharest, in this case, too, thanks to a scholarship awarded to the children from poor families. Teaching methods differed very little from those at the Monastery on the Hill: “the professor behind the desk, the students seated in their places, usually no dialogue.” The curriculum was traditional, and the teachers rarely went beyond the set programs that were proposed in the form of lectures on a specific subject and seminars. The sole exception among the teachers was Anton Davidoglu, who in his seminars expounded on the singularity of differential equations, which was to help G-R attain the particular results used in his classic article “The pure theory of consumers’ behavior” (1936b). It was while he was attending the mathematics courses that he met his future wife, Otilia Busuioc, who was to remain by his side for the rest of his life. In order to buy a few new books and augment what little money his mother was able to send him, he gave private lessons and, in the last year of his studies, taught in a grammar school that had just been built outside the city. He graduated in June 1926, cum laude and accepted a teaching post for another year at the grammar school in Constanta. In the same period (1927), Georgescu made an important acquaintance: he visited Traian Lalescu, a renowned mathematician (we may recall the developments concerning the theory of integral equations that he and Vito Volterra contributed to). It was through Lalescu, who not merely by chance had taken an interest in applying mathematics to economics, that G-R would come to consider mathematics not simply as an intellectual exercise but as a tool for interpreting, and intervening in, the real world. His passion for statistics arose from this. Lalescu suggested that he should go to Paris to continue his studies in this new line of research in greater depth. Only several years later would this appear as the first step towards the study of the law of entropy, which Georgescu was to approach through his interest in statistical mechanics. In November 1927, he enrolled in the Institut de Statistique in Paris. It was here that he began to extend his horizons beyond those of his specialist field. It is not true, as has been written, that he entered into “close contact” with the great French intellectuals and scientists of the time in Paris. However, as can be seen in his

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correspondence, he broadened the field of his studies significantly and they included, in particular, the philosophy of science: During the years of my stay in France, I read as much as I could about the philosophy of science, starting with H. Poincarè, G. Le Bon, E. Borel and F. Ledantec. I finally came to Bergson. As a statistics scholar, I was attracted by the statistical mechanics, so I started to take an interest in the law of entropy. At that point, I began to appreciate Bergson—as I later did with Alfred N. Whitehead—as a philosopher who possessed a vision of reality superior to that of the Positivists. (S. Zamagni, 1979, p. 89) We have certain knowledge that he attended the lectures of Henri Lebesgue, of Eduard Goursat (mathematical analysis), of Emile Borel (probability theory), of Albert Aftalion (statistics) and, finally, of George Darmois, who succeeded Borel in the chair of mathematical statistics. Perhaps influenced by reading Hemingway, I imagine a student’s life in Paris in the 1920s to be a period when it was easy, to use one of the American author’s expressions, to be “very poor and very happy.” G-R was certainly poor but, as far as we can judge, not quite as happy. As we have said, he was not as spontaneous in his social relationships as the American, and it seems that Georgescu was somewhat isolated: “The only contact I had outside my studies,” he says, “was with F. Strowsky, an expert on Blaise Pascal, who held a seminar on this philosopher.” This explains why Pascal’s distinction between esprit géométrique and esprit de finesse, which G-R learnt in those years, was to constitute one of the characteristic traits of his epistemological system. At the same time, a certain insecurity, and hence difficult social relationships, was to become part of his nature.2 On 27 July 1930, Georgescu discussed his doctorate thesis On the Problem of Finding out the Cyclical Components of a Phenomenon, which earned him top marks and its publication, in October of the same year, in the Journal de la Société de Statistique de Paris. The method was to be used, as is known, by Schumpeter in his Business Cycles of 1939. There was one obstacle to his plans to go to London and study under Pearson: at that time, Georgescu did not speak one word of English. However, in Paris he had met a young Englishman, Leonard Hurst. The Hursts decided to take him in as a paying guest (at seventeen and a half shillings per week), and for over a year Georgescu lived with them in London, once again thanks to yet another scholarship: The Hursts were a working-class family, who lived in a small rented house in Leicester Road, [. . .]. We generally lived off potatoes, cabbage and meat sauce, with bread and lard for breakfast. However, for over a year the Hursts paid me every attention and affectionate consideration, which you cannot buy. Mrs. Hurst’s patience, as a retired teacher, was truly priceless and she helped me to learn the new language. [. . .] After I could command a few

Introduction: Georgescu-Roegen, the man and scientist 5 basic words, I gathered all my courage and went to see Karl Pearson. He received me so naturally that I immediately felt as in heaven. (Georgescu-Roegen, 1988b, p. 16) The atmosphere at the Galton Laboratory at University College was warm and constructive. Pearson, who for want of any better label may be considered a positivist statistician of Machian formation, was elaborating an increasingly original and subtle conception of scientific enterprise, capable of establishing connections among diverse fields of knowledge. Besides dedicating his studies for a long time to statistic analysis, creating some of its basic elements, he made significant contributions to mathematics, anthropology, eugenetics, biometrics and, of particular interest to us, the philosophy of science with his Grammar of Science. There were two important developments that arose from Georgescu’s encounter with Pearson. On the one hand, he was encouraged by Pearson to apply himself to the study of mathematical statistics, something Pearson himself was particularly keen on at the time, since one of his greatest interests was to find a method for determining the distribution of chance variables by means of four moments. Pearson expected to be able to go far beyond this in order to attain the generating expression by means of some general formula for the moments of the sample. He was, therefore, pleased to find Georgescu willing to apply himself to his favorite topic of the time. On the other hand, the personal friendship that Pearson showed for him stimulated G-R’s reflections on new horizons, in particular as far as the philosophy of science is concerned. Yet the work on the generalization of Pearson’s theory of moments, which took him about a year and led to a long article that appeared in Biometrics in 1932, was, we can say, a failure. The formulae presented no significant regularity, and, as Georgescu himself admitted, Pearson’s expectations turned out to be unfulfillable. Perhaps for this reason, or perhaps because the academic world preferred models inspired by R. A. Fischer’s “pure creations of the mind,” Pearson’s method was put aside. This was not the case of Pearson’s philosophy of science. In particular, his profound sensitivity in considering the peculiarities of the sciences of life and his refusal to extend mechanism to the biological field (something truly original during the years of Neopositivism) were to have an important influence on the epistemology that Georgescu would develop in the following years. From Earth to the Moon and back In 1931, when Georgescu was still in London, probably due to Pearson’s intervention, a representative of the Rockefeller Foundation personally went to the laboratory to sound out whether he was willing to continue his studies in the United States. However, his mother’s precarious state of health and the conclusion of his first important editorial project, Metoda Statistica, convinced him to return to Romania and put off his departure for about a year. The manual, written in Romanian and about 500 pages long, was published in 1933.

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The chance was not lost, however, and in October 1934, he embarked for the United States heading for Harvard University. It was a chance that for a young man of modest origins, who grew up in provincial Romania, seemed to him “like a journey to the Moon,” as he himself said. Georgescu’s plan was to test the eventual applications of his statistical method concerning cyclical components that he had elaborated in his doctoral thesis for the University of Harvard’s Economic Barometer, an institute concerned with economic forecasts. However, there was a surprise in store for him: when he arrived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he discovered that the Economic Barometer had been closed down (some years earlier!) as a result of the fact that just a week before the Black Tuesday in 1929 the scholars at that institute had stated that “the economy” was “perfectly healthy.” Here, once again, chance played a creative role in Georgescu’s human and scientific life: disheartened, and intent on returning to Bucharest, he played his last card by asking for an appointment with the professor who was then concerned with the theory of economic cycles. At the time, Georgescu did not know Joseph Schumpeter; on the contrary, as he himself confessed, he had never even heard his name. Schumpeter was interested in his work, enquired about what he had done and about what he would like to do and intuited that the method elaborated by G-R could have some applications in the foreseen publication of Business Cycles. Schumpeter was then “the favorite of all the Harvard Houses,” where he was continually invited to hold conferences, particularly in the evening after dinner. Furthermore, he was president of the Rockefeller fellows and, as such, took part in the group’s weekly meetings, to which Georgescu was also invited. Some of the other members of the group were Oskar Lange, Fritz Machlup, Gerard Tintner and Nicholas Kaldor. Besides Schumpeter and Paul Sweezy (then Schumpeter’s assistant), Wassily Leontief, at the time a professor of mathematical economics, who was to become a good friend of Georgescu’s, also took part in the meetings, which usually centered on mathematical economics. To put it briefly, he suddenly found himself part of the stimulating intellectual environment of Harvard and, above all, came to be concerned with economics, albeit mainly mathematical economics. As far as this subject is concerned, he would later comment: “I wanted to become a pure mathematician and had become, instead, a statistician. I had nothing to do with economics and I never wanted to become an economist!” (Georgescu-Roegen, 1988b). Thus it was that after a year and a half he published four articles on economics in rapid succession. In point of fact, the articles mainly proposed observations, corrections and suggestions of an analytical nature on the applications of mathematics to economics, which the marginalist school, Pareto in particular, were carrying out in those years. These publications were: “Note on a proposition of Pareto,” in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (August 1935), “Fixed coefficients of production and the marginal productivity,” in the Review of Economic Studies (October 1935), “Marginal utility of money and elasticities of demand,” in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (May 1936), where he was asked to act as an

Introduction: Georgescu-Roegen, the man and scientist 7 impartial arbiter between Pigou and M. Friedman in the matter of the method of measuring the elasticity of demand, and, finally “The pure theory of consumers’ behavior,” in the Quarterly Journal of Economics (August 1936), which would later become a classic text in the field of consumer theory. The published papers were appreciated by Schumpeter, who suggested that G-R should collaborate with him. This is how G-R describes this crucial turning point: Schumpeter realized that, because of what I had published before coming to Harvard and four articles worked out during my short stay there, at the age of 30 I was a promising scholar. Due primarily to his judgement Harvard wanted to keep me on. Schumpeter also wanted to write an economic analysis in collaboration with me. But, incredible as it must seem, I declined. (Georgescu-Roegen, 1988b, p. 29) His ambitions of a few years earlier now seemed close to fruition. Yet suddenly he decided to leave Harvard and return to Romania. What led Georgescu to this decision? There is one preliminary question we must ask. Can we believe that the situation described really corresponded to reality? We should not forget that Georgescu wrote his autobiographical notes very late in life, at a time when he was in conflict with the economics profession: in this situation, it was in his own interest to emphasize the results obtained in the field of traditional economics. In what exactly did this “collaboration” with Schumpeter consist? The analysis of the remaining correspondence reveals that Schumpeter really did show an interest in Georgescu’s writings. He asked S. May, who was responsible for the Rockefeller Foundation, for a fellowship for the year 1936 in order to sustain this collaboration with him (correspondence, 25 March 1936). In a later letter (27 April) Schumpeter explicitly spoke of a project pertaining to “our book” and successively (1 May) Schumpeter sent Georgescu a “sketch” of the key points. It is also evident that, despite hundreds of commitments and trips, Schumpeter tried to keep Georgescu at Harvard, attempted to meet him on several occasions to speak about their “work in common” and, for a certain length of time, hoped he would return. We can conclude that this work, concerning economic analysis, was not just a vain hope of Georgescu’s, nor a vague idea bandied about in the conversations that followed the dinners organized at the Harvard Club, but a concrete project for which Schumpeter expected the effective collaboration of his pupil. Why, then, did G-R decide to go back to Romania? At various times in his life Georgescu revealed that he was ambitious but that he also felt responsible for the fate of his homeland. If we want to restrict ourselves to official explanations, this is what he has left us: One reason that interfered with my vision was that all my education had been supported by the public funds of Romania and that even my Rockefeller Fellowship counted on a spot earmarked for Romania, just as the other

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This explanation may not sound convincing enough, yet no elements emerge from his papers suggesting any other hypotheses. Some elements concur in underlining how G-R, who deliberately defined himself as an “emigrant from a developing country,” really wanted to return and be of use to his country once he had successfully completed his education. Lalescu, the man who had first suggested that he should leave for Paris, wanted him to go back. Mention has also been made of a certain lack of ease he felt as a foreigner, particularly during his stay in Paris, although this seems to have disappeared during his time at Harvard, but this cannot have been a decisive factor. This is how, many years later, he was to comment on his choice: [This was] not the only time when I fouled up my scholarly career, but the worst such case. . . . The day before our sailing (in May, 1936), Schumpeter came to New York and took us to dinner at the Waldorf Astoria, (still in splendor then) to convince me to accept his outstretched hand. Only after many years was I able to comprehend how hurt he must have been . . . That happened more than fifty years ago and I cannot recall, not even imagine why I made that inconceivable gross blunder. The Georgescu-Roegen of that time appears to me as another individual, another mind. (Georgescu-Roegen, 1988b, p. 29) On his way back to Bucharest he stopped off in Paris and in London, meeting several scholars, among them F. A. von Hayek, a few of whose lectures he attended, and only arrived in Bucharest in August 1937. The time it took him to return home (over a year) and the academic encounters he made on the way lead us to think that nothing precise awaited him back home. All things considered, the explanation given by Georgescu himself is the most plausible: after living ten years abroad, he wanted to return to Romania and, having gained considerable experience, he intended to make use of it in his own country. It was for this reason that he was willing to renounce any eventual future career at Harvard.

The Romanian period (1937–48) As soon as he arrived back in Romania, Georgescu-Roegen was called to occupy a series of important bureaucratic posts: first he was called to take part in a commission responsible for negotiating new commercial agreements with Great Britain. A person capable of discussing, even informally, with the leader of the British delegation was needed. At that time there were not many people in Romania who could speak English fluently and who could boast of having international experience in the field of the study of economics. Thus it was that shortly after his return Georgescu was nominated vice-director of the Central Institute of

Introduction: Georgescu-Roegen, the man and scientist 9 Statistics, charged with elaborating the main series of economic data, which were then very patchy. However, despite some collaboration with a group of Romanian scholars, with whom he completed the project of the publication of the Enciclopedia României and edited some publications of a statistic-economic nature relating to Romania, this was the beginning of a long period of intellectual isolation. For the whole length of time that he spent in Romania, he dedicated himself mainly to nonacademic activities, among which was politics: from 1938 he belonged to the National-Peasantist Party, first as a clandestine militant and, later, as a member of the National Council. The political climate was changing fast in Romania in those years: in March 1939, the first German activity in preparation for war began. Romania was an important oil-producing country, which could not be ignored with conflict foreseen in the near future. In this period, Georgescu was called to participate in the diplomatic negotiations concerning the redefinition of the borders with Hungary: in this matter a delegation of which he was a member was called upon to arbitrate with von Ribbentrop and Ciano in Vienna, without obtaining, however, any results. When Carol II abdicated, a second dictatorship began, and the new government nominated Professor Leon, Minister of the Economy. Since the latter was considered not to be pro-Nazi, Georgescu-Roegen agreed to take on the responsibility first for the import office and then for the export office, when he also carried out secret negotiations on behalf of the Romanian government. April 1944 marked the beginning of the bombing of Bucharest, first by the Americans and then by the Germans. Soviet troops entered Bucharest at the end of August 1944. Georgescu mentions rape, theft and numerous sorts of intimidation. The Romanian authorities tried to evacuate from the city all those who were not indispensable. Georgescu also decided to leave the city and, after a hazardous journey on foot, joined his wife and mother in a small village in Transylvania. With the ensuing Communist governments in Romania, Georgescu’s position became more and more difficult. In 1946 the allies recognized the Groza government, the outcome of elections manipulated by the Communist Party. Georgescu has left us direct proof of how, for three consecutive days, the officials responsible for controlling the votes modified the results in their favor and hid the cheating needed to carry this out. In the next two years, the signs of the growing tyranny of the Communist Party, and its determination to eliminate anyone opposed to the regime, became evident. The vice-president of the National-Peasantist Party was arrested, and in the following months numerous summary trials were held. During 1947, G-R records, several thousand people were killed or died from torture. The abductions usually occurred at night since the regime did not want any people outside the families to be witnesses to these “removals.” One night a van stopped outside Nicholas and Otilia’s house. Their dog, a German shepherd, began to bark, and their neighbors went to look out of their windows: the men in the van left. After this episode, G-R made up his mind to try to flee the country. Their first attempt failed but, finally, in February 1948, Nicholas and Otilia managed

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to reach Turkey, after a three-day journey hidden in a packing-case in the hold of a ship. In the meantime, he informed Leontief and Schumpeter of his escape, and they managed to obtain a contract for him at Harvard. So, thanks to two false identity cards provided by the Jewish community, they managed to reach Cherbourg in France (by way of Italy and Switzerland) and on 24 June 1948, set sail for the United States on the transatlantic Mauritania. Although the twelve years spent in Romania had not provided any particular results on the academic-scientific level, they were definitely not lacking in significance, from at least two points of view: •

•

First of all, the experience of two wars and four dictatorships he had during that period forged in his mind the idea that history and institutions have a very powerful effect on economic factors, an effect which was, as he said, “stronger than any theoretical principle” (Georgescu-Roegen, 1993c). His political militancy, the courage displayed in supporting the emancipation of his country from the poverty-stricken state that characterized it and having risked his life on more than one occasion help us to understand the obstinacy with which, in the following years, he would defend his ideas, despite being isolated from the rest of the scientific community. The experience he gained as a diplomat was to assist him in the relationships he later had, even at high levels, in academic environments. Nevertheless, Georgescu never acquired a tendency for compromise from the art of diplomacy, which would undoubtedly have considerably smoothed the way towards attaining the most prestigious signs of recognition, in particular the Nobel prize, that were in vain long awaited.

Goodbye to Harvard We can say that the second part of G-R’s life began with his arrival in the United States in 1948.3 From this time on, apart from periods of research abroad, he would never again leave America, where he taught at university until his retirement in 1976. Unlike his life before, from the existential point of view, there was no great discontinuity in the following years except his move from Harvard to Vanderbilt University in Nashville, which was undoubtedly less prestigious as an institute of learning. From what is to be read in his correspondence, when G-R arrived at Harvard in 1948, Wassily Leontief was waiting for him. The two scholars started to work together on a research project, on the structure of the American economy, which was of interest to the government. At the same time, Leontief invited Georgescu to take part in the activity of the Russian Research Center, which specialized in studies on Russia and Eastern Europe, asking him to edit a pamphlet on the economic development of Romania after the Second World War. Even after Georgescu left Harvard, the two established a lasting exchange of letters, which went far beyond any formal academic exchange of ideas and lasted until the mid 1970s.4

Introduction: Georgescu-Roegen, the man and scientist 11 In 1948, Harvard College offered G-R a year’s contract as a Research Fellow in Economics, which was promptly renewed the following year.5 Suddenly, however, Georgescu decided, once again, to leave Harvard. As far as the reasons for this decision are concerned, Paul Samuelson, who for a long time was in contact, and in correspondence, with him has provided the most plausible explanation: Schumpeter, who died in 1950, had by then lost any academic power that would have ensured G-R the post at Harvard that the former would very probably have been able to offer him ten years before.6 This would explain why he decided to leave for Vanderbilt University, where he was offered the post of Professor of Economics from 1949. He would never leave Vanderbilt again after 1950, so the most important following events are inevitably linked to the evolution of his thought. As far as this point is concerned, in order to simplify the account, we can distinguish three successive phases. The first goes from his contributions to mathematical economics of the 1950s to the publication of his epistemological criticism of neoclassical theory, contained in the volume Analytical Economics (1966). The second, which we can call that of institutionalist criticism, includes his important works on the institutional specificities of agricultural economies, which he developed in the second half of the 1960s. The third and final phase, which we may term the period of his bioeconomic theory, is that following the conference held in 1970, The Entropy Law and the Economic Problem, where he presented the first formulation of the themes that were to occupy him for the next twenty-five years.

From mathematical economics to the epistemological revolution (1950–66) From 1950 to 1966, Georgescu-Roegen’s line of thought matured significantly: from his contributions on mathematical economics in the 1950s he came to elaborate an extraordinary epistemological criticism of neoclassical theory. This criticism is based on his extensive excursions into natural sciences and contains a focus on the economic relevance of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The outcome of this change can be found in his book Analytical Economics published in 1966. Significantly, the work is divided into four parts. Two of them consist of a collection of articles written in the period 1935–58, which may be considered to fall within the mainstream: the first part is dedicated to consumer theory7 and the second to production theory.8 However, his most important contribution to our topic is undoubtedly the opening essay, “Some orientation issues in economics,” over a hundred previously unpublished pages that constitute a masterly addition to his epistemological criticism. Finally, the work contains a fourth theme, that of the institutional analysis of peasant economies. In the essay “Economic theory and agrarian economics” (1960), in particular, Georgescu developed a theory, which was re-proposed in other essays, according to which standard economics cannot be extended to historical and institutional contexts that do not belong to

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industrial capitalistic societies, least of all to those overpopulated economies based on agriculture. Analytical Economics thus already contains the main threads of GeorgescuRoegen’s significant contributions: consumer theory, production theory, institutional economics, epistemological criticism and, finally an outline of his bioeconomic theory, which he was to develop in the following years. This is not, therefore, a systematic work, yet it is with this book that Georgescu-Roegen gained most recognition, at least among economists. The book received favorable reviews in twenty-five journals, among which were the American Economic Review and the Economic Journal. The 1966 book contains, moreover, the well-known foreword by Paul Samuelson, who offered a rather flattering presentation, defining Georgescu as “a scholar’s scholar, an economist’s economist” and praising the opening essay, in which, as we have said, the criticism of the basic epistemological assumptions of neoclassical theory is developed. Samuelson says: He is so superlatively trained as a mathematician, he is quite immune to the seductive charms of the subject, being able to maintain an objective and matter-of-fact attitude toward its use. Coming from such a scholar, paradoxical views—like the following nuggets in the brilliant new essay—demand the attention of every serious scholar. (Analytical Economics, p. ix) The excursions into physics, philosophy, logical paradoxes and the undeniable “nuggets” that render this masterpiece so precious, cannot hide the fact that this is a revolutionary essay, particularly as far as G-R’s epistemological criticism of the neoclassical school is concerned. The correspondence between these two scholars, consisting of about thirty pages written in the years from 1953 to 1989, also reflects the basically ambiguous relationship with which the great MIT economist addresses Georgescu.9 Even in more recent times, in the foreword to the text by K. Mayumi and J. Gowdy (1999) (in honor of Georgescu-Roegen), Samuelson did not seem capable of freeing himself from this ambiguity: after having paid the usual tribute to Georgescu, something that had by then become a habit, for his contributions to standard economics and for the wealth of his significant epistemological and, by then, bioeconomic contributions, Samuelson concludes: My point is that those of us with hardened arteries who resist the prophet of a new revolutionary economics methodology can still accept and admire the insights into external diseconomies that Georgescu-Roegen has contributed in his new phase. (Preface to Mayumi and Gowdy, 1999, p. XV) What does this mean? If the methodology proposed by G-R was even more revolutionary than his bioeconomic theory, as Samuelson seems to imply, the

Introduction: Georgescu-Roegen, the man and scientist 13 point is not admiring G-R’s “intuitions” but rather coming to grips with a critical revision of the hypotheses that characterize standard theory, of which Samuelson, as we know, was one of the major exponents. Herman Daly is right to state that “Samuelson said very little about Georgescu-Roegen after his foreword of 1965. Did he change his mind? Why? Certainly no word was dedicated to any of Georgescu-Roegen’s ideas about the biophysical foundations of economics in the canons of Samuelson’s famous manual?”10 Thus, as was foreseeable, even less attention has been paid to them by his neoclassical colleagues at MIT.11 Samuelson’s conclusion has, however, the merit of recognizing that the epistemological revolution attempted by G-R in his 1966 essay was extremely ambitious, even more radical than that implied in his subsequent bioeconomic shift. It is, therefore, worthwhile looking more closely at the foundations on which he tried to base this new methodological challenge to the mainstream.

Dialectics, arithmomorphism and science It is best to begin by clarifying what exactly G-R meant by arithmomorphic and dialectical concepts. Arithmomorphic concepts are discretely distinct, that is to say they can be rigorously defined. Some examples of these concepts are numbers, like 2 and 3, symbols n and m, the concepts of triangle or circle. A characteristic peculiar to arithmomorphic concepts is the possibility of clearly distinguishing one from another. In other words, they do not have hazy contours (are not surrounded by a penumbra, as G-R used to say) and “do not overlap” one another (GeorgescuRoegen, 1971b, pp. 44–5). Computers are a very good example of a system based on an arithmomorphic language (even if today we would probably use the term “digital” to express the same concept): all the information contained in them is built on the “most arithmomorphic” of all distinctions, that between 0 and 1. This somewhat particular characteristic makes arithmomorphic concepts a particularly valuable category in scientific work since they are the only ones with which logic (and mathematics) can work. “Without this property we could neither compute nor syllogize.” For its extraordinary efficiency they become—according to logical positivists—the sole concepts able to operate in the field of science. However, before illustrating Georgescu-Roegen’s critical stand on this fundamental point, it is necessary to clarify what he meant, on the other hand, by dialectical concepts. A dialectical concept is one whose boundaries are not strictly determined but one that, on the contrary, is limited by a penumbra within which it overlaps its opposite. For instance, the reasons for deciding whether a certain country is a “democracy” or not may give rise to endless discussions; this depends on the fact that the very concept of “democracy” has several meanings. That is to say, its semantic borders are not discretely distinct. The concept of “democracy” is hence an example of a dialectical concept. “A vast number of concepts belong to this very category, among them are the most vital concepts for human judgments, like ‘good,’ ‘justice,’ ‘likelihood,’ ‘want’ etc.” (Georgescu-Roegen, 1971b, p. 45).

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An essential characteristic of dialectical concepts is that the basic principle of logic, the Principle of Contradiction, cannot be applied to them. As we know, this principle states that “B cannot be both A and not-A at the same time.” On the contrary, it may happen that for dialectical concepts B can be part of both A and not-A at the same time. A man can be at the same time both “young” and “old,” just as a certain country may at the same time be both “democratic” and “antidemocratic.” This peculiarity of overlapping their opposites derives, in dialectical concepts, from the flexibility of their semantic boundaries. Needless to say, this is an extreme case. In most cases, on the contrary, it will be possible to decide whether a man is “young” or “old.” If this were not so, GeorgescuRoegen acutely observes, dialectical concepts would be not only useless but even harmful. In other words, “even if they are not discrete, dialectic concepts are nonetheless distinct.” The difference is this: a dialectical concept is separated from its contrary by a penumbra, while in the case of an arithmomorphic concept the separation consists of a void: “tertium non datur” (Georgescu-Roegen, 1971b, p. 47). At this point some questions naturally arise: why is the distinction between arithmomorphic and dialectical concepts so important for the philosophy of science, and which role does this distinction play within G-R’s epistemological framework? For the moment, we can say that, in terms of traditional philosophical language, arithmomorphic is connected to Being, while dialectics is linked to Becoming. In other words, this distinction, pivotal to Georgescu-Roegen,12 is tied to the “type” of scientific activity produced, in particular as far as the problem of change is concerned. In order to illustrate this point better, it is necessary to introduce a new definition, that of “theoretical science.” According to Georgescu-Roegen, theoretical science is a particular type of scientific construction consisting in logically ordered descriptive propositions, where the characteristic trait is to be found precisely in “its logically ordered anatomy.” Let us immediately say that the ideal type of theoretical science, thus defined, is to be found in Newton’s mechanics. Here, every proposition can be grouped into two classes (a) and (b) in such a way that, first, every proposition (b) logically derives from some proposition (a), and, second, no proposition (a) derives from any other proposition (a). In this way, a scientific edifice in which every proposition is tied to some other proposition according to a logical connection of the deductive type is built. The essential characteristic of every theoretical edifice is the lack of any ambiguity in its conclusions. As in a computer algorithm, once the premisses have been defined (necessarily in arithmomorphic terms), the chain of deductions necessarily leads to “certain” conclusions. This is why theoretical science is so useful. The logical connection, however, cannot concern all types of proposition. Let us take the following example: 1 2

The pressure of gas grows with the rise in temperature. The values of agents modify social and economic processes.

Introduction: Georgescu-Roegen, the man and scientist 15 It is clear that logic (and mathematics) can easily deal with propositions of the first type, while it is powerless when tackling propositions of the second. It is clear, then, that proposition (1) consists in arithmomorphic concepts alone (pressure, temperature), while (2) is riddled with dialectical concepts (values, agents, social and economic processes, etc.). One can hence deduce that theoretical science, thus defined, is not able to deal with dialectical concepts. The reason for this is very simple: those “shifting penumbras” of dialectic concepts cannot be dealt with by Aristotelian logic, which constitutes, as we have seen, the core of theoretical science. No philosophical school today would deny, of course, the existence of dialectical concepts as defined above. However, as has already been mentioned, the role assigned to them within science oscillates between two poles. On the one hand there are the positivists, both old and new, according to whom dialectical concepts are “antagonistic to science.” According to this viewpoint, authentic knowledge can be founded solely on arithmomorphic concepts and, therefore, be typically expressed in the language of mathematics. At the other extreme we have the Hegelians who, despite the variety of their traditions, state that knowledge is attained only with the aid of dialectical concepts. Georgescu-Roegen does not opt for either of these extremes; in fact, he does not deny, but even stresses, the importance of logic and arithmomorphic concepts for the following three reasons. First of all, they are capable of protecting us from common errors of thought: by means of logical deduction it is possible, quite apart from the realism of the hypotheses, to individuate which conclusions are coherent with the initial assumptions and which are not. They furthermore offer advantages of an economic nature: the logical organization of knowledge, as K. Pearson observed, permits a noticeable economy of thought compared to a simple catalogue. It is also important to point out the characteristic cumulative nature of knowledge ordered according to a theoretical structure. In this respect, every scientist can offer specialist contributions to his field without questioning the contents of what is already part of the theoretical edifice. As will become clearer below, perhaps the most obvious drawback to dialectic reasoning is its very nature of being non-cumulative. However, Georgescu also attributes an essential role to dialectical concepts. The relevance in economic science of concepts such as needs, politics or institutions cannot be denied, yet they are dialectical concepts, for no other reason than the fact that their meaning is continually changing. As Pascal once wrote, there are two distinct, yet equally important, aspects of our mental faculties: l’esprit géométrique and l’esprit de finesse. It cannot be excluded that a scientist does not possess enough “esprit de finesse” to understand correctly the meaning of “democracy is a better system than oligarchy,” although this cannot be demonstrated logically. To blame dialectical concepts for every “muddled thinking” is the same, in a certain sense, as accusing an artist for having mixed colors on his canvas.

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Mauro Bonaiuti

Change and the criticism of neoclassical economics It is on the basis of this conceptual system that we may begin to understand Georgescu-Roegen’s criticism of the mechanistic epistemology and particularly of neoclassical economics. The history of science in the western world shows how it has always aspired to wearing a theoretical garb. When Aristotle gave knowledge a logical structure, the advantages that this methodology was able to offer were evident. Euclid’s Elements of geometry were the first full expression of theoretical science. However, until modern times theoretical science was not extended beyond the realm of geometry. The extraordinary success that Newton had in pouring mechanics into a theoretical mould, represented exceptionally well by the discovery of the planet Neptune “at the tip of Leverrier’s pen,” kindled so much enthusiasm that every scientist wanted to become “the Newton of his own science.” Although nobody today would dare to assert, as Laplace did, that mechanics is the only way to reach divine knowledge, scientists’ attitude, nevertheless, until recent times, did not change. If today’s “epistemological motto” is no longer “all sciences must be like mechanics,” it has become “no science without theory.” It is not difficult to see that this change is only a superficial one since “theory” is taken to mean a logical order of arithmomorphic concepts treated by means of mathematical formulation. Economics also assumed this attitude and, indeed, reveals better than any other discipline “the violent effects of the enthusiasm for mechanistic epistemology.” In this sense, Walras and Jevons’ works are very eloquent.13 All mathematical economics, and in general twentieth-century economic analysis, follows this line of thought (Georgescu-Roegen, 1971b, pp. 39–40). It is on this point that Georgescu based his criticism of contemporary economics and of the philosophy of science that inspires it. Neoclassical economics, in being based essentially on arithmomorphic concepts, is not able to explain change. This limitation is even more serious because the phenomena that economic science deals with are subject to transformations that are occurring increasingly rapidly (it is enough to think of technological innovation), much faster than those that take place in biology. This helps us to understand, on the one hand, the tragic failures encountered by standard theory in predicting economic crises and, on the other, its even more deeply-rooted incapacity to capture the long-term transformations in human socio-cultural systems and the biosphere. Needless to say, it is not that we wish here to accuse standard theory of being static (it cannot but be, given the hypotheses on which it is founded) but rather to evaluate up to what point its insistence on attributing economic science with a theoretical foundations does not end up, in the present historical moment, by hiding more knowledge than its very methodological approach serves to reveal. According to Georgescu-Roegen, on the contrary, dialectic concepts lie at the root of every evolutionary phenomenon. Wherever there is life, movement and change, Hegel would say, “there dialectics is at work.” Looking at the other side of the coin, there can be no doubt that dialectic concepts maintain their irreducible