Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen has experienced criticism directed at the theory of the behaviour of the consumer based on the usefulness and the excessive recourse to mathematical modelling. As such, he decided to address the complexity of human nature seeking new instruments of analysis resorting to the sciences of life and thermodynamics. In the essay, we analyze how from this criticism the Author manages to interpret the economic process in light of the entropy that sanctions an irreversible degradation of energy, one which he also extends to matter. Georgescu-Roegen states that man for his sustenance and his esosomatic evolution uses, through the economic system, matter and energy with a low entropy on the planet. As such, the relationship between man and the environment is neither only biological, nor only economic, but bio-economic. And the last aim of the economic process is not to use resources and to discharge waste products into the environment, but is «the enjoyment of life». After having examined the progressive evolution of the concept of this author and the elements of the «enjoyment of life», we highlight how the bio-economical approach has been easily absorbed into the Italian tradition, where the theoretical contributions of analysis of the economic and social system in its entirety are numerous in order to realize the well-being of the individual and valuing the resources of the land in which they live.
From utility to the enjoyment of life: the Bioeconomics of Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen. The influence on the Italian authors
ZAMBERLAN, STEFANO
2010-01-01
Abstract
Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen has experienced criticism directed at the theory of the behaviour of the consumer based on the usefulness and the excessive recourse to mathematical modelling. As such, he decided to address the complexity of human nature seeking new instruments of analysis resorting to the sciences of life and thermodynamics. In the essay, we analyze how from this criticism the Author manages to interpret the economic process in light of the entropy that sanctions an irreversible degradation of energy, one which he also extends to matter. Georgescu-Roegen states that man for his sustenance and his esosomatic evolution uses, through the economic system, matter and energy with a low entropy on the planet. As such, the relationship between man and the environment is neither only biological, nor only economic, but bio-economic. And the last aim of the economic process is not to use resources and to discharge waste products into the environment, but is «the enjoyment of life». After having examined the progressive evolution of the concept of this author and the elements of the «enjoyment of life», we highlight how the bio-economical approach has been easily absorbed into the Italian tradition, where the theoretical contributions of analysis of the economic and social system in its entirety are numerous in order to realize the well-being of the individual and valuing the resources of the land in which they live.
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