Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen > Quotes

“It is natural that the appearance of pollution should have taken by surprise an economic science which has delighted in playing around with all kinds of mechanistic models. Curiously, even after the event economics gives no signs of acknowledging the role of natural resources in the economic process. Economists still do not seem to realize that, since the product of the economic process is waste, waste is an inevitable result of that process and ceteris paribus increases in greater proportion than the intensity of economic activity.”
― Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process

“Indeed, only what does not have a tangible measure can easily be exaggerated in importance. This is the basic reason why the privileged elite in every society has always consisted—and, I submit, will always consist—of members who perform unproductive services under one form or another. Whatever the title under which this elite may receive its share, this share will never be that of worker’s wage—even if, as is possible, it may be called by that name.”
― Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process

“Pareto explained how every elite is overthrown by a jealous minority which stirs the masses by denouncing the abuses of the establishment and finally replaces it. Elites, as he said, circulate. Naturally, their names and the rationalizations of their privileges change. But it is important to note also that each elite inspires a new socio-political mythology by which the new situation is interpreted for the occasion. Yet the same leitmotiv runs through all these self-glorifications: “where would the people be if it were not for our services?”
― Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process

“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 spiritual ambitions inherit an earth still bathed in plenty of sunshine.”
― Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, Energy and economic myths: Institutional and analytical economic essays