Think the Earth is finite? Think again

[Student]

…

[EconomistInTraining]

1. Capital accumulation
2. Participating in the division of labor
3. Population control, that is, maintaining the optimum population size

And technological development fits where?

[ClaytonB]

Clayton:
Yes, re-use can make previous unvaluable things valuable. However, we know from basic physics that, in the long run, even re-use must be a losing battle. The Second Law of Thermodynamics applies to the human economy as much as it does to a steam engine. Entropy of a closed system is non-decreasing.

Can you explain?

Sorry, I am clueless when it comes to physics.

Sure. Thermodynamics is the subject of physics concerned with the study of heat engines. A heat engine is an idealized version of the kinds of real engines with which we are all familiar - steam engines, car engines, jet engines, rocket engines, etc. There are certain fundamental limits that apply to heat engines. The Carnot limit expresses the maximum possible achievable efficiency that an engine can attain. This limit has nothing to do with rust or lubrication or any “flaw” of real, physical engines - it is derived from fundamental principles and expresses a theoretical limit.

The second law of thermodynamics is, in fact, responsible for the fact that heat engines can never attain 100% efficiency, even in theory. The second law of thermodynamics (2LoT) says that “disorder always increases” which, when applied to heated gases used in heat engine cycles, entails that you cannot achieve 100% efficiency from a heat engine (here’s why).

Biological organisms are heat engines from the point of view of thermodynamics - they take input heat, convert some of it to work and the rest to waste heat. But two biological organisms also constitute a heat engine, composed of two heat engines. The two organisms - taken together - are constrained by the same laws of thermodynamics as each organism individually. Using and inductive argument, this can be extended to every living thing on the planet. All living things - taken together - are a heat engine (I didn’t think this up, read Eric Beinhoffer’s book Origin of Wealth). The human economy manifests in human action, which physicists would view as work. The whole thing takes in heat, converts some of it to work, and expends the rest as waste heat (pollution).

Pollution, then, is equivalent to the exhaust coming out of your car’s engine (or the smoke-stack on a steam engine). You might be able to build a more efficient engine by recycling the exhaust and re-using those hot gases to squeeze more useful work out of the engine. However, the 2LoT tells us that - at some point (specifically, at the Carnot limit) - this becomes a losing proposition. Re-use of disposed goods is equivalent to recycling the exhaust from your car’s engine. You may be able to make things more efficient in this way but, at some point, it must become a losing proposition. If it weren’t, the 2LoT would be false and it would be possible to build a 100% efficient engine (perpetual motion machine).

Hope that helps, let me know if you have questions.

Clayton -

[ClaytonB]

And technological development fits where?

Capital accumulation. Watch the lecture.

Clayton -

[Lilburne]

@Clayton

We have to be careful, though, not to overstate the case and I think some in the ‘Republican/mercantilist’ camp indeed do. The Earth does have a carrying capacity, even for humans. The difference between the carrying capacity for humans and the carrying capacity for other animals is that we can actually increase the carrying capacity of our environment. It must be acknowledged that, given the infrastructure, technology, etc. that we have, only so many mouths can be fed. To fail to acknowledge this is invalidating.

Hoppe has given a very important lecture in 2009, entitled “From the Malthusian Trap to the Industrial Revolution”. Personally, I think he’s breaking new ground.

Here’s a summary of what he has to say about the Malthusian argument:

There are three components to increasing wealth:

1. Capital accumulation
2. Participating in the division of labor
3. Population control, that is, maintaining the optimum population size

For part 3, he says this:

The Law of Returns in its most general and abstract form states that, for any combination of two or more production factors, there exists an optimum combination such that any deviation from this combination involves material waste or efficiency losses.

Applied to the production factors of land and labor, this implies that with a continual increase in population where land and technology are fixed, a point will be reached where physical output per labor input is maximized. This point marks the optimum population size. If the population were to increase beyond this point, income per head will fall. Income per head would also be less if the population were to fall below this point because the division of labor would shrink with an accompanying efficiency loss. To maintain optimum income, the population must not grow but remain stationary. The only way for the population to grow is through employment of technological innovation or taking more or better land into use.

I think that pretty much puts the whole debate to rest.

Clayton -

That is all perfectly true, but it’s not breaking new ground. Mises covered all of the above.