Re: RE: energy entropy + capitalist crisis

["M A Jones" <mark@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Max,
Undoubtedly baseball was the right choice.

It was Samuelson who said something about 'the planet doesn't need
resources; resources are infinite' (can't remember the exact quote, can't be
bothered to look it up. He was talking about oil + substitutability at the
time, the idiot). Morris Adelman, oil industry economist sans pareil,
wittered on about 'oil is essentially infinite, a renewable resource' etc
(can't be bothered, etc. I'm just listening to Bob Dylan: All the
authorities, they stand around and boast' etc. That seems a better idea even
than baseball. Next I'm gonna drink a bottle of non-renewable Gouts et
Couleurs (vin de pays d'Oc. Oc as you know is a country which named itself
after its favourite word, Oc, meaning Yes. This is the kind of place I want
to live. The girls are great there, of course.)

Georgescu-Roegen, Oc. I agree. This list should close down for a week while
everyone goes away and reads him,Oc?

Mark Jones
http://www.egroups.com/group/CrashList
----- Original Message -----
From: "Max Sawicky" <sawicky@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: <pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, June 29, 2000 3:57 PM
>Subject: [PEN-L:20938] RE: energy entropy + capitalist crisis


> Several quick comments . . .
>
> MJ:
> . . . The argument that energy supply is 'infinite' derives from the
> neo-classical economics concept of substitutability. . . .
>
> I don't think this is true of neo-classical econ, namely
> there is no doctrine of infinite resources that I recall
> from the course in resources that I took.  (I was doing
> well in it, until the finals, which coincided with the
> baseball playoffs).  There are theorems about the optimal
> rate of exhaustion of (exhaustible) resources.  Certainly
> prices are held to inspire investment in substitutes, but
> there is no guarantee that such substitutes will be found
> or be feasible in the long run.  There are technical and
> natural limits in play.
>
> I suppose it is possible that in some professorial treatments,
> simple optimism not unlike the sort I reflected is offered as
> some kind of scientific certainty.
>
> I wonder if anyone is familiar with Nicholas Georgescu-Rogin (sp?).
> He was brought to my dept to give a seminar way back in '81 or
> so and seemed to have a similar take on all this, albeit at a
> very high level of mathematical abstraction.  He was of Romanian
> extraction, I think, and flipped everyone out by talking about
> constant, fixed, and variable capital.
>
> mbs
>
>