Destruction of the Future

“Every time we produce a Cadillac, we irrevocably destroy an amount of low entropy that could otherwise be used for producing a plow or a spade. In other words, every time we produce a Cadillac, we do it at the cost of decreasing the number of human lives in the future (Georgescu-Roegen, 85).” Every “unnecessary” good that is created and distributed throughout the population acts as a drain upon the world’s shared resources. With each good that raises humanity above the level of subsistence, some future generation will lack the resources needed to exist. Yet if this argument holds true, then, in reality, every action committed by a human being in the present harms a future generation.

The argument is based on the laws of thermodynamics, most notably the law of entropy. “All physical processes, natural and technological, proceed in such a way that the availability of the energy involved decreases (Ehrlich, Ehrlich, and Holdren).” With each use of the worldly energy, some portion of that energy, while it is unable to be destroyed, becomes unusable. Thus a portion is lost and a new supply of energy must be tapped in order to produce more “things”. Every time something is created for use now, something in the future will not be able to be created. As Georgescu-Roegen states, “When a piece of coal is burned, its chemical energy is neither dissipated nor increased. But the initial free energy has become so dissipated in the form of heat, smoke, and ashes that man can no longer use. It has been degraded into bound energy (Georgescu-Roegen, 77).” Once a resource is used, there is less, if anything, of it to use again.

One of the Georgescu-Roegen’s most important points, then is that
[e]conomic development through industrial abundance may be a blessing for us now and for those who will be able to enjoy it in the near future, but it is definitely against the interest of the human species as a whole, if its interest is to have a lifespan as long as is compatible with its dowry of low entropy (Georgescu-Roegen, 85).

This argument leads into a question of what is considered abundance. If the human species must live at subsistence level in order to prolong the number of future generations, then the natural question must be: What is subsistence level? What are the limits of production that will supply humanity with food, shelter and the other “necessities” of life? There is no chart that provides a list of the items and the number of those items that are necessary for the continued human existence. One of the major flaws of this economic theory is the lack of information. It is not possible to choose a level of production for the entire population of the planet. Even in scaling back from the overproduction of goods that are termed “unnecessary” there is no measure of what is absolutely necessary for life to exist.

This lack of information means that not only is it improbable to reform the entire world to a level of subsistence, it is impossible. If humanity were to make the attempt, there would have to be a central leader who directs the allocation and distribution of goods to be certain that no one cheated and gained more than his or her fair share of goods. While history has show that this experiment has been attempted in certain countries, like the Soviet Union, the attempts have so far been unsuccessful. The impracticality of a world scale back in production is one argument against Georgescu-Roegen’s solution.

Another argument, also dealing with the impracticality of the solution, is that humanity enjoys its “unnecessary” goods. It is the nature of the human being to “want”. The U.S. government, and many others, has laws in place to protect private property. Americans enjoy buying the latest toys to satisfy their curiosity. The argument that people should give up their property, their toys, holds little weight when the only reason given is that in some distant future, humanity will cease to exist. Either no one believes such a claim, or no one cares to consider that distant, uncertain future. A basic rule of economics is an individual’s positive rate of time preference. Humanity wants “things” at the exact moment that the idea takes hold. It is extremely unlikely that people will allow someone to reorder production to the subsistence level until the last moment when mankind’s eminent destruction is on hand.

Yet another argument against Georgescu-Roegen’s solution to the entropy problem is that his argument can be taken to absurd levels. Since every action by its very nature must use energy, and each use of energy causes a loss of usable energy in the future, then every action taken by an individual causes a loss to some undetermined future generation. For each breath an individual takes in the present, there is less air available for the future. Thus for each person who continues living in the present, there is at least one less person that will be allowed to live in the future. The only option to ensure that an individual is not usurping the space of a future member of humanity is for that individual to die as soon as possible to avoid using energy.

(Georgescu-Roegen's "The Entropy Law and the Economic Problem," Ch. 3 is found in Valuing the Earth: Economics, Ecology, Ethics. Edited by Herman E. Daly and Kenneth N. Townsend. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1993.)