page_title: Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen
section_title: Man's economic struggle and the social evolution of mankind (bioeconomics)
hierarchical_section_title: Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen / Work / Magnum opus on The Entropy Law and the Economic Process / Man's economic struggle and the social evolution of mankind (bioeconomics)
context_page_description: Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen was a Romanian mathematician, statistician and economist. He is best known today for his 1971 magnum opus The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, in which he argued that all natural resources are irreversibly degraded when put to use in economic activity. A progenitor and a paradigm founder in economics, Georgescu-Roegen's work was seminal in establishing ecological economics as an independent academic sub-discipline in economics.
  Several economists have hailed Georgescu-Roegen as a man who lived well ahead of his time, and some historians of economic thought have proclaimed the ingenuity of his work. In spite of such appreciation, Georgescu-Roegen was never awarded the Nobel Prize in Economics, although benefactors from his native Romania were lobbying for it on his behalf. After Georgescu-Roegen's death, his work was praised by a surviving friend of the highest rank: Prominent Keynesian economist and Nobel Prize laureate Paul Samuelson professed that he would be delighted if the fame Georgescu-Roegen did not fully realise in his own lifetime were granted by posterity instead.
context_section_description: In his social theory, Georgescu-Roegen argues that man's economic struggle to work and earn a livelihood is largely a continuation and extension of his biological struggle to sustain life and survive. This biological struggle has prevailed since the dawn of man, and the nature of the struggle was not altered by the invention of money as a medium of exchange. Unlike animals, man has developed exosomatic instruments, that is, tools and equipment. These instruments are produced by man and are not a part of his body. At the same time, production is a social, and not an individual, undertaking. This situation has turned man's struggle to sustain life and survive into a social conflict which is unique when compared to animals. Contrasting his own view with those of Karl Marx, Georgescu-Roegen asserts:
  [L]ike Marx, I believe that the social conflict is not a mere creation of man without any root in material human conditions. But unlike Marx, I consider that, precisely because the conflict has such a basis, it can be eliminated neither by man's decision to do so nor by the social evolution of mankind.
  When man (some men) attempts to radically change the distribution of access to material resources in society, this may result in wars or revolutions, Georgescu-Roegen admits; but even though wars and revolutions may bring about the intended redistributions, man's economic struggle and the social conflict will remain. There will be rulers and ruled in any social order, and the ruling is largely a continuation of the biological struggle of sustaining life and survive, Georgescu-Roegen claims. Under these material conditions, the ruling classes of past and present have always resorted to force, ideology and manipulation to defend their privileges and maintain the acquiescence of the ruled. This historical fact does not end with  communism, Georgescu-Roegen points out; quite the opposite, it goes on during communism, and beyond it as well. It would be contrary to man's biological nature to organise himself otherwise.
  Later, Georgescu-Roegen introduced the term 'bioeconomics' (short for 'biological economics') to describe his view that man's economic struggle is a continuation of the biological struggle. In his final years, he planned to write a book on the subject of bioeconomics, but due to old age, he was unable to complete it. He did manage to write a sketch on it, though.
caption: Marx was optimistic about the future communist society; but Georgescu-Roegen objected that social conflict will never be eliminated.
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