Sunday fun is taking the place of blogging today, but don’t miss Tom Maguire’s Malthus Lives! (But Not Here – Dismal Reporting On The Dismal Science), where he’s chopping, slicing, and dicing Nathan Greenwold’s uncritical article at the NYT, New School of Thought Brings Energy to ‘the Dismal Science’
A small but growing group of academics believe the latter is true, and they are out to prove it. These thinkers say that the neoclassical mantra of constant economic growth is ignoring the world’s diminishing supply of energy at humanity’s peril, failing to take account of the principle of net energy return on investment. They hope that a set of theories they call “biophysical economics” will improve upon neoclassical theory, or even replace it altogether.
The so-called new school is yet another re-incarnation of Malthus, so, yes, everything old is new again… at the School of Rome.
