General

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

Daniel James Sanchez — Wed, 29 Dec 2010 15:51:11 GMT

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.

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

Clayton — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 09:31:06 GMT

And technological development fits where?

Capital accumulation. Watch the lecture.

Clayton -

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

Clayton — Mon, 15 Nov 2010 09:30:09 GMT

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 -

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

EconomistInTraining — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 20:20:14 GMT

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?

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

Student — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 19:59:03 GMT

...

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

Giant_Joe — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 19:38:28 GMT

Giant Joe, you should check out Peter Thiel, he has some interesting ideas related to technological growth.

Thakn you. If I don't check that out today, I'll check it out tomorrow. I've seen him conduct some interviews and I've been impressed.

Yes, the Earth is finite. Eventually, there will be so many human beings that they will not all fit on its surface, even with the tallest skyscrapers and deepest tunnels we can build. Eventually, we will use all of the natural resources in the solar system and require every bit of the Sun's energy to live. Eventually, the total of human body mass will contain more matter than currently exists in the solar system.

I think the original author's intent was to mention that we have more (potential) resources than what many think. But by any physical measure, it is true that the Earth is finite. With the current understanding of what resources are and what we will need, you are right. I don't see these limitations being such a large problem in our lifetimes that it would make our living conditions unbearable or catastrophic. I'm more convinced that people's fear of this happening is a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that fear of running out of resources/space will lead to violence and make living conditions unberable.

Only 4 centuries ago and more recently, have we made use of and better understood electricity. To most people before that time, it would have been incomprehensible or magic. We were then able to use kinetic energy and convert it to electric energy. Then we were able to turn light into useful energy. Then we were able to split atoms and find energy. We might be able to split smaller particles, or invent new forms of energy, or discover some new aspect of physics that will make resources much more abundant, and possibly make some of them, like electricity, superabundant.

What I'm saying is that with new technology and better understanding of the universe, those limits you mention might be overcome or become moot in the distant future. Heck, people with pacemakers are technically cyborgs already. Within the next century, we'll probably have an upper-class of people who are much closer to our science-fiction fantasies of cyborgs. Who knows where human needs and identity will go from there?

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

I. Ryan — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 19:29:00 GMT

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.

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

MacFall — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 17:48:12 GMT

Do you think human population will stop growing at some point?

Humans mass, based upon the average size of a human, is about 50,000,000,000 kg. The mass of the Solar System is estimated to be about 1.992 x 10³⁰ kg. Which means (if my math is right) that at a rate of doubling human population (and hence mass) every 32 years, humans will contain an amount of matter equal to the mass of the Solar System in their bodies in just over 20,000 years.

Obviously, that's not going to happen. We're not going to consume the Sun, and we have to have some rock left to stand on. And that also assumes that the rate of population growth will continue for 20,000 years into the future, which is unlikely. But nevertheless, if we stayed here in the Solar System for 20,000 years we would run into a situation in which we begin to run out of useable matter - not just food - because the actual body mass of humans begins to contain most of the matter. Either poulation growth would have to stop, or we'd have to leave. Personally, I'd prefer the latter. But of course I'll be dead by then so it won't matter (pun not intended).

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

Clayton — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:29:52 GMT

Eventually, the total of human body mass will contain more matter than currently exists in the solar system.

Huh??

Clayton -

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

Clayton — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 08:28:02 GMT

Just my comment on this.

Using something up means not being able to change it back.

What we can't change to what changes over time. Resources become trash. But trash can become resources. It is a mistake to see the amount of resources as inevitably finite. An innovation could mean that something which was useless is now useful. We could run out of oil, but learn how to use its byproducts in the same way.

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.

Clayton -

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

MacFall — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 07:58:17 GMT

Yes, the Earth is finite. Eventually, there will be so many human beings that they will not all fit on its surface, even with the tallest skyscrapers and deepest tunnels we can build. Eventually, we will use all of the natural resources in the solar system and require every bit of the Sun's energy to live. Eventually, the total of human body mass will contain more matter than currently exists in the solar system.

The question is, do we respond to these eventualities with hopeless, reactionary fear, or do we also realize that somewhere in that unimaginably vast future well of human creativity is the key to getting off this rock and away from this star and expanding into the rest of the Universe?

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

liberty student — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 06:17:00 GMT

Giant Joe, you should check out Peter Thiel, he has some interesting ideas related to technological growth.

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

Angurse — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 06:05:51 GMT

is it obvious that on average these people had better access to food and other goods? i don't think so. if one did have better access to food after the neolithic revolution, then improved nutrition would have resulted in greater stature (height) which as i mentioned before was not the case.

Not at all. Access to food definitely does not imply access to improved nutrition, it means nothing more than subsistance. (Just look at how many people live off of "fast food" today)

but that still leaves us without empirical evidence that living standards were dramatically improved during this period. beyond the fact that it just "seems obvious".

Did the population not increase dramatically? (Also, I don't recall saying that the standards "dramatically" improved, but interpret it as you wish)

so let me steer us back to my original point which was that the primary cause for Malthusian pessimism (the fear of a growing population in response to economic growth) is observably not coming true (western birth rates are falling, population size is leveling off and in some countries even declining). i think that is really as far as we need to take it.

That would take away from any point contention though

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

I. Ryan — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 05:37:05 GMT

Just my comment on this.

Using something up means not being able to change it back.

What we can't change to what changes over time. Resources become trash. But trash can become resources. It is a mistake to see the amount of resources as inevitably finite. An innovation could mean that something which was useless is now useful. We could run out of oil, but learn how to use its byproducts in the same way.

Re: Think the Earth is finite? Think again

Student — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 05:30:19 GMT

is it obvious that on average these people had better access to food and other goods? i don't think so. if one did have better access to food after the neolithic revolution, then improved nutrition would have resulted in greater stature (height) which as i mentioned before was not the case. maybe creating a dependable food supply is more complicated than one might thing (i.e. prehistoric farming wasn't as easy or as reliable as it looks from the 21st century)?

in any case, if you want to say that how we should interpret the decline in height after the neolithic revolution is open to debate i am totally cool with that.

but that still leaves us without empirical evidence that living standards were dramatically improved during this period.

now, before we get caught in a google quest for the "truth" behind human living standards after the neolithic revolution, i don't think anyone signed up that debate (i know did not). so let me steer us back to my original point which was that the primary cause for Malthusian pessimism (the fear of a growing population in response to economic growth) is observably not coming true (western birth rates are falling, population size is leveling off and in some countries even declining). i think that is really as far as we need to take this.

thanks for the pleasent convo!