School
Thermoeconomics
Overview
Thermoeconomics, also referred to as bioeconomics or biophysical economics, is a school of heterodox economics that applies the laws of thermodynamics to economic theory.
Thermoeconomics applies statistical mechanics to economic value.
It is a subfield of econophysics, extenuating to ecological economics.
Thermoeconomics studies the ways and means by which human societies procure and use energy and other biological and physical resources to produce, distribute, consume and exchange goods and services, while generating various types of waste and environmental impacts.
Biophysical economics builds on both social sciences and natural sciences to overcome some of the most fundamental limitations and blind spots of conventional economics.
It makes it possible to understand some key requirements and framework conditions for economic growth, as well as related constraints and boundaries.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.
The omission is no defect in them as abstract or hypothetical sciences, but it vitiates them in their practical application as branches of a comprehensive social science. In political economy, for instance, empirical laws of human nature are tacitly assumed by English thinkers, which are calculated only for Great Britain and the United States. Among other things, an intensity of competition is constantly supposed…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
States what Thermoeconomics is.
Until a thermometric scale was contrived, men's judgments respecting relative amounts of heat stood on the same footing with their present judgments respecting relative amounts of sound. And as in these initial stages, with no aids to observation, only the roughest comparisons of cases could be made, and only the most marked differences perceived; it is obvious that only the most simple laws of dependence could be…
Herbert Spencer, Essays on education and kindred subjects
Close in meaning to Thermoeconomics; the term itself is not named.
§ 1. Tendency of the progress of society toward increased Command over the powers of Nature; increased Security, and increased Capacity of Co-Operation. In the leading countries of the world, and in all others as they come within the influence of those leading countries, there is at least one progressive movement which continues with little interruption from year to year and from generation to generation—a progress…
John Stuart Mill, Principles of Political Economy
States what Thermoeconomics is.
Related ideas
- World Scientific
- Second law of thermodynamics
- Ecological economics
- Information
- Matter
- Statistical mechanics
- Social class
- Value theory
- Taylor & Francis
- Economic system
- Economic growth
- Evolution
- Energy
- Entropy
- Laws of thermodynamics
Place in the tradition
Part of Ecological economics.