The Entropy Law and the impossibility of perpetual economic growth

Abstract

Every production-recycling iteration accumulates an inevitable proportion of its matter-energy in the environment, lest the production process itself would be a system in perpetual motion, violating the second law of Thermodynamics. Such high-entropy matter depletes finite stocks of ecosystem services provided by the ecosphere, hence are incompatible with the long-term growth in the material scale of the economic process. Moreover, the complex natural systems governing such stocks respond to depletion by possibly sudden environmental transitions, thus hindering markets' very ability to adapt to the new equilibrium conditions. Consequently, uncertainty of critical resilience thresholds constrains material economic growth.