The Metabolic Pattern of Societies: Where Economists Fall Short

by Giampietro; Mario

• ISBN13: 9780415589536
• ISBN10: 0415589533
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2011-11-28
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

It is increasingly evident that the conventional scientific approach to economic processes and related sustainability issues is seriously flawed. No economist predicted the current planetary crisis even though the world has now undergone five severe recessions primed by dramatic increases in the price of oil. This book presents the results of more than twenty years of work aimed at developing an alternative method of analysis of the economic process and related sustainability issues: it is possible to perform an integrated and comprehensive analysis of the sustainability of socio-economic systems using indicators and variables that have been so far ignored by conventional economists. The book "s innovative approach aims to provide a better framework with which we can face the predicaments of sustainability issues. It begins by presenting practical examples of the shortcomings of conventional economic analysis and examines the systemic problems faced when trying to use quantitative analysis for governance. In providing a critical appraisal of current applications of economic narratives to the issue of sustainability, the book presents several innovative concepts required to generate a post-Newtonian approach to quantitative analysis in the Musiasemapproach. An empirical section illustrates the results of an analysis of structural changes in world and EU countries. Finally, the book, using the insight gained in the theoretical and empirical analysis, exposes the dubious quality of many narratives currently used in the sustainability debate. Overall, the performance of modern economies across different hierarchical levels of organization and across different disciplinary knowledge systems is fully analyzed and a more realistic measure of happiness and well-being is devised. The book should be of interest to researchers and students looking at the issue of sustainability within a variety of disciplines.

Table of Contents

List of figures	p. xi
List of tables	p. xvii
List of boxes	p. xviii
Foreword	p. xix
Preface	p. xxii
Acknowledgements	p. xxiv
Acronyms	p. xxviii
The red pill	p. 1
How real is the reality perceived and represented by economists?	p. 1
The painful truth	p. 3
The structure of the book and instructions for its use	p. 13
The process of demographic change: the importance of multi-scale and multi-level analysis	p. 22
Shortcomings of common per capita assessments	p. 2
The intricate relation between demographic structure, social organization and economic performance	p. 27
Lag-time dynamics: another look at ageing and immigration	p. 32
Going beyond economic energy intensity and Environmental Kuznets Curves: combining extensive and intensive variables	p. 37
Introduction	p. 37
Multidimensional analysis requires semantic wisdom: energy intensity	p. 38
Economic energy intensity across dimensions and scales	p. 41
Environmental Kuznets Curves	p. 55
Conclusion	p. 60
The quality of quantitative analyses for governance: how to choose a relevant perception and a pertinent representation	p. 62
Back to the basic epistemological challenge of quantitative modelling	p. 62
An epistemological interpretation of the concept of complexity	p. 64
The semiotic complex and semantic closure	p. 65
The making of quantitative analysis: Rosen's Theory of Modelling Relation	p. 75
Getting semantic closure when dealing with sustainability: the troubles on the normative side	p. 79
Systemic epistemological problems on the descriptive side: the challenge of multi-scale analysis	p. 90
Additional source of ignorance for the quantitative representation: the semiotic process entails handling a complex perception of time	p. 99
Conclusions	p. 102
A critical appraisal of conventional economic approaches to sustainability problems	p. 104
The magic of cost benefit analysis	p. 104
The Contingent Valuation Method: can we measure the "real" value of our planet?	p. 110
Quantitative representations of becoming systems have an expiry date	p. 114
The concept of sustainability entails a post-normal science: the systemic problems on the normative side faced by the use of economic narratives	p. 119
Autistic economics: the fatal attractor of formalism nonsense	p. 125
Conclusions	p. 134
Five theoretical pillars of MuSIASEM for a new quantitative analysis of sustainability	p. 136
The concept of grammar	p. 137
Theoretical concepts associated with autopoiesis	p. 146
The concept of the dynamic energy budget	p. 154
Taming the concept of impredicativity: impredicative loop analysis	p. 157
The mosaic effect	p. 163
Conclusion	p. 173
Building blocks of the MuSIASEM approach	p. 175
The basic concept of metabolism	p. 175
Operationalizing the concept of societal metabolism: Georgescu-Roegen's flow-fund model	p. 183
MuSIASEM to analyse the metabolic pattern of societies: constraints and benchmarks on the supply side	p. 195
MuSIASEM to analyse the metabolic pattern of societies: constraints and benchmarks on the demand side	p. 205
Applying Sudoku procedures to the multi-purpose grammar of MuSIASEM	p. 210
The MuSIASEM approach: a wrap up	p. 214
Looking for "beyond-GDP indicators": bioeconomic pressure	p. 216
Bioeconomic pressure: a "beyond-GDP" indicator	p. 217
Selection of sample, materials and methods	p. 222
Comparing BEP and GDP per capita in relation to economic development	p. 227
Comparing BEP and GDP per capita in relation to other indicators of development	p. 240
Representing the metabolic pattern in a three-dimensional space: "GDP p.c-exo/endo-THA/HAPS" and "BEP-exo/endo-THA/HAPS"	p. 247
Conclusions	p. 256
An international comparison of the metabolic pattern of modern societies at the level of economic sectors	p. 258
Checking the viability of the dynamic equilibrium in relation to the characteristics of internal compartments	p. 258
Data sources, materials and methods	p. 261
A comparison of changes taking place in the EU14 countries (1992-2005)	p. 264
Analysing the integrated set of changes across compartments in a historic view	p. 277
The problem with energy accounting when acknowledging the existence of two distinct relevant energy forms: primary energy sources and energy carriers	p. 282
Conclusions	p. 286
Other applications of MuSIASEM	p. 288
The analysis of urban metabolism: a grammar useful to analyse the metabolic pattern of households	p. 288
Two case studies of analysis of urban household metabolism in Barcelona	p. 294
A multi-scale analysis of urban waste metabolism	p. 298
The metabolic pattern of water	p. 303
The metabolic pattern across multiple scales: from the local to the global picture	p. 307
Poor narratives and granfalloons hampering the sustainability debate: can we escape Soddy's prophecy?	p. 316
The demographic dimension	p. 317
The implications of peak-oil are grossly underestimated	p. 321
The world crusade on climate change	p. 329
The dangerous formation of granfalloons	p. 334
Can we escape Soddy's prophecy?	p. 340
What went wrong and where do we go from here?	p. 349
How dangerous is the fairytale of perpetual growth?	p. 349
Confusing a transitional period with a steady-state situation	p. 352
Reason for optimism: the Robinson Crusoe effect	p. 355
On the concept of sustainability	p. 356
How does the MuSIASEM approach fit in?	p. 358
What should we change in sustainability science?	p. 360
Rediscovering Buddhist wisdom	p. 363
Appendix: illustration of the MuSIASEM approach	p. 365
Glossary	p. 382
Notes	p. 390
References	p. 391
Index	p. 406
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