Fund elements that guided me to G-R
I was introduced to Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen’s (G-R) work in an EPW article (Shah: 2007) while I was doing literature review on the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme in India. [1]
Shah (2007) in his article mentioned of G-R’s 1971 classic The Entropy Law and the Economic Process that calls for realisation that qualitative and irrevocable changes necessarily characterise the environment of which economic processes are a part and hence the need to picture the macro-economy as an open sub-system of the finite natural ecosystem. Also development approaches in India by ignoring the interrelationship between the economy and the environment has endangered the livelihoods of the poorest that are dependent on natural resources. The context of the article was to establish the basis for ecosystem regeneration and sustainable development that could be further achieved through large-scale programmes like the National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme. [2]
Initially I was intrigued by the name of G-R’s book as it had the term entropy. The reason for the instigation was two reasons. First, entropy linked to thermodynamics the importance [3] of which I had understood during the course of my academic training in applied sciences. The second reason was a personal one – My very dear friend often teased me by saying that I did not believe in entropy but rather believed in increasing entropy to the best of abilities – this he stated when he thought that I was in the illusion of being orderly and organized (especially by using the many fancy tools like drawers, files, folders, post-its, notes etc that were available). I too conceded that I was a fatality of modern consumerism in certain instances.
Thus the title The Entropy Law and the Economic Process redirected me to look back at my perceptions of ‘entropy’ which in turn again intrigued me to knowing more about the work The Entropy Law and the Economic Process. I was slightly disappointed however that I could not lay my hands on a copy of the book as none were available in the library accessible to me. However I skimmed through an entertaining and convincing article[4] by Herman Daly[5] about G-R. I made also made a mental note to watch out for citations of G-R work in course of literature review that I was doing.
However, I came across no further citations of G-R’s work in course of literature review. On the basis that perhaps the contributions of G-R were not so relevant, I would have not pursued to further study on G-R had it not been for a wise man.
In a correspondence with the wise man, I had thought it appropriate to cite G-R to support a viewpoint that all innovations may not necessarily lead to sustainability as they may just exacerbate natural resource use and accelerate the process of entropy. Little was I aware of the fact that the wise man was a student[6] of G-R. He expressed happiness that I had cited G-R and also lamented of the fact that G-R did not receive the recognition that he deserved on account of his dismissive approach to what he terms as ‘standard economist’ and even his own students.
At the end, I was happy that the citing G-R was not completely out of context and felt motivated to know of G-R’s work.
I am not trained as an economist[7] and perhaps never felt motivated to pursue a detailed understanding of this field. However, I feel very happy to initiate a formal understanding of the subject with a blank mind and most importantly by starting with G-R.
Also starting with G-R would minimize the possibility that I become a “causality” of theories of “standard economists” 
Notes
[1] Shah, Mihir (2007): ‘Employment Guarantee, Civil Society and Indian Democracy’, Economic and Political Weekly, November 17.
[2] Among other recommendations that Shah (2007) provides are the role of Civil Society Organizations (CSO) to enable effective functioning of schemes along with Panchayati Raj Institutions (PRIs) and enable strong ‘CSO-PRI’ partnerships; this in turn could hold the key to the future of a vibrant democracy in India.
[3] An illustration that I could immediately think was how employing better thermodynamic cycles such as Brayton Cycle could increase efficiency in nuclear power plants.
[4] The account of the ‘Cobb-Douglas function’ and ‘Solow-Stilglitz variation of the Cobb-Douglas function’ was both amusing and enlightening. See Daly (2007).
[5] Daly, Herman (2007): ‘How long can neoclassical economists ignore the contributions of Georgescu-Roegen?’ in Daly (2007) ‘Ecological economics and sustainable development: selected essays’. Also available from http://www.mountainskygroup2008.org/reflections/files/Daly-chapter-11.pdf
[6] A Google search revealed that the wise man described the role of G-R as having helped shape his horizons in economics.
[7] The only economics that I was exposed to was engineering economics and optimization and some concepts relevant to business administration. In fact the economist whose contributions I have most referred to is perhaps Michael Porter and his five forces tools for analyzing a sector.
Figure 1. Search results (percentage) in three Google search tools