“Standard economists don't seem to understand exponential growth. Ecological economics recognizes that the economy, like any other subsystem on the planet, cannot grow forever. And if you think of an organism as an analogy, organisms grow for a period and then they stop growing. They can still continue to improve and develop, but without physically growing, because if organisms did that you’d end up with nine-billion-ton hamsters. There is a great video on this.”

Robert Costanza in: " What is Ecological economics http://insights.som.yale.edu/insights/what-ecological-economics," at Yale Insights, May 2010.

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Standard economists don't seem to understand exponential growth. Ecological economics recognizes that the economy, like…" by Robert Costanza?
Robert Costanza photo
Robert Costanza 7
American economist 1950

Related quotes

Indra Nooyi photo
John Mearsheimer photo

“The ideal situation for any state is to experience sharp economic growth while its rivals' economies grow slowly or hardly at all.”

Source: The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (2001), Chapter 5, Strategies for Survival, p. 144

“Core ideology provides the glue that holds an organization together as it grows, decentralizes, diversifies, expands globally, and develops workplace diversity.”

Jerry I. Porras (1938) American writer

Source: "Building your company's vision," 1996, p. 66
Context: Core ideology provides the glue that holds an organization together as it grows, decentralizes, diversifies, expands globally, and develops workplace diversity. Think of it as analogous to the principles of Judaism that held the Jewish people together for centuries without a homeland, even as they spread throughout the Diaspora. Or think of the truths held to be self-evident in the Declaration of Independence, or the enduring ideals and principles of the scientific community that bond scientists from every nationality together in the common purpose of advancing human knowledge. Any effective vision must embody the core ideology of the organization, which in turn consists of two distinct parts: core values, a system of guiding principles and tenets; and core purpose, the organization’s most fundamental reason for existence.

Tom Robbins photo
Thomas Merton photo

“The logic of the poet — that is, the logic of language or the experience itself — develops the way a living organism grows: it spreads out towards what it loves, and is heliotropic, like a plant.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

The Secular Journal of Thomas Merton (1959)
Context: There is a logic of language and a logic of mathematics. The former is supple and lifelike, it follows our experience. The latter is abstract and rigid, more ideal. The latter is perfectly necessary, perfectly reliable: the former is only sometimes reliable and hardly ever systematic. But the logic of mathematics achieves necessity at the expense of living truth, it is less real than the other, although more certain. It achieves certainty by a flight from the concrete into abstraction. Doubtless, to an idealist, this would seem to be a more perfect reality. I am not an idealist. The logic of the poet — that is, the logic of language or the experience itself — develops the way a living organism grows: it spreads out towards what it loves, and is heliotropic, like a plant.

Kenneth Griffin photo

“Every organization has two choices. Choice one is to grow. Choice two is to die. If you decide not to grow, it's a clear-cut message to talented people that it's time to leave.”

Kenneth Griffin (1968) American hedge fund manager

Institutional Investor Magazine (September 2001) http://web.archive.org/20060329190803/ddo.typepad.com/ddo/files/Citadel_2001.pdf

Wilhelm Reich photo

Related topics