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Ep 6  |  Herman Daly

Herman Daly: “Toward an Ecological Economics”

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TGS06 Herman Daly The Great Simplification

On this episode, we meet with ecological economist and professor emeritus at the University of Maryland, Herman Daly.

Daly discusses the biophysical underpinnings of human economies, and how a social system that is more tethered to our ecological reality might come into being.

Daly explains how the transformation from classical economics to neoclassical economics created an understanding of the world that prioritized utility and money above all else. How did neoclassical economics contribute to our current predicament?

Further, Daly explores what he believes to be the best-case scenario humans face in the next decade.

About Herman Daly

Herman Daly is Professor Emeritus of economics at the University of Maryland School of Public Policy, former senior economist at the World Bank, and a founder of the field of ecological economics. He is the author of For The Common Good, Valuing the Earth, the textbook Ecological Economics, and many other books, essays, and academic papers

In French, we have a motto that says that a simple drawing is often better than a long explanation. Jean-Marc Jancovici Carbone 4 President

That’s very understandable because with left atmosphere thinking, one of the problems is that you see everything as a series of problems that must have solutions. Iain McGilchrist Neuroscientist and Philosopher

We can’t have hundreds and hundreds of real relationships that are healthy because that requires time and effort and full attention and awareness of being in real relationship and conversation with the other human. Nate Hagens Director of ISEOF

This is the crux of the whole problem. Individual parts of nature are more valuable than the biocomplexity of nature. Thomas Crowther Founder Restor

Show Notes & Links to Learn More

00:45 – Herman Daly works

06:25 – Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen + The Entropy Law and the Economic Process

08:26 – Silent Spring Rachel Carson

08:57 – We live in an energy and materials economy

09:14 – Environmental externalities

09:54 – Ecological economics

11:36 – Kenneth Boulding

14:56 – Space flights/colonization

15:44 – William Shatner flight response

18:14 – Canonical assumptions

19:55 – Alfred Marshall

20:25 – Law of diminishing returns

20:47 – Neoclassical economics

21:38 – Herman Daly’s Economics for a Full World Flyer

23:55 – Law of diminishing marginal utility

24:08 – Water-diamonds paradox

26:03 – A barrel of oil does 5 years of human labor

26:22 – We underpay for the main input to our economies

26:42 – Energy cannot be substituted

26:57 – Cobb-Douglas production function

27:45 – Robert Solow

28:49 – Reiner Kümmel

30:17 – Economics for the Future paper

30:38 – Too big too fail policies

30:57 – 20% of Americans went broke during COVID

32:22 – Frederick Soddy and sub-atomic energy

33:45 – Laws of thermodynamics

34:58 – Fractional reserve banking

35:15 – Soddy Pig example

36:23 – Debt is a claim on future energy

38:07 – Marginal costs equals marginal benefits

45:00 – Untax Project

45:23 – Value added tax

47:30 – Carbon tax vs cap and trade

49:50 – Quantitative easing

51:29 – Steady state economy

1:00:28 – Truth is outcompeted by identity 

1:01:27 – Drain America First

1:04:04 – 10% of all humans that ever lived are alive today

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