The Post Carbon Institute is posting early release chapters from Richard Heinberg’s book The End of Growth, coming out in July. Read other early chapters here.

Chapter 1, Part 1: Economics for the Hurried

The first economists were ancient Greek and Indian philosophers, among them Aristotle (382-322 BC)-who discussed the “art” of wealth acquisition and questioned whether property should best be owned privately or by government acting on behalf of the people. Little of real substance was added to the discussion during the next two thousand years.

The 18th century brought a virtual explosion of economic thinking. “Classical” economic philosophers such as Adam Smith (1723-1790), Thomas Robert Malthus (1766-1834), and David Ricardo (1772-1823) introduced basic concepts such as supply and demand, division of labor, and the balance of international trade. As happens in so many disciplines, early practitioners were presented with plenty of uncharted territory and proceeded to formulate general maps of their subject that future experts would labor to refine in ever more trivial ways.

These pioneers set out to discover natural laws in the day-to-day workings of economies. They were striving, that is, to make of economics a science on a par with the emerging disciplines of physics and astronomy.