Self-organization and sustainability: energetics of evolution and implications for ecological economics

In the 1920s, Alfred Lotka suggested that evolution results both in an increasing total energy flow through the biosphere and in increasing energy efficiency of biological processes. Later authors attempted to generalize Lotka’s conjectures and to transform them into general evolutionary laws. These laws are derived from the laws of thermodynamics, and it is frequently argued that they also apply to the development of economic systems. In the present paper, an alternative interpretation of the Lotka principles is suggested which starts from the self-organization of dissipative structures. Self-organization concepts from ecological and evolutionary economics are integrated. On this basis, energetic regularities in evolutionary processes are interpreted as emergent properties of competitive self-organization. Given the close relationship between energy dissipation in economic processes and various environmental problems, thermodynamic effects of economic evolution are of practical policy relevance. The evolutionary perspective taken here implies that policy measures toward sustainable development will primarily have to affect the kinds of innovative behavior triggered in competitive processes. © 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.