1. In the last chapter of The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Georgescu-Roegen identifies the fundamental drive behind the attempts to make man conform to the prerogatives of science.[1] He quotes Bridgman’s pronouncement that “we will not have a true social science until eventually mankind has educated itself to be more rational.”[2] Therefore, “what he said in essence is that, unless mankind educates itself so that the behavior of man shall be predictable in the same sense in which the behavior of matter is, there can be no true social science.”[3] In other words, irrationality is identified with elusion of any predictive rule.

2. Georgescu-Roegen proceeds by arguing that “a variant of Bridgman’s position, concerning what is to be done in order to make a social science of the same order of operationality as physics and chemistry, has been for some time now near the hearts of the worshippers of a thoroughly planned society, of Marxists in particular.”[4] In this connection he writes about the work of Adolph Lowe, whose concern may be summarized as follows: since man behaves irrationally, the task of social sciences must be to make man behave rationally, that is, predictably.[5] The normative drive of social sciences thus turns against everything that eludes predictive rules. However, it is not true that social sciences as such are behind this drive. We must turn our attention to the potential uses of social sciences by those who wield power. Georgescu-Roegen writes:

As Lowe presents it, Political Economics is “the theory of controlled economic systems.”[6] It presupposes a “controlling authority” capable of selecting the optimal “macrogoal” of the economy. After this selection, the same authority turns to the following tasks: (1) to determine the material course that will move the system toward the chosen macrogoal; (2) to find out the behavioral patterns required by this course and the motivations capable of fostering these patterns; and (3) to discover the central regulations that will induce these “goal-adequate” motivations.[7] Even if we beg the question of whether there is such a thing as an objective optimal goal and, if there is, whether the control authority can always discover it, and even if we grant the possibility of planning on paper the course to the macrogoal, the problems raised by the other two tasks are formidable. Since Lowe certainly does not advocate the use of outright individual coercion for solving these problems, he must count on the existence of some calculating devices that may enable us to control motivations by ordinary regulations as efficiently as matter in bulk can be controlled by engineering contraptions. Such a supposition implies that even features not included in homo æconomicus are subject to a strong degree of mechanistic orderliness, which is a supposition more unwarranted than the basic position of standard economics. In any case, the supposition constitutes the creed on which the belief in the feasibility of social engineering rests.[8]

Georgescu-Roegen is therefore objecting primarily to the mechanistic illusion behind controlled economic systems. More precisely, he identifies predictability in the short run with predictability in the long run.

3. The problem is somewhat more complex, however. Georgescu-Roegen’s association of social control and Marxism has much deeper roots. The task of social control is not to make human behavior predictable in general, according to some pre-established scientific norms. On the contrary, the task of social control is to make human behavior predictable at any moment, given the fact that human behavior indeed eludes any predictive rule, and given the technological prerogatives of the economic process, which may change over time quite radically. In this connection it is instructive to quote Lowe again:

One can imagine the limiting case of a monolithic collectivism in which the prescriptions of the central plan are carried out by functionaries who fully identify with the imposed macrogoals. In such a system the economically relevant processes reduce almost completely to technical manipulations.[9]

In other words, technological prerogatives require full malleability of human behavior, since every rigidity in that behavior, that is, any a priori predictability, may endanger the development of the technological apparatus that underlies the production process. The controlling authority must therefore be able to modify the behavior of its subjects at any moment by using appropriate motivational devices. Only in this sense the behavior must be predictable. More specifically, the change of behavior must be made predictable, contrary to Georgescu-Roegen’s conclusions. As it was suggested above, however, he is still right in the sense that Marxism can be associated with the outlined position to the extent that Marxism indeed rests on the premise of infinite potentialities of human nature. In this connection we may conclude that the underlying concept of rationality is not related to predictability as such, but to conformity in view of technological change.

Footnotes

1. Georgescu-Roegen, N., The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1971.

2. Op. cit., p. 346. Georgescu-Roegen quotes from P.W. Bridgman, Reflections of a Physicist, New York, 1955, p. 451.

3. Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., p. 347.

4. Loc. cit.

5. Lowe, A., On Economic Knowledge: Toward a Science of Political Economics, New York, 1965.

6. Op. cit., p. 156.

7. Op. cit., pp. 133, 143.

8. Georgescu-Roegen, op. cit., pp. 347-348.

9. Lowe, op. cit., p. 142.