Fundamentally, the leading lights of the Allies , as well as those of the Axis , would have agreed.
(As would the elites of most of the Neutrals, if they had been asked to think about it).
They all thought that, in the end, human mental MINDpower could surmount anything MATERIAL that Mother Nature could throw at them : be it a feast of bad weather or a famine of natural rubber.
Now nobody started an aggressive war (or conducted a defensive war) between 1939 and 1945 because of the economic theories of Robert Solow.
He was only 15 when the war began and he didn't utter his immortal quote that:
"If it is very easy to substitute other factors for natural resources, then there is, in principle, no problem. The world can, in effect, get along without natural resources.
("The Economics of Resources or the Resources of Economics.") Robert M. Solow. The American Economic Review, Vol. 64until 1974, 35 years later.
Besides as which, the theory hardly originated with Professor Solow --- it would be far, far better to lay credit where credit is due , at the feet of English Chemist John Dalton and his multitude of disciples in all the scientific and quasi-scientific disciplines.
But Solow is the one who has made the concept famous in contemporary times and who can say whether Dalton might have changed his views, in the lighter of newer scientific knowledge, if he had lived that long.
Robert Solow is still alive, has never fundamentally denounced this claim and so let him wear it.
Solow and Dalton's theory is basically a re-statement of The Good News Law (the First law of Thermodynamics) without the awkwardness of The Bad News Law (the Second Law of Thermodynamics) raining on the parade.
One could call The First Law of Thermodynamics the apogee of human hubris, just as the Second law of Thermodynamics is its nadir.
But haven't I already used that line to describe WWII ?
And your point being ?
No comments:
Post a Comment