On top of that, Nobel chemist Frederick Soddy pointed out over 70 years ago: “Debts are subject to the laws of mathematics rather than physics. Unlike wealth, which is subject to the laws of thermodynamics, debts do not rot away with old age and are not consumed in the process of living. On the contrary, they grow at so much per cent per annum, by the well known mathematical laws of simple and compound interest”
Economist Herman Daly explains the inevitable consequences that result when society pits the mathematical notions of compound interest against the physical reality of thermodynamics. He says that while debt can grow at compound interest forever, real physical wealth cannot continue to grow at the same speed “because its physical dimension is subject to the destructive forces of entropy.” He concludes: “Since wealth cannot continually grow as fast as debt, the one to one relation between the two will at some point in time be broken- i.e. there must be some repudiation or cancellation of debt. The positive feedback of compound interest must be offset by counter acting forces of debt repudiation, such as inflation, bankruptcy, or confiscatory taxation, all of which breed violence.”
At every step in the entire production and exchange process, work is done; namely, energy is expended by both humans and machines. Part of that energy is absorbed into the product and part is wasted. This means that the more stages in the economic process, the more energy lost. The same principle is at work in the production process as in the simple food chain. In highly industrial societies the stages of the economic process continue to proliferate, meaning more and more energy is dissipated all along the line; and the resultant disorders create even greater long-range problems for society.
It has been said before that the world could not possibly support another America. Looking at these figures, it becomes apparent that even one America is more than the world can afford. Imagine if the entire world tried to produce and consume as Americans do. It has been estimated that a middle-class American lives a style of life that is equivalent to the work produced by 200 human slaves. Buckminster Fuller refers to us as possessing 200 “energy slaves” that run on nonrenewable resources. Another way of looking at it is in terms of number of calories needed to sustain life. An average human diet consists of 2,000 calories a day. Yet the amount of energy calories we individually consume every day – in our cars, our electricity, our processes foods, and so on – amounts to about 200,000 calories, or more than a hundred times the quantity we absolutely need. In terms of energy consumption, though Americans number only 225 million people, our energy needs are equivalent to that of over 22 billion individuals.