The following is an Energy Institute commentary piece coauthored with Dr. Josh Rhodes also of the University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute, January 2018.
Our economic system operates within intellectual, social, and physical constraints. Each of these constraints can feedback to affect the others. To produce more goods and services we have to 1) know how to produce them, 2) make them desirable, acceptable and affordable, and 3) have the required natural resources. The finite size of the Earth increasingly affects socioeconomic outcomes across the globe, including within the developed economies.
Ecologists, anthropologists, and systems scientists have anticipated this since the 1970s. However, the physical constraints on societal and economic organization and equality are largely unappreciated and misunderstood.