The Physics laws and the unsustainability of economic liberalism

Dept. Ingegneria Civile, Edile Ambientale e Matematica Applicata, University of Messina, Italy

Abstract

Nature or Physics laws rule everything occurs within the Universe and on the Earth, including economical activities and social processes. Opposite to human laws, Physics laws cannot be transgressed, therefore environmental and economic sustainability can be pursued only through economy development models coherent with them, and it is insanity to think that politics and economy can preferentially respect free market laws.

The first and the second Thermodynamics principles have a great economic and social relevance, because they imply that all human activities are transformations (nothing is created, nothing is destroyed, everything is transformed) with efficiency less than 100%, whose scrap is directly related to the environment pollution. This holds for economical activities too. In fact companies, in order to produce, need raw materials and energy, make wastes and run into debt; consumers, in order to consume, need energy, make wastes and run into debt; governments, in order to provide infrastructures and services for production and consumptions, need energy, make wastes and run into debt. The inputs of such process are then the planet resources while the outputs are debt and wastes that, in turn, require more energy and other resources to be treated. Because of the narrowness of the natural resources this model might get unstable and lead to the economical crisis and to consumption and degradation of the resources, as striking prescription of Thermodynamics laws.

Any alternative model must realize that, since the pollution is unavoidable, it is wise to pollute as least as possible and as slowly as possible. Again the second Thermodynamics principle, not ideology, states that this is possible only through an ordered, fair and jointly liable access to the common assets, opposite to the predatory access onto which free market is based.