They say time waits for no one. But that’s wrong. Time has a habit of waiting for the great scholars like Herman Daly.
I read today that the professor had died. A serious economic thinker, for half a century he went about rejecting the idea that the only economics was neo-classical economics. In doing, laying the foundations for what has become the field known as ecological economics. On twitter today, Kate Raworth is warmly reflecting on his work and how it influenced her.
In July this year he was interviewed by New York Times Magazine. When asked by David Marchese whether he was disappointed that growth was still king despite a lifetime of arguing for an economics not based solely on growth, the Professor’s response provides a great lesson worth repeating today (and everyday):
My duty is to do the best I can and put out some ideas. Whether the seed that I plant is going to grow is not up to me. It’s just up to me to plant it and water it. Of course, I don’t think burning the world is ethically mandated by the ultimate end, so I like to see the ideas of ecological and steady-state economics move forward. But you’re asking about disappointment. I get a lot of criticism in the sense of “I don’t like that; that’s unrealistic.” I don’t get criticism in the more rational sense of “Your presuppositions are wrong” or “The logic which you reason from is wrong.” That is a disappointment. Georgescu-Roegen made many of the same arguments, and he was also completely ignored. In his case he had made other contributions to mathematical economics, which should have given credibility to his more radical ideas but didn’t. I lacked that independent thing, so it’s even more unlikely I would be taken seriously. But unlikely things do happen.
They also say that we should live as if our life depended on it. But that’s a little wrong too. History shows that for the scholar, filled with the great spirit of the enterprise, they put out their ideas as if their death depends on it. If you doubt this, here’s a link to his CV published in 2010 - It’s 63 pages. 2 pages on his life and 61 page listing the publications he has left forever.