Revised 23 August 2021


Steady state cannot make more ample that which is scarce. As Georgescu-Roegen (1971) pointed out, let S represent the stock of low entropy resources on earth, and R the average annual amount of depletion. The theoretical maximum number of years until the non-renewable stock S is depleted is S/R years. The greater R is, the smaller is the time period for humankind to find alternatives. Both the size of our population and our per-capita consumption rate set the pace of depletion of stocks of resource stocks which could be used provide life support systems for future generations. Our current generations have a moral responsibility to attain steady state as soon as possible. The final level of steady state is a moral responsibility for future generations.