macroeconomics, malthusian-crisis, growth-theory, technological-progress, sustainabilityI was recenty asking when the concept of sustainability arose in english language, as I was a bit surprised by the ngrams chart. Surprisingly, this seems to be a relatively new research field in economics (4 decades) and google scholar lists many papers trying to explain the case of Easter Island based on computer economic simulations and theoretical models. The Club of Rome published its study on the Limits of Growth in 1972. Was economic sustainability not researched before then?
The economics of sustainability goes back a long way. Just because the word “sustainability” appears to have been applied to economic activity only since circa 1972, doesn’t mean that it wasn’t discussed with different words previously.
Garrett Hardin usually gets the credit for first documenting the tragedy of the commons, in 1968 - but see below.
E.F. Schumacher started developing his theory of Buddhist Economics around 1955.
Thomas Malthus first published his theories on economic unsustainability around 1798.
But it was Aristotle who first documented the tragedy of the commons - and that was about two and a half thousand years ago!
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