Scarcity: A History from the Origins of Capitalism to the Climate Crisis

Fredrik Albritton Jonsson & Carl Wennerlind, co-authors

Dipesh Chakrabarty, moderator

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"Our book offers a new interpretation of the idea of scarcity in economic thought. We explain how modern economics arrived at its influential axiom of scarcity—infinite wants in a finite world—and also why this peculiar definition has no claim to universal validity. There are many other ways of imagining the relation between nature and the economy. We demonstrate the historical contingency of neoclassical scarcity by reconstructing the intellectual and environmental context of a dozen alternative conceptions of scarcity across 500 years of European thought. Our book ends with a plea for a new kind of economics oriented towards ecological repair rather than infinite growth."

This event is co-organized by the Center for International Social Science Research (CISSR) and the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU).

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Based in the Division of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago, the Committee on Environment, Geography and Urbanization (CEGU) is an interdisciplinary platform for critical thinking, advanced research, and innovative pedagogy on the societal and spatial dimensions of climate change, biodiversity loss, and other kinds of environmental transformation.

Key fields of research and pedagogy include urban environmental studies and sustainable urbanism; energy histories and geographies; environmental humanities; spatial and environmental media; environmental policy, design and practice; and community engagement.

Further event listings can be found at cegu.uchicago.edu.