The programme

A research programme in the science of economics

The economy is a far-from-equilibrium dissipative structure nested in the biosphere — a monetary system and a thermodynamic one at once. Neoclassical economics models neither well: it assumes an equilibrium the data rejects, and leaves energy and matter out of production entirely.

TSOEL treats the economy as an object to be modelled and measured. The programme couples Steve Keen’s monetary system dynamics to Garvin Boyle’s energy-constrained agent-based models, so money and energy are carried in one framework — and the results can be run, reproduced, and audited.

Foundations

What it stands on

Keen — endogenous money
Banks create money by lending; private debt drives demand; capitalism is inherently cyclical and crisis-prone (Minsky, modelled in software with Russell Standish).
Boyle — biophysical agents
An economy built bottom-up from agents under a hard thermodynamic budget, where the second law — not utility — sets the limits (Orrery Software).
Lotka — maximum power
Evolution selects the techniques that harness the most available energy (exergy), subject to whichever material constraint binds.
Ashby — appropriate selection
Intelligence as regulation: a good regulator must be a model of its system; requisite variety bounds what it can control.
Prigogine — dissipative structures
Order sustained far from equilibrium by importing exergy and exporting entropy.

Open problems

What isn’t solved yet

A usable model needs empirical content the shell can’t supply: real net-energy and input-output data, a genuine resource-theoretic energy layer rather than additive throughput, the viability set the economy must stay inside, and the shadow prices on the binding constraints.

These are the programme’s live questions — the difference between a tool that can host the science and a model that does it.