ABSTRACT
There is a diversity of opinion, popular and professional, today over the importance of natural resources for economic growth and the maintenance of society's well-being. The papers in this volume span the whole range of positions. Such diversity in the speculation on the adequacy of natural resources is not new. Adam Smith saw limits to the possible size of a nation's industrial production which would be set by the difficulty of obtaining an expanding supply of raw materials without dramatic increases in their prices. Economic historians, notably Wrigley [1], have more recently observed that Smith failed to realize the potential powers of the natural endowments when the transition from organic to inorganic raw materials is recognized. 1 With recognition of these possibilities, many economists felt the limits to size evaporate. However, Jevons [2] warned that new limits were forthcoming, because natural resources play an essential role in production. He observed that:
Coal, in truth, stands not beside but entirely above all other commodities. It is the material energy of the country—the universal aid—the factor in everything we do. With coal almost any feat is possible or easy; without it we are thrown back in the laborious poverty of early times.
[2, p. viii]