ABSTRACT
In common usage, as well as in traditional mainstream economics, material inputs for production have been thought of as physical resources. Land was the “original and indestructible powers of the soil.” The institutional theory of resource creation provides the necessary framework for correctly understanding the evidence. The focus on scientific research as a means of resource creation goes to the very heart of institutional economics. Concern for the availability of resources is as old as the human endeavor itself. By the mid-1970s, a series of studies and events appeared to lend scientific support and empirical evidence to the view that resources were being exhausted and that population was outrunning both food supply and resources. Land as a human resource is created by technology in the same manner as minerals become resources. Technology as ideas and as the creator of resources is not only correct, it is also liberating.
