Sjoerd Robijn wins Leo Polak Thesis Prize

29 January 2016

Sjoerd Robijn, recently graduated at the University of Humanistic Studies, won the Leo Polak Thesis Prize for his master thesis The return to Oikonomia.

The main problem Sjoerd Robijn addressed within his research is the seemingly inevitable collision between the required perpetuation of exponential economic growth with the finite carrying capacity of the Earth. A simple analyses suggest an existing discrepancy between economic and ecological theories about economic growth, especially in relation to sustainability.

This is strange because the concepts of ‘economy’ and ‘ecology’ are both derived from the Greek word ‘Oikos’, meaning; the ‘regulation of the household’. Therefore we may state that the ‘nomos’ or ‘rules’ of the economic household is no longer compatible with the ‘logos’ or ‘logic’ of ecosystems. The return to Oikonomia’ then, refers to an attempt to reconcile the economic and ecological household by exploring and connecting the logic of  ecosystems with economic theory.

Download Summary of the thesis.

Full text: The return to Oikonomia; On the spatiotemporal fractal of life’s organizational continuum & possible lessons from the scale-invariant pattern of competetive and complementary phases for a sustainable socio-economic structure.

Every year, the Foundation Leo Polak presents a prizes for a master thesis on a topic in the field of personal meanings of life and/or humanization of society. The prizes will be awarded by an independent jury, and are intended for students at a Dutch-speaking university or for Dutch-speaking Belgians and Dutchmen at a foreign university who in the academic year  have completed a master thesis.