I. The Limits of the Measurable: From Capital to Effort
Over the course of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, economic theory has demonstrated an increasing commitment to formalization and quantitative description. From classical political economy to neoclassical equilibrium models, from Gary Becker’s theory of human capital to Richard Thaler’s behavioral economics, scholars have sought to clarify which variables truly determine value and growth.
Human capital theory expanded the economic lens by recognizing education, skills, and knowledge as forms of capital. Yet even within this framework, human effort is ultimately evaluated through its expected market return. Effort becomes visible only retrospectively — through income, productivity, or financial output — but is not preserved as an independent variable.
Karl Marx regarded labor as the source of value, yet in his formulation labor largely appeared as an abstract social category rather than a measurable energetic process. Contemporary productivity models describe the ratio between output and time, but they rarely address the intensity, depth, or structural energy embedded in human action.
Thus, despite theoretical refinement, modern economics still lacks a universal metric capable of recognizing human contribution before it is transformed into monetary expression.
II. Energy as a Universal Principle
In physics, energy is a foundational category that allows the description of transformation. It is universal, convertible, and measurable. Regardless of its form — thermal, mechanical, electrical — energy can be quantified.
In economics, money has become the universal abstraction. It measures value, mediates exchange, and enables accumulation. Yet money does not directly measure effort; it reflects the market’s evaluation of results. That evaluation may fluctuate due to speculation, institutional bias, or informational asymmetry — factors not inherently tied to the depth of human contribution.
Energy economist Charles Hall, through the concept of EROI (Energy Return on Investment), demonstrated that economic systems ultimately rest upon energetic foundations. However, his work focuses on physical energy systems rather than human energy as a social variable.
If economic production depends on energy at its physical base, a logical question emerges: why is human action — itself a transformation of energy — not described through a comparable metric?
III. The Digital Era and the Crisis of Recognition
Digital transformation has intensified the gap between action and recognition. Platform economies measure engagement, clicks, views, and reaction time. These indicators capture traces of activity but fail to describe the depth of intellectual or cognitive effort.
Philosophers such as Hannah Arendt distinguished between labor, work, and action, suggesting that action carries a distinct existential weight. In digital environments, this distinction increasingly dissolves. Visibility often replaces substance; speed replaces reflection.
Artificial intelligence further complicates the equation. As algorithms perform routine operations, human contribution shifts toward strategic reasoning, contextual judgment, and concentrated attention. Yet these forms of cognitive energy remain largely unmeasured.
AI enhances productivity, but it also obscures authorship. When outcomes are co-produced by humans and algorithms, how is human effort to be recognized?
IV. Cognitive Energy and the Boundaries of Automation
Automation redistributes the structure of labor. Routine tasks are delegated to machines, while humans are expected to provide higher-order thinking, interpretation, and creativity.
Cognitive energy — sustained attention, analytical depth, imaginative synthesis — emerges as a defining resource of the twenty-first century. However, existing labor metrics rarely capture this dimension. They measure hours worked or output delivered, but not the intensity of mental transformation required.
Paradoxically, the more complex the intellectual task, the less transparent its energetic structure becomes. Effort disappears behind the finished product.
An energy-based model of human contribution could address this gap by introducing a structural variable that recognizes directed cognitive transformation independent of fluctuating market signals.
V. The Hypothesis of an Energy-Based Metric
The central hypothesis is that human contribution may be described as a structural energetic variable. This is not a biological reduction of the human being to physiology, nor a technocratic attempt to mechanize identity. It is a conceptual model that frames action as the directed transformation of resources through intentional effort.
In physics, the kilowatt-hour serves as a universal unit of energy. In social systems, no equivalent base unit currently exists for describing contribution independent of capital or status.
An energy-based metric would not replace monetary systems but complement them. It would introduce an additional layer of transparency, enabling the recognition of effort regardless of market volatility or institutional hierarchy.
Such a framework could:
• distinguish effort from accidental success;
• create a traceable history of contribution;
• support more coherent structures of recognition and trust.
VI. Social and Economic Implications
Introducing an energetic variable into social valuation could reshape several structural dynamics.
First, it may strengthen the relationship between effort and acknowledgment.
Second, it could provide a measurable basis for intellectual and cognitive labor.
Third, it may contribute to a more stable conception of value beyond speculative volatility.
This is not a call to dismantle existing institutions, but to supplement them with a missing dimension.
VII. Philosophical and Ethical Constraints
Any attempt to quantify human action inevitably encounters philosophical risk. Human complexity resists reduction to formula. Effort cannot be fully captured by numerical abstraction.
There is a danger of technocratic misuse or instrumentalization. Therefore, an energy-based model must function as a mechanism of transparency rather than control. Its purpose should be to reinforce agency, not diminish it.
VIII. Toward a Philosophical Reorientation
Contemporary civilization has reached a level of technological sophistication at which traditional measures of value increasingly fail to capture the depth of human contribution.
If energy constitutes the universal variable of the physical world, it is plausible that social systems may require a parallel variable to describe human action.
The transition toward an energy-based metric is not merely a technological innovation. It represents a philosophical reorientation — a reconsideration of what constitutes value in the twenty-first century.
An experimental implementation of such a model is currently being developed within the framework of HUMAS System, which explores structural methods for recognizing human contribution through an energy-oriented perspective. This initiative does not claim finality but serves as a practical field for continued discussion and refinement.