Jeven's Paradox is named after its founder, German mathematician Josef Jeven, who proclaimed that “in a finite, closed system, the consumption of energy always tends toward an ever-increasing cost.” In essence, it states that any final product or output within a system will eventually become more expensive due to the ever-increasing use of resources, leading to its eventual demise. Jeven's Paradox can be used to explain why systemic structures, such as economies, don't last as they come to depend on increasingly concentrated sources of resources, making it impossible to sustain them indefinitely. It also speaks to our finite world and the hyper-efficient management of resources that is ever-needed in order to sustain our current way of life without exhausting available resources.

See also: exponential growth, ecological economics, fossil fuel, population growth, planetary boundary