This book takes a radical approach to ecological economics, proposing a new paradigm based on earth systems science. This book questions the foundation of economics on individual private property, and proposes new forms of relationship to land and to the state. It questions the foundation of economics on the individual, and proposes new forms of regional ecological collectives, integrated at the global level. It critically examines the assumptions of economics and re-envisions it as more integrally related to society and ecology.
The volume integrates insights from a variety of fields, including humanities, natural, and social science, placing human life in the setting of ecology. The chapters invoke a historical institutional methodology to examine the link between economic theories and economic institutions, understanding performativity and applying reflexivity, and the potential for the emergence of new visions and methods. The method draws upon literary studies, linguistic philosophy, as well as long term economic history. Providing an alternative view of the relationship of humans to the earth, this book is appropriate for students and researchers across a variety of disciplines including economics, history, ecology, and philosophy.
Author(s): Ann E. Davis
Publisher: Springer
Year: 2022
Language: English
Pages: 180
City: Cham
Preface
Acknowledgments
Contents
Part I: Basic Framework
Chapter 1: Introduction: Beyond Reification: Envisioning the Earth
1 Summary of Project
2 Review of the Literature
3 Life Processes
4 Techniques of Reification
4.1 Property
4.2 Money
4.3 Ecosystems Services
4.4 Public/Private Divide
4.5 Modern Science
5 Governance Systems
6 Freedom and Recognition
Bibliography
Chapter 2: The Modern Institution of Science
1 History of Science
2 Dichotomies
3 Standpoint
4 Relations
4.1 History of Science
4.2 Feminist Critics of Science
4.3 Marxists
5 Modern Sciences
5.1 Co-evolution
5.2 Human Exceptionalism
5.3 Potential Bias to Science
5.4 Anthropocene
6 New Collective
7 The Limits of Modernity
Appendix: Consideration of Other Topics and Issues
Bibliography
Chapter 3: History of Political Economy
1 Introduction
2 Evolution of Language
3 Co-evolution of Nature and Culture
4 Emergence of History, Political Economy, and Time
5 Separation of Natural from Social Science and Economics from History
5.1 Property
5.2 Corporation
5.3 Money, Finance, and Contradictions
6 Modernity and Capitalist Institutionalism
7 Varieties within Economics Discipline
8 Re-envisioning the Human Relation to Nature
Bibliography
Part II: Conceptual Development and Critique of Capitalism
Chapter 4: “Fictitious Capital”: Money, the Symbol, and the State
1 Modernity and Reifying Abstractions
2 Review Literature Defining “Money” and “Capital”
3 Multiple Usages of “Capital”
4 “Capital” Is the Name of a Complex Evolving Social System
4.1 Definition of Capital
4.2 Logical Development
5 Institutional Definition of Capital
5.1 Consciousness, Roles, and Relations
5.2 Reification of Money
6 Institutional Shifts in Capital Markets
6.1 Merchant Capital
6.2 Central Banks
6.3 The Extension of Markets
6.4 Financial Markets
7 Case: Repo Hiccup of 2019 and 2020
7.1 Historical Context
7.2 Shadow Banking
7.3 Crisis Indicator
7.4 Vulnerabilities
8 Conclusions
Appendix
Central Bank Facilities in the Pandemic 2020 (Table 4.1)
Bibliography
Chapter 5: The Public Private Divide
1 Introduction
2 Public/Private Divide
3 Property and Governance
4 Divergent Institutions, Unified System
4.1 Public Finance
4.2 Property
4.3 From Commons to Factory and Household
4.4 Self/Social
4.5 Public Opinion/Private Interests
5 New Institutions
5.1 Public Goods
5.2 Private Parcel of Land/Global Ecology
5.3 Energy
5.4 Public Media
5.5 Time
5.6 Science
5.7 Church
5.8 Family
5.9 Corporations
6 Ambiguities, Reversals, and Contradictions of Public/Private Divide
Bibliography
Chapter 6: Abstraction and Reification
1 Historical Institutional Methodology
2 Long-Term Evolution of Institutions
3 Property
4 Gender
5 The Power of Money: Credit and Finance
6 Money and Credit
7 Information and Media Technology
8 Real Abstractions
Bibliography
Part III: Alternatives
Chapter 7: Proletarianization and Commodification
1 Introduction
2 The Long Duréé: Human Relation to Land
3 Emergence of Capitalism
3.1 From Land to Property and Finance
3.2 Corporations and the Management of Financial Circuits
4 American Constitution and Protection of Property
4.1 Structure
4.2 Party Formation
5 Class Formation
6 Technology
7 Globalization Under Pax Americana
8 Financialization and Abstraction
9 Contemporary Global Politics
Bibliography
Chapter 8: Alternatives: Regional Ecological Communities
1 Introduction
2 Green Capitalism
2.1 Market-Based Solutions
2.2 Assessment of Market-Based Solutions
3 Values
4 Post-capitalism
4.1 Changing Human Sciences
4.2 Changing Human Settlement Patterns
4.3 Changing Culture
4.4 Changing Politics
4.5 Priority on Global Biogeochemical Cycles
4.6 Earth Monitoring System
4.7 Integration of Time and Geographic Scales
4.8 Ecological Credit
5 Different Narratives and Visions of the Future
Bibliography
Chapter 9: Conclusion and Further Reflections
Appendix: Human Relation to the Earth
Bibliography
