Earth in our handsENVS 1000

ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS

The Myth of Perfect

UnderstandingOr how to read a text

Deductive and inductive reasoning

Skepticism – not taking something as “given” – independence of mind –

QUESTION the authority of the

Writer

Lecturer

Media

WHAT IS AN ISSUE?The way in which the

world is imagined

determines at any particular moment what men will do.” Walter Lippman, Public

Opinion 1921

Ecological Economics

•What is ECONOMICS?

•What is ECOLOGY?

•ENVIRONMENTAL ECONOMICS: environment within economics

•ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS: economics within environment

KEYWORDS

Development

Economy

Ecology

Environment

Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society

by Raymond Williams

(Oxford Univ. Press)

THE POLITICS OF MONEY by Hazel

HendersonThe word is out that economics, never a science, has always been politics in disguise. I have explored how the economics profession grew to dominate public policy and trump so many other academic disciplines and values in our daily lives. Economics and economists view reality through the lens of money. Everything has its price, they believe, from rain forests to human labor to the air we breathe. Economic textbooks, Gross National Product (GNP) and the statistics on employment, productivity, investment, and globalization – all follow the money. Happily, all this focus on money is leading to the widespread awareness of ways money is designed, created and manipulated. This politics of money is at last unraveling centuries of mystification.

http://www.hazelhenderson.com/editorials/politics_of_money.html

Economics as Religion by Robert H. Nelson

To the extent that any system of economic ideas offers an alternative vision of the “ultimate values,” or “ultimate reality,” that actually shapes the workings of history, economics is offering yet another grand prophesy in the biblical tradition.

Another basic role of economists is to serve as the priesthood of a modern secular religion of economic progress that serves many of the same functions in contemporary society as earlier Christian and other religions did in their time.

Robert H. Nelson,

Economics as Religion

Power of wordsFrom Intro p.774:

“Even today, cultural critics such as David Korten urge that human economies should “mimic the behaviour of healthy living organismsand ecosystems.”

“Conventional market economists generally view the environment…”

“…the revocation of market subsidies that distort true costs…”

Ecological economicsOikos – household

Logos – discourse, systematic study

Nomia – management

Nomos - law

Some Assumptions• Assume time is constant; economic system

is static with no change over time

• The invisible hand: Markets left to themselves teeter between supply and demand and will always balance out to an equilibrium point.

• Leave the market alone and everyone’s welfare will eventually be maximized.

• Assume each individual is driven only by self-interest.

• Assume that there is full employment.

More Assumptions• Assume that individual satisfaction is

measurable.

• Assume perfect circulation of goods and service from firms to households and back again.

• Assume there is only one commodity.

• Assume there is only one individual (multiple by X to describe society)

• Assume that future markets exist for all goods and services produced now.

A Different Picture http://www.hazelhenderson.com/

A diverse economy:

rethinking economy and

economic representati

on

J.K.Gibson-Graham

The economic iceberg (drawing by Ken

Byrne)

World Water Forum

Is Water a Human Right or a Human Need?

http://www.democracynow.org/2009/3/23/water_rights_activists_blast_istanbul_world

Economics as politics

Economics as history

THE ASSIGNMENTrevisited

ESSAY

Or

Art Project

http://www.web.ca/~story/ENVS1000/