Summary: Notes on Daly, Beyond Growth and The Common Good. See also Legacy of Ecological Economics.
Peter Montague's summary of Daly, Beyond Growth, enjoys a high reputation. He claifies but keeps the edginess of the original (see Legacy of Ecological Economics). Key concepts are captured in written notes for class of 3/21/2011.
Note:This is based on a reading of Beyond Growth by Herman Daly, around 3/18/2011.
Daly embeds the economy within nature, if not in society (GK). This is the essential move of ecological economics. Daly remains an economic theorist talking to economists. He does not do political economics, however.
P1: Coherent, clear summary statement on his brand of ecological economics. See quote 'forces of denial met with philosophical clarification'.
Premises: Nature (Earth) is "an ecosystem which is finite, non-growing, and materially close" (Daly 1), which becomes (p 33) finitude, entropy (not just non-growing), and ecologicaly interdependent (stresses the biosphere rather than the geosphere --- closed except to the sun). Therefore, the economy must sustainably process (low entropy) inputs (resources) and high entropy outputs (waste) of throughput to endure. The attention to the physical and biological world is constant through the book.
An era of qualitative improvement (development) must replace the era of ever expanding quantities of physical growth. Development as qualitative improvement has the capacity to go on indefinitely. Growth, however, faces limits and constraints.
Daly objects to Brundtland's definition of sustainability as too vague and elastic. He prefers J.S. Mill's formlation of The Stationary State, below. Note context of Malthus.
The proposed sustainability paradigm shift contradicts the growth paradigm. The growth era has built an ensemble to embed, promote, and defend the ethos of growth: institutions, infrastructure, ideology. Thus, sustainability cannot be reconciled with the status quo, which must be named: global capitalism. (But Daly nevers makes this connection --- he does not do political economics.)
Daly refers to Schumpeter's "preanalytic vision," essentially the ontology, thus the otherwise hidden premises that remain unspoken, outside the text itself. Deconstruction requires internal explication of the text itself and attention to the boundaries of the text --- what lies outside the text.
Economic Functions: An essential move made by Daly (and emphsasized by Montague) spells out the implications of the three economic functions: allocation, distribution, and scale. These are explained in my article. In brief
Scale is the critical function, and failure: Growth is the historical trajectory (but not associated with an economic form). See Tables 3 (look for underconsumption) and 4, the full world.
How to improve on Daly? Little to do but to build on his seminal insight and analysis. Humbly, some expansions:
The stationary (or steady) state depicted by J. S. Mill must be inspired with a life of its own, an internal dynamic, immanence. This can get us to Schumpeter's creative destruction and the important discussion of global capitalism. Such an examination might reveal strategy and insight for ESS. (Much in Daly upon which to build, even if a fragment or aside.)
Daly needs a philosophy of nature that captures the dynamism of nature (Aristotelian Physis), its sheer power, should replace the instrumental utilitarianism presented within the text. This augments and does not contradict Daly.
There is a historically constructed society that, too, must embed and contextualize ecological economics (Polanyi, Braudel). Schumpeter, who I regard as part of the legacy of ecological economics (through Georgescu-Roegen, Daly's mentor at Harvard), may hold the key: creative destruction. Indeed, Schumpeter had much to say about the unfolding of capitalism. Perhaps socialism is out and World Sustainability can walk through the door. David Harvey offers a current overview.
1-2: Objects to Brundtland definition of sustainability as too vague and elastic. Prefers J. S. Mill on the stationary state, which is worth quoting this section IV.6.9 of Principles of Political Economy:
Note: Near the end of his life, Mill converted from adherence to laissez faire to a form of mild socialism (Encyc of Philosophy). Mill implicitly responded to Malthus, who eventually accepted moral restraint (not contraception) between his two seminal pamphlets on population, the first moral speculation and the second empirical analysis. Malthus was trained in physics and in mathematics. His paradigm resembles classical (Newtonian) physics: forces in motion do not stop by themselves but require counteracting forces (Encyc of Philosophy). The Newtonian model is applied to human affairs. (A forerunner of Garrett Hardin!)It is scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living, and much more likelihood of its being improved, when minds ceased to be engrossed by the art of getting on. Even the industrial arts might be as earnestly and as successfully cultivated, with this sole difference, that instead of serving no purpose but the increase of wealth, industrial improvements would produce their legitimate effect, that of abridging labour. Hitherto [1848] it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment, and an increased number of manufacturers and others to make fortunes. They have increased the comforts of the middle classes. But they have not yet begun to effect those great changes in human destiny, which it is in their nature and in their futurity to accomplish. Only when, in addition to just institutions, the increase of mankind shall be under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight, can the conquests made from the powers of nature by the intellect and energy of scientific discoverers become the common property of the species, and the means of improving and elevating the universal lot.
Build response to valuation of ecological services discussion:
Hicksian definition of capital, but hinges on whether NK and K (as in physical K) are substitutes (weak sustainability) or complements (strong sustainability). Hicks (1945) defined, within the economic domain, a form of sustainability via maintenance of capital, distinguished from depreciation.