The EconomicsEnvironment Relationship:
Neoclassical, Institutional,
and Marxist Approaches
FIKRET ADAMAN
AND BEGUM OZKAYNAK
ntroduction The importance of the environment for
economic activity and, in tum, the impact of economic
activity on nature, have motivated economists to
include the analysis of the relationship between economics
and the environment in their research agenda since economics became a discipline. Given the existence of different
schools of thought within economics-at times complementary and at times conflicting-the debate over the way in
which this relationship should be conceptualized and analyzed has a history as old as that of the interest itself.
Thus, it is not surprising to encounter studies that evaluate, from a historical perspective, the application of the
tools of economics to environmental issues.! Although these
studies provide rich descriptions of the history of environmental concerns within the discipline of economics, their
common aim appears limited to defining positions with
respect to the environmental issues of a rich spectrum of
contributors. A complementary effort might involve explicit consideration of competing economic approaches to the
economics-environment relationship. Such an undertaking
would distinguish interrelated issues from one another
according to epistemological
standpoints,
analytical
approaches or operative categories and instruments of
intervention.2 With this as our motivation, we propose to
critically review the ways in which the three contemporary
economic approaches-the
Neoclassical, the Institutional,
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and the Marxist theories-eonceptualize
the relationship of
economics and the environment.
The debate about environmental issues within economics
can be reduced to different positions on three interrelated
dimensions: the definition of environmental degradation
itself (thus determining which economic actions should be
categorized as causing degradation and which not); the economic explanation of the raison d'etre of this (however
defined) degradation, and ways to slow down/halt/reverse
this (however defined and explained) degradation.
The first aim of this paper is to position, via these three
dimensions, the three contending economic approaches with
respect to their conceptualization of the economics-environment relationship. The second aim of this paper is to compare
and contrast these three major approaches with an attempt at
formulating the modus vivendi of an environmentally attuned
economy. Our evaluation will indicate that both the definition
and the scope of environmental problems and their proposed
solutions should be conceptualized at a societal level. The critical survey will lead us, furthermore, to the conclusion that
only a holistic methodology will enable the researcher to take
full account of the complexity and multidimensionality of
social and economic structures and natural systems. Thus,
instead of assuming the existence of atomistic "actors" exercising their instrumental rationality, we suggest that individuals
be considered with explicit reference to their social, political,
and environmental milieus, as well as to their past and current
experiences. We will finally argue that if this ontological and
methodological standpoint were to be accepted in a society
where participatory decision-making mechanisms are ensured,
then economic and related spheres could be more easily organized in ways that are attuned to the environment.
The structure of the paper is as follows: after outlining the
three contenders' positions vis-a-vis the economics-environment relationship through the three dimensions set out, we
will evaluate them comparatively and attempt to set out the
contour of an environmentally attuned economy.
Schools of Economic Thought on the Economics-Environment
Relationship
Of the contending models, the Neoclassical
provides the most complete and detailed picture of the
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economy-environment relationship. Glorifying the couplet of
methodological
individualism
and market
relations,
Neoclassical theory locates the economic explanation of the
degradation of nature-s-expressed operationally in terms of the
overuse of natural resources and the waste disposal above the
ecosystem's assimilative capacity-in a lack of markets for environmental goods and services. The non-existence of markets is
thus regarded as being responsible for the failure of people to
recognize the otherwise positive prices of environmental goods
and services. Yet, this malady-the source of so-called "market
failures"-is also seen to be remediable via institutional set-ups.
Within this framework, the overuse of natural resources is
seen, on one hand, as the consequence of a lack of welldefined property rights as a result of which (renewable and
non-renewable) resources become readily available too
cheaply to its current users. Hardin called this problem "the
tragedy of the commons: 'Ruin is the destination toward
which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a
society that believes in the freedom of the commons.
Freedom in a commons brings ruin to all. "'3 Pollution of the
environment, on the other hand, is understood as occurring
because the economic agents who undertake activities of production and consumption enjoy a complete lack of liability to
third parties who suffer the environmental damages imposed
upon them. This situation is regarded as one of externalities,
a corollary of which is that the "social" and "private" costs of
an economic activity can be quite different from each other.'
Neoclassical theory states that environmental degradation
will translate itself into a loss of efficiency. The argument is
that both "rapid" extraction rates and "externalities" will
inevitably bring about a departure from optimum allocation
of resources (the so-called Pareto efficiency). To restore efficiency, the theory seeks, first, to determine the "optimal" rate
of the use of natural resources-the
rate that will maximize
the social collective return (and in a dynamic state this will be
expressed in present value). Secondly, in the case of externalities, the theory dictates the internalization of environmental
costs through balancing economic gains with the environmental costs accrued from undertaking economic activities.
Two solutions are proposed to restore efficiency. The first,
known as the Coasian theorem, advocates the introduction of
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appropriate property rights. When property rights are clearly
defined, compensations change hands according to which
party holds the natural resource, ensuring an efficient degree
of economic activity. The second solution proposes introducing a regulatory agency that can initiate corrective measures
designed to achieve optimality by either prohibiting/reducing
environmentally damaging activities through the setting of
standards and quotas (known as command-and-control
approaches), or by designing incentive-based mechanisms,
such as pollution taxes or emissions-trading regimes.>
It is self-evident that for implementing and enforcing both
sets of mechanisms for restoring efficiency, the existence of a
social guardian/government that works selflessly needs to be
assumed a priori. Neoclassical theory acknowledges the difficulty of making such an assumption; either such a body may
simply not exist (as in the case of environmental problems of
global scale, such as ozone depletion), or central/local governments may simply "fail." Regarding the first possibility: when
a government-like institution is absent (who, for example, has
the ownership of the ozone layer other than all governments?), open access problems a la Hardin will re-emerge.
Regarding the second possibility, when networks between
governments and interest groups that ask for particularistic
favours happen to be binding, favouritism rather than efficiency will likely dictate the outcome.s The issue of government failures and their impacts on environmental policies can
best be addressed, according to conventional theory, by
explicitly considering the strategic behaviours of individuals
and government officers. At any rate, the extensive body of
literature on the "public choice" that considers such strategic
interactions applies mutadis mutandis to environmental regulation cases as well.?
The solutions offered, under the assumption that governments do exist and are immune to failures, are of course contingent on measuring the value assigned to environmental
goods. The theory assumes that individuals assign values to
the environment (with the distinction among "use," "altruistic," "bequest," and "existence" values) and that underlying
these values are exogenously given individual preferences.f
Since markets do not exist for environmental goods and services, the theory calls for the estimation of their values.
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Although their accuracy is discussed within the theory itself,
there now exists a body of techniques for measuring individuals' valuations.? One of the techniques most used is the socalled "contingent valuation" method, according to which
individuals who are considered "relevant" are asked to reveal
their maximum willingness to pay for a project that will
improve the quality of a specific environmental good (say,
cleaning up a lake), or their minimum willingness to accept a
project that will lower the environmental quality of a specific
good (say, the pollution of a lake). Individuals' revealed valuations are then aggregated to estimate the value of a specific environmental good. Once valuation is assumed to be
established for projects which will bring about environmental
damages and economic gains over a period of years, all kinds
of actual and future costs and benefits associated with economic activities can be computed with an a priori chosen discounting factor, and optimality calculations in the form of
"cost-benefit," or "cost-effectiveness," analyses can then be
conducted. to
In addition to the efficiency problem caused by extraction
rates and levels of production and consumption, Neoclassical
theory acknowledges the existence of a justice (equity) problem that reveals itself in the relative positions of perpetrators
and victims, and which can assume either an intragenerational or an intergenerational aspect, depending on whether
or not perpetrators and victims live in the same span of
time)! When the justice issue is raised, however, conventional theory either bypasses it on the grounds that the theory
itself is value-free whereas the justice issue is by definition
value-laden, or refers to the field of public choice that investigates problems associated with aggregating individual preferences (regarding different states of distributional justice) in
order to come up with a social one.
Let us, by explicitly referring to the three-dimensionality
yardstick described in the Introduction, reiterate the theory's
position vis-a-vis environmental issues. Regarding the first
dimension, environmental degradation is defined through
glimpses of separate, autonomous individuals, each of whom
is assumed to have an ordering of goods and services, including those pertaining to the environment. The value of a specific environmental good is determined by aggregating the
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valuations of all concerned individuals. Should the value of
the environmental good in question turn out to be greater
than the economic value-added that can be obtained at the
cost of destroying/using the environmental good in question,
then the theory labels it a degradation. The theory, secondly,
offers the lack of markets for environmental goods and services as the economic cause of environmental degradation.
Finally, regarding the third dimension, the theory proposes,
first, to discover through a set of valuation techniques the values individuals assign to environmental goods in order to
compare economic profits with their accompanying environmental costs, and, secondly-once the appropriate efficient
level of environmental protection is identified-to
achieve
this level of optimality via a set of mechanisms (commandand-control or incentive-based).
Following the presentation of the contours of Neoclassical
theory as applied to the economics-environment relationship,
it may be time to ask whether it is vulnerable to internal criticism. Here, we might address two problematic areas: the first
has to do with the weaknesses associated with the proposed
solutions to environmental problems. On the one hand, it is
always possible to assign property rights to environmental
goods, as Coase would have us do, and still observe no
improvement in environmental quality. We will then correctly
suspect the existence of high transaction costs of bargaining
between concerned parties, but since such transaction costs
can never be observed a priori, we find ourselves in a tautological world. On the other hand, were we to follow a regulatory approach, we should presuppose not only the possibility
of measuring individuals' valuations of environmental goods
as accurately as possible, but also the existence of an omnipotent and selfless enforcer as already mentioned. The theory, in
fact, acknowledges the dubious nature of both these assumptions: regarding the first, the techniques used for extracting
individuals' preferences for environmental goods demand too
strong a set of assumptions and/or require the existence of too
detailed a data set; regarding the second, the remedy for government failures is widely regarded as too great a challenge.l?
The second problematic area involves justice issues. The
first dimension has to do with the fact that, since nearly all
policies that aim to deal with environmental issues have an
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impact on income distribution (directly or indirectly), the
choice of which distributional outcome is most desirable is
contingent on how individuals' preferences for various distributional policies are aggregated, so that one distributive
maxim could be applied at the end. But here the theory
acknowledges an unavoidable cul-de-sac: Arrow's wellknown theorem on the impossibility of aggregation points
out that no "social choice function" (viz. aggregation mechanism) exists that can satisfy a minimum set of aggregation
properties that one would definitely like to have.r' The second dimension has to do with the fact that a different initial
distribution of endowments (and income) is likely to generate different environmental prices. When the distribution is
altered, the pattern of demand, and thus the pattern of prices,
will also be altered, affecting the whole valuation system.tThe critiques originating within the theory itself having
been addressed, we now turn to the critiques from outside. In
the entire Neoclassical setting, the social, cultural, and political status of the individual is reduced to that of an economic
agent (in the form of a consumer/producer/resource
owner)
and, as such, the theory falls into a tautological trap: whatever choice is made, this can be formulated as furthering individuals' interests. But a full critique of Neoclassical theory
can, of course, only be given by a presentation of the contending positions. This is where our paper is heading.
The Institutional school, the second contender, which is
itself historically linked to writers as diverse as Galbraith,
Kapp, Marx, Mitchell, Myrdal, Schumpeter, K. Polanyi, J.
Robinson, and Veblen, accepts the view that organizations,
institutions, habits, values, norms, and rules-all both causes
and consequences of the power structure, and socialized
behaviour of individuals and subgroups-have
substantive
impacts on economic performance (expressed as, inter alia,
resource allocation, income distribution, growth, division of
labour and its remunerationj.i> In this perspective, not only
is a holistic method chosen and the endogeneity of individual preferences assumed to play an important role in explaining social and economic processes, but also public debates
and networking are regarded as instrumental complements to
the market mechanism, in forming a society's value system.
The Institutional approach, thus, recognizes "the centrality of
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participatory democratic processes to the identification and
evaluation of real needs, instead of a utilitarian outlook
which separates considerations of means from those ends,
and judgments of fact from those of value, and which ignores
social relations, conflicts and inequalities between agents."16
Kapp, one of the key figures of the school, aptly formulated the core of the Institutional approach as "the denial
that economic processes (of production, distribution, and
reproduction) can adequately be understood and analyzed
as closed, i.e., self-contained and self-sustaining, systems isolated from a social and physical 'environment' of which the
economic system is a part and from which it receives important inputs and with which it is related through manifold
reciprocal interdependencies."17 If the economy were not
conceptualized as embedded within the social life, according
to the Institutional approach, then not only should the
motives that predispose the individual be designated merely
as instrumental, but it would also be impossible to see how
the individual's preferences are formed and, thus, how costs
and benefits are computed. Rather than accept a reductionist and mechanistic methodology, the Institutionalists
assume a holistic point of view, emphasizing the social and
historical context to bypass the tautological gap mentioned
above.l'' This perspective further advocates that the economy be conceived as a cumulative and evolutionary process,
one in which both individuals and societies face radical
uncertainty. It thus recognizes the legitimacy of different
value-commitments in dealing with the more uncertain
aspects of social, economic as well as environmental issues,
and calls for an interdisciplinary research agenda, arguing
that the entwined relationship between the individual,
nature, and society be investigated with respect to their
entwined relationships.
More specifically, when addressing the production side,
the Institutional approach aims to consider explicitly the
forces that promote technological transformation, the interactive process of production and exchange, networking
among firms and other social institutions, and internal organizational issues. This standpoint necessitates, first, the investigation of the "real" purposes of production units, instead of
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mization."19 Second, and in a related way, the firms' developmental paths and their organizational modalities have been
questioned and evaluated. Within this framework, the
emphasis seems to have fallen on the ways in which a firm's
stocks of knowledge are articulated and mobilized in the
course of interaction with the external economic environment. It is further suggested that what is learned during this
interactive processes is then "loaded" into the firm's "routines."2o Hodgson neatly summarizes the Institutional position by claiming that the learning process is to be seen as both
developmental
and reconstitutive-in
contrast to the
Neoclassical school that perceives learning simply as "the
cumulative discovery of pre-existing 'blueprint' information,
or Bayesian updating of subjective probability estimates in
the light of incoming data."21
With respect to the economics-environment relationship,
this perspective recognizes, above all, that the three broad
headings of economic, social, and ecological dimensions are
inseparable, as aptly put forward by O'Connor et al.: "[T]he
economic domain of commodity production and consumption can be deemed part of the social domain of activities
establishing and renewing relationships and institutional
forms; and the social category includes culture which bears
on the ways that features of the natural world are classified
and appraised. "22
The Institutional approach considers two dimensions
when applied to environmental issues. The first deals with the
impact of power structures and power relations (at
local/national/international
levels) on environmental issues
and regimes. This approach emphasizes the claim that environmental conflicts are not only about values but, above all,
about power and interests with the further clarification that
an unequal distribution of power is usually conducive to an
increase in environmental degradation.P The second dimension is found in the design of institutional settings that directly and indirectly affect environmental policies. In this regard,
we acknowledge a recent attempt to approach environmental
issues from an Institutional perspective under the rubric of
"Ecological Economics. "24This understanding proposes various deliberative mechanisms and procedures concerning
decisions that have an environmental impact; its proponents
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argue in favour of using a multicriteria analysis that would
involve political and economic as well as moral, scientific,
and cultural inputs.
The Institutional perspective, as signalled, posits a set of
social norms and principles in addition to market institutions,
to create harmony in society; it looks for possible· ways of
attaining consensus among the holders of different views and
approaches, by way of deliberative social institutions, in
order to facilitate interactive debates and negotiations among
individuals.e In this process, values are learned rather than
discovered-and
this applies mutadis mutandis to the valuation of the environment. More precisely, individuals will find
themselves in such a milieu that they will try to assign values
to nature from a wider perspective, taking into account other
people's interests, their own ethical values, and their views on
what is good for society as a whole, together with the results
of ecological research.
The Institutional approach further argues that "many of our
environmental concerns are idealistic in nature, expressing our
commitments, principles and values, so that the human
response to the environment is misrepresented, when it is presented as lying entirely within the sphere of human preferences."26 It is within this context that Sagoff severely criticizes
the contingent valuation technique on the ground that in such
a method "private income is exchanged for personal benefit,"
thus encouraging people to approach the environment as individuals; or more specifically as private "consumers" rather
than as "citizens. "27Once this ontological standpoint has been
accepted, the Institutionalists tum their attention to the examination of the rise of environmental concerns. In that regard,
Jacobs's question is self-revealing: "It seems evident that town
planning has been radically transformed by the development
of the car; but that in tum such planning has required most
people to have a car. Might there be alternative patterns of
economic development with different consumption behaviours
and different levels of environmental degradation?"28 Jacobs's
example suggests that different worldviews do indeed affect
the ways in which social systems and their interactions with
nature are understood.
In their quest for an understanding of environmental
behaviour, attitudes and values, members of the Institutional
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school have considered power relationships and their impacts
on the environment as a central, if not the principal, explanatory parameter. Power, broadly defined,· when applied to
local and national levels is considered as a function of, first,
individual socioeconomic characteristics (such as wealth,
gender, and ethnicity), and secondly, the political framework
in which these variables are mapped with respect to power.s?
When the international dimension is considered, a nation's
economic, political and military strength is obviously
assumed to be the key factor in defining its relationship to
power.
Since the Institutional approach acknowledges interactive
social processes that aim both at achieving social consensus
on key environmental issues and at playing a role complementary to market institutions, it emphasizes the need for
institutional structures that can facilitate such negotiations.
Within this framework, ecological research is thought to have
great importance in the areas of-to borrow Meyer and
Helfman's categories-"detecting
change, guiding and evaluating policy and management decisions, and designing sustainable systems. "30 The Institutional perspective recognizes,
therefore, the need to provide information (supplied by various disciplines including economics, ecological sciences, sociology, law, political science, and psychology) in the context of
an enlarged decision-making framework, where the aim is to
guide and inform collective choices and to help resolve social
conflicts. This flow of information should not be perceived as
one-dimensional, since consensus among scientists-when it
is attained-usually
occurs only after informed discussion,
experimentation, and debate. So, too, society in general influences the scientific community in setting its research agenda
and choosing its methodologies.u
The critical stance of the Institutionalists with respect to
monetary reductionism applies mutadis mutandis to environmental issues. Kapp, the Institutional economist whose environmental interests we have noted, long ago argued forcefully
on the impossibility of reducing environmental values to a single, one-dimensional criterion. He did so by jettisoning the
assumption that social costs and benefits are heterogeneous
and thus cannot be compared quantitatively among themselves and with each other (Kapp, 1970). In conjunction with
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Kapp's seminal remark, the term "incommensurability" has
been proposed to denote the fact that it is simply not possible
to reduce all relevant features of an object, service, or system
to a single and common dimension. When applied to the environment, this observation implies the rejection of not just
monetary, but also physical-such as energy-based valuationreductionism. But it has been suggested, rather, that "[w]e can
rationally discuss sources of energy, transport systems, agricultural policies, patterns of industrialization, taking into account
both monetary costs and socio-environmental (present and
future) costs without an appeal to a common chrematistic unit
of measurement."32
As a corollary, incommensurability is regarded as the epistemological foundation of a multicriteria decision too1.33The
key premise here is that rather than solve conflicts, we need
to shed light on their nature. Only in light of such knowledge
can members of a particular society arrive at informed political decisions.s- The technique is conceived as an aid to decision-making on the part of those people who will have a say
in the process.
It might be useful to recapitulate what has been said thus
far regarding the Institutional position in terms of the three
dimensions set out in the Introduction. We first noted that
the value of the environment and, in tum, that the extent and
intensity of environmental degradation could only be defined
at a societal level through a set of political discussions and
negotiations. Secondly, the cause of this degradation was
given as the failure to embed the economic system into the
social system and the environment-a
failure most likely
caused by existing unequal power distributions within and
between societies. Thirdly, the solution to environmental
problems is to be formulated through a political process, its
implementation requiring using a variety of economic and
non-economic tools.
Although the approach has elaborated suggestions
regarding environmental issues, it does not fully consider the
operation of the socioeconomic system as a whole. Readers,
therefore, may find it difficult to see how decisions on environmental issues might be incorporated into the overall
picture.v' More precisely, although the Institutional school
acknowledges the presence of a network of social institu120
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tions, some of which are value articulating, and consequently
takes a critical view of monetary reductionism, it nevertheless relies-in the final analysis and with varying emphasison the operation of market forces to determine the changes
in capacity that occur in economies. This outlook may be
correct, and useful for understanding the dynamics of
(today's) capitalist systems, but there is a widespread tendency to preserve this structure-that of a guided/regulated
market-forces mechanism-for possible future (post-capitalist) prospects as wel1.36It is time, therefore, to consider the
Marxist approach.
It might be argued that, even though the original contributions of Marx and Engels do not adequately address the
economics-environment relationship, the Marxist approach
nevertheless provides a framework for questioning that relationship-as many Marxist contributors have recently undertaken. Interpreters of Marx and Engels appear to have
achieved a consensus on the answer to the questions of how,
and to what extent, nature was incorporated into the original
Marxist vision. Their answer is that, despite the expressed
concern for nature and environmental issues that appears
here and there in their eeuvres, the founders of the Marxist
school placed neither the environment, nor its degradation,
at the core of their analysis. From that recognition, a step forward is not easy. While a few have argued that the Marxist
agenda is unable to properly accommodate environmental
issues, others have suggested that the Marxist agenda does in
fact adequately take environmental issues into account,
though perhaps not as explicitly as one would like.3?Still others have emphasized that the Marxist agenda is in need of
modifications and revisions for nature to be properly
addressed.v At any rate, a post-mortem is overdue.
Nowadays, it is generally accepted that, although Marx
and Engels' works show some sensitivity to ecological issues,
a full consideration of the exploitation of nature is missing
from their writings because, in the final analysis, the founders
tended to abstract their discussions of social labour from both
culture and nature.a? In the original Marxist vision, nature
was ascribed no value apart from its instrumental value to
human beings in allowing them to prosper and progress.
Admiring greatly the forces of production and their domina121
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tion over nature, Marx and Engels, like most of their contemporaries, seem to have adopted a "Promethean," protechnological perspective, understanding human progress as
corresponding to ever-greater human domination over
nature. Moreover, the founders seem to have adopted, without much inquiry, the view that capitalist technology and economic development had to a large extent solved all problems
of ecological limits and believed that the future (communist)
society would live under conditions of abundance. The progressive historical role that was ascribed to capitalism in that
regard meant a development of the productive forces "to the
point where transition to a realm of freedom and abundance
becomes a real historical possibility."4O
Although the founders accepted that capitalist accumulation was subject to outer limits, they theorized these limits
"as internally generated by the contradictory social-relational structures of capitalist economies, and mediated through
class-struggles."41 In tum, they set the progressive forces'
task as "to harness the technological possibilities of exploiting nature in the service of a fundamental change in the social
relations of production in which the surplus labour value of
the worker no longer accrued solely to the benefit of the capitalist class. "42 All in all, it would not be wrong to conclude
that, despite some passing references to the importance of
nature, Marx and Engels took mainly an anthropocentric
position, disconnecting human beings from the rest of the
ecosystem, and therefore considering the environment largely in terms of its direct impact on the well-being of humans.O
The last point worth mentioning is the singling out, in orthodox Marxism, of members of the industrial working class as
the main agents of change. The implication is that any social
actor outside that class has no transformational role to play,
however strong his or her desire to improve the environment.
Although a textual reading gives little credit to the original Marxist vision in terms of incorporating nature into its
analysis, an open question remains as to the extent Marxist
methodology in general is compatible with an ecological perspective. It goes without saying that the core of the original
Marxist writings was the analysis of capitalism. In that regard
one may argue that some elements of the complaint that
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the productive role of nature should be redirected to capitalism. Burkett, following this line, forcefully opposes any view
that divorces Marxism from environmentalism, arguing that
such a perspective fails to address systematically the "classrelational specificity of the natural conditions and limits of
production in Marx's view."44Once such a link is established,
Burkett will greet Marxist thought with the following
prospect: "[T]he capitalism-nature relationship has a specific
antagonistic character constituted by the wage-labour form
of exploitation that underpins the value form of the commodity. Hence, the struggle for an ecologically rational production system must in large part be a struggle to overcome
capitalist exploitation and the commodity form of the products of labour and nature. "45Although Burkett certainly has
a point in arguing that the Marxist theorization of exploitation and commodification has explanatory power with regard
to the economics-environment relationship, to jump from
this assertion to the claim that Marx and Engels properly
theorized the dependence of economic life upon the environment does not seem responsible.
In that regard, Benton has attempted to modify Marxist
theory so as to better understand the environmental dimension. His argument explicitly considers labour processes.
What is required, he argues, is "the recognition that each
form of social/economic life has its own specific mode and
dynamic of interrelation with its own specific contextual conditions, resource materials, energy sources and naturally
mediated unintended consequences (forms of 'waste,' 'pollution,' etc.)."46 This prospect constitutes the basis for two
additional assertions. The first is that the ecological problems
of any form of social and economic life have to be theorized
as the outcome of this specific structure of natural/social
articulation; the second is that each form of social and economic life is to be understood in terms of its own specific conditions and limits. This contextual approach is in no wayan
argument for the "demolition" of social-relational issues; his
intention is, rather, to suggest that "the patterning and
dynamics of power relations and social conflicts in the labour
process, and in the wider society, will be viewed very differently on the basis of a re-conceptualization of the labourprocess itself."47 At an operational level, Benton proposes
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the formation of a "typology of labour-processes" in which
both the intentional structures (as such specific objects,
mechanisms, substances, and the like can be identified as
"instruments," "raw materials," "products" and so on) and
the unintended consequences (that result from the combination of a particular intentional structure with its material
embodiment) could be represented. Once such a framework
is set up, different modes of production can be envisaged.
Labour processes under socialism, on the one hand, could in
theory be conceived as environmentally sensitive since it is
possible to envisage these processes in line with the said relationship, but at the same time one should recall the
Promethean element inherent in Marxism that may hamper
the inclusion of environmental concern within socialism.ss In
capitalism, on the other hand, Benton claims to find a tendency to "materially assimilate all labour processes to the
productive-transformative
model, and to drive productive
practices themselves beyond their sustainable limits."49
This last point does not entirely support the claim that a
capitalist mode of production can never be environmentally
sustainable. Unlike those who stress the opposition between
the forces of production and the natural conditions of production under capitalisms-e-in the sense that, as capitalism is
conceptualized as invariably imposing a commitment to
growth and expansion at any cost, the environment and the
economy are understood as a zero-sum game-Benton
suggests not a causality relationship but rather a tendency. In this
looser conclusion, Benton's thought bears some resemblance
to the post-modern version of Marxism where economic
events---capital accumulation being the major one-are not
reduced to the effects of class. Rather, in the post-modern
version, the multifarious ways in which class and economic
events simultaneously interact with one another are underIined.S Thus, the economy is not confined to the capitalist
sector; on the contrary, it is seen as a complex totality of
multiple class structures and non-class processes, including
consumption and distribution, the corollary of which is that
capital accumulation should no longer be seen as the sole
determinant of capitalist dynamics.
From this perspective, the environment is understood to
be mediated by an environmental regime, as a result of which
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Adaman and Ozkaynak/Economics-Environment
ecological issues are formulated, constructed and injected
into the discursive field. Thus, the environment is conceptualized not as an exogenous factor determining the social formation, but as constituted through political, cultural, and
economic processes. Once both the environment and the
economy are theorized as heterogeneous entities and endogenized with respect to each other and the rest of society, their
interaction can no longer be formulated as a zero-sum game.
It becomes possible, even, to imagine a "Green Capitalism"
in which "environmentally friendly commodities" are differentiated from otherwise identical commodities because of the
existence of the socio-cultural mediation of a particular environmental regime.x
Although the debate over the compatibility of Marxism
and environmentalism is far from over, the explanation provided by the Marxist approach for the distribution of pollution among individuals and societies appears fairly robust: it
arrives at the historically persistent charge that these damage
costs become "class costs" because of their uneven social
incidence-workers
who are subject to oppression and
exploitation both at home and at work are exposed to more
than their fair share of pollution. The view through Marxist
lenses of the international arena also reveals the exploitation
process manifesting itself in the operations of transnational
corporations. Furthermore, Marxists see from afar structural
linkages between economic development in the North and
the South, links that radically affect the environment in the
South. In passing, the environmental justice movement
against the disproportionate exposures suffered by racial
minorities and the poor, particularly in the context of mining
and the dumping of toxic waste (e.g., in the United States and
South Africa) should be acknowledged.P The Marxist explanation of such linkages and of the uneven share of the degradation borne by the Southern sphere is based on the so-called
"international re-division of labor."54 Amin's protest is to the
point: "Why should people, who by their negligible consumption, only have minor responsibility for the disaster,
accept an order which only allows the perpetuation of monstrous waste by the rich minority of the planet?"55
All in all, the Marxist approach takes a "reproductive"
approach to the economy, and ipso facto supports a replace125
Studies in Political Economy
ment of market calculus (and private ownership) with
planned production for social need (and common ownership). In that regard, it is worth referring to the Sraffian
framework viz. a system of production of commodities by
means of commodities, which analyses the formation of production prices from the supply side, with the well-known
result that the costs of producing different commodities and
the distribution of income are interdependent. The Sraffian
framework can in fact be extended to deal with renewable
and non-renewable natural resources.e
To review what has been said so far about the Marxist
position in terms of the three dimensions set out: from the
first one-the definition of environmental degradation-we
have observed that the Marxist school, either in its original
version or its revisions, does not appear explicitly to consider this aspect. When attention is given to the cause of this
degradation-the
second dimension-we have noted that
the concept of "unintended consequences of the production
processes" does provide-within the Marxist approach-a
satisfactory explanation; it has further been emphasized
that the Marxists seem to agree that the consequences of a
capitalist production process are likely to be detrimental to
nature. Finally, we have acknowledged that these adverse
consequences-the
third dimension-can
adequately be
addressed only after production processes have been
restructured.
A Comparative Evaluation and Looking Forward Having
sketched the interconnectedness of economics and the environment through glimpses of three contemporary schools of
economic thought, we now embark upon a comparative evaluation of the three contenders. The Neoclassical approach, as
we have seen, amounts to a cost-benefit analysis based on
costs and benefits derived from the exogenously determined
and ethically unchallengeable preferences of separate and
autonomous individuals whose decisions collectively have an
impact on the environment. This framework is consonant
with the suggestion made in 1992 by Lawrence Summers, as
the chief economist of the World Bank, that the migration of
dirty industries to less developed countries should be encouraged, for the following reasons:
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Adaman and OzkaynaklEconomics-Environment
1. As "[t]he measurement of the costs of health-impairing
pollution depends on the forgone earnings from increased
morbidity and mortality," a given amount of health-impairing
pollution should be done in the country with the lowest
wages;
2. As "[t]he costs of pollution are likely to be non-linear as
the initial increments of pollution probably have very low
costs," vastly under-polluted African countries should be
receiving pollution, and
3. As "[t]he demand for a clean environment for aesthetic
and health reasons is likely to have very high income-elasticity," a welfare improvement necessitates once again the
migration of pollution away from rich countries.v
These words, shocking to the tender humanist conscience,
set forth just one of the inescapable implications of the theory, for Mr. Summers here considers only exogenously given
desires and wants, and does not incorporate needs (of, say,
citizens of "under-polluted African countries") into his analysis. Moreover, in assuming the reductionist perspective of
expressing all alternative actions via a common criterion viz.
money, the theory foresees no problem in accepting the substitutability of human-made capital for nature.
The Institutional perspective clearly rejects any individualist and consequentialist reductionism of utility-maximizing
behaviour. Because the market mechanism is seen as inextricably entwined with other social institutions, the Institutional
approach is said to underscore the importance of non-market
deliberative interactions in forming public policies with
respect to environmental issues. Moreover, the Institutional
position has been critical of the idea of substituting humanmade capital for environmental goods and services. All in all,
the Institutional argument amounts to an embedding of the
economic system in the environment, rather than a consideration of the two as separate systems. To make this integration
or embedding possible, the approach rejects an individualist
methodology and argues instead for deliberative mechanisms. Nonetheless, as the authors of this paper have argued,
the Institutional school relies, in the final analysis, on a modified market mechanism not only to explain contemporary
social formations but also in its proposed models for the
future.
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Studies in Political Economy
The third approach, the Marxist, greatly enlarges the
arena for investigating the compatibility of the market and
the social-deliberative mechanisms. At a more general level,
the Marxist approach certainly appears to have a point when
the Institutional approach claims that if market forces were
to play a role on the specific issue of investment and disinvestment, then the entire idea of deliberative design would be
endangered. Since the impacts of (dis )investments on the
environment are obvious-to the extent that decisions are
taken by atomistic units-both
the Neoclassical and the
Institutional approaches will be subject to Marxist critiques.
Yet Marxist scholars who focus primarily on the capitalist
mode of production have thus far not considered in full the
subject of environmental issues in a post-capitalist society.
We hope the above discussion has made clear the following points: first, that Neoclassical reductionism and individualism are unlikely to lead us to an environmentally attuned
economy; secondly, that Institutionalists' emphasis on deliberative and participatory mechanisms is crucial to us as we
envision the multidimensionality of the economics-environment relationship, even though the line they draw between
issues with and issues without environmental impact is naive,
and thirdly, that although the Marxist school rightly criticizes
the anarchy of production, with its adverse impacts on
nature, it fails to provide a viable alternative organizational
structure that will embed the economy in the environment.
What is required, therefore, is an alternative vision that will
combine deliberative mechanisms with planning at a general
level.
Planning is vital if the economy is to be embedded in society and nature; and, among a variety of proposals, the one
called "Participatory Planning" seems to offer the most
workable project for the future. Furthermore, as the rental
values of society's fixed assets as well as its natural resources
also need to be determined, this process itself should include
participatory mechanisms as well. Participatory Planning is
an umbrella concept, one that incorporates, with different
melanges, participation and planning in a prospectus for an
alternative societal organization. Although participatory
forms of economic organizations have had a long history, the
modelling of an economy based on Participatory Planning is
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Adaman and OzkaynaklEconomics-Envil'onment
rather new.58Its aim is to confront head-on the dilemma that
Nove once described so neatly: "There are horizontal links
(market), there are vertical links (hierarchy). What other
dimension is there?"59 The goal, therefore, seems to be to
plan and co-ordinate economic life without subjecting people
to the "coercive power of either administrative directives
from the hierarchically organized planning system or market
forces operating with inherently unpredictable and unintended consequences."60 Furthermore, should the valuation problem be conducted through participatory processes, the
"rental for the use of each natural resource would reflect the
socially determined evaluation of its relative scarcity with
respect to potential current use and, in the case of exhaustible
resources, of its desired rate of deletion. "61
Two prerequisites can be cited before a process of
Participatory Planning begins: first, people must have access
to the material and personal resources necessary for their
participation, if the social process of discovery is to be effective; secondly, decision-making at all levels needs to be conducted through a participatory process involving all those
affected by the decision. Once the right to decide on the use
of social and economic assets is vested in those who are
affected by the decisions, then planning will provide "a structure, a procedure, a form of social organization, that enables
people to make most effective use of the possibilities open to
them to achieve their objectives. "62
The Devine model, more precisely, sees the basis of economic organization as a process of "negotiated coordination"
among those affected by the decisions involved. Within this
principle, a distinction between "market exchange" and
"market forces" is made-the former involving transactions
that consist of goods produced within existing capacities,
between buyers and sellers, and the latter referring to the
process whereby changes are brought about in the underlying
allocation of resources, the relative size of different sectors,
and the geographical distribution of economic activity.63
Devine's model incorporates market exchange but not market forces; hence, while market exchange coordinates the use
of existing capacity, changes in the structure of productive
capacity are negotiated and coordinated in the ex ante sense
by those affected by them. As such, and with openness of
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Studies in Political Economy
information being assumed to play a central role in the
model, it is claimed that the values and interests of people
will interact and shape one another in such a way that interdependencies in economic decisions can be explicitly considered and dealt with, long- and medium-term planning of key
economic parameters be set, mistakes be openly and publicly
discussed, and lessons drawn.
When the economics-environment relationship is questioned, this perspective provides a framework to enable people
to shape their environment, within the possibilities open to
them, on the basis of priorities that will be openly and publicly
debated and negotiated. More specifically, "[S]uch a system
would politicize the economic sphere, introducing into the process of co-ordinating economic activity the specific interests of
those affected and the wider consequences anticipated for the
environment...The potential of this way of co-ordinating economic activity is perhaps most evident when thinking about
the reshaping of production, consumption and life styles that is
likely to result from the combined imperatives of global redistribution and ecological sustainability."64
Were this framework adopted, societies would be able to
debate decisions on environmental issues from a wider perspective including social, ethical and political factors as well
as economic ones. There is, of course, a clear contrast
between the Neoclassical approach, which regards the valuation issue as the use of "neutral" tools that will make individuals reveal the "true" value they place on the environment
(in monetary terms), and the Participatory
Planning
approach which welcomes planning of the use of nature
through participatory and negotiated networks-a
process
logically separate from the aggregation of individual benefits
and costs. As such, not only would people gain understanding
of their own and others' interests and values, but they would
also have the opportunity to influence other people's
approaches. This perspective will also be conducive to the
creation of a milieu where people's needs will be fully considered and the intrinsic values of non-human beings receive
serious consideration. With this approach, the social system
can be reorganized in such a way as to make production decisions on the basis of needs defined prior to production, rather
than needs based solely on production decisions.
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Adaman and OZkaynaklEconomic:s-Environment
Moreover, much needs yet to be done. The Participatory
Planning mechanism does not provide, at this time, a completed model that explains how specific decisions with environmental impacts are to be made. On the other hand,
although recent studies conducted under the rubric "ecological economics" provide detailed proposals regarding environmental issues, they do not as yet fully explore the issue of
how to frame economic life in general-s-creating the illusion
that a demarcation line between the environment and nonenvironment exists and can be easily drawn. We hope that the
methodological approach we have proposed will open wide
green avenues in the policymaking areas of environmental
issues.
Notes
The authors would like to thank, without implicating, Pat Devine, Korkut
Ertilrk, Mike Lebowitz, Yahya Madra, Eyiip Ozveren, Wally Seccombe,
Tansel Yilmazer, and an anonymous referee of this Journal for their stimulating comments.
1. See, for example, E. Kula, History of Environmental Economic
Thought (London: Routledge,I998).
2. The paper a priori accepts the coexistence of different and distinct
schools of economic thought, as opposed to the so-called "incrementalist" approach that perceives the history of economic thought as the narration of the continual growth in knowledge.
3. G. Hardin, "The Tragedy of the Commons," Science 162 (1968), pp. 11-16.
4. Overgrazing is a typical example of the overuse of natural resources,
leaving future generations with far less grazing areas. An upstream
industry discharging harmful wastes into a river, harming the fish stock
of the river, which then affects the earnings of downstream fishermen,
is a typical example of pollution.
5. More specifically, one can either change the prices of existing market
activities by taxing environmental damage or by subsidizing environmental improvement, or one can create markets for environmental
goods by issuing tradeable pollution permits. Furthermore, it is
assumed that, in discussing pollution, the efficiency required is regained
by bringing economic activity down by either producing or consuming
less; this will of course be the only case when the abatement option is
not available or is not economically feasible.
6. It is worth mentioning that in cases where governments are not immune
to failures, the relative size of polluters and victims might be an additional dimension here (as pinpointed long ago by M. Olson, Logic of
Collective Action (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1965».
The literature on corruption is vast; see S. Rose-Ackerman, Corruption
and Government (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
7. See, for example, C. Carraro and J. A. Filar, (eds.), Control and GameTheoretic Models of the Environment (Boston: Birkhauser, 1995).
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Studies in Political Economy
8. The use value derives from the actual and direct use of the environment; the altruistic value is the value individuals place on other people
having a clean and unexploited environment; the bequest value is the
value that the current generation places on the availability to future
generations of a clean and unexploited environment; and the existence
value is the value attached to the knowledge that the species exists and
will continue to exist, independent of any use. For further discussions,
see B. G. Norton, Why Preserve Natural Variety? (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1987); R. K. Turner, D. Pearce, and I. Bateman,
Environmental Economics: An Elementary Introduction (London:
Harvester, 1994).
9. J. B. Braden and C. D. Kolstad, (eds.), Measuring the Demand for
Environmental Quality (Amsterdam: North Holland, 1991).
10. See, for example, Turner, Pearce, and Bateman, Environmental
Economics: An Elementary ....
11. Within this framework, conventional theory can only accommodate
future generations' environmental concerns to the extent that today's
generations acknowledge and decide to take responsibility for them.
12. See, for example, P. A. Diamond and J. A. Hausmann, "Contingent
Valuations: Is Some Number Better than No Number," Journal of
Economic Perspectives 8/4 (1994), pp. 45-64; O. A. Krueger,
"Economists'
Changing
Perceptions
of
Government,"
Weltwirtschaftliche Archive 127 (1994), pp. 417-431.
13. See, for example, D. C. Mueller, Public Choice II (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1989); E. Screpanti and S. Zamagni, An
Outline of the History of Economic Thought (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1993).
14. See, for example, J. K. Boyce, "Inequality as a Cause of Environmental
Degradation," Ecological Economics 11 (1994), pp. 169-178.
15. Care should be given to the fact that this perspective is categorically different from the relatively recent Neoclassical attempt (it la Gary
Becker) to include the institutional dimension into the general
Neoclassical framework; for a critique, see, for example, G. M.
Hodgson, "The Approach of Institutional Economics," Journal of
Economic Literature 36 (1998), pp. 175-177.
16. EAEPE (European Association for Evolutionary Political Economy)
Constitution; see, for example, Hodgson, "The Approach of
Institutional...," for a general exposition of the Institutional approach.
17. K. W. Kapp, "The Nature and Significance of Institutional Economics,"
Kyklos 29 (1976), pp. 212-213.
18. See, for example, P. Soderbaum, "Neoclassical and Institutional
Approaches to Development and the Environment," Ecological
Economics 5 (1992), pp. 127-144.
19. In that regard, a long list of contributors (See, for example, E. L. Khalil,
"Buridan's Ass, Risk, Uncertainty, and Self-Competition: A Theory of
Entrepreneurship," Kyklos 50 (1997), pp.147-163 and references thereby) have for years tried to decipher the rather complex and interwoven
set of motivations that aim to explain the behaviour of firms.
20. See, for example, R. R. Nelson and S. G. Winter, An Evolutionary
Theory of Economic Change (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1982).
21. Hodgson, "The Approach ofInstitutional...," p. 184.
22. M. O'Connor, S. Faucheux, G. Froger, S. Funtowicz, and G. Munda,
"Emergent Complexity and Procedural Rationality: Post-Normal
Science for Sustainability," in R. Costanza, O. Segura, and 1. Martinez-
132
Adaman and OzkaynaklEconomics-Environment
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
Alier, (eds.), Getting Down to Earth: Practical Applications of
Ecological Economics (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1996), p. 236.
For further discussions, see, for example, H. Opschoor and J. van der
Straaten, "Sustainable Development: An Institutional Approach,"
Ecological Economics 7 (1993), pp. 203-222; P. Soderbaum,
"Neoclassical and Institutional Approaches .... "
See, for example, Boyce, "Inequality as a Cause ... "; J. O'Neill, "Value
Pluralism, Incommensurability and Institutions," in J. Foster, (ed.),
Valuing Nature? Economics, Ethics, and Economics (London:
Routledge, 1997), pp. 75-87.
See, for example, Costanza, Segura, and Martinez-Alier, Getting Down
to Earth ... ; J. Martinez-Alier, G. Munda, and J. O'Neill, "Weak
Comparability of Values as a Foundation for Ecological Economics,"
Ecological Economics
26 (1998), pp. 277-286; G. Munda,
"Environmental Economics, Ecological Economics, and the Concept of
Sustainable Development," Environmental Values 6 (1997), pp. 213233.
See, for example, M. Jacobs, "Environmental Valuation, Deliberative
Democracy and Public Decision-Making Institutions," in Foster, (ed.),
Valuing Nature? ... , pp. 211-231.
A. Holland, "The Assumptions of Cost-Benefit
Analysis: A
Philosopher's
View," in K. Willis and J. Corkindale,
(eds.),
Environmental
Valuation: New Perspectives (Wallingford: CAB
International, 1995), p. 29.
M. Sagoff, The Economy of the Earth (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1988).
M. Jacobs, "The Limits to Neoclassicism," in M. R. Redclift and T.
Benton, (eds.), Social Theory and the Global Environment (London:
Routledge, 1994), p. 87.
See, for example, Boyce, "Inequality as a Cause of Environmental. .. ,"
p.171.
J. L. Meyer and G. Helfman, "The Ecological Basis of Sustainability,"
Ecological Applications 3/4 (1993), p. 570.
B. Biirgenmeir, "Environmental
Policy: Beyond the Economic
Dimension," in B. Biirgenmeir, (ed.), Economy, Environment and
Technology: A Socio-Economic Approach (New York: M.E. Sharpe,
1994), pp. 175-190; O'Connor, Faucheux, Froger, Funtowicz, and
Munda, "Emergent Complexity and Procedural Rationality ... ," pp.
223-248; Meyer and Helfman, "The Ecological Basis ... ," p. 570; C.
Spash, "Environmental
Management
without
Environmental
Valuation?," in Foster, (ed.), Valuing Nature? Economics, Ethics ... , pp.
170-185.
J. Martinez-Alier, "Ecological Economics and Environmental Policy: A
Southern European View," in A. Tylecote and J. van der Straaten,
(eds.), Environment, Technology and Economic Growth' The Challenge
to Sustainable Development (Northampton: Edward Elgar, 1997), p. 28;
see also Martinez-Alier, Munda, and O'Neill, "Weak Comparability of
Values .... "
Munda, "Environmental Economics, Ecological Economics .... "
It needs to be pointed out that there exist several multicriteria techniques developed for different policy purposes. Martinez-Alier, Munda,
and O'Neill, "Weak Comparability of Values ... ," for example, favour
the so-called "non-compensatory" evaluation techniques, where the
compensability among indicators is limited and the notion of veto
thresholds exists.
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Studies in Political Economy
35. See, for example, M. R. M'Gonigle, "Ecological Economics and
Political Ecology: Towards a Necessary Synthesis," Ecological
Economics 28 (1999), pp. 11-26.
36. See, for a recent contribution, G. M. Hodgson, Economics and Utopia
(London: Routledge, 1998).
37. See, for example, P. Burkett, Marx and Nature: A Red and Green
Perspective (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1999); J. B. Foster, Marx's
Ecology: Materialism and Nature (New York: Monthly Review Press,
2(00).
38. See, for example, T. Benton, (ed.), The Greening of Marxism (New
York: The Guilford Press, 1996).
39. For a selection, see T. Benton, "Marxism and Natural Limits: An
Ecological Critique and Reconstruction," New Left Review 178 (1989),
pp. 51-86; Benton, (ed.), The Greening of Marxism ... ; J. Connelly and
G. Smith, Politics and the Environment: From Theory to Practice
(London: Routledge, 1999); S. P. T. Sundararajan, "From Marxian
Ecology to Ecological Marxism," Science and Society 60 (1996), pp.
360-379.
40. Benton, "Marxism and Natural Limits ... ." p. 74.
41. Ibid., p. 74.
42. Connelly and Smith, Politics and the Environment ... , p. 48.
43. Cf., Burkett, Marx and Nature: ... ; Foster, Marx's Ecology ... , for such
references in Marx and Engels.
44. Burkett, Marx and Nature ... , p. 4.
45. P. Burkett, "Value, Capital and Nature: Some Ecological Implications
of Marx's Critique of Political Economy," Science & Society 60 (1996),
p.333.
46. Benton, "Marxism and Natural Limits ... ," p. 77.
47. Ibid., p. 80.
48. See, for example, E. Leff, "Marxism and the Environmental Question:
From the Critical Theory of Production to an Environmental
Rationality for Sustainable Development," in T. Benton, (ed.), The
Greening of marxism ... ," pp. 137-57.
49. Benton, The Greening of Marxism ... , p. 110.
50. See, for example, J. O'Connor, "Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A
Theoretical Introduction," Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 1 (1988), pp.
11-38.
51. J. Amariglio, A. Callari, S. Resnick, D. Ruccio, and R. Wolff,
"Nondeterminist Marxism: The Birth of Postmodem Tradition in
Economics," in F. E. Foldvary, (ed.), Beyond Neoclassical Economics
(Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1996), pp. 134-147;see also E. Screpanti,
"The Postmodern Crisis in Economics and the Revolution against
Modernism," Rethinking Marxism 12/1 (2000), pp. 87-111.
52. B. Sandler, "Grow or Die: Marxist Theories of Capitalism and the
Environment," Rethinking Marxism 7/2 (1994), pp. 38-57.
53. See, for example, R. Bullard, Confronting Environmental Racism:
Voices from the Grassroots (Boston: Southend, 1993).
54. For a selection of discussions on the domestic and international political dimension of the environmental issues with reference to the Marxist
approach, refer to L. E. Adkin, "Environmental Politics, Political
Economy, and Social Democracy in Canada," Studies in Political
Economy 45 (1994), pp. 130-169; Benton, "Marxism and Natural
Limits ... ": J. B. Foster, "Let Them Eat Pollution: Capitalism and the
World Environment," Monthly Review 44 (1993), pp. 10-20; E. Leff,
"Marxism and the Environmental Question: From the Critical Theory
134
Adaman and OzkaynaklEconomics-Environment
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
of Production to an Environmental Rationality for Sustainable
Development," Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 13 (1993), pp. 44-66 and
V. Wallis, "Socialism, Ecology, and Democracy: Toward a Strategy of
Conversion," Monthly Review 44 (1992), pp. 1-22.
S. Amin, "Can Environmental Problems Be Subject to Economic
Calculations," World Development 20 (1992), p. 530.
M. O'Connor, "Value System Contest and the Appropriation of
Ecological Capital," The Manchester School 61 (1993), pp. 398-424, has
indeed proposed a model in which not only the rate of return, or capital charge, on the use of society's fixed assets, but also the rental for the
use of natural resources are set out to be interwoven with the distribution of income (see also J. Martinez-Alier, "Political Ecology,
Distributional Conflicts, and Economic Incommensurability," New Left
Review 211 (1995), pp. 70-88). As a consequence, the way these rental
values are to be determined assumes great importance. However, we
observe that this valuation issue has not so far drawn much attention
within the Marxist approach.
"Let Them Eat Pollution," The Economist (8 February 1992), p. 66.
See, for a variety of approaches, M. Albert and R. Hahnel, The Political
Economy of Participatory Economics (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 1991); W. P. Cockshott and A. F. Cottrill, Towards a New
Socialism (Nottingham: Spokesman, 1993); P. Devine, Democracy and
Economic Planning (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1988); refer also to F.
Adaman and P. Devine, "On the Economic Theory of Socialism," New
Left Review 221 (1997), pp. 54-80, for a critical survey.
A. Nove, The Economics of Feasible Socialism (London: Unwin
Hyman, 1983), p. 226.
F. Adaman and P. Devine, "The Economic Calculation Debate: Lessons
for Socialists," Cambridge Journal of Economics 20 (1996), p. 531.
Devine, Democracy and Economic , p. 201.
Devine, Democracy and Economic , p. 13, emphasis added; see also
Adaman and Devine, "The Economic Calculation Debate .... "
Devine, Democracy and Economic ....
Red-Green Study Group, What on Earth Is To Be Done (Wiltshire:
Cromwell Press, 1995), p. 49.
135