Is There an Alternative?
There are alternative ways of integrating a recognition of our dependence on natural processes into economic thinking. Since the mid-1980s approaches that define themselves as ‘ecological' as distinct from ‘environmental' economics have been developed (O'Neill 1993, 1997; Costanza et al.
1997; O'Connor and Spash 1998; Ozkaynak, Devine and Rigby 2002). These have in common a recognition of many of the problems identified above in the discussion of Dasgupta's proposals. For ecological economics it is necessary to recognize that economic activity is part of (though in current conditions, a semi-detached part) a wider society, and engages differences of power and interest as well as value-pluralism. It is also recognized that the reduction of difference and incommensurability in assigning prices to environmental goods makes pricing an inappropriate tool for decision-making. In the case of biodiversity conservation, for example, it is precisely the preservation of difference that is at stake. Complexity, uncertainty and value-pluralism entail the invention of very different ways of making decisions. Scientific and technical expertise has a necessary input to decisionmaking, but so also does representation of stakeholders, as well as the insights of various relevant disciplines, including humanities and social sciences such as anthropology and sociology. The emphasis then becomes one of equity in participatory democracy, mutual learning and transparency of value-options. In some versions of ‘ecological’ (as distinct from mainstream ‘environmental’) economics, quantitative measures of sustainability are advocated, but based on bio-physical indicators, rather than price. But even here the measures are to be thought of as informing a deliberative process, rather than providing a technical solution.Many of the themes in ecological economics point beyond our current situation in which economic life has a semi-autonomous appearance, detached from cultural and socio-political processes. The aspiration on the part of ecological economists is for decisions about access to and uses of natural processes to be made in relation to different visions of human well-being. This implies not only a reintegration of economic and ecological processes but also reintegration of social, political and cultural processes with economic ones - perhaps to the point where ‘the economy’ no longer persists as a separate sphere of activity.