Environment and Ecology in the History of Economic Thought Reassessing the Legacy of the Classics

About this book

This volume proposes a reconsideration of ecological and environmental aspects of the work and ideas of various heterodox authors and traditions in the history of economic thought, including the field of economic development.

Many of the contributors to this book focus on thinkers and works which are not typically considered as part of the ecological sphere, while others consider such economists in a new light or domain. Thus, the book elucidates a new and useful research field of reconsidering ecological dimensions in the traditional history of economic thought, as well as helping to delineate alternative views for ongoing debates on ecological themes. Did Veblen, Keynes, Sraffa, C. Furtado and other key economists and schools of thought of our age have relevant and useful insights with respect to environmental issues? Which aspects of their intellectual legacies should eventually be discarded in the face of our new environmental challenges? On the contrary, what aspects of their economic theories can be updated and adapted to a better interpretation of our present ecological concerns? How do they differ, and why? The essays contained in this book will help to answer these questions by means of recovering, analysing and updating the work of some of the most relevant heterodox economists and schools of thought of our time.

This book will be of great interest to readers in the history of economic thought, ecological economics, environmental economics and economic development.

Contents

PART I: Classical political economy and the surplus approach
1. Introduction / Vitor Eduardo Schincariol
2. Adam Smith as ecological economist / Leo Steeds
3. On the accommodation of the ecological question in the Sraffian tradition / Chandni Dwarkasing

PART II: Institutional and post-Keynesian economics
4. Ecology and environment in home economics / David Philippy and Marco P. Vianna Franco
5. Nature, exploitation and institutions: on the political ecology of Thorstein Veblen and Karl Polanyi / Manuel Ramon Souza Luz and Ramon Garcia Fernandez
6. Principles for building a post-Keynesian environmental macroeconomics: revisiting Keynes in times of crises / Marcio Alvarenga Junior and Carlos Eduardo Frickmann Young
7. Environment, development and equity in the work of Geoff Harcourt / Shachi Amdekar and Matthew Fright

PART III: Economic development
8. Reflections on economic development and environment / Alessandro Roncaglia and (late) Paolo Sylos Labini
9. Celso Furtado on natural resources, the environment and ecology: economic development between myth and utopia / Vitor Eduardo Schincariol
10. The evolution of the ecological perspective in Latin American Structuralism / Gabriel Porcile and Miguel Torres
11. Bioeconomic and resilient development strategies in face of Covid-19 in the South: the example of Senegal / Abdourahmane Ndiaye and Muhammad Ba     

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Biography

Vitor Eduardo Schincariol holds a PhD in economic history from the University of Sao Paulo and is Associate Professor of Economic History and Political Economy at the Federal University of ABC, Sao Paulo, Brazil.