Latouche, in his book where he lays out the misconceptions and discussions on the concept of degrowth, quotes the most prominent theoretical criticism of degrowth by Odum as “it relies on unjustified and even false scientific grounds” (2018). What he specifically refers as “the scientific grounds” is the second law of thermodynamics, known as the entropy law. The defiant claim that the entropy law, which states that in any thermodynamic process in an isolated system the amount of energy available at work i.e. energy with low entropy decreases with use (Adaman et. al. 2012), cannot be applied to the Earth because there is no evidence that the Earth is a closed, isolated system. Starting the discussion of Boulding’s theses with this criticism is fruitful in the sense that what Boulding refers to with his “spaceship economy” metaphor is a paradigm shift of how we, as humanity, see and engage with our environment. In The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth (1966), Boulding first clarifies the two different conception of environment by humanity: First one is by primitive men, who view the Earth and its resources as illimitable, second one is supposed to held by modern men who are well aware of the limits to natural resources and growth. “Cowboy economy” is the metaphor he employs for the former, while “spaceman economy” for the latter. At this point, it is necessary to define open system and closed system, as Boulding makes use of these concepts. In his words, in an open system, “some kind of a structure is maintained in the midst of a throughput from inputs to outputs” (Ibid.), that is, we can talk about an outside of the system. In a closed system, “the outputs of all parts of the system are linked to the inputs of other parts and there are no inputs from outside and no outputs to inside” (Ibid.). In terms of the previous analogy, open system is analogous to the way primitive men envisions the Earth, closed system is of modern men. Just as in a spaceship, people care about stock maintenance because they are aware that they have limited resources. I call “modern men” (rather normatively) as opposed to “primitive men”, although Boulding does not use this expression because what he talks about is exactly the primitive men living in the modern age (primitive in a sense that they could not come to awareness that we live in a closed sphere), along with the minority who come to awareness of that. Some interpretations of this analogy (van den Bergh 2001) state that cowboy economy is a metaphor for local or national open economy where people are not concerned about environment but only concerned about local environmental problems, and that the spaceship economy is a metaphor for the whole world with limited food supply and materials. Thus, Summers’ concerns as stated in his memo published by The Economist (1992), is a good example to the cowboy economy: He only cares about the rationalities of his nations, the developed ones, and justifies the dumping of wastes to the less developed countries as if these countries are not part of the environment. What I mean by primitive men in modern times is explicit in this kind of short-sightedness towards environmental issues.
Boulding starts the discussion by referring to the Copernican Revolution and scientific advancements that enable people to visualize the Earth as a closed sphere, rather than an illimitable, flat plane. It is not a coincidence that Kant also employs the term “Copernican Turn” in philosophising to refer to the change in epistemic status of human mind in gaining knowledge: Just as Copernicus denied Earth was motionless, Kant proposed that objects conform to our knowledge, making humans as participatory agents in gaining knowledge. What Boulding describes throughout the article is a paradigm shift in which humanity engages with its environment. After declaring that the Earth is not an illimitable plane, but a closed sphere, Boulding claims that humanity is “far from having made the moral, political, and psychological adjustments which are implied in this transition from the illimitable plane to the closed sphere” (1966). This seems rather a normative statement in a sense that it does not aim to prove that the Earth is a closed system; yet this statement is important as it makes, though metaphorically, references to the conceptual grounds of ecological economics, long before the field has developed. Along with the laws of thermodynamics, coevolutionary perspective and the means to manage complexity and uncertainty defines the conceptual framework of ecological economics, and distinguishes it from the neoclassical environmental economics (Adaman et. al. 2012). In what follows, I will trace Boulding’s named article for references to the laws of thermodynamics, discussion of weak and strong sustainability, limits to growth theses, all of which constitutes conceptual grounds for ecological economics.
The first law of thermodynamics states that matter and energy cannot be created nor destroyed. Second law of thermodynamics, also known as the entropy law, states that entropy never decreases in an isolated system. Given the energy inputs we obtain from fossil fuels constitute a limit, irreversible process is going on in our use of energy, and we end up with high entropy waste. Increasing entropy entails the depletion of natural resources. The awareness of this law and its application is crucial focus to redefine our relation with environment. Boulding claims that the “closed” Earth requires new economic principles different from the open Earth of the past (1966). The economic principles need to confirm to the entropy law, the humanity “needs to find its place in this cyclical ecological system which is capable of continuous reproduction of material form even though it cannot escape having inputs of energy” (Ibid.). This implies a reciprocal relationship of humanity with the environment and an Earth as an autopoietic system, a system that reproduces itself without any interference from outside.
In “cowboy economy”, throughput maximization is aimed, and as GNP is a rough measure of this throughput, consumption is regarded as valuable in itself. They are not concerned about where the waste from this consumption goes and whether or not it is equitable. On the other hand, as they are aware of the fact that the economy is not only composed of throughput (roughly production and consumption), that there is more complex social metabolism is at stake around this throughput, people of “spaceship economy” do not care about maximizing consumption. They are tend to minimize it if it leads to stock maintenance, indeed (Ibid.). This leads us to the limits to growth discussions. Not only Boulding’s discussion reveals that he is skeptical about the measure of GNP as an index for development and well-being (which is an argument of a-growth theory), but also he proposes to downscale the economy when needed (degrowth). Although he does not claim that maximizing the throughput always counters maximizing well-being of the society (Van Den Bergh 2001), when and towards which ends should we consider downscaling the economy lies in his emphasis on stock maintenance. If we maintain a given total stock (of natural, human, fabricated capital), even though we have lessened throughput we would be “better off”, Boulding claims. This way of viewing the total stock of the economy is a corollary of strong sustainability. Strong sustainability assumes incommensurability of different components of this total stock, that is natural capital cannot be replaced or even measured by monetary capital. Weak sustainability, on the other hand, is based on the assumption that man-made capital and natural capital are perfectly substitutable, making less of a latter can be compensated by more of a former. The concept of strong sustainability is at stake in this context, thinking the entropy law and stock maintenance aim of the “spaceship economy” together, one realizes that strong sustainability is the underlying assumptions to these two.
All in all, Boulding introduces us to a new paradigm in which our relation to the environment is completely changed, and leaves us with the urge to come up with new norms and economic principles to proceed in this paradigm, without detailing an action plan. While doing this, he introduces several metaphors and concepts, which are later conceptualized as bases of ecological economics.
References
Boulding, K. E. (1966). The economics of the coming spaceship earth. Environmental Quality Issues in a Growing Economy.
Latouche, S. (2018). Kanaatkar Bolluk Toplumuna Doğru: Küçülme Üzerine Yanlış Yorumlar ve Tartışmalar. İletişim Yayınları.
Let Them Eat Pollution (1991). Memorandum sent by Lawrence Summers, Chief Economist of the World Bank.
Martinez-Alier, J. (2011). “The EROI of agriculture and its use by the Via Campesina”. The Journal of Peasant Studies, 38(1), 145-160.
Özkaynak, B., Adaman, F., & Devine, P. (2012). “The identity of ecological economics: retrospects and prospects. Cambridge Journal of Economics”, 36(5), 1123-1142.
van den Bergh, J. C. (2001). “Ecological economics: themes, approaches, and differences with environmental economics”. Regional Environmental Change, 2(1), 13-23.
*Photograph from the movie Blade Runner (1982).
BESTE GÜN ASLAN 