Recovering and extending classical and Marshallian foundations for post-Keynesian environmental economics

International Journal of Environment, Workplace and Employment

Volumn 1, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 155-173

  Christensen, Paul P ^a  

^a HOFSTRA UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

biophysical foundations; classical economics; economy environment interactions; Marshall; post Keynesian economics

Indexed keywords

EID: 77953136966     PISSN: 17418437     EISSN: 17418445     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1504/IJEWE.2005.006382     Document Type: Article

References (46)

1. Lavoie, M. (2004) ‘Post-Keynesian consumer choice theory for the economics of sustainable forest management’, Draft.
2. Ayres, R. (1978) Resources, Environment, and Economics: Applications of the Materials/Energy Balance Principle, New York: Wiley.
3. I first realised the need to apply the principles of the conservation of matter and energy to production and the entropy law in the April of 1976 when I was completing my dissertation and realised that Sraffa’s production system lacked any physical specification of the material and energy flows required to produce commodities. A closed production system cannot reproduce itself.
4. Coase’s (1937) extension of ‘Marshall’s principle of substitution’ to markets and firms also cannot stand as a general principle. See Coase, R. (1937) ‘The nature of the firm’, Econometrica, Vol. 4, pp.386–405.
5. Georgescu-Roegen, N. (1971) The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
6. Dow, S. (1988) ‘Post-Keynesian economics: conceptual underpinnings’, British Review of Economic Issues, Vol. 10, No. 23, pp.1–18.
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8. Say, J.B. (1803) Traité d’économique Politique, Paris.
9. Democritus’ ideas about the early evolution of the cosmos, life and human society were known throughout antiquity via a group of ‘histories’ written by classical authors which the classics’ scholar Thomas Cole [41] argues trace to a common source. Thanks to Cole’s careful scholarship, we have the basic components of Democrates’ philosophy of nature, his ideas of a psychology in which moral feeling and sociability were innate (which made society and social norms possible), and his schema of the basic stages of the evolution of technology and social organisation in prehistory. Salem [42] confirms and extends Cole’s important and neglected work.
10. Hobbes, T. ([1651] 1968), Leviathan, C.B. Macpherson (Ed.), New York: Penguin.
11. Christensen, P. (1989) ‘Hobbes and the physiological origins of economic science’, History of Political Economy, Vol. 21, pp.689–709.
12. Petty was trained in navigation and related sciences at the Jesuit college in Caen, France. He studied medicine at Leyden in Holland and Oxford. The best treatment of his economics is in Aspromourgos [43].
13. Hull, C. (Ed.) (1899) The Economic Writings of Sir William Petty, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
14. For the physical background of Boisguilbert’s ideas see Christensen [44].
15. Boisguilbert – knows the stoic ideas of harmony and certainly the works of François Bernier who presented a highly readable digest in seven volumes of Gassendi’s great work of 1658. He also knew his cousin Bernard Fontenelle’s ideas of nature’s harmony which were similarly based in Gassendi.
16. Because of the theoretical cast of his ideas, Cantillon has been mistakenly linked to Descartes. He was close to Montesquieu who was a Gassendian and part of the Epicurean circle around Fontenelle and the Abbey Saint Pierre. Cantillon was part of the circle of French Newtonians and physicians around Lord Bolingbroke. The influence of Montesquieu’s historical sociology, Locke’s empiricism, and the inductive methodology of Newton’s Opticks are evident.
17. Christensen, P. (1994) ‘Fire, motion, and productivity: the proto-energetics of nature and economy in François Quesnay’, in P. Mirowski (Ed.) Natural Images in Economic Thought, ‘Markets Read in Tooth and Claw’, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, pp.249–288.
18. Quesnay was a key figure in the revival of Gassendi’s physics and psychology in the eighteenth century. As Rey [45] observes, Gassendi’s influence came in two waves: in the second half of the seventeenth century and during the Enlightenment.
19. Smith like Quesnay was familiar with Gassendi’s and Bernier’s philosophy. He will later distance himself from these early influences to protect his reputation and the acceptance of his ideas.
20. Wise, N. and Smith, A.C. (1989) ‘Work and waste: political economy and natural philosophy in nineteenth century Britain’, History of Science, Vol. 27, pp.263–301,391–449.
21. Vatin, F. (1993) Le Travail: Economie et Physique: 1780–1830, Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
22. Vatin, who is steeped in the French engineering literature, does not identify the source of Smith’s ideas of work.
23. This can be seen in his otherwise puzzling declaration in Book II of The Wealth of Nations that agriculture is more productive than manufacturing because it employs two powers (land and labour) whereas (artisan) manufacturing employs only one power (labour). Thus, for Smith, the energy produced by plants from the sun’s energy is the sole source of energy available to human and animal labour and labour is the sole source of work in the industrial economy. Thus, the energy supplied by plants constitutes a fundamental limit on the economy’s growth and his emphasis on increases in the size of the market driving increases in the division of labour and labour productivity are only an efficiency improvement and not a source for continuously expanding growth.
24. Ricardo’s neglect of basic physical distinctions between circulating capital (materials and energy) and the fixed capital embodied in machinery, skills, etc., most likely owes to his adoption of the energetic ideas of James Hutton that underlie an emphasis on dynamical processes, equilibrium, and a corresponding neglect of intermediate states.
25. Malthus’ methodological contributions are considerably richer.
26. Ricardo, D. (1817) The Principle of Political Economy and Taxation, reprint of 1911 edition, Dent, London, 1969.
27. Babbage, C. (1835) On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures, reprint of fourth edition New York: A.M. Kelley, 1971.
28. Ure, A. (1835) Philosophy of Manufactures, London: Charles Knight.
29. In reviews of Babbage and Ure, the economist John McCulloch (one of the leading defenders of the classical equilibrium framework) noted the link between Britain’s industrial prosperity and the exploitation of coal technologies. He sees that the increase in the quantity of iron made with coal lowers the costs of machinery (and steam engines) leading to more output and more demand for coal, iron, and machines. He does not appear to have recognised the need to incorporate these ideas into a theory of production.
30. Senior, N. (1836) An Outline of the Science of Political Economy, New York: reprinted by Augustus M. Kelley, 1965.
31. The first two propositions addressed undiminished utility from goods and Malthusian limits on population.
32. Mill, J.S. (1848) Principles of Political Economy, 7th edition, London: Longmans, Green & Co., 1871
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34. Marshall, A. (1920) Principles of Economics, 8th edition, London: Macmillan.
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36. Arena, R. and Quére, M. (Eds.) (2003) The Economics of Alfred Marshall: Revisiting Marshall’s Legacy, Lalgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.
37. Marshall, A. and Marshall, M. (1879) The Economics of Industry, London: Macmillan.
38. Groenewegen, P. (2003) ‘Competition and evolution: Marshall’s conciliation enterprise’, in R. Arena and M. Quére (Eds.), The economics of Alfred Marshall: revisiting Marshall’s legacy, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp.113–133.
39. Whitaker, J. (Ed.) (1975) The Early Economic Writings of Alfred Marshall: 1867–1890, London: Macmillan, Vols. I–II.
40. Chandler, Jr., A. (1977) The Visible Hand, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
41. Nadeau, R. (2003) The Wealth of Nature: How Mainstream Economics Has Failed the Environment, New York: Columbia University Press.
42. Cole, T.S. (1967) Democritus and the Sources of Greek Anthropology, Western Reserve University.
43. Salem, J. (1996) Démocrite: Grains de Possière dans un Rayon de Soleil, Paris: Vrin.
44. Aspromourgos, T. (1986) ‘Political economy and the social division of labour: the economics of Sir William Petty’, Scottish Journal of Political Economy, February, Vol. 33, pp.28–45.
45. Christensen, P. (2003) ‘Epicurean and stoic sources for Boisguilbert’s physiological and hippocratic vision of nature and economics’, in M. Schabas and N. De Marchi (Eds.) Oeconomies in the Age of Newton, Durham, NC: Duke University Press, pp.102–129.
46. Rey, R. (1997) ‘Gassendi et les sciences de la vie au XVUIe siècle’, in S. Murr (Ed.) Gassendi et sa postéritié en France et en Europe 1592–1792, Paris: J. Vrin.