Rival Ecologies of Global Commerce: Adam Smith and the Natural Historians
TL;DR: This essay explores how the defense of global commerce pioneered in the Enlightenment was tied to the improvement of the natural order in the metropole and the colonies.
Abstract: This essay explores how the defense of global commerce pioneered in the Enlightenment was tied to the improvement of the natural order Two rival ecologies, one made by natural historians and the other developed by Adam Smith and his liberal successors, vied for intellectual precedence as well as for practical application in the metropole and the colonies Together they constitute the beginnings of an ongoing quarrel over the environmental foundation of capitalism
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Dissertation•
13 Dec 2017
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors discuss the importance of the population in Adam Smith's theories of population and developpement, i.e., le lien entre division du travail and etendue du marche; the theorie des quatre stades du progres de la societe; and le lion entre developement rural and urbain, lui-meme au centre du plaidoyer de Smith pour la liberte du commerce.
Abstract: La population - en son sens originel de processus de peuplement - est un sujet etonnamment absent de l'enorme volume d’etudes sur Adam Smith. Ce theme etait au centre de la philosophie morale et de l'economie politique du 18e siecle, les deux domaines auxquels les contributions de Smith sont les plus connues. Son importance dans l’œuvre de Smith a ete obscurcie au 20e siecle par une focalisation etroite sur les questions economiques dans la litterature secondaire. Pour une analyse integrale de son œuvre, il est essentiel que la place centrale du peuplement soit revelee. Trois themes aujourd'hui consideres comme essentiels au projet de Smith sont ainsi intimement lies a la population : le lien entre division du travail et etendue du marche ; la theorie des quatre stades du progres de la societe ; et le lien entre developpement rural et urbain, lui-meme au centre du plaidoyer de Smith pour la liberte du commerce. Le marche est un concept aujourd'hui assimile au fonctionnement du systeme economique capitaliste ; pour Smith, il decrivait la faculte de commercer, aux vecteurs essentiellement demographiques et geographiques. Le progres de la societe est a la fois cause et effet de la croissance de la population. En son sein se trouve l'interrelation symbiotique entre le developpement rural et urbain que Smith appelait le «progres naturel de l'opulence». Adopter l’optique smithienne plutot que neo-malthusienne dans l'examen des dynamiques de population et de developpement - y compris l'analyse de la transition demographique - conduit alors a une reconsideration fondamentale des interactions causales entre mortalite, fecondite, richesse et variables institutionnelles.
106 citations
Posted Content•
TL;DR: This paper examined the role of traveling as a source of discovery and development of new ideas in economics, from the 18th to the 20th centuries, with a detailed case study of Douglass North's 1961 travel to Brazil.
Abstract: The role of traveling as a source of discovery and development of new ideas has been controversial in the history of economics. Despite their protective attitude toward established theory, economists have traveled widely and gained new insights or asked new questions as a result of their exposure to “other” economic systems, ideas and forms of behavior. That is particularly the case when they travel to new places while their frameworks are in their initial stages or undergoing changes. This essay examines economists’ traveling as a potential source of new hypotheses, from the 18th to the 20th centuries, with a detailed case study of Douglass North’s 1961 travel to Brazil.
30 citations
Cites background from "Rival Ecologies of Global Commerce:..."
...His journals, mentioned in the Wealth of Nations (I.xi.l.4), contained accounts of American physical and human geography, and, like Humboldt, reflected cameralist influences (Jonsson 2010)....
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TL;DR: The paper tests the feasibility of incorporating the costs of greenhouse gas emissions within costing for economic evaluation, and concludes that the use of shadow prices to achieve this aim is feasible and preferable to more convoluted attempts to incorporate environmental impacts in the outcome component of health economic evaluations.
Abstract: Health care is responsible for a range of negative environmental impacts, including greenhouse gas emissions, air pollution, plastics waste, and pharmaceutical pollution of ecosystems through excretion and inappropriate disposal. Evidence on the scale of these impacts has been growing in high-income countries. To date, there has been only limited discussion of how environmental impacts might be incorporated into economic evaluations of health care programs, including health technology assessment. This paper considers why and how this aim might be achieved, using perspectives from both mainstream and ecological economics. There are strong arguments for using economic evaluation to internalise the negative environmental externalities currently being generated by health care, as well as precautionary arguments for health systems to better understand their exposure to their environmental impacts. The paper tests the feasibility of incorporating the costs of greenhouse gas emissions within costing for economic evaluation, and concludes that the use of shadow prices to achieve this aim is feasible. It suggests that this cost-based approach is preferable to more convoluted attempts to incorporate environmental impacts in the outcome component of health economic evaluations. The interaction between overuse, antimicrobial resistance and environmental harms of health care is identified as an area that would benefit from investigation using innovative economic methods.
28 citations
19 Mar 2013
TL;DR: Blakley as discussed by the authors examines the explorations and writings of John and William Bartram; it seeks to reinterpret of their careers to recover the latent political motivations and consequences of their explorations into the territories of a number of indigenous American polities from the 1740s to the 1770s.
Abstract: BLAKLEY, CHRISTOPHER M. Visions of Terrestrial Happiness: Natural History, Empire, and the Environment of Colonial North America, 1751-1791. (Under the direction of Dr. Judy Kertész). Knowledge of nature, both scientific and literary, became a political discourse in colonial America and the early republic. Eighteenth century representations of nature functioned in the imaginary of the colonial Anglo-American republic of letters as an emblem of order, harmony, and economic and political potential. Circulation of plants, rocks, animals, technology, and ideas across the Atlantic World enabled a discourse of natural history that sought to describe, and thus imagine, what exactly was natural in North America. Natural history enveloped Native American polities into the discourse of nature by representing them as objects within a landscape. This thesis examines the explorations and writings of John and William Bartram; it seeks to reinterpret of their careers to recover the latent political motivations and consequences of their explorations into the territories of a number of indigenous American polities from the 1740s to the 1770s. Writing about the environment of the western and southeastern frontiers, the Bartrams constructed representations of colonial America as a garden. This image of the continent functioned first as an extension of the natural development of the British Empire and second as a natural site of the republican empire of the American nation. Ideas originating from taxonomy, economics, the sublime, and theology informed how the Bartrams read and described Nature and the indigenous polities of North America. © Copyright 2012 by Christopher Blakley All Rights Reserved Visions of Terrestrial Happiness: Natural History, Empire, and the Environment of Colonial North America, 1751 1791 by Christopher Blakley A thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty of North Carolina State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts
27 citations
TL;DR: The authors argue that centralization occurred in numerous places and involved the organization, pursuit and management of various sorts of accumulation, with geographically extensive consequences, and present centralization as historically open and multi-centred, inviting examination of both its local dynamics and long-distance entanglements from various perspectives, which in turn reveals the multi-centered dynamics of empire building and governance, including the organization and pursuit of natural inquiry.
Abstract: In their recent book The colonial machine, James McClellan III and Francois Regourd detail how ancien regime France’s government marshalled science in the service of colonial expansion. By focusing on the local and long distance struggles to make the Isle de France (present day Mauritius) a globally significant centre during the long eighteenth century, this essay suggests an alternative to McClellan and Regourd’s geography of metropolitan centre and colonial periphery, as well as their claim that the investigation of nature was tied to colonial expansion by state centralization. Rather than view centralization as a double process whereby a metropolitan state is able to dominate increasingly peripheral territory by concentrating power and the means of its production and management under state authority, this essay argues that centralization occurred in numerous places and involved the organization, pursuit and management of various sorts of accumulation, with geographically extensive consequences. The goal is to present centralization as historically open and multi-centred, inviting examination of both its local dynamics and long-distance entanglements from various perspectives, which in turn reveals the multi-centred dynamics of empire building and governance, including the organization and pursuit of natural inquiry
26 citations
References
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TL;DR: Weisman's thought experiment illustrates the historicist paradox that inhabits contemporary moods of anxiety and concern about the finitude of humanity as mentioned in this paper, and it can precipitate a sense of the present that disconnects the future from the past by putting such a future beyond the grasp of historical sensibility.
Abstract: The current planetary crisis of climate change or global warming elicits a variety of responses in individuals, groups, and governments, ranging from denial, disconnect, and indifference to a spirit of engagement and activism of varying kinds and degrees. These responses saturate our sense of the now. Alan Weisman’s best-selling book The World without Us suggests a thought experiment as a way of experiencing our present: “Suppose that the worst has happened. Human extinction is a fait accompli. . . . Picture a world from which we all suddenly vanished. . . . Might we have left some faint, enduring mark on the universe? . . . Is it possible that, instead of heaving a huge biological sigh of relief, the world without us would miss us?”1 I am drawn to Weisman’s experiment as it tellingly demonstrates how the current crisis can precipitate a sense of the present that disconnects the future from the past by putting such a future beyond the grasp of historical sensibility. The discipline of history exists on the assumption that our past, present, and future are connected by a certain continuity of human experience. We normally envisage the future with the help of the same faculty that allows us to picture the past. Weisman’s thought experiment illustrates the historicist paradox that inhabits contemporary moods of anxiety and concern about the finitude of humanity. To go along with Weisman’s experiment, we have to insert ourselves into
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71 citations
Book•
25 Jul 2002
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the development of the canal system and the dynamism of the western UP Appendices Glossary of Indian terms Bibliography Index, and discuss the impact of canal irrigation on agricultural production and organisation.
Abstract: List of illustrations List of tables Preface List of abbreviations 1. Introduction 2. Development of the canal system 3. Canal irrigation as an appropriate technology 4. Impact on agricultural production and organisation 5. Pricing 6. Management, control, and distribution 7. Protection against famine 8. Canal irrigation and the dynamism of the western UP Appendices Glossary of Indian terms Bibliography Index.
56 citations
01 Apr 2000
TL;DR: The concept of sustainable development is defined as "development that maximizes the long-term net benefits to humankind, taking into account the costs of environmental degradation" as mentioned in this paper, which is not the need to limit economic growth, as some have argued (e.g., Daly 1991).
Abstract: There is no universally accepted definition of sustainable development, nor do all definitions of sustainable development yield practical guidelines for policymakers. The concept is perhaps best defined as development that maximizes the long-term net benefits to humankind, taking into account the costs of environmental degradation. Net benefits include not merely income gains and reduced unemployment and poverty, but also healthier living conditions and other benefits associated with improved environmental quality. Interpreted this way, sustainable development stresses not the need to limit economic growth, as some have argued (e.g., Daly 1991), but rather the need to grow and develop sensibly, to ensure that the benefits of development are long-lasting: that in the most general sense, people become better off over time. Sustainable development represents an attempt to make conservation the handmaiden of development, while protecting the interests of future generations. Pragmatic concepts of sustainable development value environmental protection not for its own sake, but for its contribution to the welfare of present and future generations. A sustainable development strategy thus permits the providential depletion of natural resources and the intelligent utilization of the environment's waste assimilation services. One key condition for achieving sustainability is that natural resources and environmental services not be undervalued or underpriced – a condition that is frequently violated in practice, as we shall see. International meetings have tended to emphasize a global perspective on sustainable development. Most notable in this regard is the 1992 “Earth Summit” (officially, the U.N. Conference on Environment and Development) in Rio de Janeiro.
12 citations