Economics and Ecology

The ambition, shared by Smith and Marx, to replace Agrarianism with an Industrialist concept of Economics, results in an increasingly anthropocentric object of study. The abstraction from Nature is evident in Smith's cardinal concepts, such as the distinctively human Propensity to Barter, Exchange, Division of Labor, etc. And, while the reliance on Nature, entailed in his focus on Labor, a process of transforming raw material, slightly re-grounds Marxism, Engels' later attempt to develop a Dialectical Materialist concept of Nature only underscores that the Materialism that informs their Socialism is primarily merely human. In contrast with both systems, what might be called an 'Ecological Economics' begins by embedding the human world within Nature, and, then, derives Labor, Exchange, etc. from the interaction of the species with its environing conditions.