For many years, it has been easy to value natural resources at zero. Even though we began to see our negative impact on the natural environment in the 1960s, we have failed to take into consideration nature as both a cost and value. Over the past forty years, this has changed a great deal, and gradually, nature is being recognized in economic theory as a significant factor.
What were the reasons for nature to be ignored? One of the easiest to point out is our distinction between culture and nature. Economic activity has been viewed as a cultural activity. While the context and much of the natural resources have been viewed as outside culture and consequently outside economic activity. As early as 1974, these limitations were being recognized and included economic calculations. E.F. Schumacher used this as his basis for his distinction between "economics" and "meta-economics." The latter being the context for which all economic activity takes place.
While in economics, the natural environment was gradually being recognized as both an ignored factor and additionally, a devalued ethical concern, one forward-thinking German writer was already recognizing "nature" as an economic factor at the fin de siècle. Kurd Lasswitz, a writer known for his contribution to early science fiction, realized that the natural world played a fundamental role in economic success. In his novel, Star-Dew: A Plant from Neptune's Moon (1909), the plant gives a "gift" to humans of a chemical compound that can be used to make a flexible, yet durable material - similar to what we call plastic. By framing the plant compound he calls "rorin" as a "gift," he recognizes that the plant's contribution may not be able to be concretely valued, but that it nonetheless has value. The function of "gift" also attributes an agency of sorts to the ones who give the gifts, while not calling it a human agency. The plants become as persons, but not persons.
Lasswitz' concept of plants as economic factors anticipates in many ways Matthew Hall's argument in Plants as Persons. Although he does not claim that plants are intelligent and sentient in the same way that humans are, he does argue for a view of plants that gives them a similar status to humans. If we can do that for corporations, why not for other non-humans. This improved status may be the final impetus to include plants and other non-human and even the non-living resources in our economic equations.
What were the reasons for nature to be ignored? One of the easiest to point out is our distinction between culture and nature. Economic activity has been viewed as a cultural activity. While the context and much of the natural resources have been viewed as outside culture and consequently outside economic activity. As early as 1974, these limitations were being recognized and included economic calculations. E.F. Schumacher used this as his basis for his distinction between "economics" and "meta-economics." The latter being the context for which all economic activity takes place.
While in economics, the natural environment was gradually being recognized as both an ignored factor and additionally, a devalued ethical concern, one forward-thinking German writer was already recognizing "nature" as an economic factor at the fin de siècle. Kurd Lasswitz, a writer known for his contribution to early science fiction, realized that the natural world played a fundamental role in economic success. In his novel, Star-Dew: A Plant from Neptune's Moon (1909), the plant gives a "gift" to humans of a chemical compound that can be used to make a flexible, yet durable material - similar to what we call plastic. By framing the plant compound he calls "rorin" as a "gift," he recognizes that the plant's contribution may not be able to be concretely valued, but that it nonetheless has value. The function of "gift" also attributes an agency of sorts to the ones who give the gifts, while not calling it a human agency. The plants become as persons, but not persons.
Lasswitz' concept of plants as economic factors anticipates in many ways Matthew Hall's argument in Plants as Persons. Although he does not claim that plants are intelligent and sentient in the same way that humans are, he does argue for a view of plants that gives them a similar status to humans. If we can do that for corporations, why not for other non-humans. This improved status may be the final impetus to include plants and other non-human and even the non-living resources in our economic equations.
