Essays on the History and Philosophy of Ecological Economic Thought
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Marco Paulo Vianna Franco Essays on the History and Philosophy of Ecological Economic Thought Belo Horizonte, MG UFMG/Cedeplar 2019 ii Marco Paulo Vianna Franco Essays on the History and Philosophy of Ecological Economic Thought Tese apresentada ao curso de Doutorado em Economia do Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional da Faculdade de Ciências Econômicas da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, como requisito parcial à obtenção do Título de Doutor em Economia. Orientador: Prof. Hugo E. A. da Gama Cerqueira Co-orientador: Prof. João Antônio de Paula Belo Horizonte, MG Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional Faculdade de Ciências Econômicas - UFMG 2019 iii Ficha catalográfica Franco, Marco Paulo Vianna. F825e Essays on the History and Philosophy of Ecological Economic 2019 Thought [manuscrito] / Marco Paulo Vianna Franco. – 2019. 162 f. Orientador: Hugo E. A. da Gama Cerqueira. Coorientador: João Antônio de Paula. Tese (doutorado) – Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional. Inclui bibliografia (f. 147-162). 1. Economia – História – Teses. 2. Economia – Teses. 3. Desenvolvimento sustentável – Teses. I. Cerqueira, Hugo E.A. da Gama. II. Paula , João Antônio de. III. Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais. Centro de Desenvolvimento e Planejamento Regional. IV. Título. CDD: 330.09 Elaborada pela Biblioteca da FACE/UFMG. –RSS54/2019 iv Folha de Aprovação v Folha de Aprovação vi To Helena, Rachel, and Evando. Future, present, and past that inspire visions of joy and freedom for all beings. vii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The present work is one of the outcomes of a deeper transformation at the personal and professional levels, which was only possible with the aid of several individuals. As new values, beliefs, and convictions surfaced, a new career seemed inevitable. The extent of this transition has not always been overtly disclosed, and, thus, many people still do not realize the importance of their contributions to this endeavor. It has been said that those that love what they do, will never have to work for a single day in their entire lives. For some time now, I feel free from the shackles of involuntary labor. Therefore, recognition is due to those who, selflessly and sometimes unknowingly, were a part of this venture. Your kindness is sincerely and wholeheartedly appreciated. I am most grateful to my advisors, Profs. Hugo da Gama Cerqueira and João Antônio de Paula, for sharing with me their time and expertise, and above all for supporting my decision to pursue my dearest research interests. You have taught me what intellectual freedom is. It has been a pleasure to work with you. I would also like to thank the faculty of the Center for Development and Regional Planning of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (Cedeplar/UFMG), especially Profs. Roberto Monte-Mór, Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak, Leonardo de Deus, Eduardo Albuquerque, Alexandre Cunha, Édson Domingues, and Mônica Viegas. Thanks also to my fellow students at Cedeplar/UFMG for their esprit de corps, in particular Ian Coelho Almeida, Thiago Dumont Oliveira, and Jakob Sparn, for very fruitful exchanges of ideas. I express my sincere gratitude to the João Pinheiro Foundation for its institutional support to my academic training, without which this work would not be possible. A special thanks to Prof. Raimundo Leal Filho, who has helped me in so many ways, and to the colleagues and friends with whom I have shared so much in the last four years. I am also grateful to the members of the Brazilian Society for Ecological Economics, who have warmly welcomed me as one of their peers. viii I am profoundly appreciative of my time at the Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development of the Vienna University of Economics and Business. I would like to thank Prof. Andreas Novy, the Head of the Institute, for having me over, and Ursula Grafeneder, for her kind assistance. I am particularly grateful to Prof. Clive Spash for accepting me as one of his students; for teaching me so much on critical realism, social ecological economics, and academic writing; and for all the time we spent together, the meetings, pizzas, and dinners, when I had the luck to get to know the most inspiring people, such as Tone Smith-Spash, Armin Puller, and Wolfgang Fellner. I thank the Brazilian Federal Agency for Support and Evaluation of Graduate Education (CAPES) for funding my stay in Austria. A special thanks to Prof. Antoine Missemer and the Centre International de Recherche sur l’Environnement et le Développement (CIRED, CNRS) for having me as a guest in October 2017, and for our close collaboration and friendship ever since. I am also grateful to other members of the Bifurcations in Natural Resource Economics (1920s–1930s) (BNRE) Project, Marion Gaspard, Thomas Mueller, Roberto Ferreira da Cunha, and Franck Nadaud, for our joint work and cooperation. Many other scholars have offered me guidance or helped in a particular way. I would like to thank Profs. Arran Gare, Breynner de Oliveira, Daniel Campolina, François Allisson, Denis Melnik, Douglas Weiner, Mikhail Miriakov, and Pedro Garcia Duarte. This work would not have been possible without the online content made available by the project “Electronic Scientific Publications of N. G. Chernyshevskii”, supported by the Russian Foundation for Humanities, and the electronic libraries of the State Public Historical Library of Russia, of the Maksim Moshkov Library, and of the Russian National Library. Such initiatives are truly appreciated. I have no words to convey how thankful I am to my family. The education I have received from my parents, Cibele and Paulo, is the ultimate reason why I am able to choose my own path. Thanks to the whole Vianna, Franco and Myrrha families. I am particularly grateful to Marise for all her kind support and not least to Evando, who will be with me in memory forevermore. ix Finally, I would like to thank Rachel and Helena for their unabated understanding, patience, and affection at times I seemed distant. Even more, I thank them for showing me that a bright future is only worthwhile if we get to share it with our loved ones. x TABLE OF CONTENTS 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................... 14 2 THE HISTORY OF ECOLOGICAL ECONOMIC THOUGHT, 1880S-1930S ..... 17 2.1 The diversity within EET ................................................................................. 23 2.1.1 Energy as a determinant of cultural development ....................................... 24 2.1.2 Normative aspects involving resource distribution, social ideals and policy- making .................................................................................................................. 29 2.2 The formation of a scientific metaparadigm .................................................... 34 2.3 Scientific paradigm and metaparadigm in modern ecological economics ...... 36 2.4 A forgotten school of EET, 1880s-1930s ........................................................ 39 3 SOVIET ECOLOGICAL ECONOMIC THOUGHT UNDER NARKOMPROS ..... 41 3.1 Currents of Soviet environmental thought in 1917 .......................................... 45 3.2 Left-wing Marxism and early Soviet ecology .................................................. 51 3.3 Energetics in early Soviet ecology .................................................................. 60 3.4 Conservationism and economic planning ....................................................... 64 3.4.1 Early Soviet ecologists as utopian economic planners ................................ 68 3.5 Early notions of natural capital and ecosystem services ................................ 78 3.6 Russian roots of early Soviet ecology: the narodnik intelligentsia .................. 84 4 ECOLOGICAL UTOPIANISM IN NARODNIK THOUGHT: CHERNYSHEVSKII AND THE REDEMPTION OF LAND .............................. 88 4.1 Chernyshevskii: revolutionary, philosopher, political economist ..................... 97 4.2 Chernyshevskii on the natural sciences ....................................................... 106 4.3 The ecological utopianism of Chernyshevskii: the redemption of land ......... 111 4.4 Technical progress, social reform and human development: a rebuttal to Malthusianism .................................................................................................... 115 4.4.1 Struggle for existence and mutual aid in Russian social thought ............... 122 xi 4.5 Chernyshevskii’s ecological utopianism projected into the 21st century ....... 124 5 ECOLOGICAL NEO-NARODNISM AND THE PEASANT ECONOMY IN THE 21ST CENTURY .................................................................................... 126 5.1 Ecological economic theory and the peasant economy ................................ 129 5.1.1 Ecological neo-narodnism as political economy ........................................ 131 5.1.2 Ecological neo-narodnism as political ecology .......................................... 139 5.2 Peasant movements ..................................................................................... 142 5.3 Contributions to current social and environmental challenges...................... 146 6 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 150 REFERENCES ................................................................................................... 152 xii RESUMO O presente trabalho visa contribuir para a história e filosofia do pensamento