www.ecologicalcitizen.net EDITORIAL

Ecocentrism, and commensurability

“Whatsoever is not conscious of itself and discipline, committed in some basic, Adam not master of itself is a thing. Whatever fundamental way to ? is conscious of itself and master of itself Certainly, the latter thought is encouraged Dickerson is a person. […] Man alone is a person; by passages like the one quoted above About the author minerals, plants and animals are things. from Léon Walras’s great founding text Adam is a philosopher who From the rational point of view, the of neoclassical marginalist analysis, the has taught at universities purpose of things is under the dominion Éléments d’économie politique pure (4th in the UK and Australia. of the purpose of persons. […] If there edition, 1899). But perhaps passages like He is the author of Kant were only one man in the world he would this, extolling human mastery over non- on Representation and be master of all things.” human nature, are inessential to economics Objectivity (Cambridge University Press, 2004) (Walras, 1954: 62)1 proper; perhaps they are of no more and various papers in relevance to economics than Newton’s philosophy, aesthetics, occultism is to the theories of classical and cultural history. he discourse of economics – at least mechanics. in its orthodox, ‘neoclassical’ form, That would certainly be the mainstream Citation as taught to tens of thousands of view, in which economics is conceived of Dickerson A (2020) T Ecocentrism, economics university students every year – wields as a ‘positive science’ whose relationship and commensurability. The tremendous institutional, and therefore to is easily stated. According to this Ecological Citizen 3(Suppl B): social, power. One very significant form view, ethics sets the ends (or goals) and 5–11. that that power takes is via the centrality economics studies the most efficient means of quantified cost–benefit analysis to to achieve those ends. This conception Keywords government policy making around the is expressed, for example, in Lionel world. Consider, for example, the rules Robbins’s famous definition of economics for policy formulation laid down in the as “the science which studies human UK Treasury’s ‘Green Book’, or by the behaviour as a relationship between ends US’s little-known but powerful Office of and scarce means which have alternative Information and Regulatory Affairs.2 In uses” (Robbins, 1935: 16). It’s a conception each case, the possible forms that policies that is central to the self-understanding can take, and which policies are adopted of mainstream economics, and that is and which rejected, hinge on the outcomes found, in various formulations, repeated of cost–benefit analyses. The result is that, in textbook after textbook. On this view, whilst experts in the field (such as climate economics is the systematic study of the scientists or ecologists) may receive a most efficient means to achieve any given hearing in policy formulation, the last word end. The rational principles of efficiency on the matter often goes to the economists. – getting more output from less input Given this influence and power, it is – are, it is claimed, able to be theorized essential for us to ask whether there could and described independently of the be an ecocentric economics – and what it specification of any end. might look like. Ecocentrism is an ethical If this view is correct, then economics is stance built around the proposition that not intrinsically anthropocentric. Indeed, other-than-human nature possesses on this conception, it makes no ethical intrinsic . Is that ethics compatible assumptions, and is thus compatible with economics? Or is economics, as a with any ethical stance whatsoever. An

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 Suppl B 2020 5 EDITORIAL www.ecologicalcitizen.net

‘ecocentric economics’ would therefore that which produces the greatest exchange not be a distinctive approach to economics; value at the lowest cost. it would simply be economic reasoning in This is precisely the conclusion reached the service of ecocentric ends. From this by Ludwig von Mises in his post WW1 debate perspective – of economics as the ethically with Otto Neurath over the possibility of neutral science of instrumental rationality rational economic planning in a socialist – a polity could choose to set ecocentric economy. Drawing on his experience as a goals as its ends, and then economics would war time economist, Neurath (2005) had help to work out the most efficient means to argued that economic planning could achieve those ends. and should be done ‘in natura’ – that is, However, things aren’t that simple. Even in terms of the actual quantities of real this very abstract account of economics things involved (so much iron ore, so much – as the systematic study of efficiency in copper, so much timber, so many hours of means – already implicitly embeds a human labour, etc.). In response, von Mises substantive ethics. Namely, it presupposes argued that although very simple cases It is precisely this “ an anthropocentrism, in which humans are can be compared using in natura measures, commensurability conceived of as the ‘masters of all things’. any matters of real complexity can be that gives economics To see why this is the case, let us consider rationally compared only through the use so much of its an artificially simple case. Suppose there of market-discovered . “Without are two different processes for producing such assistance,” von Mises writes, “in the institutional power; a given material good. Which of the two bewildering chaos of alternative materials what so often gives is more efficient? In order to make this and processes the human mind would be at it the ‘last word’ in judgement, we need to see which process a complete loss. Whenever we had to decide battles over policy involves a smaller quantity of inputs (given between different processes or different formulation. the assumption that both processes centres of production, we would be entirely ” produce an identical output). If the inputs at sea” (1951: 118). to a production process were all of one Von Mises’s response to Neurath has homogenous type, then this comparison since become part of the received common- would be easy. But this is not the case, for sense of mainstream economics: that any production process will involve many rational assessment of efficiency demands heterogeneous inputs. One process may the use of as a common metric. In involve a certain amount of skilled labour turn, this entails that all values (at least, all time, while the other may use more labour values of relevance to economic planning) time but at a lower skill level. One may rely are commensurable.3 on a small amount of capital in the form It is precisely this commensurability that of simple machines, while the other may gives economics so much of its institutional involve much more complex machinery. power; what so often gives it the ‘last The two processes will use up different word’ in battles over policy formulation. quantities of (including energy) For commensurability seems to hold in the production of the good, and will out the promise of a purely technocratic produce different waste products that will mode of governance – in which the need to be dealt with in different ways. apparent objectivity of a cost–benefit Now, given the variety of inputs to the analysis replaces all the messiness and two processes, how are we to judge which inconclusiveness of politics and ethics. For is more efficient – that is, which one uses if all values are commensurable through less inputs in order to produce the good price, then it might seem that all economic as an output? In order to rank the two decisions can be made – indeed, are most processes in this way, it seems that all the objectively and properly made – via cost– complex inputs of each process need to benefit analysis. be valued using a common measure. This Hence, commensurability can appear common measure is, of course, exchange to entail that, rather than having to sort value or price. The most efficient means is out conflicts between different values

6 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 Suppl B 2020 www.ecologicalcitizen.net EDITORIAL

through the usual human practices practices, contracts, and so on) that are in of argument, persuasion, compromise, place. However, what has occurred here et cetera, collective decision making can – and what is really underpinning that become a technical exercise in accounting. protest – is that the pricing is not merely This is attractive to the bureaucrat, who an explicit recognition or revelation of an can then appear to govern in a way that is underlying value that ‘had been there all purely a technical, algorithmic exercise, along’ (only implicitly). To assign a price outside of politics and ethics. And it suits to something – whether via a market those who want to see the socio-economic mechanism or in some other way, such as a status quo maintained, because of the way Pigovian on ‘’ like it excludes the public by making policies – is to transform the relationships we have that systematically benefit the wealthy to that thing; it is to form a different moral appear to be matters decidable only by community. experts – preferably from behind a screen The commensurability thesis is intrins- of mathematics. ically anthropocentric. For the valuation of The There are many ways of criticizing this nature is given by us (human beings) – by our “ commensurability claim of universal commensurability preferences, by our willingness-to-pay-for or by price. For example, there are various our willingness-to-accept-compensation- thesis is intrinsically technical criticisms that could be, and have for. Other-than-human nature has no anthropocentric.” been, made of the methods (contingent say in this (cf. Spash and Clayton, 1997). valuation, hedonic regression, etc.) that are Hence, the idea of commensurability used to place a ‘shadow price’ on things through price should be rejected by anyone that are not (yet) bought and sold in real committed to ecocentrism. The very idea of markets. These methods were pioneered commensurability through price embodies in so-called ‘’, the anthropocentric idea that, in the words and have been applied – or misapplied – to of Walras quoted at the start of this essay, produce claims such as that whales are “a human beings are the ‘masters of all things’. one trillion [US] dollar asset to humanity” Three things immediately follow from (Stone, 2019), and that the exchange value a rejection of commensurability. First, of ‘ecosystem services’ to human beings is there is no technocratic substitute for “US$125 trillion per year” (Costanza et al., ethics and politics – that is to say, there 2014). is no technique that can be used to make But let us here focus on a deeper problem collective decisions, where that technique than the technical. Whatever its proponents is somehow ‘above’ or ‘beyond’ ethics might like to suggest, commensurability and politics. A cost–benefit analysis, via price is not ‘ethically neutral’; it is not for instance, always embeds ethical and ‘above’ or ‘prior to’ ethics; it is not a ‘merely political assumptions. Just to take one technical’ or ‘formal’ or ‘algorithmic’ example, any cost–benefit analysis must exercise. It is an ethics. To make different make use of a ‘discount rate’ to assess values commensurable in this way is to the value of things that will happen in create a particular moral community, and a the future. But the choice of discount rate particular sort of moral actor. It is to create is never a ‘merely technical’ exercise. a community in which all and every value is Whichever rate is chosen implicitly involves rooted in a thing’s status as a commodity – ethical presuppositions about such matters something able to be exchanged, in order to as the appropriate responses to risks and satisfy subjective human preferences. uncertainty, the value of things to future Taken literally, the protest that ‘a price generations of human beings, the value of cannot be placed on nature’ is thus wrong things to non-human animals, and so on – the danger is precisely that it can be. and so forth (cf. Spash, 1993). That price is then given social reality by the Second, economics is no ‘master institutions (financial markets, government discourse’, within which all problems can cost–benefit analyses, insurance company be framed, and which legitimately has the

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 Suppl B 2020 7 EDITORIAL www.ecologicalcitizen.net

‘last word’. Considerations of efficiency are, ecodemocracy, and the broadening of legal of course, relevant to some decisions in personhood and legal rights to other-than- some contexts, but they are never ‘trump human nature (e.g. Gray and Curry, 2019; cards’ that automatically override other Wilson and Lee, 2019). values. That is, efficiency is a value, but not In ecological economics, in steady- the value. As Neurath pointed out long ago state economics, in green political in his debate with von Mises, if there is no economy and in other heterodox areas commensurability, then economic choices of economic thinking, there are rich must be judged directly and holistically. bodies of thought that a future ecocentric Or as O’Neill and Uebel (2015: 50) sum up economics can draw from, and build upon. Neurath’s point: “In the absence of a single What is needed, however, is not a ‘merely unit of measurement for decision making, intellectual’ change, but a change in those choice requires direct comparisons of social practices and institutions that alternatives in different dimensions. The give orthodox economics such power and consequence is that there is no possibility influence. And that change will have to be of excluding political and ethical judgments part of a broader transformation of our from even ‘technical’ decisions”. That is, in society, for the institutional authority of the words of Aldo Leopold: “Examine each orthodox, neoclassical economics is the question in terms of what is ethically and ideological mirror of the fact that we live esthetically [sic] right, as well as what is under global capitalism. Just as orthodox economically expedient” (1989: 224). economics conceives of the world as a Finally, if there are non-commensurable collection of commodities and reduces a values then there must be institutions plurality of incommensurable values to a An ecocentric other than market mechanisms to enforce monism of price, so does global capitalism “ those values – for markets respond only to make a monoculture of the world, our economics must prices. communities and our values. tackle the profoundly What does all this entail for the question * * * * * difficult problem of with which we began: what does it tell how the intrinsic us about the possibility and shape of an The critique of neoclassical economics, of ecocentric economics? There are at least neoliberalism, of productivist assumptions moral value of other- two salient implications of the rejection of and of capitalism is the topic of this special than-human nature commensurability: issue of The Ecological Citizen. It presents can be embedded First, there is no ‘value free discipline’ a collection of articles that examine within economic or ‘positive science’ to be had here. When it some of the relationships between the decision making and comes to questions about how we should live ecological crisis and key economic ideas. and act, technical questions are such only The overarching question is: How can we governance. ” against a backdrop of settled ethical and organize the economy so that it can provide political assumptions. One of the roles of an for the flourishing of both human beings ecocentric economics must precisely be to and other-than-human nature? unsettle and disrupt the anthropocentric Sam Alexander provides the introduction assumptions that structure so much to this issue, with a broad survey of what current economic thinking (both capitalist a post-capitalist economy might look like. and socialist). Josh Farley diagnoses the key problems Second, an ecocentric economics must, in the endless pursuit of GDP growth and of necessity, overlap with much broader a blind faith in ‘market solutions’, and questions of ethics, politics and governance. looks at the possibility of new economic Most crucially, it must tackle the profoundly institutions built around cooperation difficult problem of how the intrinsic moral and altruism. Troy Vettese digs into value of other-than-human nature can the intellectual history of steady state be embedded within economic decision economics, and argues that it is deeply making and governance. Approaches to influenced by neoliberal assumptions this could include, for example, ideas of – assumptions that must be discarded

8 The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 Suppl B 2020 www.ecologicalcitizen.net EDITORIAL

if we are to build a genuinely ecological extraordinary efforts in these dark times. economics. Richard Smith, as an argument Meanwhile, ‘economic growth’ is still the for eco-socialism, looks at what might be cry on the lips of my coal-smeared prime involved in seriously reducing emissions minister. In the words of Karl Marx, “Après from automobiles, as a case-study of how moi le déluge! is the watchword of every capitalism cannot make meaningful moves capitalist and of every capitalist nation” towards ecological sustainability – driven, (1954: 257). Le déluge, it seems, is almost as it is, by structural imperatives of growth upon us. n and profit. Tony Lynch and Tanzimuddin Khan provide a powerful critique of the Notes very idea of ‘sustainable development’ and 1 I am very grateful to my fellow editors, to Monica Carroll, and to Troy Vettese, for their generosity argue for an ecocentric socialism. Finally, in commenting critically on previous drafts of John Barry, working from a green political this editorial. It is all the better for it – but, of “‘Economic growth’ economy perspective, gives a critique course, any errors and infelicities that remain are is still the cry on of the economic logic of work, and the entirely my own responsibility. instrumentalism that it embeds. 2 The latest edition of the ‘Green Book’ is HM the lips of my coal- Not all the thinkers here would be Treasury (2018). OIRA’s mandate – giving its smeared prime economists veto power over all policy formulation comfortable describing themselves as minister. – comes from Executive Order 12,866 (available ” ecocentric. They also disagree widely at https://is.gd/Pn5p7w), which was first signed amongst themselves – for example, about into law by Bill Clinton in 1993. the extent to which tools of orthodox 3 Non-commensurable values – or ‘lexicographic economics can be turned to ecological preferences’ as they are termed in economics – purposes, and about the extent to are little studied by economists, and certainly which market mechanisms can be made play no significant role in the orthodox compatible with ecological ends. But – as mainstream. This is for the simple reason that, without commensurability, none of the noted above – ecocentric thinkers need maths works any more (cf. Spash, 2000). For to draw widely on the many strands of an excellent discussion of the significance of critical work in heterodox economics and commensurability to ecological ethics, see political economy if we are to succeed in O’Neill (1993: ch. 7). our fight against the dominant economic orthodoxies. Nor is work about human References flourishing irrelevant to ecocentrism; for Costanza R, de Groot R, Sutton P et al. (2014) Changes it is a key part of ecocentrism that human in the global value of ecosystem services. Global Environmental Change 26: 152–8. flourishing is intrinsically connected to the flourishing of other-than-human nature. Gray J and Curry P (2019) Ecodemocracy and political representation for non-human Nature. In: Kopnina H I thank all of the contributors for their and Washington H, eds. Conservation: Integrating social generosity in contributing to this special and ecological justice. Springer, Cham, Switzerland: issue. 155–66. On a more personal note, while I have been HM Treasury (2018) The Green Book: Central government writing this editorial, my home, Australia, guidance on appraisal and evaluation. London, UK. has been suffering from historically Available at https://is.gd/41H7zA (accessed January unprecedented bushfires. At the time of 2020). writing (late January 2020), approximately Leopold A (1989) A Sand County Almanac and Sketches 11 million hectares have burned (equivalent Here and There, special commemorative edition. to 90% or so of the area of England), an Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK. estimated one billion mammals, birds and Marx K (1954) Capital, volume 1. Progress Publishers, reptiles have perished, and many species Moscow, USSR. have likely been driven to extinction. I want Neurath O (2005) Economic Writings: Selections 1904– to express my deep gratitude to the brave 1945 (ed. Uebel T and Cohen R). Kluwer, New York, volunteers of both the Rural Fire Service NY, USA. and the Wildlife Information Rescue O’Neill J (1993) , Policy and Politics: Human well- and Education Service (WIRES) for their being and the natural world. Routledge, London. References continue on page 11

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 Suppl B 2020 9 OUR NATIVE ANIMALS NEED YOU NOW MORE THAN EVER

Please give to WIRES today to give animals like Poppy a second chance wires.org.au 1300 094 737

A4_Poppy.indd 1 11/1/20 8:13 am www.ecologicalcitizen.net EDITORIAL

O’Neill J and Uebel T (2015) Analytical philosophy Spash C and Clayton A (1997) The maintenance of and ecological economics. In: Martínez-Alier J and natural capital: Motivations and methods. In: Light A Muradian R, eds. Handbook of Ecological Economics. and Smith J, eds. Space, Place and . Edward Elgar, Cheltenham, UK. Rowman and Littlefield, Lanham, MD, USA: 143–73. Stone M (2019) How much is a whale worth? Robbins L (1935) An Essay on the Nature and Significance National Geographic, 24 September. Available at of Economic Science (2nd edition). Macmillan, London, https://is.gd/zia9Od (accessed January 2020). UK. von Mises L (1951) Socialism: An economic and sociological Spash C (1993) Economics, ethics, and long-term analysis (trans. Kahane J). Yale University Press, New environmental damages. Environmental Ethics 15: Haven, CT, USA. 117–32. Walras L (1954) Elements of Pure Economics (trans. Spash C (2000) Multiple value expression in contingent Jaffé W). Allen and Unwin, London, UK. valuation: Economics and ethics. Environmental Wilson G and Lee DM (2019) Rights of rivers enter the Science and Technology 34: 1433–8. mainstream. The Ecological Citizen 2: 18 3–7.

OUR NATIVE ANIMALS NEED YOU NOW MORE THAN EVER

Please give to WIRES today to give animals like Poppy a second chance wires.org.au 1300 094 737

The Ecological Citizen Vol 3 Suppl B 2020 11

A4_Poppy.indd 1 11/1/20 8:13 am