The Need for and Meaning of Social Ecological Economics

Clive Spash

No 2017/02, SRE-Discussion Papers from WU Vienna University of Economics and Business

Abstract: Ecological economics has arisen over a period of three decades with a strong emphasis on the essential need to recognise the embeddedness of the economy in the biophysical. However, that element of realism is not matched by an equally well informed social theory. Indeed the tendency has been to adopt mainstream economic concepts, theories and models formulated of the basis of a formal mathematical deductivist approach that pays little or no attention to social reality. Similarly mainstream economic methods are employed as pragmatic devices for communication. As a result ecological economics has failed to develop its own consistent and coherent theory and failed to make the link between the social and the economic. In order to reverse this situation the social and political economy must be put to the fore and that is the aim of social ecological economics. This paper provides a brief overview of the arguments for such a development. The prospect is of unifying a range of critical thought on the social and environmental crises with the aim of informing the necessary social ecological transformation of the economy.

Keywords: ecological economics; social economy; political ecology; political economy; social ecological transformation; biophysical reality; mainstream economics; neoliberal environmentalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-hpe and nep-pke
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Working Paper: The Need for and Meaning of Social Ecological Economics (2017)
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