The Poverty of Radical Ecological Economics: A Supportive Comment

Queinnec Erwan ()
Additional contact information
Queinnec Erwan: Centre d’Economie Paris Nord, Villetaneuse, 93430, France

Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines, 2023, vol. 29, issue 1, 45-60

Abstract: This paper builds on the critique that Renaud Filleule addresses in this issue to radical ecological economics – known also as socio-ecological economics (SEE) – and more specifically to the works of one of his most famous representatives, Clive Spash. Filleule builds his critique from Austrian economics. I adopt a broader perspective. Indeed, although Austrian economics identifies key caveats of SEE, one may challenge its whole scientific substance on more general grounds. True, Clive Spash’s works are keen on putting forth methodological arguments to institute SEE not only as a scientific theory but also as the major paradigm in ecological economics. However, such arguments are unconvincing, amounting to activism-in-disguise of science, as reflected in Spash’s semantic ambiguity, his misconception of social science and overstated claims and pointless ordering of scientific knowledge. Moreover, Spash’s critique of economic growth is not only empirically wrong – as correctly noticed by Filleule – but also conceptually irrelevant. This is because defective theories necessarily lead to wrong or insignificant statements.

Keywords: socio-ecological economics (SEE); ecological/environmental macroeconomics; Austrian school of economics; Filleule; Spash (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1515/jeeh-2023-0021 (text/html)
For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bpj:jeehcn:v:29:y:2023:i:1:p:45-60:n:5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/jeeh/html

DOI: 10.1515/jeeh-2023-0021

Access Statistics for this article

Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines is currently edited by Pierre Garello

More articles in Journal des Economistes et des Etudes Humaines from De Gruyter
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Peter Golla ().