On the Historical Roots of Natural Capital in the Writings of Carl Linnaeus

C. Tyler DesRoches

A chapter in Including a Symposium on Latin American Monetary Thought: Two Centuries in Search of Originality, 2018, vol. 36C, pp 103-117 from Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Abstract: No longer do resource economists merely regard nature as a collection of inert materials to be improved by human labor and manufactured capital; rather, nature is, to an increasing extent, taken to be a mindless producer of economically valuable ecosystem goods and services. Instances of natural capital are frequently said to produce such goods and services in a manner that is relatively detached from human agency. This article argues that, historically, the idea of nature as a systematic original producer capable of self-generation is hardly novel. The eighteenth-century roots of this idea can be found in the writings of Carl Linnaeus who depicted the whole Earth and all of its productions as the “oeconomy of nature.”

Keywords: Natural capital, nature, Physiocrats, Linnaeus, ecosystem goods and services; oeconomy of nature, B11, B12, Q00, Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eme:rhetzz:s0743-41542018000036c006

DOI: 10.1108/S0743-41542018000036C006

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