28
GERALD L. YOUNG
centrally concerned with how man earns his living. Like CiriacyWantrup, Boulding (1966) recognizes that both ecology and economics
go far beyond this and are devoted “essentially to the study of how the
interaction of individuals and species constitutes a total system’’ (cf.
Friedmann, 1961; h a r d el al., 1968).
Despite such apparent similarities, few economists have attempted
integration of the two fields: Boulding (1950, 1958, 1966, 1970a, b)
stands virtually alone. Whenever I lament this fact to colleagues in
economics (which is fairly often) they consistently raise the names of
Mishan (1967), Heilbroner (1962,1968), Kneese (Kneese and Herfindahl,
1965; Kneese et al., 1970) and Krutilla (Krutilla and Eckstein, 1958) as
economists who have so applied themselves. But, these economists have
been much more concerned with applying economics to the evaluation
of environmental impacts and externalities than with any attempts to
establish a dialogue between ecology and economics or to formulate
conceptual relationships of the type that concern us here.
Boulding (1950) has concentrated on the general equilibrium situation
as an essential of analysis in both fields and as a key operational connection between the two, making the .point that mutual determination
is fundamental in both economics and ecology. He attempts diagrammatic and simple mathematical models (a two-population paradigm) of
the relationships between such phenomena and notes that, in both areas
of inquiry, “as we expand the system to include more and more populations [whether of people or commodities] the complexity grows, and it
becomes more difficult to define the conditions of stability, but the
fundamental principles do not change. There will always be some
position of equilibrium . . .” This takes him to a mention of “selfreturning connection chains and complex cases of complementarity”,
and finally to the determinants of population functions and their
relationship to the environment.
In Boulding’s later work (e.g. 1970a) the same concepts recur: he
emphasizes again the “equilibrium of a total system” and uses the same
two-population paradigm to illustrate his points. He talks about
populations of artifacts, “those populations in man’s environment, both
internal and external, which he himself creates. These may include
knowledge in his internal environment and capital goods in his external
environment . . .” In this particular essay (1970a) he introduces an
analogy of “social entropy” and notes that “an important link between
ecological and economic processes [is] the total metabolic process of the
system”. He contends that “metabolism in a biological organism is
parallel to production in an economy. It consists essentially of the
transformation of inputs into outputs in accordance with a functional
relationship between them.” He draws the analogy that, in either case
GERALD L. YOUNG
centrally concerned with how man earns his living. Like CiriacyWantrup, Boulding (1966) recognizes that both ecology and economics
go far beyond this and are devoted “essentially to the study of how the
interaction of individuals and species constitutes a total system’’ (cf.
Friedmann, 1961; h a r d el al., 1968).
Despite such apparent similarities, few economists have attempted
integration of the two fields: Boulding (1950, 1958, 1966, 1970a, b)
stands virtually alone. Whenever I lament this fact to colleagues in
economics (which is fairly often) they consistently raise the names of
Mishan (1967), Heilbroner (1962,1968), Kneese (Kneese and Herfindahl,
1965; Kneese et al., 1970) and Krutilla (Krutilla and Eckstein, 1958) as
economists who have so applied themselves. But, these economists have
been much more concerned with applying economics to the evaluation
of environmental impacts and externalities than with any attempts to
establish a dialogue between ecology and economics or to formulate
conceptual relationships of the type that concern us here.
Boulding (1950) has concentrated on the general equilibrium situation
as an essential of analysis in both fields and as a key operational connection between the two, making the .point that mutual determination
is fundamental in both economics and ecology. He attempts diagrammatic and simple mathematical models (a two-population paradigm) of
the relationships between such phenomena and notes that, in both areas
of inquiry, “as we expand the system to include more and more populations [whether of people or commodities] the complexity grows, and it
becomes more difficult to define the conditions of stability, but the
fundamental principles do not change. There will always be some
position of equilibrium . . .” This takes him to a mention of “selfreturning connection chains and complex cases of complementarity”,
and finally to the determinants of population functions and their
relationship to the environment.
In Boulding’s later work (e.g. 1970a) the same concepts recur: he
emphasizes again the “equilibrium of a total system” and uses the same
two-population paradigm to illustrate his points. He talks about
populations of artifacts, “those populations in man’s environment, both
internal and external, which he himself creates. These may include
knowledge in his internal environment and capital goods in his external
environment . . .” In this particular essay (1970a) he introduces an
analogy of “social entropy” and notes that “an important link between
ecological and economic processes [is] the total metabolic process of the
system”. He contends that “metabolism in a biological organism is
parallel to production in an economy. It consists essentially of the
transformation of inputs into outputs in accordance with a functional
relationship between them.” He draws the analogy that, in either case