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GERALD L. YOUNG
attempts to maximize his profit or, in ecology, his growth. In such a
simplified economic/ecological game both players operate within given
constraints. In economics these would be budget, demand, technology
etc.; in ecology such constraints as energy (budget), numbers (demand),
adaptation (technology) etc. In each concept both consumer and
producer are further restrained by the moves of the opponent. After a
period of mutual adjustment (or succession) both will find that they
cannot improve their respective positions and an equilibrium will have
been reached.
Very little attention has been given by other economists to concepts
similar to those developed by Boulding. A couple of other examples will
suffice to show the general nature of the assumed relationship. Daly
(1 968) argues that the analogies between economics and biology
(ecology) are “far from being superficial [but] profoundly rooted in the
fact that the ultimate subject matter of [both] is one, viz., the life
process” (emphasis his). He claims that “economics is the part of
ecology which studies the outside-skin life process insofar as it is
dominated by commodities and their interrelations”. Daly asks “how
does one integrate the world of commodities into the larger economy of
nature?” and answers himself by providing a simple input-output model
as the integrative device, using this to provide access to the “vast
amounts of information about the exchanges of economic and ecological
commodities making up the total economy of life”.
Mack (1968) has also, as she phrased it, applied “the biological notion”
to economics. Essentially, her approach entails going one step beyond
the traditional economic concern with measures of aggregate behavior,
for example, and focusing on the interactions between aggregates. She
provides a specific analysis of the “interplay between the decision unit
and the environment”, an interplay that she claims has been “extensively noted” in economics but seldom if ever the object of specific
analytical focus. She fits her analysis into an area of traditional (but not
exclusive) concern in ecology by stressing process. She defines the
essence of the ecological process as “the individual-environmental zigzag
of information-action-impact-charged information-new action . . .” This
is essentially a conceptualization of interaction as a feedback system. In
one of her examples this feedback results in a cyclic process of economic
change; in the other, the feedback system results in a positive trend
process of economic growth. Her ultimate goal is to establish that the
same conceptual elements (of ecology) are applicable to either case.
Green (1969) claims that “economic ecology is human ecology”;
further, it “is the study of man’s adaptation to and creation of an
economic environment resulting from those forces that maintain a
dynamic society”. He recognizes that “economic ecology is institutional
GERALD L. YOUNG
attempts to maximize his profit or, in ecology, his growth. In such a
simplified economic/ecological game both players operate within given
constraints. In economics these would be budget, demand, technology
etc.; in ecology such constraints as energy (budget), numbers (demand),
adaptation (technology) etc. In each concept both consumer and
producer are further restrained by the moves of the opponent. After a
period of mutual adjustment (or succession) both will find that they
cannot improve their respective positions and an equilibrium will have
been reached.
Very little attention has been given by other economists to concepts
similar to those developed by Boulding. A couple of other examples will
suffice to show the general nature of the assumed relationship. Daly
(1 968) argues that the analogies between economics and biology
(ecology) are “far from being superficial [but] profoundly rooted in the
fact that the ultimate subject matter of [both] is one, viz., the life
process” (emphasis his). He claims that “economics is the part of
ecology which studies the outside-skin life process insofar as it is
dominated by commodities and their interrelations”. Daly asks “how
does one integrate the world of commodities into the larger economy of
nature?” and answers himself by providing a simple input-output model
as the integrative device, using this to provide access to the “vast
amounts of information about the exchanges of economic and ecological
commodities making up the total economy of life”.
Mack (1968) has also, as she phrased it, applied “the biological notion”
to economics. Essentially, her approach entails going one step beyond
the traditional economic concern with measures of aggregate behavior,
for example, and focusing on the interactions between aggregates. She
provides a specific analysis of the “interplay between the decision unit
and the environment”, an interplay that she claims has been “extensively noted” in economics but seldom if ever the object of specific
analytical focus. She fits her analysis into an area of traditional (but not
exclusive) concern in ecology by stressing process. She defines the
essence of the ecological process as “the individual-environmental zigzag
of information-action-impact-charged information-new action . . .” This
is essentially a conceptualization of interaction as a feedback system. In
one of her examples this feedback results in a cyclic process of economic
change; in the other, the feedback system results in a positive trend
process of economic growth. Her ultimate goal is to establish that the
same conceptual elements (of ecology) are applicable to either case.
Green (1969) claims that “economic ecology is human ecology”;
further, it “is the study of man’s adaptation to and creation of an
economic environment resulting from those forces that maintain a
dynamic society”. He recognizes that “economic ecology is institutional