دانلود رایگان مقاله پلورالیسم ساختاربندی شده در اقتصاد زیست محیطی

Abstract

Peter Söderbaum argues in his commentary, concerning my article on sustainability economics (Remig 2015), for more open and radical ecological economics. I agree with that statement. However, I reject Söderbaum's interpretation that my arguments foster mainstreamed ecological economics or dictatorship. In my critique of sustainability economics, I raised several issues that have remained unspecified and that potentially lead to unsustainable development patterns, once put into practice. Söderbaum does not reply to these conceptual challenges of sustainability economics. In this commentary, I argue that “structured pluralism” (Dow, 2004) is a constituent element of ecological economics. I welcome Peter Söderbaum's proposal for a discussion about the definition of economics and suggest to rely on Ronald Coase's proposal to define economics as a science that studies the working of the economic system. I conclude that sustainability economics in its current form is closer to neoclassical than ecological economics.

5. Conclusion

The debate about sustainability economics, triggered by Baumgärtner and Quaas (2010a), has led to a number of publications that discuss various aspects of sustainable development and ecological economics. Söderbaum (2015) has written a commentary to my review paper (Remig, 2015). I agree with many of his arguments and join his call that we need more radical ecological economics. I also agree that a discussion about the definition of economics is relevant for ecological economics. To Peter Söderbaum's proposal, I add the reference to Ronald Coase, who defined economics as a discipline that seeks to understand the working of the economic system. I strongly reject the suggestion that my arguments lead to a mainstreamed version of ecological economics. Interdisciplinarity, diversity, complexity, empiricism, and radicalism are all constitutent features of ecological economics.