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Environmental Disruption And Social Costs: A Challenge To Economics

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  • K. William Kapp

Abstract

Environmental disruption and social costs have long been neglected or kept at the periphery of conventional economic theory. This is not surprising. They are largely extra market phenomena and traditional economic theory is ill equipped to deal with phenomena which are the result of interdependencies and effects of which markets and prices take no or only partial account. The challenge to economics is due to the complexity of the causal chain which gives rise to environmental disruption and the magnitude of the social costs. These defy any treatment in terms of such traditional concepts as ‘externalities’, GNP, etc.—and, moreover, put in question the validity of our traditional measures of efficiency and optimalization by economic units or subsystems of the economy. The answer to this challenge will have to be found not by means of formal welfare criteria but in terms of concepts defining a substantive rationality reflecting actual human needs and requirements of human life. While conventional economic theory has so far refused to accept this challenge its status and relevance as a discipline in the future will depend upon its willingness and ability to develop new modes of thinking more appropriate for the problems caused by environmental disruption and social costs.

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  • K. William Kapp, 1970. "Environmental Disruption And Social Costs: A Challenge To Economics," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 23(4), pages 833-848, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:kyklos:v:23:y:1970:i:4:p:833-848
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-6435.1970.tb01047.x
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    Cited by:

    1. Timothy J. Foxon & Jonathan Köhler & Jonathan Michie & Christine Oughton, 2013. "Towards a new complexity economics for sustainability," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 37(1), pages 187-208.
    2. Brousseau, Eric & Dedeurwaerdere, Tom & Jouvet, Pierre-Andre & Willinger, Marc (ed.), 2012. "Global Environmental Commons: Analytical and Political Challenges in Building Governance Mechanisms," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199656202, Decembrie.
    3. Antonio Garofalo & Rosalia Castellano & Massimiliano Agovino & Gennaro Punzo & Gaetano Musella, 2019. "How Far is Campania from the Best-Performing Region in Italy? A Territorial-Divide Analysis of Separate Waste Collection," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 142(2), pages 667-688, April.
    4. Clive L Spash, 2009. "Social Ecological Economics," Socio-Economics and the Environment in Discussion (SEED) Working Paper Series 2009-08, CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems.
    5. Claudio Balestri, 2014. "Political Organizations, Interest Groups and Citizens Engagement: An Integrated Model of Democracy," Public Organization Review, Springer, vol. 14(4), pages 533-543, December.
    6. James Swaney, 1990. "The environmental imperative of socio-economics," Forum for Social Economics, Springer;The Association for Social Economics, vol. 20(1), pages 45-58, September.
    7. Clive L. Spash, 2019. "Making Pollution into a Market Failure Rather Than a Cost-Shifting Success: The Suppression of Revolutionary Change in Economics," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2019_06, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    8. Valentinov, Vladislav, 2014. "K. William Kapp's theory of social costs: A Luhmannian interpretation," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 97(C), pages 28-33.
    9. Yang, Qing & Liu, Gengyuan & Casazza, Marco & Campbell, Elliot T. & Giannetti, Biagio F. & Brown, Mark T., 2018. "Development of a new framework for non-monetary accounting on ecosystem services valuation," Ecosystem Services, Elsevier, vol. 34(PA), pages 37-54.
    10. Remig, Moritz C., 2017. "Structured pluralism in ecological economics — A reply to Peter Söderbaum's commentary," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 131(C), pages 533-537.
    11. Spash, Clive L., 2021. "The History of Pollution ‘Externalities’ in Economic Thought," SRE-Discussion Papers 2021/01, WU Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    12. Guoyao Yan & Yu Hao & Yunxia Guo & Haitao Wu, 2022. "Are environmental problems a barometer of corruption in the eyes of residents? Evidence from China," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 75(2), pages 337-361, May.
    13. Halkos, George, 2011. "The evolution of environmental thinking in economics," MPRA Paper 35580, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Ade Tutty Rokhayati Rosa & Ikka Kartika Abbas Fauzi & Zuraidah Mohd Sanusi, 2021. "Environmental Factors and Bank Performance: How Financial Market Role Players React in Malaysia?," International Journal of Energy Economics and Policy, Econjournals, vol. 11(1), pages 565-570.
    15. Lena Gerdes & Bernhard Rengs & Manuel Scholz-Wäckerle, 2022. "Labor and environment in global value chains: an evolutionary policy study with a three-sector and two-region agent-based macroeconomic model," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 123-173, January.
    16. Remig, Moritz C., 2015. "Unraveling the veil of fuzziness: A thick description of sustainability economics," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 194-202.
    17. Garry Mcdonald, 2010. "A didactic Input-Output model for territorial ecology analyses," Working Papers hal-00911640, HAL.
    18. Clive Spash & Tone Smith, 2019. "Of Ecosystems and Economies: Re-connecting Economics with Reality," SRE-Disc sre-disc-2019_03, Institute for Multilevel Governance and Development, Department of Socioeconomics, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
    19. Luzzati, T. & Gucciardi, G., 2015. "A non-simplistic approach to composite indicators and rankings: an illustration by comparing the sustainability of the EU Countries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 113(C), pages 25-38.
    20. Kim, Sang-Hoon, 2007. "Evaluation of negative environmental impacts of electricity generation: Neoclassical and institutional approaches," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 413-423, January.
    21. Rinaldo Evangelista, 2015. "Technology, development and economic crisis: the Schumpeterian legacy," Working Papers 23, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, revised Jun 2015.
    22. Hupfel, Simon & Missemer, Antoine, 2023. "Decommodifying wealth: Lauderdale and ecological economics beyond the Lauderdale paradox," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).

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