Research On The Critique Of Western Ecological Economics And Its Solution

Western ecological economics was created to solve the environmental degradation and ecological crisis caused by the mainstream economic system obsessed with growth.It regards the economic system as a subsystem of the natural ecosystem.Economic growth is achieved by changing the environment and will ultimately be limited by the scale of the whole ecosystem.This problem of restricting economic growth has become the focus of differentiation between ecological economics and neoclassical economics.The connection to biophysical reality has always been at the heart of ecological economics.However,the understanding of economic processes in ecological economics is still quite close to the neoclassical mechanism,and by accepting the allocation efficiency of markets,the core of neoclassical economics is incorporated into the framework of ecological economics.Ecological economics did not escape the shackles of neoclassical economics.It injected a large number of ’old’ neoclassical economic ideas into the shackles of ecology and society.Ecological sustainability is essentially just an additional goal.Ecological economists overemphasize economic and biophysical growth at the expense of social drivers of ecological destruction.The internalized neoclassical theory hinders the ability of ecological economics to solve the social ecological crisis,ignores the internal growth power of the whole economic system,and is subject to the theoretical defects of neoclassicism.Ecological economics falls back into the static,subjective and individualistic framework of the neoclassical methodology.According to the critical formula of Marx’s political economy,the western ecological economics does not overthrow the mainstream of the neoclassical economics,but is only a theoretical repair and external reflection.It eschews value judgments and lacks a deep examination of economic institutions for,at best,superficial reasons.Ignoring the critique of ’capital logic’makes the western ecological economics unable to get out of the predicament.Based on the cognitive expansion of the above content,this paper combines theory and practice,logic and history,and comprehensively uses literature analysis,system analysis and comparative analysis methods to study western ecological economics.The research idea is as follows:the origin--’neoclassicism’ syndrome--internal criticismecological criticism of Marx’s political economy--the research idea of the future development path,and then studies the theoretical basis,main content,existing problems,critical methods and other issues.The environment and the economy are intertwined,and neither can be analysed in isolation from social reality,from social,political,ethical and institutional factors.The neglect of the social and political fields and the disconnection between the social and ecological fields have hindered the further development of ecological economics and caused the internal criticism of western ecological economics.Society,ecology and the economy are integrated and cannot be solved with old unrealistic paradises.This requires a major socio-ecological transformation based on economics to study and understand actual economic institutions,power relations and social supply systems.At present,ecological economics lacks a coherent social theory and is linked to biophysical and social reality.The root cause of global environmental change is social and technological phenomena,not natural phenomena,and the social system that governs the world is not an’economy’ but a capitalist system divorced from time and space.In order to reverse this situation,we must put social economics and political economics in a prominent position,on this basis to criticize the ’neoclassical’ ecological economics,ecological economics developed into social ecological economics,as an heterodox movement of political economics is the only way forward.However,compared with Marx’s political economy;western heterodox economics does not have a systematic and scientific historical materialist worldview and methodology,and cannot abstract the relations of production and the superstructure based on them from various social relations,and grasp the law of the social economic movement of the capitalist system in the contradictory movement of productive forces and relations of production.To explore the deeper causes of ecological crisis,we need to return to the Marx’s of critique political economy,rebuild the theoretical basis of value of ecological economics,and systematically analyze the ecological crisis of capitalist society.The capitalist mode of production is very important to explain the ecological crisis which is aggravating at present.The deep causes of the ecological crisis have historical particularity,systematization and class nature,which is the problem we must consider seriously to effectively deal with the ecological crisis.The requirement of capital accumulation under the capitalist mode of production explains the growing ecological crisis and the relationship between the long-term and deepening economic and social ecological crisis facing capitalism on a global scale.After systematic internal and external criticism of western ecological economics,this paper comes up with three innovative views.First,on the basis of western scholars’research and classical reading,with a broader holistic perspective,the author tries to sort out the origin and development of western ecological economics,points out the’neoclassical’ paradox of western ecological economics,and analyzes its dilemma in the real development,and criticizes on this basis.Second,on the basis of the limits of internal criticism,we return to the academic tradition of Marx’s political economy criticism to seek answers,and explore the root of ecological problems with Marx’s worldview and methodology.Third,combine the future development path of western ecological economics theory with the construction of socialist ecological civilization with Chinese characteristics,face squarely the theoretical paradox of western ecological economics,analyze and evaluate the theoretical contribution and limitation of western ecological economics,treat the debate of western ecological economics thought with introspection and criticism,and point out the future development path.And based on the specific and realistic national conditions,from the critique of western ecological economics to provide practical enlightenment for the construction of socialist ecological civilization with Chinese characteristics.