Prof. Perelman, I believe, asked who wrote on the environment between
Malthus and Jevons, and then after Jevons.
Perhaps he meant to limit it to economists, but then, Malthus was not an
economist, so perhaps not. Anyway, Justus von Liebig, an organic chemist,
comes to mind. Europeans generally, and Germans above all it seems, were
concerned with soil exhaustion. Von Liebig idealized an equilibrium with
fertility held constant. Russian soilsmen pioneered soil studies and
classifications, but not so much from a conservationist view.
German foresters, meantime, worked on "going concern" models for forests
with the stock held constant. Of the many names, Martin Faustmann is most
familiar because of his expertise with capital theory.
Von Humboldt studied what today would be called ecology, and he called
Kosmos. I believe he communicated with Adam Smith, but the specifics escape
me. Certainly the invisible hand and the ecology have a lot of parallel
ideas.
Arthur Young articulated what today is popularized as the tragedy of the
commons, helping rationalize the enclosure movement in England.
Mill, of course, idealized small Flemish farmers and their expertise with
manures, but without Young's privatization spin.
After Jevons, this preoccupation with maintaining soil fertility showed up
in the economic literature. It was one of the main criticisms used
against the taxation of land values, e.g. by H.J. Davenport (although he
later relented). Walras refuted such ideas pungently and contemptuously in
his Theorie d'Economie Sociale. L.C. Gray wrote an insightful article on
rent under the assumption of exhaustibility. So did Hotelling. John Ise
suggested monopoly might be justified to conserve resources.
Marx noted the growth of "guano imperialism" as European powers seized
guano-laden islands to replenish their failing soils. This passed away with
the application of chemical fertilizers from phosphates, potash, petroleum,
etc.
Marshall proposed his "fresh air fund" to abate some damages from pollution.
A.C. Pigou developed the effluent charge idea, still called "Pigovian". It
was after 1960 or so, however, that the field exploded into several
subfields.
Of course the conservation movement produced waves of political activism,
1901-15 or so, and there must be much in the journals of that era about it,
although I do not think of any economists who might compare with activists
of the time like John Muir, Elwood Mead, Wesley Powell, Gifford Pinchot,
William Kent, et al. Water conservation at that time meant mostly harnessing
the waters for power and irrigation: John Muir considered it
anti-environmental.
The 1930's brought a new wave of soil conservation activism; soils
departments and soilsmen were ready, but not economists. W.C. Lowdermilk
advanced theories about how soil exhaustion caused the fall of Rome, but not
careful enough to be definitive. Kopp published an early book on economics
and the environment, which I regret I cannot locate or remember much about.
Maybe someone can help.
The Paley Commission Report kicked off new studies of resource adequacy in
the U.S.A. Ford funded Resources for the Future, Inc., which came up with
massive research leading them to a conclusion, which now looks a bit
foolish, that resources would remain superabundant. Barnett and Morse
digested the findings. So they considered that task finished, and moved on
to quality of the environment, led by Allen Kneese. They pooh-poohed the
Club of Rome Report, as did most economists - until the first OPEC oil
embargo. Milton Friedman declared that all cartels fail soon, so it was not
to worry, the market would solve all problems.
Kneese was a neo-Pigovian at first, but Coase soon came up with his
privatization panacea to let polluters off the hook, and here we are.
The rest is modern history and I suppose Perelman did not ask us to go into
it.
Mason Gaffney
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