COST OF RENTING THE EARTH

Abstract

For many decades scientists have been warning that life on earth will not be sustainable for long the way we treat the earth. The collusion between humans and the earth has outpaced to a degree that it no longer can be left to blind chance. Complacency in tempering with the nature at the same pace could run out of control at any time. In those circumstances, the harms outdone to the environment could be irreversible. Stratospheric ozone depletion, pollution of air and water, soil erosion, deforestation, warming of the earth, and exploitation of depletable natural resources are not sustainable at this rate of decline. Conventional economics has played a significant role in vindicating the existing state of affairs. As already implied, the mainstream economics has not only paid no head to ecological degradation but has been the principal propellant of this creed. We rarely find a textbook in economics that does not begin with factors of production as the fundamental fabric of the economy. Land, labor, capital and entrepreneurship are purported to be the core components, the base elements, the building blocks of every economy. These constituents account for the blueprint of contemporary economic systems. The refraction of this doctrine through a prism of a critical eye unlocks the sophistry concealed in this way of thinking. In conventional economics, land is detached from the earth and downgraded to a basic factor of production. It is presumed that land as a factor of production delivers a service. For this, it is paid a rent. In short, the price of the earth amounts to the market rent. Adhering to such an outlook has many implications, one of which is turning a blind eye to the anthropomorphic impacts of climate change. The cost of such a conduct is more than economic. It is existential. The failure to come to grip with this trial and failing to restore land to its due place in economic reasoning is beyond measure. This is an erroneous outlook that we shall examine critically in this paper.