The foundational economy-as-an-organism assumption of ecological economics: Is it scientifically useful?

Abstract

This paper documents prominent biological metaphors in ecological economics and argues that the discipline is founded on an untested assumption, essentially an analogy: The economy-as-an-organism. A transdisciplinary approach is taken to test the scientific usefulness of this analogy, and eight propositions are put forth and examined. Results show that: 1) This analogy bears all the characteristics of scientifically useful analogies, as documented in the relevant literature. 2) World Bank data from 165 countries from 1960 to 2013 show that empirically verifiable laws that apply to all organisms apply analogously to all economies – supporting the ecological economics view that economies and organisms are metabolically analogous. 3) Empirical results affirm those of a mature GDP-energy literature, despite employing very different assumptions and perspectives – thus validating the analogy's scientific potential. 4) The analogy offers a new perspective on economies, correctly predicts their “characteristics,” and generates new testable hypotheses, hallmarks of scientific analogies. 5) New perspectives and predictions relate to sustainability and are particularly relevant to researchers interested in this field – thus satisfying the “goal relevance” characteristic of scientific analogies. All results of this exploratory and conceptual paper suggest that our analogy is scientifically useful and worthy of additional research.