Les économistes et l'écologie, enseignements historiques

Abstract

The economic science was born officially in 1776 with A. Smith, ecology in 1866 with E. Haeckel. However, the economists have not been really interested in this subject until the 1960/1970's, when the evils of industrialisation and of innovation gained ground. History shows that pollution is not a new problem. From the firsts steps of humanity, the exploitation of physical resources has had negative consequences on environment. But in a society of scarcity, the main preoccupation was to produce, and labour became the main source of wealth. As soon as the consumer society appeared, at the beginning of the 20th century, production stopped being a problem. The utility value took the place of the labour value. © De Boeck Université. Tous droits réservés pour tous pays.