نظریه ویلیام کاپ در مورد هزینه های اجتماعی و سیاست محیطی : به سوی اقتصاد سیاسی محیط زیست

The paper analyzes the contribution of K. William Kapp, widely considered one of the founders of Ecological Economics. This paper will demonstrate how K. William Kapp developed his theory of social costs into a framework for environmental policy development, i.e. the basis for Political Ecological Economics. The latter provides the most comprehensive and non-utilitarian alternative to the main neoclassical approaches provided by Arthur Pigou and Ronald Coase. Kapp determined basic human needs to be necessary values operational for policymaking via politically derived and scientifically determined social minima (criteria) and socio-ecological indicators. This “rational humanism” was inspired by Weber's concept of substantive rationality and informed by John Dewey's pragmatic instrumentalism. The paper concludes that Kapp's contribution is important enough to cement its place in the broader school of Ecological Economics.

The paper argues that in the face of increasing socio-ecological disruption in many parts of the world, it is worth re-vitalizing Kapp's solution to the problem of social costs. Contending that social costs are not inevitable phenomena but depend on the political structure of a society. Kapp developed his environmental policy approach as part of a proposed Political Ecological Economics. This remedy against social costs embodies social minima, maximum tolerance levels, socio-ecological indicators and public controls. The paper shows how this approach is crucially influenced by Kapp's rational humanism, that is, an adaptation of Max Weber's concept of “substantive rationality” with John Dewey's pragmatic instrumentalism. Thereby, this paper aims to demonstrate that Kapp's adaptation of the concept of substantive rationality is essential to Political Ecological Economics. So far, the literature usually identifies Karl Polanyi's distinction between substantive and formal economics as a unifying framework for neo-Marxists and neo-institutionalists, i.e. Institutional Political Economy (O'Hara, 2000, pp. 128–34). The evaluation of the Kapp–Polanyi correspondence shows that Kapp and Polanyi found the core argument for the substantive meaning of the economy in Menger's ‘two elemental directions of the human economy’, i.e. the ‘technical and the economizing’ (Berger, in press). Unlike Kapp, however, Polanyi does not apply Weber's concept of substantive rationality for political economics. First, this paper will introduce Kapp's theory of social costs. Second, it will analyze Weber's definition of substantive rationality and show how this definition inspired Kapp's rational humanism. In particular, Kapp's view of basic human needs as universal values will be discussed because they bear important consequences for Kapp's remedy against social costs, i.e. environmental policy as part of Political Ecological Economics. The latter is not based on exchange values but translates the value of basic human needs into alternative criteria, such as social minima, and maximum tolerance levels that are measured by comprehensive socio-ecological indicators.

In conclusion, the contribution of Kapp's theory of social costs and environmental policy is important enough to deserve a place within the framework of Ecological Economics. His rational humanism as a version of Weber's substantive rationality is an important element of Political Ecological Economics. Kapp's approach also allows an integration of the latter with institutional economics in the tradition of Veblen and pragmatic instrumentalism in the tradition of Dewey. However, many questions that were raised by Kapp need further elaboration and those strands in modern Ecological Economics that are closest to his approach still need to be identified.