Abstract:

The institution of private property forms the basis for ecological disaster. The profit-seeking of the vested interests, in conjunction with their modes of valuing nature through the apparatuses of neoclassical economics and neoliberalism proceed to degrade and destroy life on Earth. I assert that the radical, or original institutional economics (OIE) of Thorstein Veblen, further advanced by William Dugger, have crucial insights to offer the interdisciplinary fields of political ecology and ecological economics which seek to address the underlying causes and emergent complications of the unfolding, interconnected, social, and ecological crises that define our age. This inquiry will attempt to address what appears to be either overlooked or under-explored in these research communities. Namely, that the usurpation of society’s surplus production, or, the accumulation of capital, is a parasite that sustains itself not only through the exploitation of human labor, but by exploiting society and nature more broadly, resulting in the deterioration of life itself. I shall argue that the transformation of the obvious predator that pursues power through pecuniary gain into a parasite, undetected by its host, is realized in its most rapacious form in the global hegemonic system of neoliberal capitalism.

摘要：

私有财产制度是生态灾难的基础。既得利益者的逐利行为，加上他们通过新古典经济学和新自由主义的手段对自然进行估价的模式，继续贬低和摧毁地球上的生命。我断言激进的或原始的由威廉·杜格 (William Dugger) 进一步推进的 Thorstein Veblen 的制度经济学 (OIE) 具有重要的见解，可以提供政治生态学和生态经济学的跨学科领域，这些领域旨在解决正在展开的、相互关联的、社会和生态危机的潜在原因和紧急并发症这定义了我们的年龄。这项调查将尝试解决这些研究社区中似乎被忽视或探索不足的问题。也就是说，对社会剩余生产的篡夺，或资本的积累，是一种寄生虫，它不仅通过对人类劳动的剥削，而且通过更广泛地剥削社会和自然来维持自身，导致生命本身的恶化。