The Ideologies of Ecologistsby William Shepherd An exploratory essay accepted as a paper for the Money and Globalisation Forum at the Radical Consultation in Swindon, England in September 2001 and first published in the Radical Hansard on Guy Fawkes Day 2001. The essay was originally written as the Preamble to 'The Wealth of Counties'
In the world before Adam Smith, economic thinking was closely connected with law and practical politics...the law dealing with property and practical politics concerning itself with real people. So economic thinking could be said to be concerned with money and work. In the world before Adam Smith, the kings and priests had spoken for their right to collect surplus production, mercantilists had spoken for the merchants, and physiocrats for the landowners.
Then came Adam Smith and classical economics.
Since then the historical school have spoken for the status quo, classical liberals for profits and capitalism and the followers of Marx for wages and socialism.
Studying the ideologies imported into a small linguistically isolated country like Sweden demonstrates the impact of these 'ideological wars' on local societies. Ideas not politics are the engine of change.
In medieval times, influences on Swedish economic thought came mostly from Christian and humanistic thinking in Southern Europe, transformed via the German Hanseatic towns and Denmark to suit a peasant economy with a weak feudal system.
In the 16th century German technology and mercantilist thinking were imported to suit the war economy of Sweden's autocratic Vasa kings.
In the 17th century the Dutch took over from the Germans as chief ideologists when the small Swedish super-power tried to develop its trade.
In the first half of the 18th century English mercantile thinking was imported to suit merchants and factory owners. In the second half of the 18th century a distorted version of the teachings of the French physiocrats reached Sweden.
During the first part of the 19th century, English and French influences (Smith, Say, Bastiat) competed for dominance when economic liberalism penetrated a country that lagged behind their own in its capitalist development by about half a century.
In the 1870s the German language regained a leading position through schools of thought on both wings of the political spectrum, from left to right. But these schools were interpreted in a way that suited relatively more rural, peaceful, democratic and pragmatic traditions.
It is easy to overrate foreign opinions, however. Seen in their historic environment, many of the original contributions of Swedish political economists were every bit as brilliant as any leading modern figures among the authorities of what is now called economics in the English-speaking world. Men like Nordenkrantz, Christiernin, Chydenius, Järta and Arnberg evolved their thinking from practical experience of Swedish society and it was only because of the smallness of their language area that they found little chance to reach an international public. Had they written in another language, their works might have become classics in the international history of ideas.
However linguistic isolation is relative. Churchill once remarked that England and America were two countries separated by a common language. What is true of Sweden will be true of every other country...and true of the towns and provinces within larger states.
So perhaps more important was the manner in which scholars learnt to break free from their linguistic bonds. By the 18th century scholars were doing this in three ways. Firstly all scholars became fluent linguists. Secondly they built extensive friendships and patronage networks throughout Europe and America. Thirdly they published in universal languages such as Latin while seeing it as their duty as a scholar to translate from the universal languages into the vernacular.
So when we are looking at the 18th century and the economic academic environment into which Adam Smith's 'Wealth of Nations' was launched, we find that everywhere there were scholars rooted in the practical economic traditions of their own town, province or country, but learned in other traditions and in continuous touch with the intellectual currents of their age.
Carl Linnaeus, or Carl von Linné, is in many ways typical of this universality of learning.
He lived his whole life in the 18th century. Today he is seen as a very Swedish figure at home. But abroad he is regarded as one of the few really well known Swedes. 20th century Swedish tennis stars like Björn Borg and Stefan Edberg have much the same 'double aura'.
Linneaus was a scientist of genius and inherited the general mood of optimism and belief in progress which characterised 18th century scholarly thought.
But to Sweden Linnaeus is Swedish to an unusually high degree. Perhaps only Carl-Michael Bellman and Carl Larsson have influenced the psyche of Swedish daily life as profoundly as Carl Linnaeus...these three great men meaning to the Swede what Shakespeare, Constable and William Morris mean to the English...even though few Swedes (and few English-speaking peoples for that matter) may be aware of the fact.
The feeling for nature, the sense of discovery inspired by the Swedish countryside, the clear literary style; these originated in Linnaeus' genius. They were not there before Linnaeus. But two hundred and fifty years on they are spread over the whole Swedish population. The Linnaeus Way has become The Swedish Way.
Linnaeus campaigned vigorously for practical economics to be taken seriously. With a sentiment that would not be out of place in Daniel Defoe's 'Robinson Crusoe', Linnaeus wrote in his 'Oeconomica Naturae' that it was 'the duty of human beings to extract natural resources, otherwise God would not have deposited them in the earth'. What's more...and this would have made even such a patriot as Edmund Burke blush...'the natural resources of Sweden were superior to those of any other country'.
Linnaeus argued for new professorships to be established in 'economics, botany and natural history' as a means of preventing the penetration of the new secular Prussian economics into the Swedish universities. He lost the battle with the highly political appointment of Anders Berch as' Professor of Economics' at 'Uppsala University' in 1741. But Linnaeus fought back on two fronts.
He undertook 'economic journeys' into the Swedish provinces on behalf of the government...this was the principal purpose of his Gotland, Öland and Dalarna journeys. And within ten years of Berch's appointment at Uppsala Linnaeus' counter-attack saw 'his own men' appointed to the newly-established 'Linnaean' chairs in 'economics, botany and natural history' in Åbo (1747) and Lund (1750).
It is no accident that...in contrast to many other economists, the writings of Swedish economists can be understood by ordinary people. It is no accident that deep ecology is the principal philosophy underlying modern Swedish economic thought. It is no accident that ecology has pushed further into practical politics in Sweden than anywhere else. Linneaus was a first rate political economist and he had his foot in the door two hundred and fifty years ago.
Linnaeus' confrontations with Berch and his Prussian economics at 'Uppsala University' in the 18th century were the first skirmishes in a war that has raged now through three centuries and has engulfed the whole world. Only now as this war of ideas at the heart of economics enters its fourth century, do we find Linnaeus' ideas once again in the ascendancy.
Our age is finally catching up with Linnaeus. After three hundred years of Anders Berch's school of 'quantity & dead matter' (econometrics), Linnaeus is making a comeback as the founder of the 'quality & living matter' school of economics (ecolomics?).
Linnaeus left the political stage in Europe just as Tom Paine was stepping out onto the political stage in America. Shortly after Linnaeus' death, Tom Paine wrote a little-noticed book entitled 'Agrarian Justice'. In today's context we would have referred to it as alternative economics.
Ten years ago I gathered together some statistics on the 'County of Kent', re-read 'Agrarian Justice', and then applied myself to the task of doing some real county arithmetic...or 'countinomics'...the count referring, not to the counting house, but to the county.. I think Linnaeus would have approved of my report. 'The Wealth of Counties' based on applying 'The Tom Paine Method' to the 'Garden of England' represents the sort of economics Linnaeus was pursuing in his 'economic journeys'...an economics rooted in the fertile soil of botany and natural history.
Any county with the foresight to introduce ecological sanity by way of 'Agenda 21' could take the Linnaeus approach to economic sanity...without waiting for a Rio Summit to give them permission. The English counties need a calculus to assess the local monetary needs of their constituent parts. 'The Tom Paine Method' ...applied to the lathes, bayliwicks and hundreds of Kent...might provide the template for other English counties to use. English regionalism would then have an ideology suitable to its natural history and the bioregional roots of its local cultures.