Introduction
From agrarian economic practices to physiocratic theory by way of "trickle-down" economy, one can notice the strong link between an economic system (which includes both theories and practices) and nature. We can argue that one economic system is — at least in part — deeply rooted in a certain conception of nature which enables the production, conservation, and exchange of natural resources in a particular way and implicitly justifies some economic practices. For example, neoliberalism theory goes hand in hand with ideas of privatisation of soil and free exploitation of property and, in other words, a specific relation — which can seem evident to us — to nature which is considered as an impersonal uninhabited place whose resources are to be used by humankind.
Actually, there is a strong interdependence between material processes (socioeconomic systems) and idealistic developments (cultural and intellectual ideas).
So, our conception of nature pervades economic theories and practices. However, we have been faced — for many decades now — with global changes which turn some dimensions of our reality upside down. Some conceptions of nature become increasingly uncomfortable, and others are merely destroyed. Consequently, some economic systems are now threatened and others will fall into disrepair at the same time as their intellectual and hidden cornerstones. To understand this, we first and foremost need to interrogate the dominant dogma in occidental culture which quickly became hegemonic in modern times.
Nature and economy in modern times
Laying the emphasis on the European area, we can't overlook sizable economic transformations of societies of the modern era. From the end of the Middle Ages to the Industrial Revolution, a lot of theoretical debates led to a hegemonic economic system, capitalism, which still leans on the free exploitation of nature.
Indeed, the fact that nature can be used as an inanimate object makes possible the production of energy or the creation of an exchange value needed by capitalism. However, such an economic use of nature was enabled by both its mathematisation and mechanisation.
Actually, mathematisation of nature was rigorously studied by German philosopher Edmond Husserl. In his Krisis, he demonstrates how Galileo — and after him the modern physicians — objectivises the world, describing it as a book whose language is mathematical. In 1783, Immanuel Kant reduced nature to "the existence of things, insofar as that existence is determined according to universal laws". Therefore, it can be understood as a countable stock of resources, a predictable area or a calculable force. Nowadays, some economic practices such as expropriation, drilling, overfishing, or deforestation are implicitly justified by this theoretical conception of nature.
While this new conception of nature rose in power, others were progressively marginalised from the European area, especially the organicist one: During Greco-Roman antiquity, both mankind and nature were completely included in the cosmos and considered as living. More widely, plenty of societies are rooted in animistic or totemic beliefs in which elements of nature share the same world as humans. Particularly, the human soul is comparable to that of some animals. Animals are perceived as neighbours in a world we have to share and their obvious differences aren't seen as a right (or a fortiori a duty) to submit them. Therefore, economic organisation of alimentation is nearer to respectful hunt than industrial cull. In the same way, deforestation cannot be legitimate by the fact that forest isn't a non-human living area.
As a result of its mathematisation, nature was mechanised by European modernity. Therefore, it was little by little set to work and integrated in the economic system as a free workforce. German philosopher Martin Heidegger studies the issue of the objectification of nature via the notion of technique. Regardless of ecological perspective (he only focuses on the forgotten question of Being), Heidegger underlines the fact that modern mankind submits nature to the yoke of reason. The key point is the strong bond between modern science and (modern) technology:
through modern sciences, the study of nature aims to subdue its forces in order to make it useful.
According to Heidegger, a hydroelectric power plant of the Rhine is a cultural symbol of figurative "boarding" of nature.
Economically, modern objectification of the world transformed it into a product of consumption. But this conception of nature is threatened in the current context of global changes.
What "metamorphosis of the world" does to economic systems
Since the end of the twentieth century, the world is changing in a radical and rapid way. In the Pacific islands, East coast or Indonesia, some peoples see their territory diving into the ocean. Similarly, agricultural methods are jeopardised by the significant rise of the recurrence of natural disasters as well as intensive ways to exploit soils.
Surely the lesson to be learnt is that we can't continue to think of mankind as an unnatural species by mechanising nature and seeing it through the lens of mathematics.
Obviously, human beings cannot be considered without an ecological dimension and nature must be viewed with a kind of agency. The conception of nature shifts from machine to living being.
Moreover, these aspects of climate change also imply regular modifications to material aspects of nature. But European modernity has nourished the figuration of nature as a stock and a setting for human life, and therefore as an immutable territory which could be demarcated arbitrarily. Consequently, we can also notice a kind of incertitude concerning the domain of state, as long as the features of its unalterable nature are being threatened. Above all, globalisation undermines the capacity of states to complete their financial task of regulation and their economic missions of distribution and spreading of resources.
Conclusion
Here, we don't deal with a common change in a forever circular model of renewal. Beyond Schumpeter's cycles, there is a conversion in our paradigm of thought. Above all, the emphasis must be laid on the decrepitude of economic systems more than on the renewal of others. While state capitalism collapses forward the new cosmopolitan order, the mainstream way of consumption is faced with a new conception of nature. Thereby, heterodox economy develops concepts such as economic degrowth and debunks the idea of capitalism as an unhistoric, ineluctable, and supra-natural process to recognise it merely as a way to make use of nature.
Nonetheless, this reasoning leans on an idealistic bias maintained by a normative aim, and one can easily qualify it with a materialistic approach. But it will surely create a new way to tackle the issue, more than completely reversing the argumentation.
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