Customer Reviews

Man and the Biosphere: Toward a Coevolutionary Political Economy

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Contrary to the previous reviewer's opinion, this book is well worth the read for those interested in the philosophical history of holistic and economic thought beginning with the Enlightenment (Stokes only briefly touches on origins prior to this time, but he does so sufficiently I think) and modern efforts to integrate the two for a sustainable way of interacting with the biosphere upon which we depend.

Perhaps the academic style is a bit much for some to wade through, but this is a scholarly, very well-researched and referenced work, and the overall topic couldn't be more important to all of us who live in this world: developing a coevolutionary way forward for human societies within the biosphere, and a way beyond simple positivism and mechanistic economic and scientific thought.

Stokes begins with a look at the philosophical origins of open-systems economic analysis including the origins of economic thought focusing on the Physiocrats and Quesnay, political economy and the inclusion of nature and "totality" within the works of Marx and Engels.

From here, Stokes explores the history and philosophy of science and the impact of the discovery of thermodynamics and irreversible systems on the mechanical Laplacean worldview. Ostwald's social energetics is reviewed as well.

He then moves beyond the classic reductive conceptions and introduces the history of the alternatives, focusing on the contribution of the general theory of organization as first put forth a A.A. Bogdanov, and later developed by von Bertalanffy et al. lending to an elaboration of a "political economy in the broad sense".

He then moves "beyond entropy" into a systems theoretical approach and study, focusing on cybernetics, autopoietic vs. allopoietic systems, complexity, organization and the like, and finally rounds it all out with an interpretation of Vernadsky's noosphere as relates to political economy in a modern world, and how to potentially move forward, emphasizing the need for a reinterpretation from a systems theoretical viewpoint of standard economic analysis and a reasoned approach to discovering our place in the world now that we have such influence over its processes.

Overall, I would say this book should be placed a bit more prominently than one's "washroom library". Again, if you're interested in the history of our economic relations with the world and our thoughts about it, along with ways to approach the environmental and social problems looking forward, then I recommend this book!

A volume of ivory-towering self-mastubato-importance well below the typical hollowed discussions in environmental economics and the relationship between wales and humans. Kenneth Stokes presents a personal and self-egotistically gratuating argument on the intricacies of economy, biosphere while appealing to the history of political economy, Newtonian physics, Enlightenment philosophy and the limits of liberalism. Excellent addition to washroom libraries.