How Much for your Wife? A Critique of the Pragmatic Assigning of Monetary Values to Ecological Goods and Services

The practice of assigning monetary values to ecological goods and services, in order to resolve what David Pearce calls the “zero price problem” has been a subject of debate practically since it was first proposed. At present, many working in the area of ecological economics are cautious of its use and even some who endorse monetary valuation justify its use on pragmatic rather than purely theoretical grounds, arguing that it is useful to express ecological goods and service values in a way that is salient to cost-benefit decision-making systems, which are predominant in most western democracies. This paper will argue that the impossibility of expressing ecologically accurate monetary values for these services, combined with the normative outcomes of attempting to do so, constitutes a topic that should be of far greater concern to ecological economists than would appear to be the case. Three representative applications of monetary valuation are reviewed in detail and considered within the context of a living systems ecological economic pre-analytic and related ecological economics discourse. Exploring the role that political theory might play in ecological economics discourse, the fundamental principles underlying the formulation of the “zero price problem” are considered, the usefulness of the democratic polis as a tool for making decisions relating to matters of the commons is explored and a critical political ecology theory, based on a living systems ecological economic pre-analytic, is proposed. Paper Presented at Frontiers2; ESEE Bi-Annual Conference, Tenerife, 11-16 February 2003. * The author wishes to acknowledge the debt due to Joachim Spangenberg for the invention of this title. ** Kate Farrell is a PhD Candidate, at the Institute of Governance, Public Policy and Social Research, Queen's University of Belfast, 101 Botanic Avenue, Belfast, BT7 1JP, Northern Ireland (Phone: +44 (0)28 9027 2549 / Fax: +44 (0)28 9027 2551/ Email: [email protected]) Ms. Farrell’s research is funded through the Support Programme for University Research Scholarship. Comments on this paper are very welcome.