Metabolic Balance

The destructive nature of capitalism calls for a new economic system. While alternatives emphasize social justice, the issue of managing finite resources is often neglected. This article proposes a modul for a post-capitalist economy that introduces an ecological unit of account (Ecu) based on planetary boundaries in order to systematically limit the destruction of nature.

Ecologic Unit

A corresponding simulation shows emissions in relation to the nine planetary boundaries, the associated shadow prices and the overall trend in the value of the Ecu. You can enter your own test data via the form to test the price function directly.

Simulation

Summary The simulation shows that the pricing algorithm can use shadow prices to group several borders into a single unit. In doing so, several borders can be scaled down jointly to meet various targets. The key factor here is a reduction or limitation of the overall budget. The scenario in which the capacity of a single boundary is no longer fully utilised has not yet been taken into account. The algorithm needs to be adapted to address this. Open questions: How many price fluctuations are acceptable or desirable? What rate of reduction is appropriate to both protect the environment and prevent social upheaval? The source code is available on Github