Die Rolle der Natur in der ökonomischen Theorie: Ein dogmenhistorischer Überblick

Since long the economic debate is characterized by an ever growing amount of contributions dealing with questions of environmental protection, resource management or, recently, with the concept of Sustainable Development. Despite this nature - understood here as the total of all natural or ecological assets - has till now been neglected more or less as an autonomous factor in the textbooks of economics. This article attempts to show that in early epochs economic thinking has developed important insights how to treat nature as an essential part of economic theory. It is this specific knowledge derived from the history of economic thought that can and should be used today to (re-)integrate nature as a fundamental element into the modern theories of economic science.