ABSTRACT
Through the 1970s and 1980s the notion that an ecological perspective on or within economics ought to be forged more deeply gained momentum, finding its expression in works by Kenneth Boulding and Joan Martinez-Alier, among others. If the ecosystem is taken to be a living system, then biological analogies or metaphors become germane. Of these the notion that such systems evolve, and hence come under the purview of evolutionary biology, stands out, rendering the economic ecosystem subject to concerns and treatment found in evolutionary economics. Signs of what would emerge as one of the hallmarks of environmental economics, an effort to gauge social costs as distinct from private costs, appeared in Otto Neurath's early piece on the theory of the social sciences. Neurath spoke in terms of maximizing 'social happiness', arising out of social choices regarding 'life situations'; Amartya Sen spoke of effectuating forms of 'social measurement'.
