ABSTRACT
Two key factors contribute to the historical development and divergence of economics and ecology: (1) the origins of modern economics in the study of nature: early political economists considered themselves natural philosophers and did not conceive of “the economy” as separate from nature until the nineteenth century; (2) political reform of the concept of household: natural and economic systems theory was shaped by modernizing models of institutionality, where constituent parts become interchangeable and a logic of systemic scarcity is naturalized. Anthropogenic crises are forcing economic and ecological disciplines to dissolve their separation and recognize anew their shared objects of study.
