There are certain parallels between economics, and biology and ecology. Both show the phenomenon of highly ordered patterns and systems emerging from spontaneous individual action.

However there is a critical difference which makes positive science problematic. Economics rests on subjective human value judgments. These cannot be quantified and therefore cannot be measured. We cannot measure, for example, the unit of satisfaction that a person derives from entering into this transaction, and compare it with that.

Yes we can measure prices. Is it not true that I have the market report for sheep at the Bega saleyards? It is true. However that is economic history, not economic theory. Those data are based on a peculiar concatenation of events which is never to be repeated: the number and quality of sheep; the buyers and their subjective scale of values; their other options. All these are constantly changing.

We are not able to derive from statistical studies of economic history, propositions of human action with universal application; whereas we can do so from economic theory.

That is why all the schools of brainy econometricians, with all their complicated mathematical models, have not been able to come up with one single general proposition of economic theory from those historical studies. Study the Peruvian potato crop of 1742 all you will, and compare it with that of Dubbo in 2009 and nup - nothing of value for economic theory will sprout (sprout - get it?) therefrom.

This error of method - 'scientism' - is why the Keynesians and Monetarists, with all their mathematical methods and postive science, presided over the biggest financial crisis in the history of the world; didn't see it coming; are clueless how to fix it; and persist in error.

No sir, let us observe the wisdom of Hippocrates - 'first do no harm'.

No policy prescriptions for the wisdom of central planners, please: they are what caused the problem in the first place.

If the world’s financial concepts were to be considered from an ecological perspective, they would encompass predator, prey, population pressure, the interaction of these with each other, and adequacy of resources underpinning them.

That is a tough ask. If Henry were up to it, he would have given some thought to a world economy in a steady state of dynamic balance: one far removed from the current dream of a perpetual-motion economic-engine which is also capable of ever-increasing output.

If, contrary to the belief of Economic Gurus, no such engine exists then a world seeking any sort of stability needs to plan for a steady-state economy, one which will essentially incorporate an end to the present demographic transition. That transition commenced about 1800, when live births exceeded the death rate so that numbers rose from one billion and, still rising, now heads towards 9 billion.

A second demographic transition is sure to follow that, and needs to be addressed. It will be an imbalance of deaths over live births until human numbers and lifestyles reach a steady state in reasonable conformity with the earth’s fluctuating biosphere; at which stage the transition ends.

Given lag-times due to human (current) longevity and generational intervals, there is no quick fix for such critical fundamental necessities. But turning a blind eye to them is not only unfair to future generations, but also detrimental in our own time.

Nor can ecological economics be meaningful in the absence of consideration of the huge proportion of humanity that continuously exists in bare survival mode, far removed from thriving. Their numbers continue to increase exponentially, ever-more troubled by malnutrition and social unrest. While at the same time so many fundamentalists, from within their own ranks and from the developed world, actively evangelise against terminating this demographic transition. Eventual embracement of the vast numbers of such less fortunate people within the system of more developed economies is an “ecological” imperative.

Colinsett

“…contrary to the belief of Economic Gurus…[in “a perpetual-motion economic-engine which is also capable of ever-increasing output.”]

Which economic gurus? Name them. Prove it.

“a world seeking any sort of stability needs to plan for a steady-state economy”

The “world” is not a decision-making entity.

“If the world’s financial concepts were to be considered from an ecological perspective, they would encompass predator, prey, population pressure, the interaction of these with each other, and adequacy of resources underpinning them.”

A predator is an animal that eats the flesh of prey. So how would a financial ‘concept’ ‘encompass’ a ‘predator’ without referring to one economic actor eating the flesh of another, or being meaningless?

“Nor can ecological economics be meaningful in the absence of consideration of the huge proportion of humanity that continuously exists in bare survival mode, far removed from thriving.”

The original and universal condition of humanity for millions of years was existing in bare survival mode, far removed from thriving. It is only with the rise of the kind of economics you are opposed to – mass production for the masses - that this has changed, so we take for granted low infant mortality, long life, good food, clothing, shelter, medicines, transport, communications and entertainment.

It is inconsistent to call for more consideration for the huge proportion of poor humanity on the one hand, and to oppose the only economic system to have relieved mankind of its universal poverty on the other.

It is evil to dream of using force to reduce the world’s population to obedience so as to achieve a fantastical stasis. Everything is in flux, all the time, including all human values. There is no more possibility to centrally plan the human economy, than there is to plan the natural ecology. The attempt would, in addition to causing far worse environmental devastation, reduce the world’s population to starve by the millions, as happened in Russia and China.

If we take away your straw-man argument, there is nothing left.