Managing Natural and Social Capital

• I’m Don Alexander and I’ve been at VIU for 9 years. I created this course about 7 years ago and it continues to evolve. My office hours are Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:00 to 2:00 in Building 359, Room 215, or at other times of mutual convenience. Read the course outline carefully.

• My phone number is (250) 753-3245, ex. 2261.• I will be away the week of September 23rd, but will have guest

speakers and/or videos.• A Student Free Store will happen 8:30 to 4 on Thursday at the

Welcome Centre and a Student Pancake Breakfast from 8:30 to 11:30 on the 12th in Royal Bank Plaza (near bus loop).

• If you could just go around and give me and the rest of the class your name and why you’re taking the course.

• In this course, we will have lectures, guest lectures, discussion, occasional videos, and possibly mini-debates.

• The textbook is Mike Lewis and Pat Conaty. 2012. The Resilience Imperative: Cooperative Transitions to a Steady-State Economy (Gabriola Island, BC). [E-version also available through the VIU Library.] We will start in on it next week. I will also ask you to read occasional other articles and chapters. Read pp. 12-17 Toward Sustainable Communities (2012 ed.) by Mark Roseland on-line at the Library for Thursday and watch the short video, The Story of Stuff, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLBE5QAYXp8.

• I also highly recommend Deep Economy by Bill McKibbin, The Economics of Happiness by Mark Anielski, Ecological Economics by Herman Daly and Joshua Farley, and Capitalism as if the World Mattered by Jonathon Porritt.

• How many of you have taken Economic Geography? Or an economics course? Bring in what you learned. Why are you taking this course and what do you hope to get out of it?

See the web site for lecture notes and assignment instructions: http://web/viu.ca/alexander2 under Courses. I may also do a D2L site. More on that soon.

See the week-by-week description of topics, questions, and readings in the course outline.

The assignments and grading will be based on 15% for attendance and participation (including leading at at least one discussion), 25% for the mid-term, 35% for the case study assignment (including 5% for an outline and 5% for a brief in-class presentation), and 25% for the final exam.

• The starting-point of the course is that economic activity can either enhance or degrade natural, social and human capital, and the case studies you look at will be ones that enhance these forms of capital in positive ways.

• The text is different from the one I used last year (Ecological Economics by Daly and Farley). Both are quite technical in different ways – Daly and Farley in terms of theory and policy, and Lewis and Conaty in their focus on economic alternatives and how they work. The book can be dry at times, but the information it contains can’t be found anywhere else.

• What do you see as the relationship of the workings of the economy to the spatial phenomena, both natural and cultural, studied by geography?

• It may sometimes be unclear what relationship this course’s contents has to Geography, but it’s really about why and how some places prosper and others decline and, just as importantly, what can be done about it. I would like to show you some images that illustrate this point.

• In a capitalist – and especially a global – economy, some places increase in prominence and influence and others decline into, as in Detroit, near-3rd World conditions. Is this just a ‘natural’ phenom-enon or it something that residents can do something about.

• In this course, we will read about and discuss instances where people have done something about it. So, geographic endowments and locations may have initially influenced the prominence and role of certain cities, and later these factors became less relevant – especially in relation to what was on offer elsewhere.

• Another thing to consider is that different cultural conditions in different places influence how people respond. Some parts of Canada, for instance, have a stronger sense of solidarity and identity that makes it easier for them to take action, and others have less. Can you think of examples?

• In a capitalist – and especially a global – economy, some places increase in prominence and influence and others decline into, as in Detroit, near-3rd World conditions. Is this just a ‘natural’ phenom-enon or it something that residents can do something about.

• In this course, we will read about and discuss instances where people have done something about it. So, geographic endowments and locations may have initially influenced the prominence and role of certain cities, and later these factors became less relevant – especially in relation to what was on offer elsewhere.

• Another thing to consider is that different cultural conditions in different places influence how people respond. Some parts of Canada, for instance, have a stronger sense of solidarity and identity that makes it easier for them to take action, and others have less. Can you think of examples?

• Externalities- positive or negative impacts of economic activities, the costs of which are not borne by the producer or consumer.

• Relationship between economy and ecology- are there limits to growth or can the economy grow infinitely? Are natural resources infinitely substitutable for by human ingenuity?

• Carrying capacity- the limits of an ecosystem, at whatever scale, to support life without running short of a critical resource or causing insuperable damage to life support systems. We don’t always know when we will hit carrying capacity limits; hence it makes sense to exercise the precautionary principle.

• ‘Empty’ vs. ‘full’ world- At one time, there was a lot of room for the economy to expand into (as when the pioneers first settled North America), but now the world is becoming full as an infinitely growing economy tries to keep growing on a finite planet.

• Growth (quantitative expansion of the economy), throughput (conversion of natural resources into products, pollution and waste), and development (qualitative improvement of things and people), This does not require or primarily depend on growth or throughout.

• Marginal utility (resulting value in having or producing one more unit) and increasing marginal cost (the point at which costs outweigh benefits). The latter is related to law of diminishing marginal utility.

• Public goods (where individuals cannot be effectively excluded from their use and where use by one individual does not reduce their availability to others. Private goods (whose use is only available to those who own them).