In today's world - despite the dramatic anthropogenic environmental changes - a proper understanding of the relationship between humanity and nature requires a certain detachment. The pressing problems in their whole extent will only be fully understood and solved with comprehensive and patient analysis. Accordingly, this book develops new perspectives on fundamental questions of biology, ecology, and the economy, integrated within a framework of a terminology specially devised by the authors.

By illuminating the epistemological backgrounds of ecological-economic research,...

During the fifties and the sixties the neoclassical concept of the production function was criticized in numerous papers. In particular, the aggregation of different capital goods into a single number was reprehended. A second essential disadvantage, namely the neglect of the time structure of the production process, found, however, rela tively little attention. While up to the thirties the Austrian capital theory which stressed the time aspect of production was an important school, it fell into oblivion after the great capital controversies of the thirties. It took over thirty years, i. e....

Jedes Jahr verursacht unsere bisherige Produktions- und Verbrauchsweise grosse Mengen an Hausmull. An Industrieabfall, Bauschutt und Bodenaushub kommt noch die zehnfache Abfallmenge hinzu. Weit uber die Halfte dieser Mengen werden bisher deponiert. Sowohl aus geologischen als auch aus politischen Grunden ist das noch verfugbare Volumen der bundesdeutschen Deponien begrenzt und reicht nur noch wenige Jahre aus. Ein Umdenken in der Abfallwirtschaft ist daher erforderlich: Abfalle mussen in grossen Mengen vermieden oder wieder verwertet werden. Dazu ist es notwendig, dass Produktions- und...