Managing Natural and Social Capital

I’m Don Alexander and I’ve been at VIU for 11 years. I created this course about 9 years ago and it continues to evolve. It is one of my favourite courses. I’ve been interested in alternative economic perspectives and institutions since the mid-to-late ‘80s, and think it will be a topic of the utmost importance for achieving future sustainability. My office hours are Wednesdays from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. in Building 359, Room 215, or at other times of mutual convenience. Please read the course outline carefully. My phone number is (250) , ex The best way to reach me is by A Student Free Store will happen Thursday, September 10th from 9:00 to 2 at the Welcome Centre.

To start off, I would be interested to know what you think this course is about. Talk to your neighbour about what experience if any you have had with non-mainstream economic institutions. There are a lot of innovative and exciting things happening in this area – some probably more viable and transformative than others: 'Earth ship' to land in B.C. ( SFU becomes first Canadian university to accept Bitcoin donations

The textbook is Mike Lewis and Pat Conaty 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. For this week, read pp 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 I also highly recommend Deep Economy by Bill McKibbin, The Economics of Happiness by Mark Anielski, and Ecological Economics by Herman Daly and Joshua Farley. How many of you have taken Economic Geography? Or an economics course? Bring in what you learned. Are there any topics of special interest?

demonstrate knowledge of the concepts of natural, social, and human capital, and be able to apply them in a variety of contexts (as measured by the mid-term, major project and final exam); demonstrate knowledge of some of the principal strategies for enhancing natural and social capital and relevant case studies (as measured by the mid-term, major project and final exam); demonstrate knowledge of emerging critical issues in terms of the urgency and challenges involved in building an alternative economic system (as measured by the mid-term, major project, and final exam).

 See the web site for lecture notes and assignment instructions: under Courses.  See the outline for 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 quite technical in its focus on economic alternatives and how they work. The book can be dry at times, and somewhat strident, but the information it contains can’t be found anywhere else. What do you see as the relationship between the workings of the economy and the spatial phenomena, both natural and cultural, as studied by geographers? 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.

Grameen Bank lending circle

In a capitalist – and especially a global – economy, some places increase in prominence and influence and others decline into, as in Detroit, near-3 rd 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 regions, but later these factors may become less relevant. 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. Ditto for other parts of the world. 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. This leads to drawdown and overshoot. For more explana- tion, see /video_overshoot_explained/

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).

A key element of the framework in this course is that of community capital (see Roseland 2012; will also pass out sheet). In addition to financial capital (both necessary to the financing of enterprises and describing the resulting profits), there is  natural capital;  social capital;  human capital;  physical capital, and  cultural capital. All of these need to be enhanced in order for economic activity to be regenerative instead of destructive.