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Natural Capital

"Natural capital can be defined as the benefits that accrue to human society from the different species of life that inhabit our world. Classical economics values things by seeing how much someone will pay for them. But this is where classical economics is wrong. What it fails to account for are all the "externalities"-- the services people regard as free goods: pollination services, flood protection, climate regulation, soil stabilization, carbon sequestration. Although immensely valuable, these wider benefits do not accrue to the individual property owner. They are benefits to the community at large. Because they are not captured by the land owner they do not feature in his decision about how to dispose of the land. His economic benefit increases. Everyone else's is reduced."

Barry Gardiner
newstatesman.com

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Comment by David Allan on November 26, 2010 at 12:08pm: Hi eric, thanks for commenting. Please note that this is a re-post, the original article can be found at the link attached.

I would think, in this case, "dispose" would be much closer to "use" , than the more common usage of "throw away."

I think this idea grows out of the seminal essay "A Tragedy of the Commons" (Hardin, 1968)

D.

Comment by Eric Lawrence Kaipainen on November 25, 2010 at 1:39pm: well at present there is a clarification or understanding concerning the word "dispose" in your post above that leaves me to ask, to dispose, how, communally, spiritual transcendententally, aboriginal self determination and cultural continuum? could you help me understand your statement? so I can add to my personal and collective economic sence of worth? thanks for the preamble.