Ecological Thinking of Tagore and Ecological Equity: A 21st Century Perspective

Khan, Haider (2024): Ecological Thinking of Tagore and Ecological Equity: A 21st Century Perspective.

Abstract

In this paper, drawing inspiration from Tagore’s writings and experiments in rural development in Bengal in places like Shilaidaha, Patisor and Shriniketan, I develop a part of what I have been calling an ecological global political economy approach. I motivate the discussion by focusing on the links between ecological crisis and income distribution. I have chosen the concrete context of Bangladesh, a country likely to be affected severely by global warming and climate change to illustrate through simulation the theoretical results. Using a fairly neutral and conservative assumption of uniform distribution of loss it can be shown axiomatically that inequality increases when effective income is considered leading to ecologically adjusted income distributions. In line with Tagore’s intuitions, the simulations presented here for Bangladesh demonstrate that both inequality and poverty measured by some popular indexes increase significantly under even this mild assumption and the assumption of moderate income loss. Thus a case can be made for a strategy of Tagore-inspired equitable rural development.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Tagore, Ecologically Sound Rural Development,Ecological Global Political Economy; Axioms of Inequality Comparisons; Axioms of Poverty Comparisons; Bangladesh; Equality of Misfortune Assumption: Adverse Health Effects of Ecological Damage; Resource Depletion; Inequality; Poverty, Tagore-inspired equitable rural development
• Subjects: O - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth > O1 - Economic Development; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q0 - General > Q01 - Sustainable Development; Q - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics ; Environmental and Ecological Economics > Q5 - Environmental Economics

References

Ahmed, A.U., H.A. Khan and R.K. Sampath, "Poverty in Bangladesh: Intertemporal Comparison and Decomposition," Journal of Development Studies, Vol. 27, No. 4, July 1991; also reprinted by International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington, Reprint No. 241.

Asian Development Bank, Asian Development Outlook, various years.

Government of Bangladesh, National Environment Management Action Plan, Vols. I and II. Dhaka: NEMA Secretariat, 1995.

Bangladesh, Bureau of Statistics, Household Expenditure Surveys, various years.

_________________, Framework for Environment Statistics, 1998.

Bartelmus, P., Stahmer and J. van Tongeren, `Integrated Environmental and Economic Accounting’, Review of Income and Wealth, 37(2); 111-148, 1996.

Bhalla, A.S., Environment, Employment and Development (Geneva: The International Labour Organization, 1992).

Lael Brainard, Nigel Purvis, and Abigail Jones,2009 Climate Change and Global Poverty: A Billion Lives in the Balance?. Washington D.C.:Brookings

Costanza, Robert ed. Ecological Economics, New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.

ESCAP, Accounting and Valuation of Environment, New York, United Nations, 1997.

Gain, Philip, "Garos Get Pushed Again by Rubber Planters," Dhaka Courier (July 21-27, 1989).

------------, "N.O.C. for Toxic Waste Plant?," Dhaka Courier (March 17-23, 1989).

------------ and Dulal Biswas, "Forestry Projects Destroy Forests in Madhupur Gahr," Dhaka Courier (November 24-30, 1989).

Foster, J.; J. Greer and E. Thorbecke, "A Class of Decomposable Poverty Measures," Econometrica, 52, No. 3, 1984.

Greer, J. and E. Thorbecke, "A Methodology for Measuring Food Poverty Applied to Kenya," Journal of Development Economics, No. 24, 1986.

Hossain, M. and A.R. Khan, The Strategy of Development in Bangladesh, MacMillan, 1989.

Islam, N. 1998, ‘Income-Environment Relationship: How Different is Asia?’ Asian Development Review.

Khan, H. A. (2012). “Enhancing Economic Integration in the Asia-Pacific through the Strengthening of National Innovation Systems - Challenges and Strategies.” Asia-Pacific Technology Monitor.

Khan, H. A. (2015). “What Should the AIIB’s Priorities Be?” World Economic Forum, April 27. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2015/04/what-should-the-aiibs-priorities-be/.

Khan, H. A. (2018). “The Future of Bangladesh: ICT and Technological Superconvergence.” Journal of Bangladesh Studies 18, no. 1-2.

Khan, H. A. (2021a). “Ai, Deep Machine Learning via Neuro-Fuzzy Models: Complexities of International Financial Economics of Crises.” International Journal of Computational & Neural Engineering, 122–34. https://doi.org/10.19070/2572-7389-2100016.

Khan, H. A. (2021b). “Governing a Complex Global Financial System in the Age of Global Instabilities and BRICS.” Handbook of BRICS and Emerging Economies, 940–79. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198827535.003.0037.

Khan, H. A. (2021b). “Governing a Complex Global Financial System in the Age of Global Instabilities and BRICS.” Handbook of BRICS and Emerging Economies, 940–79. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198827535.003.0037.

-------------(2023a). Can BRI be the Road to Peace and Prosperity?. Econpapers https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/pramprapa/117081.htm

--------------(2023b). Towards a General Complex Systems Model of Economic Sanctions with Some Results Outlining Consequences of Sanctions on the Russian Economy and the World. Econpapers https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/pramprapa/116806.htm

---------------(2023c). The Economic and Geopolitical Consequences of Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)for China: A preliminary model-based analysis. Econpapers https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/pramprapa/117005.htm

------------------(2003d). Towards a General Complex Systems Model of Economic Sanctions with Some Results Outlining Consequences of Sanctions on the Russian Economy and the World. EconPapers https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/pramprapa/116806.htm

----------------(2003e) . Towards a New Non-aligned Movement(NNAM) and a New International Economic Order:A Strategy for Comprehensive Non-capitalist Development in the 21st Century. EconPapers https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/pramprapa/117143.htm

-----------------(2023f). War and Peace in East Asia: Avoiding Thucydides’s Trap with China as a Rising Power. Econpapers. https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/pramprapa/117089.htm

---------and Jiang, X.2023. Geoeconomics, Structural Change and Energy Use in Iran: A SAM-Based CGE Analysis with Some Geoeconomic and Geopolitical Considerations. Econpapers https://econpapers.repec.org/paper/pramprapa/117155.htm

Khan, H.A., 2010. China’s Development Strategy and Energy Security, G. Wang et al. eds. Southern Engines of Growth, Basingstokes: Palgrave

--------------2013. Development Strategies: Notes on S. Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Viet Nam, in A. Fosu ed. Development Successes and Strategies, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

-------------"Poverty in Bangladesh: Some Theoretical Issues, Empirical Evidence and Policy Perspectives," Working Paper, GSIS, U. of Denver 1992a.

----------, "A Generalized Entropy Measure for Environmental Inequalities, Working Paper, Hitotsubashi University, 1992b.

----------,1999. “Sectoral Growth and Poverty,’ World Development, Vol.27, No. 3: 521-530..

----------, “Technology, Development and Democracy, Aldershot: Edward Elgar, 1998.

----------, "Economic Modeling of Structural Adjustment Programs: Impact on Human Conditions," Africa Today, Vol. 37, No. 4 (4th Quarter 1990).

----------, “Poverty in Bangladesh”, is Salim Rashid ed. Bangladesh Economy: What Have We Learned? Dhaka: University Press, 1994.

----------, "Technology Choice in the Energy and Textiles Sector in Korea," in A.S. Bhalla (Ed.), Technology and Employment in Industry (Geneva: ILO, 1985).

---------- & V. Lippit, `The Surplus Approach to Environment,’ Review of Radical Political Economics, Vol. 25(3) 1993, pp. 122-128.

---------- and K. Sonko, ‘A Further Extension of Adjustment Models: The Environment and Equity’ in G. Shepherd and K. Sonko eds. Economic Justice in Africa: Adjustment and Sustainable Development, Westport, Ct.: Greenwood Press, 1994.

----------, “Adjustment, Ecology and Distribution, Revue Economique et Sociale Africaine, Vol. I, Nos. 1-2 (1997), pp. 34-57.

----------- and M. Parvin, "Multidimensional Inequality: An Axiomatic Treatment," Working Paper, University of Denver and University of Akron, 1990.

-------------------------, "Environment, Externalities and Income," mimeo (University of Denver and University of Akron, 1984).

Khan, H., & Thorbecke, E. (1988). Macroeconomic Effects and Diffusion of Alternative Technologies Within a Social Accounting Matrix Framework: the Case of Indonesia. Aldershot, Hants, England: Gower Pub. Co. Print.

Khan, H. A., & Thorbecke. E. (1989). “Macroeconomic Effects of Technology Choice: Multiplier and Structural Path Analysis Within a SAM Framework.” Journal of policy modeling 11, no. 1: 131–156. DOI: 10.1016/0161-8938(89)90028-8.

Kolm, S.Ch., "Multidimensional Egalitarianism," Quarterly Journal of Economics, 91, 1992, pp. 1-13.

Maasoumi, Esfandiar, "The Measurement and Decomposition of Multi-dimensional Inequality," Econometrica, Vol. 54, No 4 (July, 1986) pp. 991-997.

Peet, John, "Ecological Economics for Sustainable Development," IEEE Technology and Society Magazine (Winter 1991/92), pp. 14-20.

Pernia, E. and M.G. Quibria, `Poverty in Developing Countries’, forthcoming in E.S. Mills and P.C. Cheshire eds. Handbook of Regional and Urban Economics, Amsterdam: North-Holland.

Rawls, J. A Theory of Justice, Cambridge, MA.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University, 1970.

Rush, James, "The Last Tree," The Asia Society, N.Y., 1991.

Sen, A.K. `Poverty: An Ordinal Approach to Measurement,’ Econometrica, 44, 1976.

-----------, Inequality Reexamined, Cambridge, MA.: Harvard University Press, 1992.

Tagore, Rabindranath, `Japan Jatri,' pp. 4, 24, 32, 61 translated in Viswa Bharati Quarterly, new series, 4.2:96, 104 and 4.3:187, 190, 193.

Thorbecke, E. and H.S. Jung, `Multiplier Decomposition Method to Analyze Poverty Alleviation’, Journal of Development Economics, 48(2), 1996: 279-301.

World Resources Institute, "Bangladesh Environment and Natural Resources Assessment," Washington, D.C.: WRI Center for International Development and Environment, 1990.