The capacity to repay debt, as in the current global credit money regime anchored by the Bank for International Settlements, does not in their view correspond to measurable benefits to human well-being worldwide. They seek a fairer way for societies to compete in the global markets that will not require conversion of natural capital to natural resources, nor human capital to move to developed nations in order to find work.
Some economic systems by green economists would replace the "gold standard" with a "biodiversity standard". It remains to be seen if such plans have any merit other than as political ways to draw attention to the way capitalism itself interacts with life.
While classical, neoclassical, and Marxist approaches to economics tend to treat labor differently, they are united in treating nature as a resource.
The green economists and the more conservative environmental economics argue that not only natural ecologies, but also the life of the individual human being is treated as a commodity by the global markets. A good example is the IPCC calculations cited by the Global Commons Institute as placing a value on a human life in the developed world "15x higher" than in the developing world, based solely on the ability to pay to prevent climate change.
Accepting this result, some argue that to put a price on both is the most reasonable way to proceed to optimize and increase that value relative to other goods or services. This has led to efforts in measuring well-being, to assign a commercial "value of life", and to the theory of Natural Capitalism - fusions of green and neoclassical approaches - which focus predictably on energy and material efficiency, i.e. using far less of any given commodity input to achieve the same service outputs as a result.
Indian economist Amartya Sen, applying this thinking to human freedom itself, argued in his 1999 book "Development as Freedom" that human free time was the only real service, and that sustainable development was best defined as freeing human time. Sen won The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel in 1999 (sometimes incorrectly called the "Nobel Prize in Economics") and based his book on invited lectures he gave at the World Bank.
Political economy
Political economy was the original term for the study of production, the acts of buying and selling, and their relationships to laws, customs and government.
It developed in the 17th century as the study of the economies of states which placed the theory of property in the theory of government.
Some political economists proposed the (first introduced by John Locke, developed by Adam Smith and later Karl Marx), according to which "labour" is the real source of value. Many political economists also looked at the accelerating development of technology, whose role in economic and social relationships grew ever more important.
In late 19th century, the term "political economy" was generally replaced by the term economics, which was used by those seeking to place the study of economy on a mathematical basis, rather than studying the relationships within production and consumption.
In the present, "political economy" means a variety of different, but related, approaches to studying economic and political behavior, which range from combining economics with other fields, to using different fundamental assumptions which challenge those of orthodox economics:
Because political economy is not a unified discipline, there are a variety of studies that use the term which have overlapping subject matter, but radically different viewpoints.
Sociology is the study of the effects of involvement in society on individuals as members of groups, and how this changes their ability to function. Many sociologists begin from a framework of production determining relationship drawn from Karl Marx.
Anthropology often studies political economy by studying the relationship between the world capitalist system and local cultures.
Psychology is frequently the fulcrum around which political economy centers, in that it deals with decision making, not as being a black box whose effects are seen only in price decisions, but as being a source of study, and therefore the assumptions in a model of political economy.
History since it documents change over time, is often used as a means of arguing in political economy, and often historical works have a framework of political economy which they assume or argue as the basis for the narrative structure.
Economics, because it studies activity and price relationships and the effects of scarcity, grew out of political economy. It is often used "in" political economy to argue policy effects and study the results of actions, and it is often "in opposition" to political economy, in that many, if not most, practicing economists see political economy as being a hindrance to the operation of economic forces. From the point of view of political economy, economics is a branch of the entire study, and economics has, at its basis, a theory of political economy which should be open to examination.
Law since it concerns the creation of policy, or the mediation of policy ends through political acts which have specific individual results, is seen, in political economy, as both political capital and social infrastructure, on one hand - and as the result of the sociology of a society on the other.
Constitutional economics is the academic sub-discipline of economics and constitutionalism. It is often described as "the economic analysis of constitutional law." Constitutional economics tries to explain the selection of different constitutional rules "limiting the choices and activities of economic and political agencies." This is different from the approach of traditional economics. Also, constitutional economics studies how well economic decisions of the state agree with the existing constitutional economic rights of its citizens." For example, proper distribution of economic and financial resources of the state is a big question for every nation. Constitutional economics helps finding a legal mechanism to solve this problem.
Ecology is often involved in political economy, because human activity is one of the single largest effects on the environment, and because it is the suitability of the environment for human beings which is one of the central concerns of most human beings. The ecological effects of economic activity on the environment have spurred the creation of a great deal of research studying means of changing the incentives balance of the market economy. This work is particularly controversial in its interaction with economics, since it questions the fundamental econometric assumptions of market economics and their basic validity.
My Lai Massacre
The My Lai Massacre (pronounced IPA: [mi.˧˩˥'lɐːj˧˧], Thảm sát Mỹ Lai, Thảm sát Sơn Mỹ) was the killing of hundreds of civilians by United States troops at the village of My Lai, Vietnam on March 16, 1968. A memorial in My Lai lists the names of 504 victims.
Before the massacre, U.S. troops were told that all of the "true" civilians would be at the market and the remaining people would be members of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam. When the soldiers got to the village they did not find any NLF troops. Despite this, many troopers began to kill the villagers, mainly elderly people, women, and children.
The killings were stopped by an American helicopter pilot.
The killings were covered up by the United States Army, but eventually 26 soldiers were charged with being involved in the killings. However, only one, Lieutenant William Calley was found guilty.
The massacre caused public opinion in the United States to shift further towards wanting peace and wanting to get American troops out of Vietnam.
Henry II of England