'Herman Daly' (
1938) is an American
ecological economist and professor at the
School of Public Policy of
University of Maryland, College Park in the
United States.
He was Senior Economist in the Environment Department of the
World Bank, where he helped to develop policy guidelines related to
sustainable development. While there, he was engaged in environmental operations work in Latin America.
Before joining the World Bank, Daly was Alumni Professor of Economics at
Louisiana State University. He is a co-founder and associate editor of the journal, ''
Ecological Economics.''
He is also a recipient of a Honorary
Right Livelihood Award (the alternative
Nobel Prize), the
Heineken Prize for Environmental Science from the
Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, the
Sophie Prize (Norway) and the Leontief Prize from the
Global Development and Environment Institute.
He is widely credited with having originated the idea of
uneconomic growth, though some credit this to
Marilyn Waring who developed it more completely in her study of the
UN System of National Accounts.
Quotes
“If you’ve eaten poison, you must get rid of the substances that are making you ill. Let us then, apply the stomach pump to the doctrines of economic growth that we have been forced-fed for decades.”
“We cannot have too many people alive simultaneously lest we destroy carrying capacity and thereby reduce the number of lives possible in all subsequent time periods.”
“Environmental degradation is an iatrogenic disease induced by the economic physicians (pro-growth advocates) who attempt to treat the sickness with unlimited wants by prescribing unlimited production. We do not cure a treatment-induced disease by increasing the treatment dosage.”
“Current economic growth has uncoupled itself from the world and has become irrelevant. Worse, it has become a blind guide.”
Literature
Daly's interest in economic development,
population, resources,
ecological economics, and the environment has resulted in over a hundred articles as well as numerous books, including:
★ 1977, ''Steady-State Economics''
★ 1989, ''For the Common Good'', with theologian
John B. Cobb, Jr.: This received the
Grawemeyer Award for ideas for improving World Order.
★ 1993, ''Valuing the Earth''
★ 1996, ''Beyond Growth''
★ 1999, ''Ecological Economics and the Ecology of Economics''
★ 2003, ''Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications'', with Joshua Farley: an economics textbook.
External links
★
SEOV: Visions of Herman E. Daly (Video Interviews)
★
First annual Feasta lecture, 1999, on "uneconomic growth in theory and in fact"
★
Developing Ideas interview
★
Right Livelihood Award recipient
★
Steady-State Economics