The influence of a mechanistic approach on the founders of neoclassical economics can still be seen today in, for example, the representation of the economic process as a pendulum movement between production and consumption within a completely closed system. The mutual influences that the economic process and the material environment have on each other are not recognized by standard economics. Marxian economists also represent the economic process as a completely circular and self-sustaining system, and do not recognize the interrelations between the economic process and nature. However, the history of mankind unequivocally shows that nature plays an important role in the economic process. This paper considers the consequences of this role, and seeks to show that some of them are of utmost importance in understanding the linkages between nature and the evolution of man’s economy.
