Download A New Study on Theoretical Basis of Ecological Compensation

A New Study on Theoretical Basis of Ecological Compensation
——Viewing angle of Labor Theory of Value
HU Yiyuan
School of Economics & Law, Shaanxi University of Technology, Hanzhong, Shaanxi, P.R.China,
723000
[email protected]
Abstract: “Ecological compensation mechanism”, “sharing mechanism of genetic resources” and
“long-acting mechanism of environmental protection” were needed to be established by “Decision of the
State Council on Following a Scientific Approach to Development and Strengthening Environmental
Protection”. It is an effective mechanism and approach for undeveloped areas to share the profit of
economic development and technological progress in China. From the viewing angle of Labor Theory of
Value, the theoretical basis of ecological compensation is the labor value and price theory. Human labor
(creation, restoration and protection of resources) embodied in the value of the resources and production.
Based on the price decided by the value, plus the price decided by Resource Ownership Monopoly, it
formed the resource price.
Keywords: Ecological Compensation, Theoretical Basis, Labor Theory of Value
“Eco-economy: Building an Economy for the Earth” written by Lester Brown pointed out, nature relies
on the balance. “Economic deficit is the loan between us, but ecological deficit is the loan which we
take from our descendants.” “Therefore, our economy must obey the basic principle of ecology. If we
violate the principle, the economy must become weak from prosperous, even collapse.” [1] “Decision of
the State Council on Following a Scientific Approach to Development and Strengthening Environmental
Protection” in China (No. (2005)39) pointed out, “it is important to improve ecological compensation
policy and establish ecological compensation mechanism. Moreover, it is also essential to form the
sharing mechanism of genetic resources and long-acting mechanism of environmental protection”.
Through ecological compensation mechanism, it could raise the initiative of ecological compensation
receivers (local governments, enterprises and residents), who take ecological protection as a constant
action. On the other hand, payers undertake the cost, and develop a conception of “resource is valuable,
paid-use”. So the long-acting mechanism of ecological protection is established. It is an effective
mechanism and approach for undeveloped areas to share the profit of economic development and
technological progress in China. From the viewing angle of Labor Theory of Value, the theoretical basis
of ecological compensation is the labor value and price theory.
1. A new study on value and its source
①
“Value” is the essential category of philosophy, as well as the basic category of economics, even a word
that used in everyday frequently. [2] Its meaning includes 3 points: the general meaning is the purposes
or positive effects of things. The philosophic meaning is the significance of object towards subject.
When the significance is positive, it is positive value, otherwise it is negative value. The meaning
refers to the value of commodity, which is “the common things which expressed in exchange
relationship or exchange value of commodity”. [3] Value is the socially indifferent human labor embodied
in a commodity. It depends on the socially necessary labor time of producing commodity. Therefore, it is
observed that “value is labor”. [4] Value is the expenditure of labor to produce commodity, as well as the
payment of labor cost. Lower labor cost, lower value, means higher productivity of labor, stronger
production capacity. [5] Because “The relationship between human and nature is compatible, symbiotic
and complemental”, nature has external “instrumental value” and internal “ecological value” to meet
human’s needs. “Protecting nature is protecting us. Constructing nature is bringing benefit to us.
Damaging nature must damage us. Destroying nature will ruin us. [6] The world famous ecological
②
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③
ethicist Pro. Holmes Rolston classified the value of nature to economic value, life support value,
scientific value, esthetic value, biotic value, value of variety and unity, value of stability and spontaneity,
dialectic (the struggle of contradiction) value, and religious value, etc. [7] Besides, he pointed out “it is
impossible for human to amaze life, but pour scorn on life’s mother. Nature is the source of life. The
whole source, not only the life born of it, is valuable. Nature is the real creator of all things on earth.” [9]
What is the source of the value? Someone holds that, besides the value of natural resources meets
human’s needs, it is conditioned by its finiteness and scarcity. [9]Thus, the value of natural resources is
decided by its intrinsic attributes which can meet human’s needs and external finiteness and scarcity.
Indeed, as existences, nature and natural resources are useful for human necessarily, and then form value
(philosophical dimension). That is to say, for philosophical dimension, Values are considered to be
human, “which is the satisfaction relation of object towards the needs of subject. We say something has
value, means it can meet the needs of subject and satisfy the interest of human.” [10] But, the satisfaction
relation is effect not cause. Nature is an objective existence, which doesn’t have initiative to meet
human’s needs. It can’t exhibit and breed itself to meet human’s needs actively. The properties, methods,
means and extent of nature to meet human’s needs depend on the exploration, endowment and practice
of human. That is to say, without human labor, the effect of nature is blind and indirect, even invalid.
The value or effect of nature towards human is the fruit of human labor.
2. The labor value source of natural resource
As the material conditions for human’s survival, development and enjoyment, nature resource includes 2
cases: one is humanized resource processed by human labor; another is raw resource undeveloped by
human labor. [11] Because of the effect of nature resource (existence value or meaning), human can’t live
without nature. Marx said, “Initially land (included water in economics) provides food as ready-made
consumption goods to human. It exists as the object of human labor without human’s assistant. All
things, which separated direct connections with land via labor, are naturally objects of labor. For
example, the fish separated from water, the trees cut in the forest, the minerals mined underground, etc.
Land is the primary granary, also original means of labor. Such as the stone, which human used to throw,
mill, press and cut, comes from land. Moreover, land is general means of labor, because it provide
foothold for laborer to labor.” [12] Therefore, it must preserve the existence of natural resource. How to
preserve the existence? It’s labor. Marx said, “The so-called world history is nothing but the whole man
through human labor and birth process, is a natural right of people to say the generation process, ... ...
because the reality of people and nature, that people say the existence of nature as a natural right people
say that as a human existence, has become a practice, you can feel intuitive.”[13] For one thing, by means
of labor, natural resource can meet the needs of human or society. For another, labor can reset the
consumed resource and continue its existence, ensuring the continuous use of resource and the
sustainable development of human. Therefore, the value and price of natural resource is not from the
value and price of itself, but human labor. Marx once said, “Land is not the production of labor, so it
hasn’t any value.” “Waterfall, same as land or all natural force, hasn’t any value, because it hasn’t any
material labor, it also hasn’t price.” [14]
From the viewing angle of Labor Theory of Value, the value source of natural resource embodies 2
respects: one is immediate expenditure of labor. The value of commodity depends on expenditure of
labor. Without expenditure of labor, it hasn’t goods met human needs, so it hasn’t value of commodity.
This is the true meaning of Labor Theory of Value. [15] Marx said, “Because adding value to commodity
and preserving it, it is the favor of human labor affected it.” [16] He also said, “The value (exchange value)
of all commodities (including labor) is determined by the production cost. In other words, it is decided
by labor time to produce them.” [17] Then, How did labor create the value of commodity? Marx said,
“Labor is used and promoted, and some physical strength of workers is consumed. Workers became
completely exhausted. However labor is not only consumed, but also transformed active form into
object form or static form. It is fixed and materialized in object form.” [18] It is the value creation process
of labor, also the consumption process of labor. It is no other than the consumption of human labor. On
the one hand, material and visible expenditure transforms production factors into material commodity or
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service, and create the use value of commodity. On the other hand, commodity value is formed by the
expenditure, embodiment or material of labor and the consubstantial consumption of human labor.
Simonde once said, “However the natural grace is great, it can’t give human anything for free. No
matter the things, which are produced or gained value without direct or indirect labor, are useful and
important for human, they aren’t wealthy absolutely.”[19] Marx also pointed out, “Machine and natural
factors can increase the country wealth greatly, but they can’t increase any value in this wealth.” [20]
Another is reset labor expenditure of natural resource. Because of the unique characteristics of natural
resource, it must get reset continuously, and reproduced. “No matter it is renewable resource or
depletable resource, in a certain period and scope, it is limited. In order to maintain the advance of social
production sustainably, the consumed natural resource should be compensated or replaced.”[21] For
renewable resource, only the utilization speed exceeds the regeneration speed, it needs human capital to
recover compulsively. But depletable resource only depends on the r development of substitute to meet
the needs of human society. It must be the essential component of the resource value included
expenditure of labor to reset renewable resource (recovery reset, making resource revert to primary state
or level; regeneration reset, the scale, function, state or level of reset resource is stronger than former
resource) and depletable resource (substitute reset, making new resource replace depleted resource) and
corresponding input.
Therefore, all commodities, including value source of natural resource, are not only the fruit of direct
labor expenditure, but also the fruit of resetting labor expenditure. Marx pointed out, “Value is not
determined by the labor included it or labor time produced it, but determined by the labor time when it
can be produced, or the necessary labor time to reproduce.” [22] “The value of every commodity
(including the commodities to compose capital) is not determined by the socially necessary labor-time
embodied in the commodity, but the socially necessary labor-time used for reproduction. The
reproduction can be in progress in different, more difficulty or more favorable conditions than ever. If
the conditions are changed, it may need double time to reproduce the same material capital, otherwise,
half the time. So, when the monetary value is stationary, the value and profit of material capital will
double or halve.” [23] For this reason, the value of natural resource “is determined by human labor to
reproduce resource in the current production conditions”. [24] The value of original natural resource is
determined by the value, which is determined by the expected
labor time to reproduce this resource.
P
S/
3. Labor forms to create the value of natural
resource
P/
P*
E/
S
E*
In different historic period and social formation, it is different
for labor created value, which can produce material commodity,
provide service or regenerate natural resource. Moreover, the
D
labor will extend continually along with the development of
society. That is the scope of labor created commodity value is
O
Q/ Q*
Q
constantly extending. So, which labor has the attribute to create
commodity value? We believed that, “Any labor, which creates,
The influence of scarcity cost
increases, transforms and preserves the use value of commodity,
towards resource price
is certain to form value. It is the labor that creates commodity
value.” “Creating use value is to transform production factors
into use value that human needed by labor.” It is a new use value. “Increasing use value is to promote
the function of original use value, or extend the use scope.” Transforming use value, “one is the
transformation of existence state of use value, transforming the use value of production factor into the
use value of commodity by labor. Another is the transformation of existence space of use value,
transferring the use value from place to place by labor”. Preserving use value includes continuity
preservation, “the production of labor will be extended and preserved along with the extension of
production process by appending labor constantly;” and existence preservation, “in order to preserve use
value, it has to add new labor to increase value, such as protection of culture relics.” [25] In the labor of
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natural resource, whether the fruit of direct labor expenditure or the fruit of resetting labor expenditure
has the labor properties to create, increase, transform and preserve the use value of commodity. It has
the labor properties to create commodity value. Thereby resource and its production have value.
In the value composition of commodity, besides labor value, it includes the value of various input
elements, such as material, capital, technology, etc, which can be compensated. The core input elements
are human, capital and technology among them. Human is the dominant element. If nobody will restrain
his action and restore the harm of ecological damage which is caused by himself or other people, it is
impossible to protect favorable ecological environment or improve damaged ecological environment. So
it must improve the activity of laborer to protect ecological environment. The labor input amount of
laborer is determined by the relation between marginal cost sacrificed his leisure and marginal income
gained his payment. Generally as long as marginal income is greater than marginal cost, it will input
more quantity of labor. Therefore, it need promote ecological protector to increase labor input through
every means, and let the marginal income of ecological protection exceed the marginal income of other
labor input. In this way, it not only stabilizes current ecological protector, but also attracts more people
into this team, and all-round raises the participation rate of ecological protection in society. Capital input
is indispensability input of ecological protection. It solves the payment problems of labor input of
ecological protection, as well as the cost problems of ecological protection and restoration of material
input. In fact, no matter ecological vulnerable habitats and ecological sound habitats exists the problems
of capital rationing. Because of the restriction of ecological environment, the productivity of ecological
vulnerable habitats is low, and the capacity of self-capital accumulation and investment is deficient. In
general ecological sound habitat is the area where industrial economy is relatively undeveloped and
development is slow. It is the area before pollution and damage. But it also has problems, such as the
income level is low; the input capacity of ecological environment protection is inadequate. It needs
outside, specially the national capacity input, to accomplish the seed capital input and accumulation of
ecological environment protection. Technological progress is the best and most fundamental means to
solve all problems of development. From the angle of epistemology, rational knowledge has substantial
guidance and promotion effect on perceptual knowledge. It can’t solve the productivity of ecological
protection without technological progress. So it must enlarge the research, introduction and application
of ecological protection technology. It shows that ecological compensation is admitting and paying
every input value in ecological environment protection factually. Accordingly these inputs compose the
value composition of ecological production.
4. The value compensation modes of natural resource
The value compensation of natural resource is different from the value (cost) compensation of general
commodity. It is affected by the opportunity cost value and the ownership price. First is opportunity cost
value. Opportunity cost value is the prospective value of another choice abandoned when someone
chooses between producing commodity by himself and purchasing commodity. [26] In the production of
general commodity, opportunity cost value only an option value, not tangible value. Thus, it only exist
the problem of making a true or false choice, not compensation or affect on its market price. But, as to
natural resource, conditions vary. Human make a current price policy according to their assessment of
the future of one resource or resource production. For renewable resource, human estimate its stock is
decreasing and it becomes rarer and rarer. According to the law of supply and demand, when one
resource is rare and demand exceeds supply, the price will go up. Based on this judgment, the owner of
this resource may consider that, it is more worthy to explore this resource in future. Then the current
resource supply becomes less, the price becomes higher. The loss brought by the rise of price is scarcity
cost. As shown in the figure, lateral axis Q shows the demand (exploration) quantity of resource, direct
axis P shows the price of resource. In current state of supply and demand, the demand curve Q and
supply curve S intersects E*, drawing equilibrium price P* and equilibrium quantity Q*. But because
the owner expected the decrease of the resource results the rise of the price, the current supply will cut
down. In the case of the invariability of resource demand, the equilibrium quantity decrease, and the
price rise to P. The distance between new supply curve S/ and old supply curve S is the scarcity cost. For
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non-renewable resource, price determination includes 2 cases: the price determination without substitute
and the price determination with substitute. Towards the price determination without substitute, it
mainly determined by the relation between future price and current price. Pt represents current price, r
represents interest rate, and Pt + 1 represents the price in the next year. Therefore the current price of this
resource is Pt = Pt + 1 *1/( 1 + r ). Its current market price is the present value of the future price of this
resource. Towards the price determination with substitute, it mainly determined by the cost of substitute.
In case the annual demand quantity of one non-renewable resource is D, total reserves is S, the service
life is T=S / D year. Up to T + 1 year, it has to use the substitute whose cost is C yuan/unit. On the
condition that interest rate is r, the current price is P0=C/(1+r)T. The price of this resource is the present
value of substitute cost.
Secondly, from ownership price, parts of natural resource price are determined by the economical
achievement of ownership. [27] The price transformed from labor value and ownership price compose
resource price commonly. From the angle of cost, resource price is the price paid for the resource
consumption (production consumption and life consumption), that is cost. It can adjust resource
consumption by means of cost constraint, and attain the objective of saving resource, promoting
ecological protection. Ecological problems emerged in traditional production, such as pollution, are not
only the results of interest only in production conception (only emphasis on economic interest or profit),
anthropocentrism in production process (from the interest and needs of human, regarding nature as
object conquered by human to exact excessively), and technological defect (under the conception of
anthropocentrism, lacking technological design of respect, protection and harmony of nature), but also
the results of resource plunder and wasteful consumption caused by resource at a low price, even no
price. In order to realize the sound recycle of ecology and society development, it must carry out the
police “in favor of resource saving”. [28] But in fact, our resource price is low relatively, which isn’t
effective for adjusting the supply and demand of resource. Experts of World Bank pointed out, water for
rural China is usually free, and for city the average price is more than 1yuan/ton. It is only 1/3 of South
Africa, 1/10 of Germany. “The Outlook of Asian Development in 2005 (update version)” published by
Asian Development Bank showed, in 30 investigative countries and regions, the oil price of Mainland
was the 6th from the bottom. Taking the oil price of November in 2004 for example, the super-gasoline
of Hong Kong is 154 ct/L, India is 87 ct/L, but China is only 48 ct/L. From the angle of resource price
difference, taking the coal price from Datong in Shanxi Province to the power station in Zhejiang
Province as an example, the ore removal price of coal within plan in Datong is 169.20 yuan/ton, going
up 5.36 yuan than 163.84 yuan/ton in 1997. But the actual purchase price of the power station in
Zhejiang Province is up to 373.90 yuan/ton, the circulation cost is 204.70 yuan/ton, accounting for
55.75% of actual purchase price. In May of 2005, the study of State Statistical Bureau on price increase
of coal and production means in some enterprises showed that, the price of merchantable coal in East
China rise from 211.42 yuan/ton in 1997 to 238.93 yuan/ton in April of 2004. Price increase is 13.01%.
And the average price of steel rise from 2819 yuan/ton to 3361 yuan/ton in corresponding period. Price
increase is 19.23%. [29] It is no doubt effective guidance for rational use of resource to fix a rational price,
by constructing a price-and-market mechanism for ecological compensation. [30]
It is clear that, the theoretical basis of ecological compensation is the labor value and price theory.
Human’s labor (creation, restoration and protection of resources) embodied in the value of the resources
and production. Be based on the price decided by the value, plus the price decided by Resource
Ownership Monopoly, it formed the resource price. But in actual transaction process, there also exist a
bargain process, based on the relation between supply and demand, and the future expectation of buyer
and seller. Then it makes the determination and formation of price more complicated.
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