SYSTEMIC CRISES IN HIERARCHICAL ECOLOGICAL ECONOMIES

Human beings are both the slaves and the masters of the ecosystems in which they live. This paper examines the interrelationship between eco nomic decision-making hierarchies and ecological hierarchies. Conditio ns under which discontinuous changes can occur are presented both for top-down and bottom-up causes. Appropriate institutional arrangements for minimizing ecological disruption are analyzed and depend on the na ture of the relationship between the economic and ecological hierarchi es. In some cases this will involve self-managed economic units operat ing at the appropriate level of the ecological hierarchy.