Ecological component of economic development: evolution of views on the problem

The paper studies the theoretical basis for the evolution of the concept of sustainable development. Representative of the classical school T. R. Malthus was the first researcher who considered natural limitations as one of the main factors of economic system development. The discovery of the law of diminishing marginal productivity by the founder of the American school of marginalism J. B. Clarke led to the inclusion of components of scientific and technological progress in the theoretical paradigms describing the relations between man and nature. In the early 1970s, a new trend emerged, called the economy of the environment, as a reaction to the deterioration of the human environment and the introduction of concepts of unlimited economic growth. A. S. Pigu believed that the solution of all issues of neutralization of environmental pollution would be the creation of ‘right’ taxes and payments for pollution. D. Meadows in The Limits of Growth, which was presented in the form of a report to the Club of Rome and became a classical conception of world development, explored five global trends in world dynamics: accelerating industrialization, rapid population growth, growing hunger, depletion of non-renewable resources, environmental degradation. The first person who raised the problem of changing the economic paradigm with a view to solving the problem of human environmental survival is the American economist K. Boulding. Thus, the central link in the conception of sustainable development is represented with ecologization of all spheres of human economic activity. In this regard, the development of the conception of economic development ecologization requires a significant change in priorities and objectives for the entire economy as a whole, as well as for its individual sectors and activities. There was a need to develop such principles and approaches to reformation that would ensure a dynamic growth of macroeconomic indicators, improve the living standards of population and its social protection, as well as preserve the natural environment.