Ecological Economics 28 (1999) 161 – 170 TENTH ANNIVERSARY INVITED PAPER Values, ideology and politics in ecological economics Peter So ¨ derbaum Ma ¨lardalen Uniersity, Box 883, 72123 Va ¨stera ˚s, Sweden Received 16 July 1998; received in revised form 30 November 1998; accepted 2 December 1998 Abstract Ecological economics is built on a value-commitment to study environmental issues and to contribute construc- tively to a more sustainable development path. However, many ecological economists still hesitate, it appears, to depart too much from other scholars by openly addressing issues of values and ideology. In this essay, the role of the scholar’s orientation with respect to values and ideology is addressed. It is observed that not only scholars but also actors in society are guided by their ‘ideological orientation’. This leads to the idea that some of the weaknesses of Economic Man and ‘profit maximising firm’ assumptions can be mitigated by introducing a Political Economic Person and a Political Economic Organisation. © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Ideological orientation; Political Economic Person; Political Economic Organisation; Actor; Ideological orientation; Decision-making; Pattern recognition 1. Introduction Ecological economics is on its way to becoming a fairly established field of study. In addition to the ‘Ecological Economics ’ journal with its many issues over past 10 years, there are a number of books referring to conferences held by the Inter- national Society for Ecological Economics and the more regional European Society. Attempts have been made to indicate the ‘frontiers’ in eco- logical economics (Krishnan et al., 1995; Costanza 1997). We also see the first textbooks that claim to offer the main principles of ecologi- cal economics (Costanza et al., 1997). At issue however is what kind of field we are dealing with. Should it be compared to disciplines that claim to refer to established paradigms and where the idea is to add marginally to a fairly established stock of knowledge? Should we aim at homogeneity or should we rather safeguard some degree of heterogeneity? Will we be able to live with some degree of diversity and disagreement? In what follows, I shall argue that ecological economics is not in every respect comparable with 0921-8009/99/$ - see front matter © 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved. PII:S0921-8009(98)00139-6