Economy and Politics and their role in the Environment

1.4. Economy and Politics and their role in the Environment:

Economy as a noun means the state of a country or region in terms of the production and consumption of goods and services and the supply of money or careful management of available resources. An economy is the system according to which the money, industry, and trade of a country or region are organized. A country's economy is the wealth that it gets from business and industry. Economy is the use of the minimum amount of money, time, or other resources needed to achieve something, so that nothing is wasted. 

Economy in its broadest sense is defined as a social domain that emphasizes the practices, discourses, and material expressions associated with the production, use, and management of resources'. It involve economic agents. Economic agents are the individuals, businesses, organizations, or governments. Economic agents perform economic activity. Economic activity is spurred by production which uses natural resources, labor, and capital. It has changed over time due to technology with automation, accelerator of process, reduction of cost functions, innovation with new products, services, processes, expanding markets, diversification of markets, niche markets, increases revenue functions such as, that which produces intellectual property and changes in industrial relations for example, child labor being replaced in some parts of the world with universal access to education.

A given economy is the result of a set of processes that involves its culture, values, education, technological evolution, history, social organization, political structure and legal systems, as well as its geography, natural resource endowment, and ecology, as main factors. These factors give context, content, and set the conditions and parameters in which an economy functions. In other words, the economic domain is a social domain of human practices and transactions. It does not stand alone. A market-based economy is one where goods and services are produced and exchanged according to demand and supply between participants or economic agents by barter or a medium of exchange with a credit or debit value accepted within the network, such as a unit of currency.

A command-based economy is one where political agents directly control what is produced and how it is sold and distributed. A green economy is low-carbon, resource efficient, and socially inclusive. In a green economy, growth in income and employment are driven by public and private investments that reduce carbon emissions and pollution, enhance energy and resource efficiency, and prevent the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem services.

As the developed countries has very good economy they try to retain the characteristics of their natural environment while generation of their economy. It is evident in their every economic generation process. Whereas in developing countries or countries with less financial resources or with poor economic conditions, the economic mismanagement is quite evident which ultimately lead to use their natural resources indiscreetly and corruption in every aspect of life in the society. Thus, strong economy plays a greater role in the protection of environment and weak economy lead to its destruction. Therefore, it is imperative to move forward towards green economy.

Politics as a noun means the activities associated with the governance of a country or area, especially the debate between parties having power. Politics is also termed as activities aimed at improving someone's status or increasing power within an organization. Historically, the term politics means the affairs of the cities as earlier there were the city states and it was the process of making decisions that applied to citizens. The study focused on politics, is termed as Political science. Politics is also referred to as the achieving and exercising positions of governance or the organized control over a human community, particularly a state.

In modern nation-states, people have formed political parties to represent their ideas. They agree to take the same position on many issues and agree to support the same changes to law and the same leaders. For choosing leaders they hold elections. An election is usually a competition between different parties. Some examples of political parties worldwide are the African National Congress in South Africa, the Conservatives and Labour Party in the United Kingdom, the Social Democratic Party of Germany, Communist Party of China, Indian National Congress and People’s Party in Pakistan.

Politics is a multifaceted word. It has a set of fairly specific meanings that are descriptive and nonjudgmental such as "it is the art and science of government" and "political principles", but often does carry a connotation of dishonest malpractice by non-believers of democracy. The word has been used negatively for many years by the opponents of any political consensus to develop the society in an integrated manner. There are variety of methods deployed in politics, which include promoting one's own political views among people, negotiation with other political subjects, making laws, and exercising force against adversaries.

Politics is exercised on a wide range of social levels, from clans and tribes of traditional societies, through modern local governments, companies and institutions up to sovereign states, to the international level. It is very often said that politics is about power. A political system is a framework which defines acceptable political methods within a given society. The history of political thought can be traced back to early antiquity, with seminal works such as Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Politics, political philosophy of Chaanakia and the works of Confucius.

Politics is classified in four typologies including formal politics, semiformal politics, informal politics and personal politics. Formal politics refers to the operation of a constitutional system of government and publicly defined institutions and procedures. Political parties, public policy or discussions about war and foreign affairs would fall under the category of Formal Politics. Many people view formal politics as something outside of themselves, but that can still affect their daily lives. Semi-formal politics is politics in government associations such as neighborhood associations, or student governments where student unions political party politics is often important. Informal politics is understood as forming alliances, exercising power and protecting and advancing particular ideas or goals. Generally, this includes anything affecting one's daily life, such as the way an office or household is managed, or how one person or group exercises influence over another.

Informal Politics is typically understood as everyday politics, hence the idea that "politics is everywhere". Another important typology of politics is the personal politics of an individual to survive in a society for his personal growth and development to live his life independently without any influence of any source whatsoever. Hence the idea of “personal is political” is used for an individual’s privacy which is his or her or its born right. Only highly educated, culturally sound and humanly advanced developed societies can understand the connotations of the personal politics. The under developed or developing society not even reach to the level of leading formal politics.

All of these typologies of politics affects the environment in one way or another. At first they influenced the physical, social and economic environment, secondly they prejudiced natural and cultural environment and finally they shakes the built environment. It depends on the level of society in global context both economically and politically that, whether they are able to improve or destroy their environment slowly, gradually, individually or collectively. Thus the role of economy and politics on environment is many fold and varies as per status of the society locally and internationally.

References:

1. From: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/economy (Retrieved 11/8/2018)
2. From: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/economy (Retrieved 11/8/2018)
3. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy (Retrieved 11/8/2018)
4. From: https://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/economy.asp (Retrieved 11/8/2018)
5. From: https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/politics (Retrieved 11/8/2018)
6. From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics (Retrieved 11/8/2018)