Landesque capital is a widespread concept used to understand anthropogenic landscapes that serve important economic, social, and ritual purposes.
Etymology
The concept of landesque capital was first used in academic texts by economist
Amartya Sen
Amartya Kumar Sen (; born 3 November 1933) is an Indian economist and philosopher, who since 1972 has taught and worked in the United Kingdom and the United States. Sen has made contributions to welfare economics, social choice theory, econom ...
. It occurred in his 1959 thesis on the
choice of techniques The choice of techniques is an area of economics in which the question of the appropriate capital or labour-intensity of the method of production of goods is discussed. In the context of traditional development economics it was often recognised ( ...
of
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people to ...
for “
underdeveloped countries”. Sen claimed that previous studies had failed to take into account the implications of such technical investments for non-wage economies with land as a dominant factor of production:
{{quote, Once land is introduced in our analysis, we have to distinguish between two types of
capital good
The economic concept of a capital good (also called complex product systems (CoPS),H. Rush, "Managing innovation in complex product systems (CoPS)," IEE Colloquium on EPSRC Technology Management Initiative (Engineering & Physical Sciences Researc ...
s—those which replace labour (e.g., tractors) and those which replace land (e.g., fertilizers). We may call them, for the sake of brevity, “laboresque” capital and “landesque” capital respectively.
...
r experience seems to suggest that while investment in fertilizers,or in irrigation, or in pest control, increases yield per acre considerably (without replacing labor), investment in machines like tractors, threshing machines, etc., is useful mainly in replacing labor (without raising yield per acre).
[{{Cite journal, title = The Choice of Agricultural Techniques in Underdeveloped Countries, last = Sen, first = Amartya K., date = 1959, journal = Economic Development and Cultural Change, volume = 7, issue = 3, pages = 279–285]
References
Amartya Sen
Development economics
Agricultural economics