Evolutionary political economy has long emphasized that economic development is an open-ended process of structural change shaped by institutions, technological innovation, and collective learning. Contemporary debates on economic transformation increasingly recognize the need to align innovation systems, industrial policy, and institutional governance with the ecological limits of the planet. Research in evolutionary political economy and sustainability transitions has significantly advanced understanding of socio-technical change, institutional adaptation, and the dynamics of regional innovation systems. Yet an important dimension of transformation remains relatively underexplored: the ethical and developmental capacities required for societies to successfully govern economic activity within planetary ecological constraints.

This paper introduces the concept of Survival Justice as a complementary ethical orientation for innovation policy in the context of socio-ecological transformation. While policy discussions often focus on technological innovation and regulatory instruments—such as green industrial policy, carbon pricing, or mission-oriented innovation strategies—the underlying assumption frequently remains that technological and institutional innovation alone can generate sustainable outcomes. However, as economic activity increasingly shapes the stability of Earth’s living systems, questions of stewardship, responsibility, and long-term systemic viability become central to governance.

Modern political and economic institutions largely evolved under conditions in which ecological stability could be assumed as a background condition. Classical liberal frameworks—from John Locke through John Rawls—focused primarily on the distribution of rights, resources, and opportunities within societies. These frameworks were essential to the development of modern democratic and welfare-state institutions. Yet they implicitly presupposed the continued functioning of ecological systems capable of sustaining economic life.

In the present era, this presupposition is increasingly challenged by climate instability, biodiversity loss, soil degradation, and other forms of systemic ecological stress. Economic systems are now widely recognized as embedded within—and dependent upon—the resilience of socio-ecological systems. Under such conditions, the ethical foundations of governance may require expansion beyond distributive justice alone.

Survival Justice names this shift. It refers to the ethical responsibilities that arise when human economic systems shape the conditions of life across ecosystems, spatial scales, and generations. Rather than replacing existing justice frameworks, Survival Justice extends them by recognizing stewardship of ecological systems as a foundational condition for the long-term functioning of rights-based societies and market economies.

The paper situates this concept within an evolutionary perspective on institutional development. Historically, expanding scales of human coordination—from local communities to industrial societies—required corresponding expansions in institutional and normative capacity. In the current planetary era, the scale of consequence associated with economic activity has expanded further, as production and consumption patterns influence Earth system processes themselves.

Addressing this condition requires more than technological innovation. It requires the gradual emergence of institutions capable of aligning economic activity with the regenerative capacities of socio-ecological systems. This may be understood as a process of civilizational maturation, in which governance structures evolve to integrate ecological stewardship into the core logic of economic coordination.

To illustrate how such institutional evolution may occur in practice, the paper briefly examines regional stewardship initiatives within the Western Lake Erie watershed in North America. In this context, farmers, municipalities, universities, and civil society organizations increasingly collaborate to address nutrient runoff and water quality challenges. These initiatives demonstrate how shared ecological constraints can catalyze new forms of cross-sector coordination linking agricultural practice, regional governance, and environmental restoration.

The contribution of this paper is primarily conceptual. It proposes Survival Justice as a framework for understanding the ethical dimension of socio-economic transformation under planetary constraint. By situating innovation policy within a broader evolutionary and socio-ecological perspective, the framework contributes to ongoing discussions within evolutionary political economy regarding the governance of long-term transformation processes and invites further theoretical and empirical exploration across diverse regional transformation contexts.

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