Robin is right: mainstream economics is environmentalist in theory, but not in practice. It also assumes that the possibility of "external costs" is simply given technologically (which profit-maximizing capitalists then realize in practice); this ignores E.K. Hunt's theory, in which capitalists actively seek out the creation of new technologies favoring the externalization of costs. (This fits with the standard economist's obsession with statics and ignorance of dynamics.) Further, economists often succumb to the popular confusion of the minimization of private costs with "efficiency," even though it contradicts their own most sophisticated theory. On top of that, they propose "market-based" anti-pollution plans which seem dubious to me (though it should be noted that I'm no environmental economist). The whole idea of market-based solutions of this sort seems to assume that new pollution problems won't be created every day by the dynamics of capitalism. There are also the economists who suggest that the pollution problems of places like Mexico can be solved later, _after_ those countries have achieved development (usually development of the free-market kind). One of these types spoke at an URPE plenary at the ASSA meetings awhile back. He seemed to think of environmental cleanliness was a luxury good that only rich countries like the US could buy. There seemed to be no consciousness that environmental destruction might actually prevent economic development. (Peter Dorman would know more about what this fellow said: he organized the session.) Most fundamentally, they lack a global perspective on pollution: the depredations of the rest of nature by humanity are represented theoretically as merely a collection of externalities that are treated as the exception rather than the rule. (People like Hayek and Milton Friedman thus minimize externalities as mere "neighborhood effects." Most textbooks I've seen follow this line, though not necessarily the terminology.) Rather than stating the issue in terms of long-term harmony or conflict between humanity and the rest of nature, the emphasis is on pollution hurting other people, a problem internal to humanity. (Thus, many followers of Coase see the problem of externalities as basically solvable through negotiations, though it seems impossible for either Mother Nature or future generations of humans to participate in such negotiations.) in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
