2009/01/01 by David Schweickart · 1 citation
Economics, Econometrics and Finance · #Economic Theory and Institutions
paper · doi:10.1163/156914909x424033
openalex publication_date 2009/01/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2025/11/06
All economists recognize that transactions can involve externalities - costs (or benefits) not paid for by transacting parties. According to Hawken and Lovins', first step in rectifying these defects is to eliminate perverse incentives now in place. The second step is to impose resource and pollution taxes to reflect true costs of capital. Such a future is possible if we harness creative energy of capitalism and let markets work. This chapter argues that capitalism is an oxymoron if sustainable means more than survival of human species, with perhaps a relatively small global middle class continuing to live in relative comfort and affluence behind walls of desperate multitude. Neither the market nor the corporation nor the entrepreneur is fundamental structural barrier to ecological and social sanity. A sensible socialism will be an ecosocialism. It will also be a socialism. Keywords: Hunter Lovins; socialism; transactions; natural capitalism; Paul Hawken; capitalism