Routledge Markets, Deliberation and Environment (Economics as Social Theory)

What is the source of our environmental problems? Why is there in modern societies a persistent tendency to environmental damage? From within neoclassical economic theory there is a straightforward answer to those questions: it is because environmental goods and harms are unpriced. They come free. This position runs up against a view which runs in entirely the opposite direction, that our environmental problems have their source not in a failure to apply market norms rigorously enough, but in the very spread of these market mechanisms and norms. The source of environmental problems lies in part in the spread of markets both in real geographical terms across the globe and through the introduction of markets mechanisms and norms into spheres of life that previously have been protected from markets. In this book, John O’Neill conducts a thorough examination of these two opposing viewpoints covering a discussion of the ethical boundaries of markets, the role of private property rights in environmental protection, the nature of sustainability and the valuation of goods over time. This book is essential reading for undergraduate and postgraduate students studying courses in ecological and environmental economics. Review 'The expansion of the market has been a worry to many. But while some are concerned about the expansion of the market in geographical terms (meaning, in fact, globalization), most social democrats have discussed it in terms of the goods which are now subject to the market. Perhaps the two most mentioned goods are education and health – the claim is that they should not be distributed, supplied and priced according to "the market", or supply and demand. However, another important good which many believe should not be subject to the caprice of the market is the 'environment'. This, actually, is a vague concept, and therefore John O'Neill holds that we should discuss a variety of 'environmental goods'. In this thought provoking and profound book, he raises the question whether environmental goods and the market go hand in hand. O'Neill's claim is that they do not; nor should we reason about the environment using market norms and/or theory. If it is not the market, then what is the right framework for thinking about the environment? O'Neill believes it is deliberative politics, or 'deliberation', as he calls it. Step by step and in a very careful analysis, O'Neill examines, and offers a critique of dozens of arguments in support of the market discourse in the context of the environment. For example, standard economic theory holds that the reason we have so many environmental problems is that we have failed to apply market reasoning to the environment. O'Neill not only rejects this, but also shows how this could be vice versa: that the reason why we have these problems is precisely the expansion of market norms and reasoning to the environment. If mainstream economic theory claims that we should apply mechanisms of 'willingness to pay' and 'cost benefit analysis' to environmental questions, O'Neill puts forward the argument that such theories fail to grasp not preferences but the reasons people hold preferences. At this point he first hints to the solution, which he offers in more details later in the book: politics is the sphere and deliberation is the mechanism through which we can find out these reasons, which are not less important than the preferences themselves, in the context of environmental policies. O'Neill discusses both utilitarian claims against the expansion of the market to environmental goods (e.g. Chapter 2) and other, political and communitarian arguments. One of these claims he has been putting forward for many years and in many of his books and papers, namely, that we should not be so concerned with whether indeed the market can or cannot do this or that to protect the environment, because there are non-market values and norms which many of us regard as constit