Cover -- Title -- Copyright Page -- Dedication -- Contents -- List of illustrations -- Preface and Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- 1 The early days -- The Roman Empire and Middle Ages -- Mercantilism -- The physiocrats -- The liberals -- Adam Smith -- 2 The Malthusian problem -- Essays on population -- A leap in time - Malthus and contemporary China -- A further leap - the next stage -- 3 Ricardian stagnation -- David Ricardo -- Opposition to Ricardian stagnation -- Classical economists mostly in support of stagnation -- An alternative view of scarcity - the American Conservation Movement 1890-1920 -- 4 Socialism, Marxism and the environment -- Early socialists -- Karl Marx -- A leap in time: the Marxist experiment and the environment -- 5 Natural resources and the environment in neo-classical tradition -- Böhm-Bawerk -- Sorley -- Marshall -- Gray -- Taussig and Cassel -- Hotelling -- 6 The interventionist school on natural resources and the environment -- Pigou -- The Keynesian vision of the future -- Galbraith -- Mishan -- A milder tone - Baumol and Oates -- 7 Market environmentalism based on property rights -- Coase's approach -- The marketable permit approach to pollution -- Marketable permits and rights-based fisheries -- 8 Empirical studies on scarcity after the Second World War -- The US Presidential Commission on Material Policy -- Potter and Christy -- Barnett and Morse -- Nordhaus and others -- The US Bureau of Mines -- Indicated and inferred stocks -- 9 Spaceship Earth -- Boulding's econosphere -- Forrester's system dynamics -- The Club of Rome -- A criticism of The Limits to Growth -- Optimistic passengers in Spaceship Earth -- 10 The sustainability debate -- Some stated objectives -- Some definitions incorporating future generations -- Historic roots of the current debate -- Flaws in the current debate.

11 Ethical and spiritual dimensions of environmental exploitation -- Judaeo-Christian theology and the environment -- Islam -- Eastern faiths -- Secular ethics -- Gaia -- Deep ecology -- Land ethics -- Feminism and the environment -- The selfish gene -- 12 Summary and conclusion -- Past experience of floating Earth -- The latest 'evidence' -- Glossary -- Bibliography -- Index.

This volume presents the ideas of major figures in economics throughout history on key environmental issues such as population growth, resource scarcity and environmental contamination. Throughout, the historical roots of current debates are explored with empirical case studies illustrating the link between theory and practice. The final chapters look at current ideas on sustainability, and ethical and spiritual dimensions of humanity's relationship with the environment. Providing fascinating insight into the development of environmental economic thought, this volume will be of great interest to students and researchers in the history of economic thought and environmental economics.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.