Environment Growth and Value Revisited

This article returns to the debate on economic growth and the environment. It outlines two approaches to environment: the orthodox and the Austrian. The orthodox approach claims to be positivistic, and stresses objective functions. In fact positivism has an implied political theory, and objectivity leads to a policy of economic planning, not market-led solutions.The orthodox approach to environment leads to an environmental planning ‘supplement’. It is not clear why the criticisms of economic planning are invalid in environmental economics, nor why these techniques should not be extended to the rest of the economy.The Austrian school accepted that laissez-faire and positivism are incommensurable. The Austrian theory is normative and subjective, and criticises the static and unrealistic nature of the orthodox approach, but has a consequence that macroeconomic variables are meaningless.What is required is a political economy not based on ‘rational economic human’, but grounded instead in a concept of dialogic democracy, based on the concept of citizenship and community.