Title: The politics of the green free market or: why virtue and self-interest do not suffice

Authors: Marcel Wissenburg

Addresses: University of Nijmegen, Netherlands

Abstract: Political theory usually black-boxes the economic sphere and seems interested only in controlling the free market from the outside. Hence, a majority of green political theorists advocate classic financial and legal (dis)incentives to force actors into greening their activities: taxes, subsidies, fines, control agencies, etc. On the other hand, free market environmentalists, the libertarians in green political theory, expound an often extreme faith in the environmentally benign side-effects of private ownership of nature and |hence| of the free market|s capacity for environmental self-regulation. In this article, I question and reject both hypotheses, arguing for a more moderate position.

Keywords: politics; green free market; greening; environmental self-regulation; financial incentives; legal incentives; environmentalism; green economics.

DOI: 10.1504/IER.2001.053869

Interdisciplinary Environmental Review, 2001 Vol.3 No.1, pp.95 - 112

Published online: 13 May 2013 *

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