The mythologies of environmental economics

Abstract

This paper offers a polemic on the policy implications for leisure and tourism of the shortcomings of contemporary approaches to environmental economics. The paper argues that the market construct of neoclassical economics is flawed by its inability to address situations in which markets do not operate and that this flaw is exacerbated by repeated attempts to overcome the problems through inappropriate technical fixes. To illustrate the argument, seven ‘myths’ of environmental economics are identified, which highlight the flaws and examine some of the implications for policy in areas such as common property. The paper suggests that a new approach to environmental economics is required, founded on principles that are not bounded by ideas of exchange. Informed by the advances made in ecological economics, the paper considers the potential of associative economics, as set out by Rudolf Steiner in his lectures of 1922, when he identified that the assumptions of neoclassical economics would not lend themselves to a globalising world in which the nation state has declining relevance.