LEADER 04723nam 22006254a 450 001 9910780257103321 005 20210622023635.0 010 $a0-231-50776-3 024 7 $a10.7312/nade12798 035 $a(CKB)111087026932548 035 $a(EBL)908265 035 $a(OCoLC)826476678 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000269606 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11194813 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000269606 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10248762 035 $a(PQKB)10044672 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC908265 035 $a(DE-B1597)459156 035 $a(OCoLC)216947045 035 $a(OCoLC)979574755 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780231507769 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL908265 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10183360 035 $a(iGPub)COLB0000591 035 $a(EXLCZ)99111087026932548 100 $a20021023d2003 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurnn#---|u||u 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 14$aThe wealth of nature$b[electronic resource] $ehow mainstream economics has failed the environment /$fRobert L. Nadeau 210 $aNew York $cColumbia University Press$dc2003 215 $a1 online resource (273 p.) 300 $aDescription based upon print version of record. 311 0 $a0-231-12798-7 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references (p. [225]-240) and index. 327 $tFront matter --$tContents --$tIntroduction --$tChapter 1. Spaceship Earth --$tchapter 2. The not so worldly philosophers --$tChapter 3. The emperor has no clothes --$tChapter 4. No free lunch --$tChapter 5. A green thumb on the invisible hand --$tChapter 6. Schisms, heresies, and keeping the faith --$tChapter 7. The real economy in biology --$tChapter 8. The real economy in physics --$tChapter 9. Toward a new theory of economics --$tChapter 10. The ceremony of innocence --$tNotes --$tIndex 330 $aVirtually all large-scale damage to the global environment is caused by economic activities, and the vast majority of economic planners in both business and government coordinate these activities on the basis of guidelines and prescriptions from neoclassical economic theory. In this hard-hitting book, Robert Nadeau demonstrates that the claim that neoclassical economics is a science comparable to the physical sciences is totally bogus and that our failure to recognize and deal with this fact constitutes the greatest single barrier to the timely resolution of the crisis in the global environment. Neoclassical economic theory is premised on the belief that the "invisible hand"- Adam Smith's metaphor for forces associated with the operation of the "natural laws of economics"-regulates the workings of market economies. Nadeau reveals that Smith's understanding of these laws was predicated on assumptions from eighteenth-century metaphysics and that the creators of neoclassical economics incorporated this view of the "lawful" mechanisms of free-market systems into a mathematical formalism borrowed wholesale from mid-nineteenth-century physics. The strategy used by these economists, all of whom had been trained as engineers, was as simple as it was absurd-they substituted economic variables for the physical variables in the equations of this physics. Strangely enough, this claim was widely accepted and the fact that neoclassical economics originated in a bastardization of mid-nineteenth-century physics was soon forgotten. Nadeau makes a convincing case that the myth that neoclassical economic theory is a science has blinded us to the fact that there is absolutely no basis in this theory for accounting for the environmental impacts of economic activities or for positing viable economic solutions to environmental problems. The unfortunate result is that the manner in which we are now coordinating global economic activities is a program for ecological disaster, and we may soon arrive at the point where massive changes in the global environment will threaten the lives of billions of people. To avoid this prospect, Nadeau argues that we must develop and implement an environmentally responsible economic theory and describes how this can be accomplished. 606 $aEconomic development$xEnvironmental aspects 606 $aGlobalization$xEconomic aspects 606 $aGlobalization$xEnvironmental aspects 615 0$aEconomic development$xEnvironmental aspects. 615 0$aGlobalization$xEconomic aspects. 615 0$aGlobalization$xEnvironmental aspects. 676 $a333.7 700 $aNadeau$b Robert$f1944-$0200607 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910780257103321 996 $aThe wealth of nature$93687219 997 $aUNINA