Anyone interested in the environment (science, policy, economics, life) should read it -- and then go out and tell some emperors that they are naked!
David Zetland Senior water economist at Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
When TANSTAAFL (There Ain’t No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) was published in 1971, it was one of the first surveys of environmental policy to be written from a libertarian perspective. It sold many thousands of copies, and, over time, achieved the status of a classic.
40 years later, this new edition includes the full original text, long out of print, along with a new introduction and commentaries by the author,covering topics ranging from climate change, to globalization, to ecosocialism. The new material examines both successes and failures of environmental policy over the past four decades, and explains why it is so hard to get policies right. The central theme of the book remains the TANSTAAFL principle: The polluter must pay. market mechanisms, prices, and protection of property offer a surer path to a cleaner and more sustainable future than either bureaucratic controls or moral suasion unsupported by economic incentives.
Published September 2011
ISBN 978-1-907720-26-0
242 pages
To download the Contents in PDF format, click here
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Contents
Introduction The TANSTAAFL principle What you will find in this book A note on style
Chapter 1 WHAT ECOLOGICAL ECONOMICS IS ALL ABOUT An Awareness of Threat The Spaceship Earth Ideology, Ecology, and the TANSTAAFL Principle
Chapter 1 Commentary What has changed The cost-benefit approach to environmental economics What has not changed The critique of productivism
Chapter 2 PRINCIPLES OF ECONOMICS IN ONE EASY LESSON Marginalism and the Law of Supply and Demand Efficiency and the Equimarginal Principle The Invisible Hand
Chapter 2 Commentary What has changed What has not changed
Chapter 3 POLLUTION AND THE PRICE SYSTEM The Invisible Hand Slips Up How to Make Pollution Go Away
Chapter 3 Commentary What has changed Climate change moves to center stage Experience with pay-for-pollution What has not changed Opposition from the right Opposition from the left
Chapter 4 THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF ECOLOGICAL ACTION The Efficiency Paradox Who Should Pay for the Cleanup? Some Problems of Organizing Collective Action Democracy and Collective Economic Action
Chapter 4 Commentary What has changed What has not changed
Chapter 5 COPING WITH THE POPULATION EXPLOSION What Are We in For? The Not-So-Simple Arithmetic of Population Growth Is There an Optimal Population Size?
Chapter 5 Commentary What has changed What has not changed
Chapter 6 ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS AND ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT Are We Exploiting the Third World? Population, Loaves, and Fishes
Chapter 6 Commentary What has changed What has not changed
Chapter 7 PRESERVING THE WILDERNESS – PUBLIC INTEREST OR SPECIAL INTEREST? On Good Economics and Good Government Conservation and the Public Interest A Positive Program for Preserving the Wilderness
Chapter 7 Commentary What has changed What has not changed
Chapter 8 TOWARD AN ECOLOGICALLY VIABLE ECONOMY
Chapter 8 Commentary Choice and responsibility The bottom line
Appendix SCIENCE, PUBLIC POLICY, AND GLOBAL WARMING: RETHINKING THE MARKET-LIBERAL POSITION Hayek on Liberalism, Conservatism, and Science Climate Change and Property Rights: A Lockean Perspective Applying the Lockean Framework The Significance of Scientific Uncertainty Conclusion
LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 4.1: Hypothetical cost schedule for fume reduction Figure 1.1: The throughput economy Figure 1.2: The spaceship earth Figure 3.1: Map Figure 5.1: Hypothetical population growth curves Figure 6.1: The demographic transition Figure 7.1: Hypothetical distribution of the population with respect to their interest in wilderness preservation Figure 7.2: Best land use over time Figure 8.1: Detailed view of the spaceship earth
Reviews
"A model of clear thinking and fun writing. Enjoy!" Professor Bryan Caplan, George Mason University
Author
Professor Edwin G. Dolan
Edwin G. Dolan is an economist and educator with a Ph.D. from Yale University. Early in his career, he was a member of the economics faculty at Dartmouth College, the University of Chicago, and George Mason University. From 1990 to 2001, he taught in Moscow, Russia, where he and his wife founded the American Institute of Business and Economics (AIBEc), an independent, not-for-profit MBA program. Since 2001, he has taught at several universities in Europe, including Central European University in Budapest, the University of Economics in Prague, and the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, where he has an ongoing annual visiting appointment. During a break in his teaching career, he worked in Washington, D.C. as an economist for the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice and as a regulatory analyst for the Interstate Commerce Commission. There, he contributed to a successful drive for deregulation of trucking and railroads, which reduced highway congestion and saved millions of gallons of fuel annually. When not lecturing abroad, he makes his home in Washington’s San Juan Islands.