Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development by Herman E. Daly

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Synopsis

Named one of a hundred "visionaries who could change your life" by the Utne Reader, Herman Daly has probably been the most prominent advocate of the need for a change in economic thinking in response to environmental crisis. An iconoclast economis t who has worked as a renegade insider at the World Bank in recent years, Daly has argued for overturning some basic economic assumptions. He has won a wide and growing reputation among a wide array of environmentalists, inside and outside the academy.

In a book that will generate controversy, Daly turns his attention to the major environmental debate surrounding "sustainable development." Daly argues that the idea of sustainable development—which has become a catchword of environmentalism and international finance—is being used in ways that are vacuous, certainly wrong, and probably dangerous. The necessary solutions turn out to be muc h more radical than people suppose.

This is a crucial updating of a major economist's work, and mandatory reading for people engaged in the debates about the environment.

"Daly is turning economics inside out by putting the earth and its diminishing natural resources at the center of the field . . . a kind of reverse Copernican revolution in economics."

—Utne Reader

Booknews

If you're beginning to feel that the phrase "sustainable development" might be going down the semantic doublespeak path where being fired from your job is now dubbed "occupationally challenged," then Daly is the economist for you. The innovative scholar and World Bank rabble rouser argues that the catchword of environmentalists and international financiers is being used by both to further their own ends. Sustainable development, as conceived by Daly, becomes a radical proposition of economy as part of the ecosystem, requiring that we give up an ideal of economic growth and reevaluate basic ideas about economic theory, poverty, trade, and population. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Biography

Herman Daly is professor at the University of Maryland School of Public Affairs. He worked for several years at the World Bank. He is co-author of the influential For the Common Good, among other books.