Capitalism and the Environment
A Proposal to Save the Planet

Humankind must harness capitalism, not quash it, if it wants to save itself from ecological catastrophe.

Shi-Ling Hsu (Author)

9781108474825, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 9 December 2021

400 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 1.7 cm, 0.5 kg

'Professor Shi-Ling Hsu, a prolific and highly influential environmental law scholar, has produced an important book on how to address environmental crises. The public policy community will need to take seriously his argument that a market-based economy has appropriate tools to confront these serious problems, by taxing pollution, generating environmental knowledge, and thinking deeply about possible consequences before undertaking investments with long-term impacts. Professor's Hsu clear and dispassionate analysis should also help bridge some gaps in our divided polity.' Richard L. Revesz, AnBryce Professor of Law and Dean Emeritus, New York University School of Law

Rising economic inequality has put capitalism on trial globally. At the same time, existential environmental threats worsen while corporations continue to pollute and distort government policy. These twin crises have converged in calls to revamp government and economic systems and to revisit socialism, given up for dead only 30 years ago. In Capitalism and the Environment, Shi-Ling Hsu argues that such an impulse, if enacted, will ultimately harm the environment. Hsu argues that inequality and environmental calamities are political failures – the result of bad decision-making – and not a symptom of capitalism. Like socialism, capitalism is composed of political choices. This book proposes that we make a different set of choices to better harness the transformative power of capitalism, which will allow us to reverse course and save the environment.

I. Introduction
2. How capitalism saves the environment
3. Capital investments create their own political economy
4. Bloated capital: how capitalism went awry
5. The case for environmental taxation
6. What should be taxed?
7. Generating environmental knowledge
8. Looking before leaping
9. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: International environmental law [LBBP], Jurisprudence & philosophy of law [LAB], Political economy [KCP], Development economics & emerging economies [KCM], Economic growth [KCG]