Home / Summaries / Environmental Policy / environmental-markets-management

Markets - Theme: Neoliberalism - Reading: Castree (2010): Neoliberalism and the Biophysical Environment

Q: The promise of neoliberalism and the environment - GEDDS

G rowth: through privatizing and marketizing biophysical resources, goods, and services Economic E fficiency: the best environmental outcome per unit cost, where outcomes are described in various management standards and codes D evelopment for marginal low-income communities: as new revenue streams kick-in underpinned by secure property rights in land and other resources D emocracy: by de-statising responsibility for, and the benefits of, environmental management Environmental S ustainability: by making conservation, preservation, restoration, and renewable use profitable activities

6 important questions on Markets - Theme: Neoliberalism - Reading: Castree (2010): Neoliberalism and the Biophysical Environment

Explain the worldview of neoliberalism (philosophy).

Individual liberty and freedom as sacrosanct
The role of the government: the state's role was to maximize the independence of both real and institutional-juridical individuals - anything less would be anti-liberal, a travesty of 'true freedom'
The role of the markets: money mediated markets as the best mechanisms for coordinating among the diverse needs and wants of ostensibly free people. This is because markets were seen as highly 'intelligent', as wel as 'efficient'

Explain the policy discourse of neoliberalization (program).

The role of the government is quite strong, enabling:

Privatization
Marketization
State roll-back and deregulation
Market-friendly regulation
Marketization of state sectors
Civil society fill gap where state pulls back
Creating free, self-sufficient, and self-governing individuals and communities

Three P's (Mudge, 2008)

Philosophy: intellectual fields
Program: political field
Practice: bureaucratic field

The promise of neoliberalism and the environment - GEDDS

Growth: through privatizing and marketizing biophysical resources, goods, and services
Economic Efficiency: the best environmental outcome per unit cost, where outcomes are described in various management standards and codes
Development for marginal low-income communities: as new revenue streams kick-in underpinned by secure property rights in land and other resources
Democracy: by de-statising responsibility for, and the benefits of, environmental management
Environmental Sustainability: by making conservation, preservation, restoration, and renewable use profitable activities

Arguments in favor of neoliberal environmental policies:

Open access resources can be protected - tragedy of the commons is avoided
Currently unowned or unpriced portions of the biophysical world can yield a profit for existing or aspiring entrepreneurs
The private sector can manage natural resources and environmental services
The introduction of competition and pricing into the management of the biophysical world can boost both management standards and environmental outcomes

Key points and lessons to be learned from neoliberalism.

Markets in environmental goods, services, and assets typically require considerable state intervention.
Markets in environmental goods, services, and assets must carefully adapt to biophysical obstacles in order to avoid being inhibited by them.
Markets in environmental goods, services, and assets must carefully adapt to the prevailing socio-cultural and political-economic context, unless they can reconfigure it.
Neoliberal environmental policy is often and in large measured constitutively 'impure'.
Neoliberal environmental policy frequently tends to disadvantage the poor and the powerless
Neoliberal environmental policy produces environmental improvements as much as problems, and problems as much as improvements.