Eco-nomics: What Everyone Should Know About Economics and the Environment

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Stroup, Richard L. Eco-nomics: What Everyone Should Know About Economics and the Environment. Washington, DC: CATO Institute, 2003. An adjunct scholar with the Cato Institute—a think tank that espouses limited government—Richard Stroup argues that people are innately selfish. The pursuit of self-interest through the market, on the basis of secure property rights and competition, apparently yields the optimum outcome as regards both consumer satisfaction and the environment. In that context the proper role of the state is merely to secure property rights and ensure free competition in the market. Otherwise, the author perceives as a major but largely neglected role of government to be the collection and preservation of data on pollution sources and levels. Apart from the courts, from the author’s perspective the protection of the environment can be safely left to the operation of capital markets and “shareholder power.” (Text adapted from an H-Net review by John Perkins.)