Since green and ethical investment has become a big part of the business news, I though I'd take the opportunity to look at some key drivers influencing the green economy. For those ex-economists in our audience, we offer the following discussion on economic theory. Enjoy. A critical issue facing the environmental movement is the way Western economies structure they economic policies. The world of high-brow economic theory has waged a pitched battle for about two hundred years over the benefits of Industrial Capitalism versus Finance Capitalism. Now, if you've read Janes Jacob's "The Nature of Economies," you know that the way we structure our financial markets can have a cause and effect relationship on the environment. Some feel that when FInance Capitalism won out in the 1970s the world took a turn towards complete environmental collapse.

I am not an economist and cannot claim any great insight into the clash between these systems. I have, however found a compelling essay that explains it well. Jonathan Larson is the author and this is posted on his website. (I am assuming creative commons copyright on this essay. Please go to Mr. Larson's site for more essays on his theories of "Elegant Technology ... economic prosperity through environmental renewal.")

Economics: A Matter of Life or Death by Jonathan Larson

(first posted at European Tribune, Jan 18, 2007)

When I took economics at the University of Minnesota in the early 1970s, one of my professors was Walter Heller. Heller was President Kennedy’s Council of Economic Advisors chairman and would claim, quite seriously, that he taught Kennedy Keynesianism.

In those days, the Keynesians were utterly dominant in academe and government. There were so many of them, they had subdivided into various schools. It could be argued that Heller represented the right wing of the Keynesian school. (...read more...)