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The Commodification of Nature and Its Consequences

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Handbook for a Sustainable Economy

Abstract

The defence of the free market is based on the premise that it is the most efficient economic instrument and, therefore, the one that delivers the most economic growth. In addition, it is said that it carries out a fair distribution of the wealth produced, as it does so depending on each person’s contribution, and that nature is an unlimited resource that the market uses with efficiency. But geology shows us the process of resource depletion. And the requirement that the economic agents are free and equal is systematically unmet, because the system is characterised by the private appropriation of the means of production and the tendency to concentrate them in a few hands.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Economics & Business Studies, University of the Basque Country, Bilbao, Spain

    Roberto Bermejo

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  1. Roberto Bermejo
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Bermejo, R. (2014). The Commodification of Nature and Its Consequences. In: Handbook for a Sustainable Economy. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-8981-3_2

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