ABSTRACT
Environmentalism is distinctive in its unwillingness to maximize economic advantage for its own adherents or for any other social group. Environmentalism requires accepting limits to unrestrained economic development, and those limits are universally applicable. Environmentalism has its historical roots in the conservation movement that began in North America in the mid-nineteenth century. Because it is not an ideology of self-interest, and because self-interest is deeply ingrained in American society, economy, and polity, environmentalism does not easily attract an intensely committed mass following. It appeals most to those with a reasonable degree of economic security (as distinct from wealth), and only rarely does it appeal to the economically insecure.
