ABSTRACT
The relation between a régulation approach and an environmental approach involves a strange paradox. Several economists known for their contribution to regulationist thought are equally well known for their involvement in ecological movements, parties, clubs and foundations. Conversely, when ecologists want to found their actions in economic analysis, they usually rely on the regulationist analysis of the ‘productivist’ Fordist model. Yet until the late 1980s regulationists had hardly contributed at all to an ‘economy of the environment’. The critique of Fordism included only a few denunciations of its attacks on nature, as if the ‘ecologist citizen’ was speaking out among economists inspired by this type of analysis (Clerc et al., 1983; Lipietz, 1985; Beaud, 1989).
