ABSTRACT
This chapter assumes that readers are already well aware of the ecological crises of modernity the depletion of natural resources, dangerous greenhouse-gas concentrations, biodiversity loss the list is woefully long. It presumes that readers recognize that these "environmental" issues are poorly named as they are, in fact, symptoms of problems that are fundamentally social and economic in nature. The chapter focuses on Polanyi's concept of the double movement in capitalist democracies, the chapter asserts that the dominance of neoliberalism in the United States has interrupted the necessary pairing of social and policy movement. It suggests that an entreaty to democratic values centered on equal opportunity and justice may help citizens and policy makers to focus on the social and economic structures that script for environmental degradation, overconsumption, and inequality. The chapter also suggests that consumption be re-embedded in values rooted as deeply as neoliberalism's connection to freedom.
