ABSTRACT
From an economic point of view, sustainable development is about balances between present and future, and between environmental qualities and economic activities. The standard model identifies the optimal balance between environmental qualities and consumption of produced goods, where these balances are based on the mainstream economic approach to assessing the balance between environmental qualities and the production of goods describes the trade-off with a standard model such as the one shown in Figure 9.1. The intention is to introduce to the most fundamental types components of the balance, but it is often used beyond this end. It also serves directly as a guide for empirical research by students and even sometimes by graduated specialists. In the words of Schumpeter, it is used as a preanalytical vision. It specifies the kinds and forms of relations that we can expect to find and therefore the kind of relations to look for. Using the simple standard model for that purpose may lead to overlooking important economic potentials and to neglect important properties of the problem known in other academic fields, such as science, technology, philosophy and political science.
