ABSTRACT
If pollution prevention is profitable, as the previous chapter has argued, the obvious question is this: why do we still have environmental problems in an economy dominated by the profit motive? The absence of a profit motive might be one explanation for some of the excessive environmental degradation witnessed in the former Communist bloc of Eastern Europe in the years between 1940 and 1989. But surely, in a market economy, the profit motive should ensure that profitable pollution prevention is implemented? So, why is this not the case? Is it the result of market failure? Or are there some other kinds of obstacles to cost-effective environmental protection? Have we already reached the limit of what it is profitable to do? And if so, where must we now turn if we want to develop a sustainable industrial economy?
