ABSTRACT
Disciplinary perspectives are based on certain recognizable pre-analytic (axiomatic) assumptions. This chapter explores assumptions that are fundamental to neoclassical economics, today’s dominant school of economic thought, and their implications for how the human economy is dependent on the natural environment. Three key issues are emphasized: (1) the efficacy of the market system to generate reliable indicators of resource scarcity, (2) the limits of resource substitutability (including the environment), and (3) the extent to which the human economy is viewed as dependent on the natural environment (i.e., the concern for ‘general’ resource scarcity). The chapter shows why the neoclassical worldview of the natural environment and its roles in the economic system is anthropocentric. Understanding the neoclassical worldview allows us to appreciate how the ideological foundation of neoclassical economics informs the way humans relate to and manage the natural environment.
