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their roots to diverse sources of inspiration, ranging
from Rousseau’s admiration for the “noble savage” to
the Calvinist tradition of viewing nature as God’s revelation
of power to the American transcendental movement
of Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson. 2
Although the environmental movement is comprised
of several different factions with varying emphases for
reform, one unifying feature of the movement is that its
advocates tend to place a higher value on environmental
concerns than on economic progress. It is not surprising,
then, that many environmental advocates are indifferent
to, or even purposefully negligent of, the potential
negative effects of their proposed reforms on economic
prosperity. The philosophy of environmentalism and
the philosophy of economic growth are fundamentally
opposed to each other, and both philosophies’ vocal supporters
have been jockeying with each other for political
dominance for the past century. 3 One reason that environmentalists
and free market advocates are so opposed
to each other is that environmentalists tend to advocate
increased government intervention into economic matters,
and many of the environmental policies the government
has enacted have led to cronyism.
Environmentalists support many different kinds of government
interventions to correct what they view as the
inevitable excesses of market capitalism that contribute to
environmental degradation. In particular, recent concerns
about global climate change have increased the demands
for environmental interventions in economic affairs.
Examples of common environmental policies include
environmental regulation, government subsidies to
experimental energy alternatives, targeted tax incentives,
66 LIBERALISM AND CRONYISM