{"id":1200,"date":"2013-09-30T13:21:14","date_gmt":"2013-09-30T18:21:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ecooptimism.com\/?p=1200"},"modified":"2013-09-30T13:21:14","modified_gmt":"2013-09-30T18:21:14","slug":"laissez-faire-the-environmental-version","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ecooptimism.com\/?p=1200","title":{"rendered":"Laissez-faire: the environmental version"},"content":{"rendered":"

I tend to write a lot about messaging and sound bites [here<\/a> and here<\/a>, for two], sometimes with the simple sounding proposal that the environmental movement needs better and catchier phrases. (For instance, something less dull and abstract than \u201cthe environmental movement.\u201d) So a sentence in a current post<\/a> in one of my most favorite and least catchily-named blogs, The Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy, caught my eye: \u201cLaissez-faire<\/em> takes on a new meaning \u2014 it is the ecosystem, not the economy that must be \u201cleft alone\u201d to manage itself and evolve by its own rules.\u201d<\/p>\n

What a neat twist on the religious-like belief in conventional laissez-faire<\/i>, the doctrine that the so-called free market, if \u201cleft alone\u201d \u2013 which is a near literal translation of the term — will provide the best outcomes.<\/p>\n

\"Definition:<\/a>

Definition: merriam-webster.com<\/a>
Image: managementdegrees.net<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n

A reasonable response to that orthodoxy is: the best outcomes for whom? Herman Daly, the renowned economist and author of that post, similarly turns the laissez-faire<\/i> idea on its head by suggesting that it\u2019s the environment, not the market, which should be left alone.<\/p>\n

A closer translation of laissez-faire<\/i> is \u201clet do.\u201d And that interpretation, I think, is even more suitable as an approach to the environment because, from our human point of view, it is what the environment does<\/i> that is critical to our existence. Interfering in the environment\u2019s ability, honed over millennia, to do things like purify water and air, and maintain the exquisitely balanced temperature of the troposphere, is in the interest of neither us humans nor that free market that supposedly makes our lives better.<\/p>\n

So how can we co-opt the phrase or come up with our own (preferably in the authoritative tones of a foreign language)? Any of you French-speakers out there have suggestions? At the risk of trivializing another powerful slogan, and since I\u2019m bound by my fluency only in English, my dangerously off-the-cuff first thought is \u201clet my environment do.\u201d<\/p>\n

OK, I withdraw that suggestion. Contain your sighs of relief. But I stand by the idea, or rather Herman Daly\u2019s idea.<\/p>\n

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