Disregard of environmental costs is structural to profit-seeking, not individual bad character
Evidence
To make more money, entrepreneurs habitually sought to maximize the difference between revenues and outlays for labor, materials, and borrowed capital. Unless restrained by legal action, by organized opposition, or by government regulation, profit-driven enterprises had a clear financial incentive to reduce the costs of production no matter what the social burden in diminished health, damage to property, depletion of natural resources, or despoliation of places of beauty and tranquillity. Indeed, Kapp concluded, “capitalism must be regarded as an economy of unpaid costs, ‘unpaid’ in so far as a substantial portion of the actual costs of production remain unaccounted for in entrepreneurial outlays; instead, they are shifted to, and ultimately borne by, third persons or by the community as a whole.” — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 1052
Categorization
- XREF: ‘Economy of unpaid costs’ directly parallels the externality concept the LGST course will frame in legal terms; strong synthesis line for the polyad’s law/economics thread. — connects to: Ecosystem structure guarantees that environmental costs and benefits never fall on the same people — Richard J. Lazarus, The Making of Environmental Law, 132; Consumption resists change because it is profitable and shielded from environmental costs — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement: How People Do Harm…, 2986; Short-term profit incentives override distant and slowly accumulating environmental harms (+4 more)
- recurring: this claim recurs 2 times within its source
Broader Connections
- Consumption resists change because it is profitable and shielded from environmental costs
#corroborates(0.90) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2986 - Short-term profit incentives override distant and slowly accumulating environmental harms
#corroborates(0.85) - Market-driven consumer economics omits environmental costs from its calculations
#corroborates(0.85) — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2656 - Free markets shift environmental costs onto communities whoever produces
#corroborates(0.80) — Adam Rome, The Bulldozer in the Countryside, 1051 - Capitalist profit control of resources harmed environmental quality versus peasant subsistence control.
#exemplifies(0.75) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 254 - Utopian use of nature for community need contrasted with capitalist profit-driven exploitation
#exemplifies(0.75) — Carolyn Merchant, The Death of Nature, 403