Beyond growth : the economics of sustainable development / Herman E. Daly.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-245) and index.

Introduction: The Shape of Current Thought on Sustainable Development -- Ch. 1. Moving to a Steady-State Economy -- Ch. 2. Elements of Environmental Macroeconomics -- Ch. 3. Consumption: Value Added, Physical Transformation, and Welfare -- Ch. 4. Operationalizing Sustainable Development by Investing in Natural Capital -- Ch. 5. Fostering Environmentally Sustainable Development: Four Parting Suggestions for the World Bank -- Ch. 6. Toward a Measure of Sustainable Net National Product -- Ch. 7. On Sustainable Development and National Accounts -- Ch. 8. Carrying Capacity as a Tool of Development Policy: The Ecuadoran Amazon and the Paraguayan Chaco -- Ch. 9. Marx and Malthus in Northeast Brazil: A Note on the World's Largest Class Difference in Fertility and Its Recent Trends -- Ch. 10. Free Trade and Globalization vs. Environment and Community -- Ch. 11. From Adjustment to Sustainable Development: The Obstacle of Free Trade -- Ch. 12. The Economic Thought of Frederick Soddy --

Ch. 13. On Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen's Contributions to Economics: An Obituary Essay -- Ch. 14. A Biblical Economic Principle and the Sustainable Economy -- Ch. 15. Sustainable Development: From Religious Insight to Ethical Principle to Public Policy.

Herman Daly is probably the most prominent advocate of the need for a change in economic thinking in response to environmental crisis. an iconoclast economist who has worked as a renegade insider at the World Bank in recent years, Daly has argued for overturning some basic economic assumptions. He has a wide and growing reputation among environmentalists, both inside and outside the academy.

Daly argues that if sustainable development means anything at this historical moment, it demands that we conceive of the economy as part of the ecosystem and, as a result, give up on the ideal of economic growth. We need a global understanding of developing welfare that does not entail expansion.

These simple ideas turn out to be fundamentally radical concepts, and basic ideas about economic theory, poverty, trade, and population have to be discarded or rethought, as Daly shows in careful, accessible detail.

These are questions with enormous practical consequences. Daly argues that there is a real fight to control the meaning of "sustainable development," and that conventional economists and development thinkers are trying to water down its meaning to further their own ends. Beyond Growth is an argument that will turn the debate around.