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Neoliberal Bio-Economies? pp 17–43Cite as

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Neoliberal Bio-Economies?

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Abstract

Currently, solutions to environmental problems, like climate change, are primarily framed in terms of market-based instruments or approaches, relying on private interests and incentives to drive environmental change. Such market-based solutions are increasingly criticized as examples of ‘neoliberalism’—the installation of markets as the only or primary institution in society. Drawing on a range of scholarly literature, this chapter introduces the concept of neoliberalism and outlines how it is used to analyse the insertion of markets in environmental processes and systems. I critically engage with this ‘neoliberal natures’ literature in order to problematize the notion that markets are some sort of aberration of nature. Rather, I stress the need to frame these issues within an approach that incorporates political-economic and material processes in order to understand phenomenon like the bio-economy.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    http://rsb.org/about/who-we-are/

  2. 2.

    There is an interesting similarity here with neoclassical economics which treats markets as analytically natural and, therefore, any interference in their operation as a distortion.

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  1. York University, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Kean Birch

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Birch, K. (2019). Neoliberal Bio-Economies?. In: Neoliberal Bio-Economies?. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91424-4_2

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