Review by Choice Review
The objective of this book is to discuss the essentials of economic sustainability from ethical, individual, and societal standpoints. Beginning with the "essential questions," Ikerd (emer., University of Missouri), author of Crisis and Opportunity: Sustainability in American Agriculture (CH, Nov'08, 46-1460), makes a number of worthwhile points about economic sustainability. First, he notes that even though sustainability is an anthropocentric concept, the ecological notions of holism, diversity, and interdependence play a role in helping people to comprehend and operationalize this notion. Second, readers are told that the social attributes of trust, kindness, and courage have a significant bearing on the development of sustainable relationships with nature. Third, the reader learns that a sustainable economy must respect the principles of scarcity, efficiency, and sovereignty. Finally, the book observes that a sustainable economy must provide permanent sustenance for the individual, social, and ethical welfare of all, including future generations. While these points are well made, in the final analysis, the book's usefulness as a primer is diminished by several errors of commission and omission. Specifically, there are gaps in the author's understanding of modern neoclassical economics, and some of his philosophical arguments are less lucid than this reviewer would like them to be. Summing Up: Optional. General readers; undergraduate students. A. A. Batabyal Rochester Institute of Technology
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
