The Economy in Mind

Abstract

This article applies thematic analysis to the discourse of the environmental countermovement, focusing primarily on the mutually referencing contributions of Julian Simon, Friedrich von Hayek, and Ronald Reagan. Utilizing a close reading of these texts, it aims to describe how the subscribers to this discourse picture the human relationship with the natural world, and how this in turn enables them to believe that the market can overcome environmental limits indefinitely. This analysis brings to the fore a belief apparently underlying their faith in unending growth: that humankind is able to progressively convert nature into economic reality, whose essence is the limitless quality of the human mind.