Regardless of the stance adopted, whether utopian, utilitarian, libertarian, Malthusian or whatever, for almost as long as economics has existed, economists have invoked the ‘invisible hand of the market’ as a mechanism which supposedly ensures that it becomes uneconomic to exploit a potentially renewable resource before it is badly damaged. The pareto optimum theorem of welfare economics states that through market exchange, with each person pursuing their private interests, there are effective controls over resources exploitation and use of the environment. It also states that, except in in efficient market situations, it is not possible to make anyone better off without making at least one other person worse off. Unfortunately, the market has not been an effective control: there are plenty of examples of ruined fisheries and lost forests to prove it.