Economic sustainability
in development theory ‘Economic sustainability’ implies a system of productionthat satisfies present consumption levels without compromising future needs. The ‘sustainability’that ‘economic sustainability’ seeks is the ‘sustainability’ of the economic system itself.The notion of ‘economic sustainability’ was originated
by Hicks. In his classic work Value and Capital Ž . 1939; second edition 1946 , Hicks defined ‘income’ as ‘the amount one can consume during a period and still be as well off at the end of the period’.Traditionally, economists, assuming that the supply of natural resources was unlimited, placed undue emphasis on the capacity of the market to allocate resources efficiently. They also believed that economic growth would bring the technological capacity to replenish natural resources destroyed in the production process. Today, however,a realization has emerged that natural resources are not infinite. The growing scale of the economic system has strained the natural resource base.This has caused many commentators, such as Goodland, to question the feasibility of uncontrolled growth and exponential consumption. Goodland 1995 writes that to speak accurately Ž .in terms of ‘economic sustainability’, it is necessary to ‘extrapolate the definition of Hicksian income from its sole focus on human-made cap- Ž .ital and its surrogate money Ž .. . . to embrace the other three forms of capital natural,social and Žhuman ’.