Includes bibliographical references (pages 245-286) and index.

Introduction: The Weather on Factory Planet
The Other Road to Serfdom
Friedrich Hayek, Socialist, and His Fallacy of the Excluded Middle
What “Sustainability” Is
Oil, Economic Theory, and the Moral Culpability of a Discipline
The Economics Textbook That Just Might Save Civilization
Getting Over GDP
Industrial Civilization as a Pyramid Scheme
The Financial Crisis Is the Environmental Crisis
The Battle over the Environmental Kuznets Curve
Revisiting “the Bet That Ruined the World”
Freakonomist Cheap Shots Jane Fonda
Got Terrorism? Blame Economists
Ending the Culture War
On the Oklahoma Abortion Laws, SUVs, and Climate Justice
What Green Might Bring
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Eric Zencey argues that traditional economic and political systems assume an infinite planet, but in reality, natural resources are limited. He critiques F. A. Hayek’s warning that central planning leads to tyranny, pointing out that free markets that ignore ecological boundaries can themselves create forms of economic and social serfdom.
Zencey proposes an ecological approach to economics, which recognizes planetary limits and organizes economic activity sustainably. He applies this vision to challenges such as financial instability, population growth, fossil fuel dependence, inequality, and the overemphasis on GDP growth as a measure of progress.
The book offers a progressive and optimistic alternative: a sustainable democracy where policies and economic systems serve the long-term common good while respecting environmental limits.