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Accepted Paper:
From resource limits to unlimited growth - Finnish free-market thinking and the challenge of environmentalism between 1970 and 1985
Tero Toivanen
(University of Helsinki)
The paper examines the responses of the Finnish free-market think tank Elinkeinoelämän valtuuskunta (EVA) to emerging environmental concerns from its establishment in 1974 until the mid-1980s.
Paper long abstract:
My paper examines the responses of the Finnish free-market think tank Elinkeinoelämän valtuuskunta (EVA) to emerging environmental concerns from its establishment in 1974 until the mid-1980s. With the support of businesses, industry and employers' organisations, the think tank was instrumental in establishing free-market and neoliberal thinking in Finnish public debate and policy since the 1970s. Previous research has shown that after successfully countering the threat of organised labour and radicalised left-wing movements, and promoting a national labour market consensus centred on industrial competitiveness and modest wage policies, Finnish business and industrial associations found a new challenge in demands for environmental regulation, which they portrayed as collectivist. My paper shows that the archives offer a more nuanced picture of EVA's concerns about ecological and resource limits, which the think tank understood in the context of the energy crises of the 1970s as a serious obstacle to future economic growth and welfare state policies. I will examine these concerns, how they fit into the broader policies promoted by EVA and Finnish businesses, and why they faded in the 1980s in favour of unfettered growth policies and market-based welfare state reforms.