The article aims at discussing the genesis of the social belief in the economic instruments of environmental management. The argumentation will bring into focus the questioning of the hypothesis that the consolidation of the environmental issue in the contemporary poli-tico-social agenda is closely linked to the nomination capacity developed by the marginal utility theory, as an historic cultural fact, in the course of the 20th century. The study discusses how the neoclassical marginalism affects the description of impasses and the prescription of themes of the modern environmental agenda, contributing for the debate on the forms of experimentation and nomination that modern societies keep over their self-recognition framework.
Society and Environment; Socio-Environmental Crisis; Social Theory and Environment
