AUTHOR COPY

摘要: The super-rich are amongst the most powerful actors now shaping environmental futures. Yet there has been little systematic treatment of questions of sustainability in light of their resurgence in recent decades. This chapter offers a preliminary start on this undertaking, drawing together study of the super-rich with study of the relationship between environment and development. Focussing on high-consumption societies, and starting with questions of conspicuous consumption, I assess claims that lavish super-rich lives enflame the desires of other consumers. While important, I argue these claims are easily exaggerated, that the environmental dynamics of consumption are complex, and that questions about how private fortunes are spent are inseparable from questions about how they are amassed. I consequently explore the role of super-rich lives in aligning agendas for sustainable development with neoliberal political economy. I conclude that the super-rich are both cause and consequence in on-going transformation of a collective environmental predicament into matters of private concern that is endangering the future.