In addition, contemporary economics is fundamentally incapable of dealing with relationships among people, or between people and their environment. This fact is freely admitted even in basic economics text books. In economics, a market is nothing more than a collection of independent individual consumers. Human institutions such as families, communities, nations and cultures have no economic relevance other than as collections of individuals. Believing, trusting, sharing, caring, and serving are but empty words to the economist.
Economic values relate only to our narrow, short run self interest.
In economics theory, the environment is a passive entity, and thus, has no specific active relationship with people. The environment is always external, or outside, the economic system. The environment may be ignored, treated as an external constraint, or as something that is impacted by economic activity within. But, the environment is always treated as something separate and apart from people and the economy. In economics, we are separated from something that we obviously are a part of.