The environmentalist philosophy holds the premise that individuals should be primarily concerned with their environment. According to the environmentalist philosophy, people should minimize their negative impact on the environment and, ideally, they should live in harmony and balance with their natural environment. However, such philosophy comes into clashes with the private market philosophy because the private market philosophy stresses the importance of the individual success and well-being. In contrast, the environmentalist philosophy implies that individuals should sacrifice their personal success and well-being for the sake of the well-being of the natural environment. In fact, the environmentalist philosophy stresses the priority of the natural environment over individual interests and success. Obviously, individuals living in the society dominating by the private market philosophy are not ready to accept the environmentalist philosophy because their individual interests are more important for them than environmental concerns. As a result, contemporary people cannot accept the environmentalist philosophy and slip to the private market philosophy, pursuing personal success, wealth and well-being.
The socially conscious philosophy, the environmentalist philosophy, is apparently ineffective in a short-run because people cannot observe any substantial positive effects after the implementation of fundamental principles of the environmentalist philosophy. In stark contrast, people are likely to suffer from inconveniences and deterioration of their traditional lifestyle and quality of life because they will have to refuse from numerous benefits of the contemporary civilization, if they follow principles of the environmentalist philosophy. However, in a long-run perspective, the environmentalist philosophy is definitely beneficial for the society and each individual because people will preserve their natural environment that will make their life better. At any rate, they will preserve the natural environment and avoid numerous pitfalls that wait for the mankind, if the private market philosophy persists. Even today, people can clearly forecast the deterioration of the quality of life in a long-run perspective because of the exhaustion of natural resources and pollution of the natural environment. Even today, people can observe the climate change which is the direct effect of their private market philosophy.
Obviously, the private market philosophy and the socially conscious philosophy are totally different and they have absolutely different values and promote different interests in individuals. In this regard, it is possible to trace the trend to the public interests coming into clashes with individual interests, when the private market philosophy confronts the environmentalist or any other socially conscious philosophy. The private market philosophy means the priority of individual interests, while the socially conscious philosophy promotes the idea of the priority of social interests.