Political Economics-II

Term paper
ON
Capitalism a Broken Viaduct
to Environmentalism

Submitted by : Arismita Deka (2906)

Praveen Gaurav(2949)
Course : B.A.(Hons.) Economics , 6th semester

Submitted to : Dr. Anjali Prasad

INTRODUCTION
The current economic system that is dominating nearly all corners of the world is capitalism.
Capitalism is a system based on the private ownership of capital and production inputs, and
on the production of goods and services for profit. Capitalism is most destructive toward the
environment when it is working well and economic growth rates are high. It is least
environmentally destructive when the system is in economic crisis and growth is faltering.
According to the ethics written down by the industries , every private individual will protect
the natural environment and will use the natural resources sustainably . But the story is
somehow different from what is promised in the ethics . The capitalists act in ways that
largely ignore the natural limits to their activities as if there were an unlimited supply of
natural resources for exploitation. Even if the reality of environmental limitation enters their
consciousness, it merely speeds up the exploitation of a given resource, which is extracted as
rapidly as possible, with capital then moving on to new areas of resource exploitation. With
each individual capitalist pursuing the self-interested goal of making a profit and
accumulating capital, decisions are made that collectively harm society. The aim of this paper
is to explore how significant is capitalism towards impeding environmental sustainability
goals. We will also examine some of the studies across the world to show how capitalism
lead to the exploitation of resources and people for profit. Moreover we will also show here
by some studies that how some people are also helping the capitalists in damaging the
environment just for their own profits and with all these we will show how “capitalism is a
broken viaduct to the environmentalism”.

LITERATURE REVIEW
As Nietzsche writes in the third book of Genealogy, “Our entire attitude to
nature today, our violation of nature, with the help of machines and the
unimaginable inventiveness of our technicians and engineers, is hubris”.
With the alarming rate of environmental degradation that has occurred within the last two
hundred years, especially if measured relative to the history of all human activity thus far,
one is inclined to think that perhaps he is onto something. The capitalist and private mode of
production inherently gives rise to certain structural problems which cannot be dealt with
some market means. Theirs is a single-minded goal of maximizing short-term profits— after
which they move on, leaving environmental devastation behind. There is no natural limit to
human greed, which is to a large extent stimulated by social conventions and mores.

Let’s take some of the examples to show how the capitalism has proved to be broken viaduct
to environmentalism. For instance, we have experienced several oil spills in different parts of
the world. On May of 2016, over 2,100 barrels of oil spilled into the U.S Gulf of Mexico
(Wade, Cohen and Varghese, 2016). Even though the cause of oil leak is still not
established, the oil leaked from an undersea pipeline system that is operated by Shell
Company leading to death of many aquatic animals. These kind of accidents cause a lot of
imbalance in the environment and don’t even cost a peny to the capitalist. Wendell Berry
describes the environmental and human disaster of the United States coal industry : For more
than 100 years the coal-producing counties of eastern Kentucky have been dependent on the
coal industry and has come near to ruining them. The legacy of the coal economy in the
Kentucky mountains will be immense and lasting damage to the land and to the people. Much
of the damage to the land and the streams, and to water quality downstream, will be
irreparable within historical time. . . . The coal economy . . . has been an imposed economy,
coming in from the outside and also coming down from the high perches of wealth and
power. In addition, the UNDP (2006) report indicated that a total of 6,617 spills between
1976 and 2001, which is as a result of over 3 million barrels of oil, where 69 percent of these
spills happened off-shore, a quarter occurred in swamps and approximately 6 percent on land.
As a result, farmland and forest are now covered in sheen of greasy oil (Vidal, 2010).
Moreover, the 40,000-people belonging to the Ogale Community in River State in Nigeria
who are mainly farmers and fishermen are largely affected (Mustoe, 2016). Since the
1989 oil spill, they don’t have clean drinking water, farm land as well as the river they once
claimed.

A realist nation claims that the world is competitive, dangerous and a harsh place and
therefore, the only way to be successful are to gain as much power as possible (Carr,
2001). This indicates that a powerful nation will often be in a capacity to outdo weaker
competitors. Therefore, in regard to environmental ethics, such countries fail to protect
environment as their exploit any available resource in order to remain in power both military
and economically. For example, China has become the number one air polluter as a result of
industrialisation. The country suffers more air pollution than any other country across the
globe. Approximately two third of China’s 360 million urban people suffer from unhealthy
air pollution. China also leads with greenhouse gases emission that leads to climate change
(Vandenbergh, 2007). As a result of global warming that is largely contributed by
capitalism, a report few months ago noted that the North Pole ice cap is melting in a much
faster manner than previously believed. In addition, the greenhouse gas impact has increase
by 20% since 1990 (In defence of Marxism, 2016). Moreover, NASA scientists
reported that glaciers are melting at a rate of 6 feet per year in 2000, but today it is melting at
a rate of 75 feet per year (In defence of Marxism, 2016). In addition, it is evident that
deserts have been expanding across the plant, from 624 sq miles per annum in the 70s to 1374
sq miles in the 1990s. Indeed, many of these changes have been brought by the acts of human
being of degrading natural resource in pursuit of profit.

Moreover not only environment is affected by the actions of capitalism but the people of poor
countries also have to suffer from these actions of the industries ,as there are many cases
where the waste materials from the developed countries are dumped in these poor countries
and the water and air quality of these poor countries are getting worse day by day. The reason
for dumping up of the waste materials is that it costs very less for them and they aren’t mostly
questioned for their such actions , because people there allow the industries to dump for few
amount of money. Some of the examples are , waste, including highly toxic industrial waste,
is frequently exported to poor countries for disposal or supposed recycling. Beginning in the
1970s, African countries—such as Nigeria, Ghana, and Ivory Coast—have been prime
recipients of the industrial and sewage wastes of developed countries. Larry Summers, a
former top economic advisor to President Obama and former president of
Harvard University, claimed, in a 1991 memo written when he was chief economist of
the World Bank, that "underpopulated countries in Africa are vastly underpolluted, their air
quality is probably vastly inefficiently low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City Only the
lamentable facts that so much pollution is generated by non-tradable industries (transport,
electrical generation) and that the unit transport costs of solid waste are so high prevent
world-welfare-enhancing trade in air pollution and waste." Moreover Mossville,
Louisiana, is a textbook example of the toll that poor air quality and polluted water can take
on a town situated next to industries that annually emit thousands of pounds of known
carcinogens such as benzene and vinyl chloride. A chemist working with Mossville's
residents explains: "The people of Mossville are like an experiment. They know that they
have high levels of dioxin in their blood, and they're allowed to continue to live there and be
exposed." As Lisa Jackson, the head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, said:
"Historically, the low-income and minority communities that carry the greatest environmental
burdens haven't had a voice in our policy development or rulemaking."

In response to this, EPA has released a document, "Interim Guidance on Considering

Environmental Justice during the Development of an Action."56 It remains to be seen how
effective this effort will be in actually lessening the environmental hazards heaped on poor
communities in the United States. And even if it is relatively effective, it's important to
remember that it can always be overturned by a new administration.

WHAT TO DO?
Finally , we have to take some serious steps to protect the environment such as : the
architecture of market under a capitalist setting does not provide any mechanisms to counter
the environmental hazards that the large-scale production and consumption processes inflict
on the environment. Hence, there have to be non-market interventions to contain or reduce
environmental damages. This non-market intervention can be either state or social forces. Of
course, one could argue that it is state’s responsibility to regulate this inimical behaviour of
the firms against the environment by heavily taxing those firms that violate the environmental
regulations that the state sets in place.But the problem is that states in democratic and non-
democratic countries alike often overlook this, or deliberately neglect it due to the pressure
that comes from the influential business groups. In most countries, the state is subservient to
the bindings of the influential business groups. The state needs to provide incentives for
business groups to ensure that they remain as dynamic as possible to ensure economic growth
and ample employment opportunities.

There remains another form of non-market intervention, which is social forces. In democratic
states people enjoy a certain level of freedom for social activism. Thus, in democratic states,
environmental activists can form disruptive movements that seriously demand far more
stringent regulations to save the environment. In some cases, they may be able to compel the
state to impose restrictions on the firms and inspect them regularly. This seems to be a viable
option, but the responsibility to organize around the cause will be endured by the activists to
organize massive public demonstrations to pressure the state and the firms.
International cooperation is also key for effective abatement. But achieving meaningful
international cooperation has proven to be a hard task. Even though nations have a common
interest in preventing climate change, many are reluctant to reduce carbon emissions
voluntarily. The recent Paris Agreement on Climate Change, in which 195 countries adopted
the first-ever universal, legally binding global climate deal, is indeed a very positive move
towards international cooperation to protect the planet.

In short, the market mechanisms under capitalism do not provide incentives for preserving
the environment. Firms are constantly threatened by market competition to cut costs and
optimize profit. The environment thus falls pray to the compulsive market behaviour of the
capitalist mode of production. Without the intervention of non-market entities such as the
state, international organizations and social forces, capitalism as an economic system simply
will not safeguard our planet.

CONCLUSION
In conclusion, it is true that capitalism has impeded sustainability. From a global perspective,
organisations are competing with each other to manufacture and distribute goods to every
corner of the world. Countries are using fossil fuels such as petrol, gas and natural gas to
cause carbon dioxide that contribute largely to global warming. This paper has established
that companies have been involved with destruction of environment through oil spill , heavy
coal mining . It is with no doubt that oil spills that has happened has occurred in pursuit of
profit. Moreover this paper has established that capitalism has impeded sustainability through
the failure of different states to limit their emission of greenhouse gases. China has one of the
highest greenhouse gas emissions that pollute the environment. So a decisive action need to
be taken in order to save planet Earth from forces posed by global warming, otherwise it will
be irreversible. Without the intervention of non-market entities such as the state, international
organizations and social forces, capitalism as an economic system simply will not safeguard
our planet. Moreover strict actions by states like heavily taxing those firms that violate the
environmental regulations could be taken to keep our planet Earth safe and useful for future
generations.
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