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Link- Fishing Quotas
Fishing quota systems rely on neoliberal market-based solutions – they place property rights at the
center of the issue
Becky Mansfield in 2008, Professor in Department of Geography, Assessing market-based environmental policy using
a case study of North Pacific fisheries, Global Environmental Change 16:1
Fisheries play an important role in this drive toward market-based environmental policy. Many commentators use the
example of fisheries to promote their more general argument about the importance of market mechanisms for the
environment (e.g. Adler, 2000; Anderson and Leal, 2001; De Alessi, 2000; Kula, 1998). From within a neoliberal framework, fisheries seem to
present a clear argument not only for market mechanisms in general, but also specifically for property rights (Hannesson,
2004). Even today, fisheries are mainly open access, and around the world they face crises of overfishing and overcapitalization. Regulators have tried to address
these problems using a wide-variety of mechanisms, from gear limits and limited entry to seasons and protected areas, but problems continue to exist. Citing this
confluence of features—open access, intractable problems, and ineffective regulation—proponents of market
approaches argue that assigning
property rights is the only way to address problems associated with fisheries. As a general argument, proponents make the
case that open access offers perverse incentives that encourage overcapitalization, rent dissipation, and, eventually, overfishing; i.e.
these incentives make it economically rational for the individual to overcapitalize and overuse resources, even though
the larger outcome is negative. Thus, the central argument is that assigning property rights is an essential move away from
traditional, command and control approaches.
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Link- Aquaculture
Aquaculture is part of the process of capitalist fishing- it only displaces environmental impacts
down the road, and cannot solve food security because it is still profit driven. The result is
increased environmental degradation and continued biodiversity loss.
Brett Clark and Rebecca Clausen in 2008, PhD, Sociology, University of Oregon, The Oceanic Crisis: Capitalism and
the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem, Monthly Review, http://monthlyreview.org/2008/07/01/the-oceanic-crisiscapitalism-and-the-degradation-of-marine-ecosystem
The massive decline in fish stocks has led capitalist development to turn to a new way of increasing profits—intensified
production of fishes. Capitalist aquaculture represents not only a quantitative change in the intensification and concentration of production; it also
places organisms’ life cycles under the complete control of private for-profit ownership.31 This new industry, it is claimed, is
“the fastest-growing form of agriculture in the world.” It boasts of having ownership from “egg to plate” and substantially alters the ecological
and human dimensions of a fishery.32 Aquaculture (sometimes also referred to as aquabusiness) involves subjecting nature to the logic of capital. Capital
attempts to overcome natural and social barriers through its constant innovations. In this, enterprises attempt to
commodify, invest in, and develop new elements of nature that previously existed outside the political-economic competitive sphere: As Edward Carr
wrote in the Economist, the sea “is a resource that must be preserved and harvested….To enhance its uses, the water must become ever more like the land, with
owners, laws and limits. Fishermen must behave more like ranchers than hunters.”33 As worldwide commercial fish stocks decline due to overharvest and other
anthropogenic causes, aquaculture is witnessing a rapid expansion in the global economy. Aquaculture’s contribution to global supplies of
fish increased from 3.9 percent of total worldwide production by weight in 1970 to 27.3 percent in 2000. In 2004, aquaculture and capture fisheries produced 106
million tons of fish and “aquaculture accounted for 43 percent.”34 According to Food and Agriculture Organization statistics, aquaculture is growing more rapidly
than all other animal food producing sectors. Hailed as the “Blue Revolution,” aquaculture is frequently compared to agriculture’s Green Revolution as a way to
achieve food security and economic growth among the poor and in the third world. The cultivation of farmed salmon as a high-value, carnivorous species destined for
market in core nations has emerged as one of the more lucrative (and controversial) endeavors in aquaculture production.35 Much like the Green Revolution, the
Blue Revolution may produce temporary increases in yields, but it does not usher in a solution to food security (or
environmental problems). Food security is tied to issues of distribution. Given that the Blue Revolution is driven by the
pursuit of profit, the desire for monetary gain trumps the distribution of food to those in need.36 Industrial aquaculture
intensifies fish production by transforming the natural life histories of wild fish stocks into a combined animal feedlot. Like monoculture agriculture,
aquaculture furthers the capitalistic division of nature, only its realm of operation is the marine world. In order to maximize return on investment,
aquaculture must raise thousands of fish in a confined net-pen. Fish are separated from the natural environment and the various relations of
exchange found in a food web and ecosystem. The fish’s reproductive life cycle is altered so that it can be propagated and raised until the optimum time for
mechanical harvest. Aquaculture interrupts the most fundamental metabolic process—the ability of an organism to obtain its required nutrient uptake.
Because
the most profitable farmed fish are carnivorous, such as Atlantic salmon, they depend on a diet that is high in fishmeal and fish
oil. For example, raising Atlantic salmon requires four pounds of fishmeal to produce every one pound of salmon.
Consequently, aquaculture production depends heavily on fishmeal imported from South America to feed the farmed
carnivorous species.37 The inherent contradiction in extracting fishmeal is that industries must increase their
exploitation of marine fish in order to feed the farm-raised fish—thereby increasing the pressure on wild stocks to an
even larger extent. Such operations also increase the amount of bycatch. Three of the world’s five largest fisheries are
now exclusively harvesting pelagic fish for fishmeal, and these fisheries account for a quarter of the total global catch.
Rather than diminishing the demands placed on marine ecosystems, capitalist aquaculture actually increases them,
accelerating the fishing down the food chain process. The environmental degradation of populations of marine
species, ecosystems, and tropic levels continues.38
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Aquaculture can’t solve fishing problems because it relies on the same wasteful industrial practices
as factory farming- it increases waste, use of antibiotics, and harmful chemicals in the ocean.
Brett Clark and Rebecca Clausen in 2008, PhD, Sociology, University of Oregon, The Oceanic Crisis: Capitalism and
the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem, Monthly Review, http://monthlyreview.org/2008/07/01/the-oceanic-crisiscapitalism-and-the-degradation-of-marine-ecosystem
Capitalist aquaculture—which is really aquabusiness—represents a parallel example of capital following the patterns of
agribusiness. Similar to combined animal feedlots, farmed fish are penned up in high-density cages making them susceptible to
disease. Thus, like in the production of beef, pork, and chicken, farmed fish are fed fishmeal that contains antibiotics, increasing
concerns about antibiotic exposure in society. In “Silent Spring of the Sea,” Don Staniford explains, “The use of antibiotics in salmon farming has
been prevalent right from the beginning, and their use in aquaculture globally has grown to such an extent that resistance is now threatening human health as well as
other marine species.” Aquaculturists
use a variety of chemicals to kill parasites, such as sea lice, and diseases that spread quickly throughout
dangers and toxicities of these pesticides in the marine environment are magnified because of the long food
chain.39 Once subsumed into the capitalist process, life cycles of animals are increasingly geared to economic cycles of
exchange by decreasing the amount of time required for growth. Aquabusiness conforms to these pressures, as researchers are attempting to
the pens. The
shorten the growth time required for fish to reach market size. Recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) has been added to some fish feeds to stimulate growth
in fishes in aquaculture farms in Hawaii. Experiments with fish transgenics—the transfer of DNA from one species to another—are being done to increase the rate of
weight gain, causing altered fish to grow from 60 percent to 600 percent larger than wild stocks.40 These
growth mechanisms illustrate capitalist
aquaculture’s drive to transform nature to facilitate the generation of profit. In addition, aquaculture alters waste assimilation. The
introduction of net-pens leads to a break in the natural assimilation of waste in the marine environment. The pens convert coastal ecosystems, such as bays, inlets,
and fjords, into aquaculture ponds, destroying nursery areas that support ocean fisheries. For instance, salmon net-pens allow fish feces and uneaten feed to flow
directly into coastal waters, resulting in substantial discharges of nutrients. The excess nutrients are toxic to the marine communities that occupy the ocean floor
beneath the net-pens, causing massive die offs of entire benthic populations.41 Other waste
products are concentrated around net-pens as
well, such as diseases and parasites introduced by the caged salmon to the surrounding marine organisms. The Blue
Revolution is not an environmental solution to declining fish stocks. In fact, it is an intensification of the social metabolic
order that creates ruptures in marine ecosystems. “The coastal and marine support areas needed for resource inputs and waste assimilation
[is]…50,000 times the cultivation area for intensive salmon cage farming.”42 This form of aquaculture places even more demands upon
ecosystems, undermining their resiliency. Although aquabusiness is efficient at turning fish into a commodity for markets
given the extensive control that is executed over the productive conditions, it is even more energy inefficient than
fisheries, demanding more fuel energy investment than the energy produced.43 Confronted by declines in fish stock,
capital is attempting to shift production to aquaculture. However, this intense form of production for profit continues
to exhaust the oceans and produce a concentration of waste that causes further problems for ecosystems,
undermining their ability to regenerate at all levels.
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Link- Sustainable Development
Sustainable development fails to uproot capitalism- it leaves market ideology intact that ensures
inequality and environmental degradation- it has become a synonym for neoliberalism
Richard Kahn in 2008, Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations & Research at the University of North Dakota
From Education for Sustainable Development to Ecopedagogy: Sustaining Capitalism or Sustaining Life?, Green Theory &
Praxis: The Journal of Ecopedagogy Volume 4, No. 1 (2008)
There is also the political and economic global Third Way of so-called liberal centrists like Tony Blair and Bill Clinton, whom the New York
Times has referred to as the “Impresario of Philanthropy” (Dugger, 2006) because of his Clinton Global Initiative and his work on behalf of disaster relief related to the
recent Asian tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. The
rhetoric of this approach champions sustainable development as a win-win-win
for people, business, and the environment, in which the following policy goals are upheld: 1) development “meets the needs of the
present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs” (Brundtland, 1987) and 2) development improves “the
quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems” (Munro and Holdgate, 1991). In its tendency
to deploy quasi-leftist slogans, Clintonian Third Way politics claims that it wants to put a human face to globalization and that it supports inclusive educational,
medical, and civic development throughout the global South in a manner much akin to that demanded by leaders in Latin America and Africa. But
if this Third
Way political vision really intends to deliver greater equity, security, and quality of life to the previously disenfranchised, it is especially
noteworthy that it also mandates that “existing property and market power divisions [be left] firmly off the agenda”
(Porter and Craig, 2004, p. 390). A 2000 speech by Clinton to the University of Warwick exemplifies this claim and so reveals why astute globalization critics such as
Perry Anderson have characterized Thirdwayism as merely “the best ideological shell of neo-liberalism today” (Anderson, 2000, p. 11). In his speech, Clinton
rhetorically plugs building the necessary “consensus” to allow for the opening of previously closed markets and rule-based trade, such as that sponsored by the
International Monetary Fund, in the name of a global humanitarianism, which can overcome disasters such as global warming, disease, hunger, and terrorism: I
disagree with the anti-globalization protestors who suggest that poor countries should somehow be saved from development by keeping their doors closed to trade. I
think that is a recipe for continuing their poverty, not erasing it. More open markets would give the world’s poorest nations more chances to grow and prosper. Now,
I know that many people don’t believe that. And I know that inequality, as I said, in the last few years has increased in many nations. But the answer is not to
abandon the path of expanded trade, but, instead, to do whatever is necessary to build a new consensus on trade (Clinton, 2000). The
neoliberal market
mechanism remains largely the same, then, in both Third Way welfarism and the aggressive corporatism favored by the current Bush
administration. The only difference between them may be the nature of the trade rules and goals issued by the governing consensus. In this, the Clinton Global
Initiative is a poster child for the ideology of most U.S. center-left liberals, who believe that administrations can learn to
legislate temperance by creating more and more opportunities for intemperate economic investment in alternative,
socially responsible markets. The sustainable development vision thereby maintained is of a highly integrated world society,
centered and predicated on economic trade, presided over by beneficent leaders who act in the best interests of the people (while they turn an honest
profit to boot). However, in this respect we might wonder, as Garrett Hardin put it, “Who shall watch the watchers themselves?” (Hardin,
1968, p. 1245).
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Link- Sustainable Development
Sustainable development is not the answer- it will still require massive increases in consumption to
maintain standards of living- the result will be an ecological crisis that ensures extinction
Richard Kahn in 2008, Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations & Research at the University of North Dakota
From Education for Sustainable Development to Ecopedagogy: Sustaining Capitalism or Sustaining Life?, Green Theory &
Praxis: The Journal of Ecopedagogy Volume 4, No. 1 (2008)
In response to the evidence of planetary ecocide, biocide, and zoöcide, critical educators have begun to wonder if global
institutions are capable of interpreting the idea of the “limits to growth” (Meadows, Randers, and Meadows, 2004) in any fashion
beyond an open-market neoliberalism. Again, in its most egalitarian form, sustainable development is offered as a political and
economic platform that can generate wealth among the poor (and rich), raise living standards for all, and protect the
environment. Yet as the environmental theorist Ted Trainer notes, the mean present standard of living enjoyed by those across the
planet is already estimated to utilize somewhere between two to four times the amount of sustainable resources
provided by the Earth proper. Therefore, if the world’s population continues to rise toward nine billion people, and if global
living standards increase commensurate to the rhetoric of sustainable development boosters, it can be reasonably calculated that in order
to have a sustainable planet by the year 2070, it will be necessary to have technoscientific advances capable of enabling sixty
times as much production and consumption as is presently maintained (Trainer, 2002). Further, future sustainable industries
could afford to generate only one-half to one-third the amount of their counterparts’ present environmental costs
(Trainer, 2002). But according to the United Nations Environment Programme’s GEO-3 report, a vision of continued growth of this kind is
consonant only with planetary extinction: either great changes are made in our global lifestyle now or an irrevocable
social and ecological crisis will grip the world by 2032 (United Nations Environment Programme, 2002).
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Link- Green Capitalism
Market-based solutions to environmental crisis and the “greening” of capitalism fail to address the
fundamental historical reality of ecological destruction – a system of production that primarily
values profit and private property is structured to sacrifice environmental sustainability wherever it
prevents economic growth – failure to challenge capitalism will result in extinction
Foster, 2k11
[John Bellamy, Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon, Capitalism and the Accumulation of Catastrophe,
Monthly Review, December 2011]
In the twenty-first century it
is customary to view the rise of planetary ecological problems as a surprising development
scarcely conceivable prior to the last few decades . It is here, however, that we have the most to learn from the analysis of
nineteenth-century thinkers who played a role in the development of ecology, including both early ecological scientists and classical
historical materialists. Science has long warned of the negative, destructive side of the human transformation of the
earth—a warning which the system, driven by its own imperatives, has continually sought to downplay. Indeed, what
distinguishes our time from earlier centuries is not so much the conservation of catastrophe, which has long been recognized, but
rather the accelerated pace at which such destruction is now manifesting itself , i.e., what I am calling the accumulation of
catastrophe. The desertification arising in pre-capitalist times, partly through human action, manifested itself over
centuries, even millennia. Today changes in the land, the atmosphere, the oceans, indeed the entire life-support
system of the earth, are the product of mere decades. If in the past, Darwin was struck that in a mere three centuries after
European colonization, the ecology of the island of St. Helena had been destroyed to the point that it was reduced to “desert”—today, in only two
generations, we have altered the biogeochemical processes of the entire planet.28 The absence of a historical perspective on the
conservation, even accumulation, of catastrophe is a major barrier to needed change in our time . Many
environmentalists, including some who perceive themselves as being on the left, persist in believing that we can address our
immense and growing ecological problems without altering our fundamental social-production relationships. All that
is necessary in this view is the combined magic of green technology and green markets. Short-term fixes are presumed to
be adequate solutions, while society remains on the same essential course as before. Indeed, the dominant perspective on ecology
can be characterized, I believe, as consisting of three successive stages of denial: (1) the denial altogether of the
planetary ecological crisis (or its human cause); (2) the denial that the ecological crisis is fundamentally due to the
system of production in which we live, namely capitalism; and (3) the denial that capitalism is constitutionally
incapable of overcoming this global ecological threat—with capital now being presented instead as the savior of the
environment. The first stage of ecological denial is easy to understand. This is the form of denial represented by Exxon-Mobil. Such
outright denial of the destructive consequences of their actions is the automatic response of corporations generally
when faced with the prospect of environmental regulations , which would negatively affect their bottom lines. It is also
the form of absolute denial promoted by climate-change denialists themselves, who categorically reject the reality of human agency in global
climate change. The second stage of denial, a retreat from the first, is to admit there is a problem , while dissociating it from
the larger socioeconomic system . The famous IPAT formula, i.e. Environmental Impact = Population x Consumption x Technology
(which amounts to saying that these are the three factors behind our environmental problems/solutions), has been used by some to suggest that
population growth, the consumption habits of most individuals, and inappropriate technology carry the totality of blame for environmental
degradation. The answer then is sustainable population, sustainable consumption, and sustainable technology. This
approach, though seemingly matter-of-fact, and deceptively radical, derives its acceptability for the vested interests from the
fact that it generally serves to disguise the more fundamental reality of the treadmill of capitalist production itself.29
The third stage of denial, a last-ditch defense, and exhibiting a greater level of desperation on the part of the established order, is, I would
argue, the most dangerous of all. It admits that the environmental crisis is wrapped up with the existence of
capitalism, but argues that what we need is an entirely new kind of capitalism : variously called “sustainable
capitalism,” “green capitalism,” “natural capitalism,” and “climate capitalism” by thinkers as various as Al Gore, Paul Hawken,
Amory and L. Hunter Lovins, and Jonathon Porritt.30 The argument here varies but usually begins with the old trope that
capitalism is the most efficient economic system possible—a form of “spontaneous order” arising from an invisible hand—and
that the answer to ecological problems is to make it more efficient still by internalizing costs on the environment
previously externalized by the system . Aside from the presumed magic of the market itself, and moral claims as to “the greening of
corporations,” this is supposed to be achieved by means of a black box of technological wonders . Implicit in all such
views is the notion that capitalism can be made sustainable, without altering its accumulation or economic growth
imperative and without breaking with the dominant social relations. The exponential growth of the system ad
infinitum is possible, we are told, while simultaneously generating a sustainable relation to the planet . This of course
runs up against what Herman Daly has called the Impossibility Theorem : If the whole world were to have an ecological
footprint the size of the United States we would need multiple planets .31 The idea that such a development process
can persist permanently on a single planet (and indeed that we are not at this point already confronting earthly limits) is of course
an exercise in delusion, bordering on belief in the supernatural. “Capitalism,” as the great environmental economist K. William
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Kapp once wrote, is
“an economy of unpaid costs.”32 It can persist and even prosper only insofar as it is able to
externalize its costs on the mass of the population and the surrounding environment . Whenever the destruction is too
severe the system simply seeks to engineer another spatial fix. Yet, a planetary capitalism is from this standpoint a contradiction
in terms: it means that there is nowhere finally to externalize the social and environmental costs of capitalist
destruction (we cannot ship our toxic waste into outer space!), and no external resources to draw upon in the face of the
enormous squandering of resources inherent to the system (we can’t solve our problems by mining the moon!). Market-based
solutions to climate change, such as emissions trading, have been shown to promote profits, and to facilitate economic
growth and financial wealth, while increasing carbon emissions. From an environmental standpoint, therefore, they are
worse than nothing— since they stand in the way of effective action. Nor are the technologies most acceptable to the system
(since not requiring changes in property relations) the answer. So-called “clean coal” or carbon capture and storage
technologies are economically unfeasible and ecologically dubious , and serve mainly as an ideological justification
for keeping coal-fired plants going. Worse still, are geoengineering schemes like dumping sulfur particles in the atmosphere or
iron filings in the ocean (the first in order to deflect the sun’s rays, the second in order to promote algal growth to increase ocean absorption of
carbon). These schemes carry with them the potential for even greater ecological disasters : in the first case, this could lead
to a reduction of photosynthesis, in the second the expansion of dead zones. Remember the Sorcerer’s Apprentice!33 The potential for the
accumulation of catastrophe on a truly planetary level as a result of geoengineering technology is so great that it
would be absolute folly to proceed in this way—simply in order to avoid changes in the mode of production, i.e., a
fundamental transformation of our way of life, property relations, and metabolism with nature. Science tells us that we
are crossing planetary boundaries everywhere we look , from climate change, to ocean acidification, to species
destruction, to freshwater shortages, to chemical pollution of air, water, soil, and humans. The latest warning sign is the
advent of what is called “extreme weather”—a direct outgrowth of climate change. As Hansen says: “Global warming increases the intensity of
droughts and heat waves, and thus the area of forest fires. However, because a warmer atmosphere holds more water vapor, global warming
must also increase the intensity of the other extreme of the hydrologic cycle—meaning heavier rains, more extreme floods, and more intense
storms driven by latent heat.” Scientists involved in the new area of climate-attribution science, where extreme weather events are examined for
their climate signatures, are now arguing that we are rapidly approaching a situation where the proverbial “‘hundred-year’ flood” no longer occurs
simply once a century, but every few years. Natural catastrophes are thus likely to become more severe and more frequent
occurrences in the lives of all living beings. The hope of some scientists is that this will finally wake up humanity to its true danger.34
How are we to understand the challenge of the enormous accumulation of catastrophe, and the no less massive human action required to
address this? In the 1930s John Maynard Keynes wrote an essay entitled “Economic Possibilities of Our Grandchildren,” aimed at defending
capitalism in response to revolutionary social challenges then arising. Keynes argued that we should rely for at least a couple more generations
on the convenient lie of the Smithian invisible hand—accepting greed as the basis of a spontaneous economic order. We should therefore
continue the pretense that “fair is foul and foul is fair” for the sake of the greater accumulation of wealth in society that such an approach would
bring. Eventually, in the time of our “grandchildren”—maybe a “hundred years” hence (i.e., by the early 2030s)—Keynes assumed, the added
wealth created by these means would be great enough that we could begin to tell the truth: that foul is foul and fair is fair. It would then be
necessary for humanity to address the enormous inequalities and injustices produced by the system, engaging in a full-scale redistribution of
wealth, and a radical transformation of the ends of production.35 Yet, the continued pursuit of Keynes’s convenient lie over the last
eight decades has led to a world far more polarized and beset with contradictions than he could have foreseen . It is
a world prey to the enormous unintended consequences of accumulation without limits : namely, global economic
stagnation, financial crisis, and planetary ecological destruction. Keynes, though aware of some of the negative economic
aspects of capitalist production, had no real understanding of the ecological perils—of which scientists had already long been warning. Today
these perils are impossible to overlook. Faced with impending ecological catastrophe, it is more necessary than
ever to abandon Keynes’s convenient lie and espouse the truth : that foul is foul and fair is fair. Capitalism, the society of
“après moi le déluge!” is a system that fouls its own nest—both the human-social conditions and the wider natural
environment on which it depends. The accumulation of capital is at the same time accumulation of catastrophe , not
only for a majority of the world’s people, but living species generally. Hence, nothing is fairer—more just, more
beautiful, and more necessary—today than the struggle to overthrow the regime of capital and to create a system of
substantive equality and sustainable human development; a socialism for the twenty-first century. “Well grubbed, old
mole!”36
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Link- Green Tech
Short term technocratic solutions will fail – abrupt climate shifts necessitate a transition from
capitalist mode of production
Foster in 2009(John Bellamy, Professor of Sociology at Oregon, “The Ecological Revolution,” Page 109-111)
Nevertheless, there
is every reason to believe that placing so much faith in economic growth and technological change
as answers to global warming is shortsighted and naive. Considerable uncertainty exists as to how far human society
can actually support such ""gradual" climate change-since human beings are themselves part of nature and
dependent on the world around them in manifold ways. But the problem does not stop there. Scientists are now raising the even more
alarming question of abrupt climate change, i.e., climate change of a scale and suddenness-shifting from a time-span of decades-to-centuries to one of years-todecades-that would definitely have catastrophic effects for human society. Abrupt
climate change is usually seen as change arising from
gradual causes that lead to the crossing of a threshold, triggering a sudden shift to a new state-with the shift
determined by the climate system itself and occurring at a rate much faster than the initial cause. Such shifts have occurred
numerous times in history, one of the clearest being the abrupt cooling of the Younger Dryas (named after an arctic wildflower that thrived in the climate of the
time), which began 12,700 years ago and lasted 1300 years, interrupting the warming associated with the end of the last ice age. A lesser instance of abrupt
climate change occurred 8,200 years ago and lasted around a century. In
the worst of all current, plausible scenarios, such abrupt
climate change could occur sometime over the next couple of decades-though this is still seen by scientists as highly
unlikely. Such abrupt climate change is believed to result from disruption of the thermohaline circulation, a global
ocean conveyor that moves warm, saline tropical waters northward in the Atlantic with the Gulf Stream as its
northern arm, and then loops south. (“Thermohaline" comes from the Greek words for heat, "thermos," and for salt, "halos.") The heat from this
warmer water, when it reaches the North Atlantic, is released into the atmosphere, creating milder winters than would otherwise exist at those latitudes, and
allowing the dense surface waters to cool and sink. This draws additional warmer, saline water from the south, helping to keep the conveyor going. Differences
in the density of ocean waters associated with the saline content drive this ocean conveyor. Abrupt
climate change arises from a lessening or
collapse of the thermohaline circulation due to increased river runoff, melting ice, and changes in precipitation-all of
which serve to increase the amount of freshwater supplied to the North Atlantic. As the salinity of the ocean waters decreases a
dramatic lessening or complete collapse of the North Atlantic conveyor circulation can occur. The current global warming is seen as
potentially triggering this effect. According to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC, in Climate Change 2001, "beyond 2100, the
thermohaline circulation could completely, and possibly irreversibly, shut-down in either hemisphere" if global warming is “large enough and applied long
enough."6 Two
basic scenarios are worth considering: (l) If the ocean conveyor slows down or collaps es during the
next two decades, it could cool the North Atlantic region by as much as 5°C (9°F), creating winters of much greater
severity. (2) If, however, the conveyor slows down in a century, the drop in temperature in the North Atlantic could
temporarily compensate for the rise in surface temperature associated with the enhanced greenhouse effect though
once the thermohaline circulation recovered the "deferred" warming could be delivered within a decade. The second of
these two scenarios is viewed as much more likely. Yet, recent scientific studies, including a major report in 2002 by the National Academy of Sciences, have
stressed that the thermohaline circulation could
possibly "decrease ... very fast" -resulting in a sudden switch of climate
early this century that although still thought unlikely cannot be ruled out altogether. Seeming to confirm these fears, a report in
Nature in 2002 concluded that the North Atlantic has been freshening dramatically for forty years; while a report a year earlier suggested that the ocean
conveyor may already be slowing down." Faced with the
uncertain hazards of such a "low probability, high impact" event,
scientists associated with the National Academy of Sciences study recommended that society take what steps it
could, if not too costly, to protect itself against such an extreme outcome. "If a shutdown were to happen soon," Richard Alley, who
chaired the scientific team releasing the National Academy of Sciences study, observed in The Two-Mile Time Machine, “it could produce a large event, perhaps
almost as large as the Younger Dryas, dropping northern temperatures and spreading droughts far larger than the changes that have affected humans through
recorded history, and perhaps speeding warming in the far south. The end of humanity? No. An uncomfortable time for humanity? Yes."8 These
assessments and recommendations on abrupt climate change were offered with so much caution by climate
scientists that they might easily have been ignored altogether by a society that in its upper echelons is devoted to
the accumulation of capital and little else. That this did not happen is due to the fact that the issue was taken up and
dramatized in the Pentagon report.
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Link- Green Tech/Markets
The affirmative’s promotion of new green energy markets operates under the backdrop of the
ideological assertion that politics should be limited to protecting ‘business as usual’ – instead, you
should align yourself with restoring a sustainable relationship with nature as to guarantee
ecological sustainability.
Foster in 2009(John Bellamy, Professor of Sociology at Oregon, “The Ecological Revolution,” Page 47-52)
Most climate scientists, including Lovelock and Hansen, follow the IPCC in basing their main projections of global warming on
a socioeconomic scenario described as "business-as-usual." The dire trends indicated are predicated on our fundamental economic and
technological developments and our basic relation to nature remaining the same. The question we need to ask then is what actually is business-asusual? What can be changed and how fast? With time running out, the implication is that it is necessary to alter business-as-usual in radical ways in order to
stave off or lessen catastrophe. Yet the dominant solutions-those associated with the dominant ideology, i.e., the ideology of the
dominant class-emphasize minimal changes in business-as-usual that will somehow get us off the hook. After being directed to
the growing planetary threats of global warming and species extinction, we are told that the answer is better gas mileage and better emissions standards, the
introduction of hydrogen-powered cars, the capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide within production, improved conservation, and voluntary cutbacks in
consumption. Environmental
political scientists specialize in the construction of new environmental policy regimes,
embodying state and market regulations. Environmental economists talk of tradable pollution permits and the incorporation of all
environmental factors into the market to ensure their efficient use. Some environmental sociologists (my own field) speak of ecological
modernization: a panoply of green taxes, green regulations, and new green technologies, even the greening of
capitalism itself. Futurists describe a new technological world in which the weight of nations on the earth is miraculously lifted as a result of digital
"dematerialization" of the economy. In all of these views, however, there is one constant: the fundamental character of business-as-usual is
hardly changed at all. Indeed, what all such analyses intentionally avoid is the fact that business-as-usual in our
society, in any fundamental sense, means the capitalist economy-an economy run on the logic of profit and accumulation.
Moreover, there is little acknowledgement or even appreciation of the fact that the Hobbesian war of all against all that characterizes
capitalism requires for its fulfillment a universal war on nature. In this sense, new technology cannot solve the problem
since it is inevitably used to further the class war and to increase the scale of the economy, and thus the degradation
of the environment. Whenever production dies down or social resistance imposes barriers on the expansion of capital, the answer is always to find new
ways to exploit and degrade nature more intensively. To quote, once again, Pontecorvo's Burn'. "That is the logic of profit. ... One builds to make money and to
go on making it or to make more sometimes it is necessary to destroy." Ironically, this destructive relation of capitalism to the environment was probably
understood better in the nineteenth century-at a time when social analysts were acutely aware of the issue of revolutionary changes taking place in the mode of
production and how this was transforming the human relation to nature. As a result, environmental
sociologists of the more radical stamp
in the United States, where the contradiction between economy and ecology nowadays is especially acute, draw heavily on three
interrelated ideas derived from Marx and the critique of capitalist political economy dating back to the nineteenth century: (I) the treadmill
of production; (2) the second contradiction of capitalism; and (3) the metabolic rift. The first of these, the treadmill of
production, describes capitalism as an unstoppable, accelerating treadmill that constantly increases the scale of the
throughput of energy and raw materials as part of its quest for profit and accumulation, thereby pressing on the earth's
absorptive capacity. "Accumulate, Accumulate!" For capital, Marx wrote, "that is Moses and the prophets”12 The second of these notions, the second
contradiction of capitalism, is the idea that capitalism, in addition to its primary economic contradiction stemming
from class inequalities in production and distribution, also undermines the human and natural conditions (i.e.,
environmental conditions) of production on which its economic advancement ultimately rests. For example, by systematically
removing forests we lay the grounds for increasing scarcities in this area-the more so to the extent that globalization
makes this contradiction universal. This heightens the overall cost of economic development and creates an economic crisis for capitalism based
on supply-side constraints on production. IS The third notion, the metabolic rift, suggests that the logic of capital accumulation
inexorably creates a rift in the metabolism between society and nature, severing basic processes of natural
reproduction. This raises the issue of the ecological sustainability-not simply in relation to the scale of the economy, but also, and even
more importantly, in the form and intensity of the interaction between nature and society under capitalism. 14 I shall concentrate on the third of these notions,
the metabolic rift, since this is the most complex of these three socio-ecological concepts, and the one that has been the focus of my own research in this area,
particularly in my book Marx's Ecology. Marx was greatly influenced by the work of the leading agricultural chemist of his time, Justus von Liebig. Liebig had
developed an analysis of the ecological contradictions of industrialized capitalist agriculture. He argued that such industrialized agriculture, as present in its
most developed form in England in the nineteenth century, was a robbery system, depleting the soil. Food and fiber were transported hundreds-even in some
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cases thousands-of miles from the country to the city. This meant that essential soil nutrients, such as nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, were transported
as well. Rather than being returned to the soil these essential nutrients ended up polluting the cities, for example, in the degradation of the Thames in London.
The natural conditions for the reproduction of the soil were thus destroyed. To compensate for the resulting decline in soil fertility the British raided the
Napoleonic battlefields and the catacombs of Europe for bones with which to fertilize the soil of the English countryside. They also resorted to the importation
of guano on a vast scale from the islands off the coast of Peru, followed by the importation of Chilean nitrates (after the War of the Pacific in which Chile seized
parts of Peru and Bolivia rich in guano and nitrates). The United States sent out ships throughout the oceans searching for guano, and ended up seizing ninetyfour islands, rocks, and keys between the passage of the 1856 Guano Islands Act and 1903, sixty-six of which were officially recognized as U.S. appurtenances
and nine of which remain U.S. possessions today. This reflected a great crisis of capitalist agriculture in the nineteenth century that was only solved in part with
the development of synthetic fertilizer nitrogen early in the twentieth century-and which led eventually to the overuse of fertilizer nitrogen, itself a major
environmental problem. In reflecting on this crisis of capitalist agriculture, Marx adopted the concept of metabolism, which had been introduced by nineteenthcentury biologists and chemists, including Liebig, and applied it to socioecological relations. All
life is based on metabolic processes between
organisms and their environment. Organisms carry out an exchange of energy and matter with their environment,
which are integrated with their own internal life processes. It is not a stretch to think of the nest of a bird as part of
the bird's metabolic process. Marx explicitly defined the labor process as the "metabolic interaction between man and nature." In terms of the
ecological problem, he spoke of "an irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism," whereby the conditions for the necessary reproduction
of the soil were continually severed, breaking the metabolic cycle. "Capitalist
production," he wrote, "therefore only develops the
techniques and the degree of combination of the social process of production by simultaneously undermining the
original sources of all wealth-the soil and the worker." Marx saw this rift not simply in national terms but as related to imperialism as well.
"England," he wrote, "has indirectly exported the soil of Ireland, without even allowing its cultivators the means for replacing the constituents of the exhausted
soil." This principle of metabolic rift obviously has a very wide application and has in fact been applied by environmental sociologists in recent years to problems
such as global warming and the ecological degradation of the world's oceans. 16 What is seldom recognized, however, is that Marx
went immediately
from a conception of the metabolic rift to the necessity of metabolic restoration, arguing that "by destroying the
circumstances surrounding that metabolism, which originated in a merely natural and spontaneous fashion, it [capitalist production]
compels its systematic restoration as a regulative law of social reproduction." The reality of the metabolic rift pointed to the
necessity of the restoration of nature, through sustainable production . .It is this dialectical understanding of the socio-ecological
problem that led Marx to what is perhaps the most radical conception of socio ecological sustainability ever
developed. Thus, he wrote in the third volume of Capital: From the standpoint of a higher socio-economic formation, the private property of individuals in
the earth will appear just as absurd as the private property of one man in other men. Even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously
existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and
have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations, as boni patns familias [good heads of the household].
For Marx, in other words, the present relation of human beings to the earth under private accumulation could be compared
to slavery. Just as “private property of one man in other men" is no longer deemed acceptable, so private ownership
of the earth and nature by human beings (even whole countries) must be transcended. The human relation to nature must be
regulated so to guarantee its existence "in an improved state to succeeding generations." His reference to the notion of "good heads of the household"
hearkened back to the ancient Greek notion of household or oikos from which we get both "economy" (from oikonomia or household management) and
"ecology" (from oikologia or household study). Marx
pointed to the necessity of a more radical, sustainable relation of human
beings to production in accord with what we would now view as ecological rather than merely economic notions.
"Freedom, in this sphere," the realm of natural necessity, he insisted, "can consist only in this, that socialized man, the associated producers, govern the human
metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control ... accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy,"!? The
destructive uncontrollability of capitalism, emanating from its dual character as a system of class and imperial
exploitation and as an enslaver and destroyer of the earth itself, was thus well understood by Marx. With regard to the
film, Burn!, we saw how the exploitation of human beings was tied to the destruction of the earth. Relations of domination changed but the answer remained
the same: to burn the island as a means of winning the class/imperial war. Today, a few hundred people taken together own more wealth than the income of
billions of the world's population. To
maintain this system of global inequality a global system of repression has been
developed and is constantly put in motion. And, along with it, vast new systems of destructive exploitation of the
earth, such as modem agribusiness, have evolved.
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Link- Renewables
Even switching entirely to renewables is insufficient to stave of environmental collapse brought on
by capitalism – it would just enable even more production of consumer goods
Smith in 2011(Richard, Institute for Policy Research & Development, “Green Capitalism: the god that failed”, realworld economics review, issue no. 56)
Energy generation is probably the one field where there are substantial possibilities for greening industry. The
prospect of “clean green energy” – solar, wind, and other renewable -- is everybody’s favorite green tech innovation. Shifting
most electricity generation to solar, wind and other renewables could radically dematerialize this sector and reduce
the largest single demand for coal as well as oil and natural gas, and so could, in principle, dramatically reduce
greenhouse gas emissions, acid rain, and also bring wide health benefits. But, the first problem with this tech fix is
that it’s difficult to produce “base-load” power – consistent 24/7 power generation -- with renewables.65 Sunlight, wind, and
water flow are all variable and unpredictable. But trainloads of coal and oil can normally be depended upon. Renewable
energy scientists argue that integrated comprehensive systems can solve the problem of base-load generation. The I.E.A. estimates that solar power
alone could produce almost a quarter of the world’s electricity needs by 2050.66 But as Ted Trainer points out, given the
variable and intermittent output of renewables like solar and wind, even if sun and wind were to be large
contributors to electricity supply, given the need for backup reserve capacity, little or no reduction in the amount of
coal or nuclear capacity would be feasible. 67 This is one reason why scientists like James Hansen and James Lovelock, who are skeptical about
the base-load potential of renewables, have called for a radical shift to nuclear power as the only way to get 24/7 power in the near future. But of course,
nuclear reactors pose a different set of problems. For a start, there is the virtually inevitable threat of accidents soere,
sometime. Then there is the as-yet-unsolved problem of what to do with all the spent fuel. But in addition, it is also not
clear that uranium fuel is any less an inexhaustible resource than oil was once thought to be. And the potential tech fix for
the tech fix – the thesis that “next generation” “fast” nuclear reactors could recycle their own fuel or run on spent fuel, has a certain familiar “too-cheap-tometer” ring to it, but remains for the moment hypothetical, and in any event, will certainly be a hugely expensive and dangerous way to boil water.68 Yet even
if we could get a dramatic shift to solar and other renewables for energy generation, given the Jevons paradox noted above, we cannot assume that this would
necessarily lead to large permanent reductions in overall pollution. For if
there are no non-market constraints on production, then the
advent of cheap clean energy production could just as easily encourage the production of endless electric vehicles,
appliances, lighting, laptops, phones, iPads and new toys we can’t even imagine yet.69 The expanded production all
this stuff, on a global scale, would just consume ever more raw materials, more metals, plastics, rare earths, etc.,
produce more pollution, destroy more of the environment, and all end up in some landfill somewhere someday. In
short, at the end of the day, the only way society can really put the brakes on overconsumption of electricity is to
impose non-market limits on electricity production and consumption, enforce radical conservation, rationing, and
stop making all the unnecessary gadgets that demand endless supplies of power.
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Link- FFs
Energy solutions rooted in the capitalist mode of production based on the use of fossil fuels for
production and circulation create a metabolic rift in the natural carbon cycles of the environment –
failure to achieve systemic change in this mode of production dooms any attempt to solve the
climate crisis to failure
Sas, 2k10
[Jonathan, B.A. (Honours), University of Toronto, University of British Columbia (Vancouver), Fossil Fuel, Capitalism, and
the State: A Critical Approach to the International Climate Change Discourse, Master’s Thesis in Political Science, August
2010]
The mutually transformative dynamics of the nature-society relationship are important (if perhaps obvious), but for the purposes of my argument,
it is the notion of the „rift‟ that is of particular value. 22 The „metabolic rift‟ refers to human interruption in or interference with
the metabolism of a natural system , one that results in the degradation or destruction of that natural system . Foster
(2000) demonstrates that Marx viewed metabolic rifts as a necessary outcome of the conditions of capitalist relations of production. Due, for
example, to the massive expansion and extension of trade across and between distant places , as well as the (related)
increase in the concentration of populations in cities (what Marx spoke of as the growing division between „town and country‟),
capitalism leads to the physical displacement of energy and matter from one place to other places . This effectively
takes this matter and energy away from the ecosystem in which it evolved, and where it could have been recycled,
and displaces it elsewhere. Marx applied this theory to his study of nutrient cycles in the soil.23 The conditions of production that exist
under capitalism, he argued, tend to prevent the natural recycling of materials within given natural systems. This is what is meant by the
development of a rift in a natural process or cycle. Clark and York (2005) have extended the application of the metabolic rift theory
in order to specifically understand “human influence on the carbon cycle and its consequences” under the conditions of a now more advanced
iteration of capitalism that exists today (Clark and York, 2005, p. 396). They argue that global climate change relates directly to the
historical era and logic of capitalist social relations , and that the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere as “waste”
and its interference with the carbon cycle is intrinsically tied to industrial capitalist production . The metabolic rift
theory as applied to climate change seems to make sense if we accept the scientific understanding of the carrying
capacity or natural limits of the atmosphere to cycle carbon. The theory is further supported by the fact that it was
not until the emergence of industrial level capitalism that CO2 emissions greatly expanded in scale . In the most recent
of the United State‟s ghg emission inventory assessments, the Environmental Protection Agency had this to say about the carbon cycle: “Billions
of tons of carbon in the form of CO2 are absorbed by oceans and living biomass (i.e., sinks) and are emitted to the atmosphere annually through
natural processes (i.e., sources). When in equilibrium, carbon fluxes among these various reservoirs are roughly balanced” (EPA, 2010). Since
the Industrial Revolution (or since approximately 1750) however, global atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have risen
about 36 percent, an increase that is principally attributed to the combustion of fossil fuels and one that appears to
be linked to a rupture in the „balance‟ of the carbon cycle (IPCC 2007). This, I believe, lends considerable weight to the
argument that the dramatic increases in the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere are tied to the current fossil
fuel mode of production constitutive of the existing capitalist system . There is an important point of departure here between the
argument I am developing and the position of that of Clark and York and other ecological Marxist thinkers for that matter. While I am sympathetic
to the ecological Marxist critique I have outlined thus far, one that views the degradation of the carbon cycle (and nature more generally) as
internal to the forces and relations of capitalism itself, I differ in that I understand this tendency to be one internal to the historically specific
character of the capitalist system that has existed to date – i.e. as internal to the fossil fuel mode of production rather than to capitalism per
se.24 Thus, as I return to in much further detail in the final section of this paper, I do not agree that any form of capitalism is necessarily
incapable of mending the rift in the carbon cycle or of operating more soundly within the ecological limits of the planet more generally.
Nevertheless, I understand Clark and York (2005, p. 412) to be correct in arguing that the global capitalist system (at least in its current
incarnation) depends upon massive quantities of fossil fuel in order to operate at the current scale of production to say nothing of an increasing
scale of production. The recent opening of arctic wildlife havens to off shore oil drilling and the catastrophic oil spill that
resulted after the malfunction of an under water drilling well in the Gulf of Mexico are potent reminders that
capitalism‟s “constant demand for energy necessitates the continual plundering of the earth for new reserves of
fossil fuel” (Ibid.). The effect of capitalism‟s expansionary tendency again comes into play as further capital
accumulation seems to lead to the exploitation of more and more fossilized energy sources thereby reproducing the
rift in the earth‟s natural carbon cycle. To reiterate, the rift is evidenced by the fact that emissions stemming directly
from anthropogenic sources, namely through industrial capitalist production and circulation , not only pools CO2 as
“atmospheric waste” at unprecedented and ever-accelerating rates, but this accumulation of CO2 occurs at a rate
that the natural carbon sinks can no longer metabolize (i.e., absorb).25 The metabolic rift in the carbon cycle presents serious, if
not damning implications for the coherency of the norms that underpin the dominant climate discourse. With the fossil fuel mode of
production that continues to characterize global capitalism today, CO2 continues to create a metabolic rift in the
carbon cycle. How then, we must reflect, can reducing ghg emissions be compatible with the maintenance and
expansion of a liberal economic order, an order that reinforces the kind of conditions that have led to the generation
and accumulation of emissions in the first place? Liberalizing global trade and finance, for example, would not be
possible without the exploitation of the physical properties of fossil fuel. For both the production and circulation of
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goods, current trends in global trade seem to be tied inextricably to the exploitation of fossil fuels . The preceding
discussion strongly suggests that a solution to the climate crisis cannot be found unless the productive forces of the
system are radically transformed. This kind of radical transformation is absent from the Kyoto Protocol as well as the ongoing post-2012
climate negotiations. The dominant climate discourse, embedded as it is in the fossil fuel mode of production, is
fundamentally flawed. It remains difficult to envision how the international community of states will ever meet the
steep reduction targets the IPCC deems necessary to avert a climate crisis within the prevailing socio-economic
structures of capitalism today.
Fossil fuel production internally powers the generalization and expansion of capitalist modes and
relations of production
Sas, 2k10
[Jonathan, B.A. (Honours), University of Toronto, University of British Columbia (Vancouver), Fossil Fuel, Capitalism, and
the State: A Critical Approach to the International Climate Change Discourse, Master’s Thesis in Political Science, August
2010]
the exploitation of fossil fuel energy has played a crucial role in the growth of global CO2
emissions linked to current climatic warming trends. There is an essential connection , moreover between the global growth in
fossil fuel consumption and the historical emergence and development of the global (industrial) capitalist system over
the past two and half odd centuries . It is no secret that fossil fuel energy has been indispensable to the growth of the
global economy, but a careful exploration of the dynamics of this relationship and its implications for achieving reductions in ghgs is of
particular importance in light to the current logic of the dominant climate discourse. To this end, Mathew Huber’s (2009) historical
materialist account of the immutable role that fossilized energy played in enabling -or more accurately, in powering- the
productive forces of capitalism , as well as its role in the continued reproduction of capitalist social relations , is
particularly instructive. Huber‟s analysis underscores the importance of the monumental shift from solar or biological sources
of energy (for example, muscles, wood, wind and water) to fossilized sources (first coal and later oil and gas) and how this shift
fundamentally transformed the conditions and relations of production . The exploitation of the massively more
productive properties of fossilized energy over muscle energy, he contends, led to the transfer of the “core productive
forces” of society from bodies to machinery – a critical shift that was essential to the onset of the industrial
revolution (Ibid., p. 109).15 Consistent with a dialectical understanding of energy and social processes, Huber‟s analysis also focuses on the
importance that this shift in energy had on the relations of production. With the productive forces (machinery) able to be powered by
fossil energy, the relations of production necessarily changed as the worker (wage laborer) became a less important
physical productive force . “The emergence of large-scale fossilized production” Huber explains, “hastened the
generalization and extension of the wage labor relationship on an expanded scale heretofore unseen ” as
concentrated spaces of production (i.e., factories) began to develop rapidly (2009, p. 110). With the discovery of
fossilized energy sources, the operation of capitalist production (that is, of industrial machinery) became dependent on a
constant supply of this energy to sustain its (constantly expanding) operations. The historically specific relationship between fossil
As outlined in the introduction,
fuel energy and the development and evolution of industrial capitalism must be conceived of as a „fossil fuel mode of production.‟ In other
words, fossil fuel “internally powers the forces and relations of capitalist production ” (Huber, 2009, p. 108). As I elaborate on
further in the following section, it follows that the „mammoth productivity‟ of capitalist production , and its concurrent
massive generation of waste (as CO2 emissions) can be traced to the exploitation of the productive power of
fossilized energy (Huber, p. 110).
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Link/!- Overfishing
Capitalist production is the root cause of overfishing- it creates commodity markets that encourage
over consumption and exploitation, and industrialization that allows fishing on a massive scale
Brett Clark and Rebecca Clausen in 2008, PhD, Sociology, University of Oregon, The Oceanic Crisis: Capitalism and
the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem, Monthly Review, http://monthlyreview.org/2008/07/01/the-oceanic-crisiscapitalism-and-the-degradation-of-marine-ecosystem
Humans have long been connected to the ocean’s metabolic processes by harvesting marine fish and vegetation.
Harvesting methods and processes have varied depending on the structure of social production. Subsistence fishing is a
practice woven throughout human history, beginning with the harvesting of shellfish along seashores and shallow lakes, and progressing with the
development of tools such as stone-tipped fishing spears, fishhooks, lines, and nets. This was originally based upon fishing for use of the fish.
What was caught was used to feed families and communities. Through the process of fishing, human labor has been intimately linked to ocean
processes, gaining an understanding of fish migrations, tides, and ocean currents. The size of a human population in a particular region influenced the extent of
exploitation. But
the introduction of commodity markets and private ownership under the capitalist system of production
altered the relationship of fishing labor to the resources of the seas. Specific species had an exchange value. As a result,
certain fish were seen as being more valuable. This led to fishing practices that focused on catching as many of a
particular fish, such as cod, as possible. Non-commercially viable species harvested indiscriminately alongside the target
species were discarded as waste. As capitalism developed and spread, intensive extraction by industrial capture fisheries
became the norm. Increased demands were placed on the oceans and overfishing resulted in the severe depletion of wild fish
stocks. In Empty Ocean, Richard Ellis states, “Throughout the world’s oceans, food fishes once believed to be immeasurable in number are now recognized as greatly
depleted and in some cases almost extinct. A
million vessels now fish the world’s oceans, twice as many as there were twenty-five
years ago. Are there twice as many fish as before? Hardly.” How did this situation develop?10 The beginning of capitalist
industrialization marked the most noticeable and significant changes in fisheries practices. Mechanization, automation,
and mass production/consumption characterized an era of increased fixed capital investments. Profit-driven investment in
efficient production led to fishing technologies that for the first time made the exhaustion of deep-sea fish stocks a real
possibility. Such transformations can be seen in how groundfishing, the capture of fish that swim in close proximity to the ocean’s bottom, changed through the
years.
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Link/!- Overfishing
Capitalism encourages market competition and overproduction that makes overfishing inevitablethese profit motives are responsible for the worst fishing practices
Brett Clark and Rebecca Clausen in 2008, PhD, Sociology, University of Oregon, The Oceanic Crisis: Capitalism and
the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem, Monthly Review, http://monthlyreview.org/2008/07/01/the-oceanic-crisiscapitalism-and-the-degradation-of-marine-ecosystem
Competitive markets create incentives to expand production, regardless of resource decline. Thus, in reaction to
decreased stocks due to overfishing, groundfishing fleets moved farther offshore into waters off of the coast of Canada to increase the
supply of valuable fish to new markets. The fleet’s ability to continue moving into unexploited waters obscured recognition of the severe resource depletion that was
occurring. As a result, the
process of overfishing particular ecosystems to supply a specific good for the market expanded,
subjecting more of the ocean to the same system of degradation.12 The distant water fleets were made possible by the
advent of factory trawlers. Factory trawlers represent the pinnacle of capital investment and extractive intensification in the global fisheries. In Distant
Water William Warner presents a portrayal of a factory trawler’s capacity: Try to imagine a mobile and completely self-contained timber cutting machine that could
smash through the roughest trails of the forest, cut down trees, mill them, and deliver consumer-ready lumber in half the time of normal logging and milling
operations. This was exactly what factory trawlers did—this was exactly their effect on fish—in the forests of the deep. It could not long go unnoticed. Factory
trawlers pull nylon nets a thousand feet long through the ocean, potentially capturing 400 tons of fish during a single
netting. Industrial trawlers can process and freeze their catch as they travel.13 Such technological development extended the systematic
exploitation and scale of harvesting of fishes. The natural limits of fish populations combined with capital’s need to
expand led to the development of immense trawlers that increased the productive capacity and efficiency of operations. These ships allowed
fishermen to seek out areas in the ocean where valuable fish were available, providing the means to capture massive quantities of fish in a single trip. Overcoming the
shortage of fishes in one area was accomplished by even more intensive harvesting with new ships and equipment, such as sonar, in other regions of the oceans.
The pursuit of vast quantities of commercial fishes in different areas of the ocean expanded the depletion of other
species, as they were exploited and discarded as bycatch. The swath of the seas subjected to the dictates of the market increased, whether a
fish was sold as a commodity or thrown overboard as a waste product.14 Competition for market share between companies and capital’s
investment in advanced technology intensified fishery exploitation. Competing international companies sought nature’s
diminishing bounty, causing further international conflict in the “race for fish.” President Truman responded to these disputes by
attempting to expand U.S. corporate interests. He issued two proclamations expanding U.S. authority beyond territorial waters trying to further territorial enclosure
of its adjacent seas out to the limits of the continental shelf. Coastal states around the world struggled to transform the property rights of the open ocean to benefit
their nations. In response to growing conflict, the United Nations convened the First United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea in Geneva in 1958.
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Link- PoMo/Identity Politics
Postmodern critiques of identity and truth ignore that capitalism is once again a problem that
requires more than a multitude of sites of resistance but rather an organized global struggle.
Zizek and Daly in 4
(Slavoj, Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Sociology at Ljubljana University, Glyn, Senior Lecturer in Politics at
University College in Northhampton, “Conversations with Zizek”, Page 146-149)
I don't mean economy in the vulgar sense of, yes we must do something for workers' lot. I am aiming here at something more radical. I think that there is a central idea developed by Georg
Lukacs and the Frankfurt School which, in spite of all my criticism of the Western Marxist tradition, is today more actual than ever. The idea is that the economy is not simply one among the
social spheres. The basic insight of the Marxist critique of political economy — of commodity fetishism and so on — is that the economy has a certain prototranscendental social status.
Economy provides a generative matrix for phenomena which in the first approach has nothing to do with economy as
such. For example, we can speak about reification, the commodification of culture and of politics and so on. At the level of form, the
capitalist economy has a universal scope. So what interests me is the global structuring dimension of what goes on at the level of capitalist economy. It is not just one
domain among the others. Here again I disagree with the postmodern mantra: gender, ethnic struggle, gender, whatever, and
then class. Class is not one in the series. For class, we read, of course, anticapitalist economic struggle. You insist upon the importance
of class and yet the idea of class as a unified agency has been heavily critiqued from a variety of perspectives. Do you still
consider the working class to be a revolutionary agency in the Marxist sense? Well, yes and no. The problem for me is, what is working class today ? I think that
we should certainly abandon any fetish about the centrality of the working class. But at the same time we should abandon the opposite (postmodern) fetish: that
the working class is disappearing; that it is meaningless to speak about the working class. Both are wrong. There are a couple
of trends today. One trend is the growing structural role of unemployed people. It is clear that with this new logic of contemporary capitalism,
the tendency is more and more for you not to have a lifelong permanent job, but to change jobs every two or three years. Some
postmodern ideologists celebrate this as a new liberation in the sense that you don't have a fixed identity: to use the fashionable
term, you have `portfolio subjectivity'. This is a typical postmodern ideological operation, where the horror of never being certain
whether you have a job or not is sold as the new freedom. You are not fixed to one identity; you have to reinvent yourself every two or three years. So this
stratum of unemployed is no longer simply an excess but is something that is structurally inscribed. The working class is split into those who have jobs and
those who don't have jobs. The second split which renders problematic the traditional notion of the working class is the
split between intellectual and manual labour. There are two positions here. One is simply to say, yes, manual labour is disappearing
from sight, but it's still present in terms of the millions who work in service economies, the immigrant workers doing the dirty jobs here, the
global sweat factories in Indonesia and so on. So our societies have to rely upon the manual labour of the working class proper. On the opposite side we have this
quick sleight of hand claiming that intellectual labour is also part of the proletariat today, that all these computer programmers are also
exploited and so on. Somehow I think that both positions are false and we should simply accept this split as definitive. The third opposition, which we have already touched on,
is the relationship between the first and the third world. According to traditional Marxism, true capital should be first world
capital. Of course, in contrast to that we have the Maoist position, according to which class struggle is today turning into the
struggle of whole countries, in the sense that there are countries, for example the United States and the United Kingdom, which are already in themselves bourgeois nations.
And there are nations which, as nations, stand for proletarian nations. I oppose this, but I see in it the signal of a problem. So to be clear, although you would reject the
fetish of class, you would nonetheless ascribe a certain political priority to class struggle, at least in terms of its anticapitalism? My position is almost classical Marxist in the sense that I would insist that anti-capitalist struggle is not simply one among other political struggles for greater equality,
cultural recognition, anti-sexism and so on. I believe in the central structuring role of the anti-capitalist struggle. And I don't think that my position is
as crazy or idiosyncratic as it appeared maybe a couple of years ago. It is not only the so-called Seattle Movement; there are many other signals
that demonstrate that — how shall I put it? — capitalism is becoming a problem again; that the honeymoon of globalization, which
lasted through the 1990s, is coming to an end. It's in this context that we can also understand the incredible success of Negri and Hardt's Empire, which points out that people are
again perceiving capitalism as a problem. It is no longer the old story that the ideological battles are over and that capitalism has won.
Capitalism is once more a problem. This would be my starting point. And I am not thinking of anti-capitalist struggle just in terms of
consumerist movements. This is not enough. We need to do more than simply organize a multitude of sites of resistance
against capitalism. There is a basic necessity to translate this resistance into a more global project — otherwise we will
merely be creating regulatory instances that control only the worst excesses of capitalism.
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Link- Critical Philosophy
Philosophy’s obsession with difference and the indeterminacy and play of symbols prevents a
solidified and coherent understanding of capitalism. It trades off with meaningful analysis of the
way capitalism has ordered society, stifling resistance.
Zavarzadeh in 95 (Mas’ud, prolific writer and expert on class ideology, post-ality: Marxism and postmodernism, postality the (dis)simulations of cybercapitalism)
Post-ality is the ensemble of all practices that, as a totality, obscure the production practices of capitalism—which is based on the
extraction of surplus labor (the source of accumulation of capital)—by announcing the arrival of a new society which is post-production,
post-labor, post-ideology, post-white and post-capitalist. Post-ality, in other words, is a regime of class struggle against the workers that posits a structural change, a
rupture, in capitalism: one that severs the past of capitalism from what is regards to be its radically different and "new" present (which unlike its past is now free from
exploitation). In doing so, post-ality attempts to solve—in the theoretical imaginary—the historical and material contradictions of capitalism caused by the
social division of labor. There is therefore a great urgency among the ideologists of the ruling class to discredit any effort to theorize post-ality (as I am doing here)
because such theorization produces knowledge of contemporary capitalism and the strategies that are used to justify it. This
discrediting of theories
about post-ality takes many forms—as might be expected in the capitalist knowledge industry in which theorists
compete for a living with each other in meeting the needs of the agents of capital for ever newer concepts. The most
popular form now of deconstructing "totality" in order to obscure the working of capitalism) is one that questions the
very possibility of any "totality" by pointing to the epistemological aporias of the theory of concepts (concept = totality). The
strategy, in other words, is to dismantle the frames of intelligibility that make the articulation of such "totalities" as post-ality
(and what it justifies, namely 'capitalism") possible. "Totality" is ostensibly put in question, by such theorists of the ruling class as Derrida
and deMan, on epistemological grounds. According to them, all concepts are effects of tropes (Paul deMan, Allegories of Reading 144-47), and as such,
they are language constructs. Moreover, since language is a "field ... of play' (Writing and Difference 289, emphasis in the original), all
concepts are said to be simply unstable, differential networks of "infinite substitutions" of signs and not an articulation
of the real. Thus, there is always "something missing" from concepts—the something that "excludes totalization" (Writing and Difference 289).
However, these ludic arguments about the playfulness that deprives the concept of its truth ("totality"), exclude themselves
from the laws of play and place their own truth (totalizing against totalizing) beyond the differential volatility of substitutions. These ludic theories also
forget that play is always a movement of parts within a structure of conflicts and contradictions and these contradictions are
effects of class difference and class antagonisms. (This is the line of argument that I will follow throughout my text since I am not interested in simply
performing reflexive and deconstructive readings that bring down an argument by putting its founding threads in question.) Thus the very playfulness of
play (making sense of playfulness) is a historical effect whose meaning is determined by the social relations of production. What is
received as the playfulness of the trope—a lively metaphor— in, for example, Rousseau's Discourse on the Origins and the Foundations of inequality among Men
(1754) is a "dead metaphor" in the discourses of Euroamerican Depression 11930's). This historicity of the "playfulness" (its non-self-evidence) necessitates that
DeMan and other readers constantly annotate Rousseau's "dead metaphors" to give them "life" and make the "playfulness" of their "play" receivable by readers
situated in an entirely different historical situation and material conditions- If
metaphors in and of themselves were playful (that is if language was
autonomous), there would be no need for annotation. The fact that there is such a need and furthermore that there are fierce
contestations over what kind of annotations are appropriate is itself part of the logic of interpretation which is
determined by the historical level of class struggle. if "language is about language" as deMan argues (153), the playfulness of the trope should be
immanent; an always already of the language confronting itself as a result of the transocial laws of signification. But as deMan's annotation of Rousseau shows,
playfulness in a text has to be marked and the marking varies from one period to period another according to the level
of class struggle- the struggle, in short, over what is seen to be the "legitimate" ratio of surplus labor. The marking of a text,
then, Is always class struggle carried on in the tropics of language. DeMan 's notion that "all language is about language"
(153) is not only a "totalization" but also a part of a class theory of language that posits language as a closed arrangement
of signs and reduces all social differences that mobilize signs as interior semiotic differences ("difference within") in which language "confronts itself" and escapes history. However, the totalizations of the ruling class, as I will discuss throughout this essay, are
never seen as "tolalizations" but as the transhistorical truth of life itself. The epistemological questioning of "totality,"
which serves as the basis for rejecting post ality as a concept, is an ideological alibi to dismantle the theoretical foundation of a coherent
knowledge of capitalism as a "totality"—that is, as a systematic and complex set of interconnected economic, cultural,
political and theoretical practices. Derrida's idea of differance (the founding concept of detotalizing) informs the entire project of
postmarxism in which the very notion of society as a totality is decentered and in place of a collective subject of
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revolution is placed the decentralized, detotalized and differential "hegemony" of a loose coalition, This "war on totality" (Iyoutard,
The Post nodern Condition 82), thus, is not limited to poststructuralist writers but increasingly becomes the project of a
generalized "left." For instance, following the announcement that the first issue of 'Transformation would focus on the question of the "Post-al," one "left"
writer responded, in a letter to me, with a troping discrediting of the concept, saying that the "Post" meant "mail" and concluded that "hence'hyper-post-ality'=(?)
too many stamps on the envelope, 'post-al (Flexi)workplace'=all-night sorting office?" One is hard-pressed to find a difference between the leftist discrediting of
concepts and the poststructuralist
(the laws of motion of capital). The
deconstruction—both marginalize the concepts necessary to grasp capitalism as a totality
institutionalized "left" is equally invested in the erasure of concepts and the dispersion of the
social totality into an ensemble of the heterogeneous and incommensurate experiences of 'agent' its 'social movements," When the "rigorous" arguments of the
philosopher on behalf of capital fails, the State jokester takes over and defends the rule of swage labor through "phrases" and "puns" --although in the "with" writings
of such pun(kisters as Lacan, Derrida, Butler, Ulmer ... the epistemological and the joke are sutured into the post-al paralogy. <3-4>
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Link- Discourse Focus
Their focus on signifiers and localized resistance is rooted in a fear of power-it disables all political
stances and allows the hegemonic forces of elites to expand unchecked. Resistance will fail until it
is focused on a positive exercise of power
Bertens in 95 (Johannes and Willem, the idea of postmodernism: a history, pg 197-199)
Postmodernism, however, repeats the defeatist gestures of modernism, although admittedly on another level. Like Keane, McGowan sees a
deeply democratic impulse at work in postmodern thought: ‘we should recognize how fully the ideal of an egalitarian, pluralistic democratic order informs most
postmodern work’ (28). But it is caught in the dilemma created by its deep-rooted suspicion of power. ‘postmodernism finds itself between
a rock and a hard place, unable to ground democracy by appeal to external, nonhuman principles, but unwilling to accept humanly
generated principles as legitimate norms rather than further instances of arrangements imposed by power’ (28). Laclau and Mouffe and Best and Kellner
belong to that small group of theorists that seek legitimation in the intersubjectivity of their historicist models, to the extent even that they downplay the role that
power plays, or has played, in the near background. One way out of the dilemma that McGowan sketches would seem to be offered by the attempt to subvert the
existing order by way of play, jouissance but the impotence of such an aestheticist strategy is obvious. Anti-representation has its effects in the field of
cultural politics, although even there the longevity of those effects should not be overestimated , but it has little to contribute in the
field of social politics. It offers the postmodernist a semblance of freedom, but it is , as McGowan remarks, ‘unprofitably close to the
modernist goal of autonomy’ (2). Significantly, autonomy is the term that Rorty uses to describe the objective of his postmodern ‘ironist’, who is not in the
business of supplying himself and his fellow ironists with a method, a platform, or a rationale. He is just doing the same thing that all ironists do — attempting
autonomy. He is trying to get out from under inherited contingencies and make his own contingencies, get out from under an old final vocabulary and fashion one
which will be all his own. The generic trait of ironists is that they do not hope to have their doubts about their final vocabularies settled by something larger than
themselves. This means that their criterion for resolving doubts, their criterion of private perfection, is autonomy rather than affiliation to a power other than
themselves. Rorty’s ironist attempts to retreat to a separate space, far from the political crowd. This postmodern emulation of negative modernist
strategies is the consequence either of the fear of representation and power expressed by Lyotard and by Foucault or of the fear — expressed
most dearly by Jameson, Baudrillard, and other theorists who draw on the Frankfurter Schule— that the capitalist monolith, so much more
powerful now than under modernity, immediately will render all resistance ineffective. (We remember that for Baudrillard resisting
simulation is itself a simulation.) If the monolith has indeed become virtually all-powerful, then autonomy, whether on the personal or
on the group level, automatically is an important political category, even if ineffective. McGowan’s conclusion that postmodern theorists on
the whole ‘remain wedded to modernist notions of distance and disengagement as enabling radical critique’ is fully warranted . In fact,
Jameson had already said as much of Lyotard in his foreword to The Postmodern Condition. The radical anti-representationalism that is a favorite
postmodern strategy in the creation of distance is at the same time politically crippling . On the level of the group, or community, the
postmodern insistence on distance and difference hides a similar danger, because on this level difference can exist only in the
interstices of hegemony. The centrifugal forces of the postmodern may easily cause a rupture between the margins and the
hegemonic center, and thus hurl the margins into what is in effect a political void, even if that void is experienced as a new freedom.
The upshot of all this is that much postmodern theory, because of its fierce opposition to the politics of modernity, is wholly apolitical in the
macropolitical sense. The fears of representation, of power, and of a social reality wholly dominated by capitalism, have steered most
postmodern theorists towards the tactics of micropolitics while leaving the field of macropolitics to the enemy . Mark Poster has remarked
that the problem for theory ‘is to generate discourses whose power effects are limited as much as possible to the subversion of power’ (Poster 1989: 30). Poster’s
formulation, no matter how cautious, recognizes that power must not only be subverted but also exercised. It is the refusal to claim power,
that is, to move from a negative to a positive conception of postmodern politics that has kept feminists on their guard vis a vis
most postmodern theory.
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!- Extinction
Capital expansion relies on the objectification of nature and humans in the name of rationality-this
not only degrades life, it literally destroys it through violent ecological and social relationships-the
impact is extinction
Noah De Lissovoy in 08 Capitalism Nature Socialism Volume 19, Issue 1, 2008 Capitalism Nature Socialism Volume 19,
Issue 1, 2008, Dialectic of Emergency/Emergency of the Dialectic
Emergency, as crisis, can in the first instance be understood in terms of the coming to fruition of the essential conflicts that
are constitutive of capitalism as a historical process. Marx and Engels described the contradiction which drives history forward as that
between the forces and the relations of production.7 In this account, the productive social capacities born within a mode of production eventually come to
collide with the logic that organizes it as a system of social relationships. This contradiction can only be resolved in the transition to a different society. In the
case of capitalism,
its inherent course of development entails a process of production that is necessarily more and more
collectivized and rationalized. This cannot be reconciled with social relations that depend upon an irrational immiseration of the majority
along with an absolutely brutal individualism, both real and ideological.8 However, as Herbert Marcuse showed in developing the tradition of critical theory,
the development of the forces of production cannot be separated from the destructive effects inherent in the
relationship of exploitation at the core of the production of capital.9 In other words, technological rationality, scientific
management, and organizational “efficiency” are not neutral historical developments that might characterize an authentically
socialist as much as a capitalist society. Rather, they represent in themselves an instrumentalization of human being and social reason
repeated in the reduction of human creativity to the commodity labor power and in the appropriation of surplus value through the labor process itself.
Nevertheless, the idea that capitalism gives rise to an unprecedented social potential beyond its own capacity to manage remains immensely useful. As it
continues its relentless expansion beyond all boundaries, capitalism
initiates a new form of globalized sociality that it cannot
rationally control, and whose potentials are increasingly realized as political and environmental destruction. Indeed,
while globalization represents the point at which capital closes in on the complete subjugation of the world, as both
culture and nature,10 it is also the stage at which its crises and failures also achieve a planetary scale and threaten
systemic ecological collapse. Arguably, it is only at this historical moment that capitalism's inherent contradictions are
fully materialized, and it is only with the aggregation of human experience on a global scale that a truly international
counter-force to capital can be imagined. In this sense, the ascendant emergency time of the new millennium is a step forward, so to speak, in
the historical dialectic that leads ultimately to the overcoming of capitalism itself. In other words, in the same way that the development of manufacturing
broke the bonds of feudalism and laid the groundwork for the appearance and organization of the proletariat,11 capitalism
as globalization
unwittingly creates the conditions for more powerful disruptions of the process of accumulation by newly
crystallized and mobilized global forces. The extended crisis of empire that has come to be called the “war on terror,” the clash between the
relentless assimilative drive of transnational capital and new forms of popular, environmental, and indigenous opposition, and even the natural catastrophes of
earthquakes, hurricanes, and tsunamis (fundamentally mediated as they are by political-economic facts and relationships) would represent the terrible
moments of this drama of history accelerating toward the resolution of its constitutive contradictions. At the same time, however, it
is also an essential
aspect of the temporality of emergency that it begins to appear that there is not enough “time” for this very
dialectic to work itself out. There is first of all the literal boundary to history as development potentially presented
by global climate change, the exhaustion of natural resources, ecological collapse, and war. In István Mészáros’ terms, this is
the “specter of total uncontrollability” of capital in the present, which threatens all life in its catastrophic selfexpansionary logic and thus puts the lie to the putative wisdom of the market.12 In Mészáros’ analysis, the political crisis
and the ecological crisis are joined. As capitalism increasingly shifts the allocation of resources from re-usable to
immediately “used-up” goods, it establishes a spectacularly wasteful society.13 This principle is perfected in the
military-industrial complex, which establishes a parasitic cycle of consumption that bypasses altogether the
satisfaction of real human needs, while threatening actual apocalypse.14 But in addition to these limits on development, there is the
problem that the dialectic of class struggle drawn by Marx has uncovered a deeper and more objective historical logic in the discontinuities and ruptures of
capitalism without having yet produced a social agent capable of challenging capital's rule. Certainly proletarian and peasant movements confront capital in
different places all over the globe; but the consolidation and organization of a unified revolutionary class has not kept pace with capital's own development. It is
not so much that this counter-subject is empirically weak; the problem is rather its failure to become itself at the same pace that capital has accomplished its
own becoming and expansion. The emergence of the historical subject and consciousness that would be able to confront and dismantle power then has to take
place at an accelerated pace—indeed, almost suddenly.
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!- Oceans
Ocean degradation is structurally inevitable under capitalism- it ensures the commodification of
ocean resources and their exploitation
Brett Clark and Rebecca Clausen in 2008, PhD, Sociology, University of Oregon, The Oceanic Crisis: Capitalism and
the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem, Monthly Review, http://monthlyreview.org/2008/07/01/the-oceanic-crisiscapitalism-and-the-degradation-of-marine-ecosystem
The world ocean covers approximately 70 percent of the earth. It has been an integral part of human history, providing
food and ecological services. Yet conservation efforts and concerns with environmental degradation have mostly focused on terrestrial issues. Marine
scientists and oceanographers have recently made remarkable discoveries in regard to the intricacies of marine food webs and the richness of oceanic biodiversity.
However, the excitement over these discoveries is dampened due to an awareness of the rapidly accelerating threat to the biological integrity of marine ecosystems.1
At the start of the twenty-first century marine scientists focused on the rapid depletion of marine fish, revealing that 75
percent of major fisheries are fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted. It is estimated “that the global ocean has lost more than 90% of large
predatory fishes.” The depletion of ocean fish stock due to overfishing has disrupted metabolic relations within the oceanic ecosystem at multiple trophic and spatial
scales.2 Despite
warnings of impending collapse of fish stock, the oceanic crisis has only worsened. The severity is made evident in a
team of scientists analyzed seventeen types of anthropogenic
drivers of ecological change (e.g., organic pollution from agricultural runoff, overfishing, carbon dioxide emissions, etc.) for marine ecosystems.
The findings are clear: No area of the world ocean “is unaffected by human influence,” and over 40 percent of marine
ecosystems are heavily affected by multiple factors. Polar seas are on the verge of significant change. Coral reefs and continental
shelves have suffered severe deterioration. Additionally, the world ocean is a crucial factor in the carbon cycle, absorbing
approximately a third to a half of the carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere. The increase in the portion of carbon dioxide has
recent effort to map the scale of human impact on the world ocean. A
led to an increase in ocean temperature and a slow drop in the pH of surface waters—making them more acidic—disrupting shell-forming plankton and reef-building
species. Furthermore, invasive
species have negatively affected 84 percent of the world’s coastal waters—decreasing biodiversity and
analysis of oceanic systems presents a sobering picture of the coevolution
of human society and the marine environment during the capitalist industrial era. The particular environmental
problems related to the ocean cannot be viewed as isolated issues or aberrations of human ingenuity, only to be
corrected through further technological development. Rather these ecological conditions must be understood as they
relate to the systematic expansion of capital and the exploitation of nature for profit. Capital has a particular social
metabolic order—the material interchange between society and nature—that subsumes the world to the logic of accumulation. It is a
system of self-expanding value, which must reproduce itself on an ever-larger scale.4 Here we examine the social metabolic order of
further undermining already stressed fisheries.3 Scientific
capital and its relationship with the oceans to (a) examine the anthropogenic causes of fish stock depletion, (b) detail the ecological consequences of ongoing
capitalist production in relation to the ocean environment, and (c) highlight the ecological contradictions of capitalist aquaculture.5
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!- Overfishing
Capitalism is responsible for industrial fishing, undermining biodiversity and leading to policies like
trawling
Brett Clark and Rebecca Clausen in 2008, PhD, Sociology, University of Oregon, The Oceanic Crisis: Capitalism and
the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem, Monthly Review, http://monthlyreview.org/2008/07/01/the-oceanic-crisiscapitalism-and-the-degradation-of-marine-ecosystem
Industrialized capitalist fishing allows for vast quantities of target fish to be harvested at once. At the same time, it leads to an
immense amount of non-target marine life—bycatch—being captured. Bycatch are commercially unviable species, thus
they are seen as waste. The “trash fish” are often ground up and thrown back into the ocean. Part of the bycatch includes juveniles
of the target fish, which, if the mortality is increased among this population, undercuts the success of recovery. Obviously, the populations of the discarded species
are negatively affected by this practice, furthering the depletion of marine life. The
most wasteful operation is trawling for shrimp. The
capture and discarding of bycatch disrupts the habitats and trophic webs within ecosystems. The scale of the disruption is quite
significant. It is estimated that an average of 27 million tons of fish are discarded each year in commercial fisheries around the world, and that the United States has a
.28 ratio of bycatch discard to landings.22 Species extinction is
the direct impact of overfishing, which is in part driven by the
pursuit of capital accumulation and is facilitated by the technological innovations that are employed for this particular
purpose, in what has become known as a “race for fish.”23 Capitalist practices are creating a loss of marine biodiversity
and undermining the resiliency of marine ecosystems. Valiela states, “The magnitude of the fishing harvest and the examples
of major alterations to marine food webs by predator removal suggest that effects of fishing are ecologically substantial
at large spatial scales.” The “major alteration to marine food webs” due to overexploitation provides the clearest
example of ecological degradation in the metabolic processes of the ocean.24
Continued overfishing threatens to collapse all marine biodiversity
Brett Clark and Rebecca Clausen in 2008, PhD, Sociology, University of Oregon, The Oceanic Crisis: Capitalism and
the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem, Monthly Review, http://monthlyreview.org/2008/07/01/the-oceanic-crisiscapitalism-and-the-degradation-of-marine-ecosystem
Equally disrupting, but less apparent than species effects, are the ecosystem effects caused by fishery exploitation, especially
“fishing down the food chain.”25 As overfishing depletes the most commercially viable top predators (i.e., snapper, tuna, cod,
and swordfish), competition drives commercial fishers to begin harvesting species of lower trophic levels. The downward
shift is global, according to the model analysis of UN statistics describing worldwide catches of fish over a forty-year time span. If this quest is pursued
to its logical end, scientists warn it will lead to the wholesale collapse of marine ecosystems. Fishing down the food
chain erodes the base of marine biodiversity and undermines the biophysical cornerstone of ocean fisheries. The recent
discoveries of marine trophic interactions suggest that the lower trophic levels of marine food webs provide an integral and complex
foundation—disrupting this base undermines the metabolic cycle of energy flows within marine ecosystems.
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!- Oceans
Capitalism can do nothing to save the environment- at best it can delay collapse- overproduction
and waste make eco-collapse inevitable- only a revolution against capital can solve
Brett Clark and Rebecca Clausen in 2008, PhD, Sociology, University of Oregon, The Oceanic Crisis: Capitalism and
the Degradation of Marine Ecosystem, Monthly Review, http://monthlyreview.org/2008/07/01/the-oceanic-crisiscapitalism-and-the-degradation-of-marine-ecosystem
The world is at a crossroads in regard to the ecological crisis. Ecological degradation under global capitalism extends to
the entire biosphere. Oceans that were teeming with abundance are being decimated by the continual intrusion of
exploitive economic operations. At the same time that scientists are documenting the complexity and interdependency of marine species, we are
witnessing an oceanic crisis as natural conditions, ecological processes, and nutrient cycles are being undermined through
overfishing and transformed due to global warming. The expansion of the accumulation system, along with technological advances in fishing, have
intensified the exploitation of the world ocean; facilitated the enormous capture of fishes (both target and bycatch); extended the spatial reach of
fishing operations; broadened the species deemed valuable on the market; and disrupted metabolic and reproductive processes of the
ocean. The quick-fix solution of aquaculture enhances capital’s control over production without resolving ecological
contradictions. It is wise to recognize, as Paul Burkett has stated, that “short of human extinction, there is no sense in which capitalism
can be relied upon to permanently ‘break down’ under the weight of its depletion and degradation of natural wealth.”44
Capital is driven by the competition for the accumulation of wealth, and short-term profits provide the immediate pulse of capitalism. It
cannot operate under conditions that require reinvestment in the reproduction of nature, which may entail time scales
of a hundred or more years. Such requirements stand opposed to the immediate interests of profit. The qualitative relation
between humans and nature is subsumed under the drive to accumulate capital on an ever-larger scale. Marx lamented that to capital, “Time is everything, man is
nothing; he is at the most, time’s carcase. Quality no longer matters. Quantity alone decides everything.”45 Productive relations are concerned with production time,
labor costs, and the circulation of capital—not the diminishing conditions of existence. Capital subjects natural cycles and processes (via controlled feeding and the
use of growth hormones) to its economic cycle. The maintenance of natural conditions is not a concern. The bounty of nature is taken for granted and appropriated
as a free gift. As a result, the system is inherently caught in a fundamental crisis arising from the transformation and destruction of nature. István Mészáros
elaborates this point, stating: For
today it is impossible to think of anything at all concerning the elementary conditions of social
metabolic reproduction which is not lethally threatened by the way in which capital relates to them—the only way in which it
can. This is true not only of humanity’s energy requirements, or of the management of the planet’s mineral resources and chemical potentials, but of every facet of
the global agriculture, including the devastation caused by large scale de-forestation, and even the most irresponsible way of dealing with the element without which
no human being can survive: water itself….In the absence of miraculous solutions, capital’s arbitrarily self-asserting attitude to the objective determinations of
causality and time in the end inevitably brings a bitter harvest, at the expense of humanity [and nature itself].46 An
analysis of the oceanic crisis
confirms the destructive qualities of private for-profit operations. Dire conditions are being generated as the resiliency
of marine ecosystems in general is being undermined. To make matters worse, sewage from feedlots and fertilizer runoff from
farms are transported by rivers to gulfs and bays, overloading marine ecosystems with excess nutrients, which contribute to an
expansion of algal production. This leads to oxygen-poor water and the formation of hypoxic zones—otherwise known as “dead zones”
because crabs and fishes suffocate within these areas. It also compromises natural processes that remove nutrients from the waterways. Around 150 dead zones
have been identified around the world. A dead zone is the end result of unsustainable practices of food production on land. At the same time, it contributes to the
loss of marine life in the seas, furthering the ecological crisis of the world ocean. Coupled
with industrialized capitalist fisheries and
aquaculture, the oceans are experiencing ecological degradation and constant pressures of extraction that are severely
depleting the populations of fishes and other marine life. The severity of the situation is that if current practices and
rates of fish capture continue marine ecosystems and fisheries around the world could collapse by the year 2050.47 To
advert turning the seas into a watery grave, what is needed is nothing less than a worldwide revolution in our relation to
nature, and thus of global society itself.
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!- Spills over
The commodification of the environment spills over into our social relationships- the cultures and
people that depend on ecosystems are also discarded
Richard Kahn in 2008, Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations & Research at the University of North Dakota
From Education for Sustainable Development to Ecopedagogy: Sustaining Capitalism or Sustaining Life?, Green Theory &
Praxis: The Journal of Ecopedagogy Volume 4, No. 1 (2008)
Almost all of these trends are escalating and most are accelerating. Even during what recently amounted to a current economic downturn,
transnational markets and development continued to flow and evolve, and the globalization of technocapital (Best and Kellner, 2001)
continues to fuel yet another vast reconstruction of the myriad planetary political, economic, and sociocultural forces into a futuristic
information society. Over the last few decades then, humanity has unfolded like a shock wave across the face of the Earth, one that has led
to an exponential increase of transnational marketplaces and startling achievements in science and technology, but one that has also had devastating
effects on planetary ecosystems, both individually and as a whole. Most telling has been the parallel tendency over this time period
toward mass extinction for the great diversity of nonhuman species, including vast numbers of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians. Comparing
the numbers involved in this catastrophe with the handful of other great extinctions within the prehistoric record has led the
esteemed paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey to dub this age as the time of “the Sixth Extinction,” a great vanishing of creatures over the last
thirty-odd years such as the planet did not see during its previous sixty-five million (Leaky and Lewin, 1995). The critical theorist Herbert Marcuse referred to
the sort of systemic disregard for life evinced by statistics such as these as “ecocide” (Kellner 2005, p. 173) – the attempt to
annihilate natural places by turning them into capitalist cultural spaces, a process that works hand in hand with the
genocide and dehumanization of people as an expression of the market economy’s perpetual expansion. More recently, others
speak of ecocide as the destruction of the higherorder relations that govern ecosystems generally (Broswimmer, 2002), as when economies of need take areas
characterized by complexity and diversity (like the Amazonian rainforest) and reduce them to the deforested and unstable monoculture of soybeans for cattle feed.
However, while it
is no doubt possible to disable an ecosystem from sustaining much life, it is not clear that one can actually kill it. Instead,
we are witnessing a process by which bioregions are being transformed pathologically from natural ecologies of scale that
support life to capitalist ecologies that function beyond limit and threaten death. In this way, the current globalization of neoliberal
capitalism, which institutes classist, racist, sexist, and speciesist oppression, is a sort of biocidal, or as I ultimately argue elsewhere
(Kahn, 2006), a zoöcidal agent.
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!- Environment
Its try or die for the alternative – we only have a small window to alter the massive amount of
ecological destruction that has taken place under the guiding logic of capital.
Foster in 2009(John Bellamy, Professor of Sociology at Oregon, “The Ecological Revolution,” Page 43-46)
In the years that have elapsed since the second earth summit it
has become increasingly difficult to separate the class and imperial
war inherent to capitalism from war on the planet itself. At a time when the United States is battling for imperial
control of the richest oil region on earth, the ecology of the planet is experiencing rapid deterioration, marked most
dramatically by global warming. Meanwhile, the neoliberal economic restructuring emanating from the new regime of
monopoly-finance capital is not only undermining the economic welfare of much of humanity, but is also, in some
regions, removing such basic ecological conditions of human existence as access to clean air, drinkable water, and
adequate food. Ecologists who once warned of the possibility of future apocalypse now insist that global disaster is on Our doorstep. Bill
McKibben, author of The End of Nature, declared in his article "The Debate Is Over" in the November 17,2005, issue of RollingStone magazine that we are
now entering the “Oh Shit" era of global warming. At first, he wrote, there was the "I wonder what will happen?" era. Then there was the
"Can this really be true?" era. Now we are in the Oh Shit era. We now know that it is too late to avert global disaster entirely. All we can do is limit its
scope and intensity. Much of the uncertainty has to do with the fact that "the world ... has some trapdoors-mechanisms that don't work in
straightforward fashion, but instead trigger a nasty chain reaction.?" In his book, The Revenge of Gaia, influential scientist James Lovelock, best known as the
originator of the Gaia hypothesis, has issued a grim assessment of the earth's prospects based on such sudden chain reactions." Voicing the concerns of
numerous scientists, Lovelock highlights a number of positive feedback mechanisms that could-and in his view almost certainly will-amplify the earth warming
tendency. The
destructive effect of increasing global temperatures on ocean algae and tropical forests (on top of the direct
the capacity of the oceans and forests to absorb carbon dioxide, raising the
global temperature still further, The freeing up and release into the atmosphere of enormous quantities of methane
(a greenhouse gas twenty-four times as potent as carbon dioxide) as the permafrost of the arctic tundra thaws due to global warming, constitutes
another such vicious spiral. Just as ominous, the reduction of the earth's reflectivity as melting white ice at the poles is replaced with blue seawater is
threatening to ratchet-up global temperatures. In Lovelock's cataclysmic view, the earth has probably already passed the point of no
return and temperatures are destined to rise eventually as much as 80 C (140 F) in temperate regions. The human species
removal of these forests) will, it is feared, reduce
will survive in some form, he assures us. Nevertheless, he points to "an imminent shift in our climate towards one that could easily be described as Hell: so hot,
so deadly that only a handful of the teeming billions now alive will survive,"? He offers, as the sole means of partial salvation, a massive technical fix: a global
program to expand nuclear power facilities throughout the earth as a limited substitute to the carbondioxide-emitting fossil fuel economy. The thought that
such a Faustian bargain would pave its own path to hell seems scarcely to have crossed his mind. Lovelock's fears are not easily dismissed. James Hansen,
who did so much to bring the issue of global warming to world attention, has
recently issued his own warning. In an article entitled "The
Threat to the Planet," Hansen points out that animal and plant species are migrating throughout the earth in
response to global warming-though not fast enough in relation to changes in their environments--and that alpine
species are being "pushed off the planet." We are facing, he contends, the possibility of mass extinctions associated with
increasing global temperature, comparable to earlier periods in the earth's history in which 50 to 90 percent of living species were lost. The greatest immediate
threat to humanity from climate change, Hansen argues, is associated with the destabilization of the ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. A little more than
1’C (1.8' F) separates the climate of today from the warmest interglacial periods in the last half million years when the sea level was as much as sixteen feet
higher. Further, increases in temperature this century by around 2.80 C (50 F), if business-as-usual continues, could lead to a long-term rise in sea level by as
much as eighty feet, judging by what happened the last time the earth's temperature rose this high-three million years ago. "We
have," Hansen says, "at
most ten years-not ten years to decide upon action but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of
greenhouse gas emissions"-if we are to prevent such disastrous outcomes from becoming inevitable. One crucial decade, in other words,
separates us from irreversible changes that could produce a very different world. The contradictions of the entire Holocene-the
geological epoch in which human civilization has developed-are suddenly being revealed in our time.10 In the Oh shit era, the debate, McKibben says, is over.
There is no longer any doubt that global warming represents a crisis of earth-shaking proportions. Yet, it is
absolutely essential to understand that this is only one part of what we call the environmental crisis. The global
ecological threat as a whole is made up of a large number of interrelated crises and problems that are confronting us
simultaneously. In my 1994 book, The Vulnerable Planet, I started out with a brief litany of some of these, to which others might now be added:
Overpopulation, destruction of the ozone layer, global warming, extinction of species, loss of genetic diversity, acid
rain, nuclear contamination, tropical deforestation, the elimination of climax forests, wetland destruction, soil
erosion, desertification, floods, famine, the despoliation of lakes, streams, and rivers, the drawing down and
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contamination of ground water, the pollution of coastal waters and estuaries, the destruction of coral reefs, oil
spills, overfishing, expanding landfills, toxic wastes, the poisonous effects of insecticides and herbicides, exposure to
hazards on the job, urban congestion, and the depletion of nonrenewable resources. The point is that not just global warming
but many of these other problems as well can each be seen as constituting a global ecological crisis. Today, every major ecosystem on the earth is
in decline. Issues of environmental justice are becoming more prominent and pressing everywhere we turn.
Underlying this is the fact that the class/imperial war that defines capitalism as a world system, and that governs its
system of accumulation, is a juggernaut that knows no limits. In this deadly conflict the natural world is seen as a mere
instrument of world social domination. Hence, capital by its very logic imposes what is in effect a scorched earth
strategy. The planetary ecological crisis is increasingly all-encompassing, a product of the destructive
uncontrollability of a rapidly globalizing capitalist economy, which knows no law other than its own drive to
exponential expansion.
Capitalism has failed to avoid extinction through ecological crisis – only a massive re-ordering of the
mode of production can bring environmental sustainability
Smith in 2011(Richard, Institute for Policy Research & Development, “Green Capitalism: the god that failed”, realworld economics review, issue no. 56)
We can’t shop our way to sustainability because the problems we face cannot be solved by individual choices in the marketplace. In
fact most of the
ecological problems we face from global warming to deforestation, to overfishing, to pollution, to species extinction
and many others, are way beyond the scope of companies, industries, even countries. They require concerted, largescale national and international action. And they require direct economic planning at global, national and local levels.
For example, the world’s climate scientists tell us we’re doomed unless we shut down the coal industry and sharply reduce
our consumption of all fossil fuels. But even the world’s largest corporations, such as Exxon Mobil, can’t afford to take such
losses, to sacrifice its owners -- merely to save the humans. Corporations can’t make the socially and ecologically
rational decisions that need to be made to save the humans because they represent only private particular interests,
not the social and universal interests of humanity, the environment, and future generations. But society can afford
to close down coal, retrench oil production and socialize those losses. Society can ration oil, like we did during World War II, and
society can redeploy labor and resources to construct the things we do need to save the humans, like renewable
energy, public transit, energy efficient housing for all, and many other social needs that are currently unmet by the
market system. In the final analysis, the only way to align production with society’s interests and the needs of the
environment is to do so directly. The huge global problems we face require the visible hand of direct economic
planning to re-organize the world economy to meet the needs of humans and the environment, to enforce limits on
consumption and pollution, to fairly ration and distribute the goods and services we produce for the benefit of each
and every person on the planet, and to conserve resources so that future generations of humans and other life
forms can also live their lives to the full. All this is inconceivable without the abolition of capitalist private property in
the means of production and the institution of collective bottom-up democratic control over the economy and
society. And it will be impossible to build functioning national and global economic democracies unless we also
abolish global economic inequality. This is both the greatest moral imperative of our time and it is also essential to
winning world-wide popular support for the profound changes we must make to prevent the collapse of civilization.
A tall order to be sure. But we will need even taller waterproof boots if we don’t make this happen. If Paul Hawken, Lester Brown, Francis Cairncross and Paul
Krugman have a better plan, where is it?98
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!- Laundry List
Capitalism fosters war, environmental destruction, imperialism, and values antithetical to healthy
communities and human relationships
Magdoff, 2k12
[Fred, Professor Emertus of Plant and Soil Science at the University of Vermont in Burlington and Director of the Monthly
Review Foundation, Harmony and Ecological Civilization: Beyond the Capitalist Alienation of Nature, Monthly Review,
2012]
There is an overriding issue when considering harmony as I have briefly described it. Harmony in the world—among its people and
between humans and the rest of the ecosystems—is not possible in the context of capitalism . Capitalism , a system that has been in
existence for some 500 years (merchant capitalism for approximately 250 years and industrial capitalism for about 250 years)—a relatively short
time in the 150,000 year history of anatomically modern humans—has shown that it fosters interpersonal relations and metabolic
interactions with the earth that are detrimental to achieving a harmonious existence . This is a result of capitalism’s
basic characteristics and the relationships it creates as it normally functions. The purpose of capitalism is not to
satisfy human needs and preserve the environment. There is only one purpose and driving force—ultimately responsible
for both its dynamic periods and its crises and long periods of slow growth (stagnation)—and that is the accumulation of capital
without end. The capitalist system has a number of basic characteristics and also fosters specific human characteristics and relationships.
Here are ten key aspects of capitalism: •• It has to grow (or else it is in crisis) and its very logic and motivating force impels
growth. •• It has no other driving force than the accumulation of ever greater amounts of capital. •• Through the
creation of so-called “externalities” (or side effects) it wreaks damage on humans as well as the ecosystem and the life
support systems needed by humanity and other species . In Paul Sweezy’s words: “As far as the natural environment is
concerned, capitalism perceives it not as something to be cherished and enjoyed but as a means to the paramount
ends of profit-making and still more capital accumulation.”1 •• It promotes the use of nonrenewable resources without
regard to the needs of future generations, as if there was no end to them, and abuses even renewable resources such as ocean
fisheries and forests. •• It creates vast inequality in income, wealth, and power both within and between countries.
Not only class, but race, gender, and other inequalities are built into its laws of motion. •• It requires and produces a
reserve army of labor—people precariously connected to the economy, most kept in poverty or near poverty—so that labor is
available during economic upswings and workers can easily be fired when not needed by businesses . •• It promotes
national economic and political competition and imperialism , leading to wars for domination and access to
resources. •• It fosters and rewards those particular human traits that are useful for thriving or even just existing in such a
possessive-individualist society— selfishness, individualism, competition, greed, exploitation of others,
consumerism—while not allowing the full expression of those human characteristics needed for a harmonious
society (cooperation, sharing, empathy, and altruism). •• It leads to the breakdown of human health since people operate in a
hierarchical society, with many working under dangerous and physically debilitating conditions or in jobs that are
repetitive and boring—while subject to job loss or fear of losing their job. (There are many adverse long-term health effects following the
loss of one’s job.)2 •• It leads to the breakdown of healthy communities as people become more solitary in outlook and behavior
and indigenous culture is replaced by the dominant national or international capitalist culture and outlook. People
become dedicated to obtaining more for themselves and their families and depending less on reciprocal
relationships with others.
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!- Structural Violence
Even every day structural violence like police brutality and militarized schooling are products of capitalism-they are
disciplinary measures to maintain class divisions and subjugate the poor
McNally in 10, David, activist and Professor of Political Science at York University in Toronto, Ontario, and past chair of
the university's Department of Political Science Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance
On the economic front, the Volcker Shock—and similar policies in countries from Britain to Bolivia—were designed to make employment more precarious,
through mass layoff s, factory closures, public sector job cuts, and the replacement of full-time by part-time work. Alan Budd, chief economic advisor to former
British prime minister Margaret Thatcher, was surprisingly forthright about all this. “Rising unemployment,” he argued, “was a very desirable way of reducing
the strength of the working class . . . What
was engineered—in Marxist terms—was a crisis in capitalism which re-created a reserve
army of labor, and has allowed the capitalists to make high profits ever since.”241 In short, generate unemployment and you will curb
workers’ powers of resistance. By fostering job insecurity in these ways, a new political climate was engineered, one designed to buttress
market discipline. Through the media and the pronouncements of politicians, a cultural atmosphere was created that disparaged
nonconformity and rebellion while extolling obedience and respect for those in power. A law and order regime, to be discussed below, threatened
those who challenged authority. TV shows glorifying cops became the rage. In all these ways, people were warned of the severe risks involved in standing up to
dictatorial managers, organizing a union, or going on strike. Do any of the above, came the message, and you could easily be replaced. All of which reminds us
that, notwithstanding the force of economic coercion imposed by market dependence, capitalism
has always required an intricate web of
social, political, and legal coercion organized in and through the state. Fundamental to intensified state coercion was
a get-tough “law and order” regime that was backed up by increasingly militarized policing. Poor communities of color
suffered an invasion of ever more brutal and intrusive policing; radical political movements were infiltrated and harassed,
their members frequently jailed on trumped up charges and, in the case of groups like the Black Panther Party, chillingly
murdered. Schools in poor communities were subjected to heightened surveillance and dramatically increased police presence (in
the U.S. this has included jails in schools). And on the street level, those who hang around, gather on corners, and generally do not lead the
disciplined lives of the neoliberal era are immediately suspect and liable to be confronted by police, their very mode of life
deemed suspicious. Not that any of this is new. But it was a return to (and an intensifi cation of ) older forms of keeping poor, working class people in line.
Once again, it was truly a neo-liberalism, the revival of policies and practices that had characterized capitalism in its early (classically
liberal) phase. <115-116>
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!- Ethics
The naturalizing process of capitalism masks its role in ensuring subjugation on a global scale. Our
primary ethico-political responsibility is to challenge the organizing principles which found this
system
Zizek and Daly in 4
(Slavoj and Glyn, Conversations with Zizek pg. 14-16)
For Zizek it
is imperative that we cut through this Gordian knot of postmodern protocol and recognize that our ethico-political responsibility
is to confront the constitutive violence of today's global capitalism and its obscene naturalization/ anonymization of
the millions who are subjugated by it throughout the world. Against the standardized positions of postmodern culture – with all its pieties
concerning 'multiculturalist' etiquette – Zizek is arguing for a politics that might be called 'radically incorrect' in the sense that it breaks with these
types of positions' and focuses instead on the very organizing principles of today's social reality: the principles of global
liberal capitalism. This requires some care and subtlety. For far too long, Marxism has been bedevilled by an almost fetishistic
economism that has tended towards political morbidity. With the likes of Hilferding and Gramsci, and more recently Laclau and Mouffe, crucial theoretical
advances have been made that enable the transcendence of all forms of economism. In this new context, however, Zizek argues that the problem that now
presents itself is almost that of the opposite fetish. That is to say, the
prohibitive anxieties surrounding the taboo of economism can
function as a way of not engaging with economic reality and as a way of implicitly accepting the latter as a basic
horizon of existence. In an ironic Freudian-Lacanian twist, the fear of economism can end up reinforcing a de facto economic necessity in respect of
contemporary capitalism (i.e. the initial prohibition conjures up the very thing it fears). This is not to endorse any kind of retrograde return to economism.
Zizek's point is rather that in
rejecting economism we should not lose sight of the systemic power of capital in shaping the
lives and destinies of humanity and our very sense of the possible. In particular we should not overlook Marx's central insight
that in order to create a universal global system the forces of capitalism seek to conceal the politico-discursive
violence of its construction through a kind of gentrification of that system. What is persistently denied by neo-liberals such as Rorty
(1989) and Fukuyama (1992) is that the gentrification of global liberal capitalism is one whose 'universalism' fundamentally
reproduces and depends upon a disavowed violence that excludes vast sectors of the world's population. In this way,
neo-liberal ideology attempts to naturalize capitalism by presenting its outcomes of winning and losing as if they
were simply a matter of chance and sound judgement in a neutral marketplace. Capitalism does indeed create a space for a
certain diversity, at least for the central capitalist regions, but it is neither neutral nor ideal and its price in terms of social exclusion is exorbitant. That is to say,
the human cost in terms of inherent global poverty and degraded 'life-chances' cannot be calculated within the
existing economic rationale and, in consequence, social exclusion remains mystified and nameless (viz. the patronizing
reference to the 'developing world'). And Zizek's point is that this mystification is magnified through capitalism's profound capacity to
ingest its own excesses and negativity: to redirect (or misdirect) social antagonisms and to absorb them within a culture
of differential affirmation. Instead of Bolshevism, the tendency today is towards a kind of political boutiquism that is readily sustained by postmodern
forms of consumerism and lifestyle. Against this Zizek argues for a new universalism whose primary ethical directive is to
confront the fact that our forms of social existence are founded on exclusion on a global scale. While it is perfectly
true that universalism can never become Universal (it will always require a hegemonic-particular embodiment in order to have any meaning),
what is novel about Zizek's universalism is that it would not attempt to conceal this fact or to reduce the status of
the abject Other to that of a 'glitch' in an otherwise sound matrix.
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Alt- HM
The alternative is to reject the affirmative in favor of a historical materialist methodology to
challenge capitalism. This method is critical to generate a pedagogy which privileges the relations of
production for a better understanding of social and political oppression.
Andrew N. McNight in 2010 University of Alabama at Birmingham, A Pragmatic and pedagogically Minded
Revaluation of Historical Materialism, Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies, vol.8. no.2,
http://www.jceps.com/PDFs/08-2-04.pdf
Toward a reconstruction of historical materialism, Habermas (1979) adopts many tenets of Marxian theory. Notably, he adopts a common belief that ethical
social action can lead to progress, or what he, and Lukacs before him, term ―social evolution‖ (130). Habermas, however, renders
historical materialism less ideologically rigid and more interrelated to the pursuit of concepts like ―moral-practical
insight‖ (120), and the ―moralization of motives for action [italics omitted]‖ (136). This can easily be described using the familiar terms of freedom to control
one‘s own production, freedom from oppressive economic dictates, freedom to one‘s own cultural identity and from cultural violence being visited upon the
former, etc. He
views this reconstruction of historical materialism as making necessary revisions in a theory ―whose
potential for stimulation has still not been exhausted‖ (95). His revision is still materialist in that it concerns the Marxian categories
of production and reproduction, and historical in that it seeks to identify causes of social change and potentially new
and more complex forms of social organization toward ―securing a normatively prescribed societal identity, a culturally interpreted ‗good‘ or
‗tolerable‘ life‖ (142). Habermas (1979) posits historical materialism not simply as a heuristic, but, as aforementioned, a ―theory of social evolution‖ (130) that
can be used to solve many of the problems confronting the moral development of social life. Progress is, under this historical and materialist rubric, both
social and physical; it represents advances in ―empirical knowledge and moral-practical insight . . . the development of productive
forces and the maturity of forms of social intercourse‖ (142). Habermas (1979), however, warns against a retrogression of Marx‘s
general theory into ―historical objectivism . . . [where] philosophical questions [are suppressed] in favor of a scientistic understanding‖ (96).
Although suspicious of absolute narratives, he also takes a different stance from some on the postmodern left that
the instability of social norms is necessarily beneficial to the moral development of a society. In neo-normative tenor he
states, ―a philosophical ethics not restricted to metaethical statements is possible today only if we can reconstruct
general presuppositions of communication and procedures for justifying norms and values‖ (97). These
presuppositions set the boundaries for social change as the ability of the populace at large to analyze social
circumstances and learn their intricacies: ―a developmental logic [that may explain] the range of variations within which cultural values, moral
representation - can be changed and can find different historical expression‖ (98). Put crudely, the social learning a given culture can
accommodate, and the emotional capacity of consciousness to conflict with the underlying contradictions within a
given society, is related to the quality and quantity of direct systemic social change.
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Alt- Our Method Key
Our method is key-only our analysis of the metabolic rift between nature and society caused by
capitalism allows for a full understanding of marine ecology- this is the only way to transition to an
economy away from capital
Rebecca Clausen University of Oregon, and Brett Clark University of Oregon, 2005, The Metabolic Rift and Marine
Ecology: An Analysis of the Ocean Crisis Within Capitalist Production, Organization Environment 2005 18: 422
Our goal is twofold: to contribute to the development of theory in environmental sociology via the concept of the metabolic rift and to provide an approach for
understanding the developing oceanic crisis that is being perpetuated by the expansion of capitalist operations in the oceans. Foster (1999, 2000) presented
how Marx approached environmental problems in his day primarily through an analysis rooted in the metabolism of
natural systems, which included studying the material exchange between organisms and systems, as well as the
operations of systems themselves. Metabolism, the relationship of exchange within and between nature and humans, is one of the
foundational concepts in ecology. It provides an avenue for examining the qualitative and quantitative dimensions of
relationships and for analyzing the dialectic between nature and society. Buttel (2002), one of the key figures in environmental
sociology, argued that the metabolic rift is one of the most important theoretical concepts in environmental sociology (p. 46). It
has quickly become a prominent idea in environmental sociology (Burkett, 1999; Clark, 2003; Dickens, 2004; Fischer-Kowalski & Haberl, 1998; Foster & Burkett, 2000;
Foster & Clark, 2003; Moore, 2000, 2003; York, Rosa, & Dietz, 2003a, 2003b). Whereas the metabolic rift
theory was originally described in
the context of agriculture and the soil crisis, we offer an adoption of this theory by extending its usage to the study of
the interaction between society and the oceans. We analyze how the expansion of capitalist enterprise into the oceans led to
the depletion of fish stock and how these natural limits encouraged capital to invest in aquaculture as a “quick fix.”We
conclude by suggesting that aquaculture fails to resolve the metabolic rift between society and the seas. To accomplish these tasks, we
start with a discussion of metabolism and the metabolic rift and invite an extension of this theory to the oceans. After we
address the biology of the ocean and marine metabolism, we examine human interactions with the ocean in the context of capitalist
development. It is appropriate to investigate the human-ocean relationship in the context of capitalism because it has
been the dominant economic system influencing human interactions with nature for several hundred years. From this
analysis, we address how capital interactions have created rifts in the ocean metabolism, ranging from species-level
decline to ecosystem collapse. Capital seeks to overcome these natural barriers and continue intensified production
through the creation of aquaculture. Here, we highlight how capital fails to escape from the metabolic rift of its own making.
Rather, given capitalism’s drive to accumulate regardless of the ecological consequence, aquaculture expands the
metabolic rift in new directions.
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Alt- Our Method Key
Only our method provides the comprehensive understanding of nature and society needed to
diagnose and propose solutions to the ecological ocean crisis- we are a prerequisite to the aff
Rebecca Clausen University of Oregon, and Brett Clark University of Oregon, 2005, The Metabolic Rift and Marine
Ecology: An Analysis of the Ocean Crisis Within Capitalist Production, Organization Environment 2005 18: 422
The metabolic rift has become a powerful conceptual tool for analyzing human interactions with nature and ecological
degradation. Foster (1999, 2000) illustrates how Marx’s conception of the metabolic rift under capitalism illuminates socialnatural
relations and degradation in a number of ways: (a) the decline in soil fertility as a result of disrupting the soil nutrient cycle; (b)
scientific and technological developments, under capitalist relations, increase the exploitation of nature, intensifying the
degradation of soil; (c) capitalist operations lead to the accumulation of waste, which become a pollution problem; and (d) capital’s
attempts to surmount environmental problems fail to resolve the immediate metabolic rift, thus contributing to further
environmental problems. We extend the theory of the metabolic rift to marine ecosystems. A metabolic rift is a rupture in the
metabolic processes of a system. Natural cycles, such as the reproduction rate of fish or the energy transfer through trophic levels, are
interrupted. We situate the human-marine relationship within the period of global capitalism, which is the primary force
organizing the social metabolism with nature. By historically contextualizing this metabolic rift, we can highlight the
oceanic crisis in the making. Marine ecosystems are experiencing the same exploitive disconnect recognized between
soil ecology and capitalist agriculture due to aquaculture’s intensification of production and concentration of wastes.
Intensification and concentration of fisheries production creates a quantitative increase in the rate of biomass depletion and aquatic pollution. However, the
qualitative changes to the conditions of the marine ecosystem resulting from aquaculture’s productive reorganization may present an even greater challenge to the
stability of human-ocean interactions and the resiliency of the oceans themselves. The
qualitative changes taking place extend beyond
ecosystem disruption and include the interaction between humans and the ocean. As capitalist production in the aquatic
realm expands, the alienation of humans from nature increases. Through the application of metabolic rift analysis, we
can gain a greater understanding of the dynamic relationships involved in the oceanic crisis . To begin the analysis, a review of
marine ecological processes is required.
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Alt- Our Method Best
Our method has distinct advantages to the aff methodology- it provides comprehensive analysis of
the problem, and prevents the use of solutions that will only exacerbate the ecological crisis
through technological fixes.
Rebecca Clausen University of Oregon, and Brett Clark University of Oregon, 2005, The Metabolic Rift and Marine
Ecology: An Analysis of the Ocean Crisis Within Capitalist Production, Organization Environment 2005 18: 422
The work of Foster and colleagues has introduced Marx’s
concept of metabolism as a central theory in environmental sociology for
understanding the human relationship to nature. By rooting metabolism in the productive labor process, Marx
demonstrates how capitalist production forces a rift in the interdependent metabolic processes connecting humans and
the natural world. Important to such analysis is the awareness that Marx located the metabolic rift concept in the concrete
circumstances and crisis of his time: the degradation of soil fertility under capitalist agriculture. The concept of metabolic rift, however, is
thoroughly relevant to today’s agro-industrial food industries and is crucial to explain capitalism’s ever-deepening effect
on nature. To illustrate the theoretical and conceptual power of Marx’s use of the metabolic rift, we demonstrate how this theory informs and advances our
understanding of the human relationship to the ocean. The application of the metabolic rift to human-ocean relations offers four
critical analyses. First, the concept of metabolism provides a historical and comprehensive lens to view the changing
interactions between human labor and the marine environment over time, as organized by a productive system. By bringing together the
concepts of marine energy transfers and historic fishing trends, we can begin to understand the full effects of fishery depletion on the
marine ecosystem. Second, the metabolic rift offers a framework to understand how the technological developments,
under capitalist relations, increase the exploitation of nature. The simultaneous emergence of distant water trawlers with efficient refrigeration and
overland transportation infrastructure led to cumulative effects of marine ecological degradation. The consequences of removing top predators, and subsequently
fishing down the food chain, did not occur because of lack of managerial oversight. Rather, they were the product of competitive markets propelling technological
advance, as capital sought to surmount social and natural barriers to accumulation. Overcoming
the initial oceanic crisis (fisheries depletion) by
introducing artificial means of growth and reproduction is a trend thoroughly developed by the metabolic rift and
provides the third critical analysis in understanding human relations to the ocean. The rapid emergence of aquaculture
in the global economy conforms to the pattern of intensified production made profitable by increasing output and
minimizing labor inputs. Mediated by pesticides, growth hormones, and high density cages, aquaculture is welcomed by capital investment as a quick fix to
the problem of ecological limits. The final, and most powerful, analysis that metabolic rift theory provides to our understanding
of the human-ocean environment concerns the revealed consequences of aquaculture. The contradictions posed by
concentrated wastes, net loss of marine protein due to inefficient fishmeal conversions, worker displacement, and human health effects of PCBs reveal the
inability of cap-ital to transcend existing rifts. In sum, capital intensifies rifts in the metabolic interactions between
society and the sea. Following Marx’s analysis, it is not surprising that continued capitalist aquaculture production in the marine
environment would instigate a political move for privatizing what is now our last remaining commons: the open ocean.
The historical and contemporary insights gained by applying the concepts of metabolism and metabolic rift to the
oceans suggest that this theory will continue to inform and inspire our understanding of the naturesociety dialectic. At
the same time, it presents the depth and breadth of the ecological crisis in the making.
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Alt- Eco-Pedagogy
Eco-pedagogy is critical to promoting environmental awareness- current environmental education
will fail because it focuses on technology and markets as solution- only eco-pedagogy combines
social and environmental perspectives
Richard Kahn in 2008, Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations & Research at the University of North Dakota
From Education for Sustainable Development to Ecopedagogy: Sustaining Capitalism or Sustaining Life?, Green Theory &
Praxis: The Journal of Ecopedagogy Volume 4, No. 1 (2008)
As a form of critical theory of education, ecopedagogy
can work at a meta-level to offer dialectical critiques of environmental education
sustainable development as hegemonic forms of educational discourse that have been created by state agencies
that seek to appear to be developing pedagogy relevant to alleviating our mounting global ecological crisis. While environmental education
strategies undoubtedly accomplish much that is welcome and good from an ecopedagogical perspective, ecopedagogy questions (especially within the context of the United
States) the ways in which environmental education is often reduced to forms of experiential and outdoor pedagogy that deal
uncritically with the experience of “nature” proffered therein – an ideological zone of wilderness representations that are potentially informed by a mélange of
racist, sexist, classist and speciesist values. Further, ecopedagogy has begun to pose problems into the way environmental education has
become tethered to state and corporate-sponsored science and social studies standards, or otherwise fails to articulate the political need for widespread
and education for
knowledge of the ways in which modern society and industrial culture promotes unsustainable lifestyles, even as it remains marginalized in the research, teacher-training and educational
leadership programs of graduate schools of education. Ecopedagogy also maintains a critical relationship to the ongoing UN-sponsored Decade of Education for Sustainable Development
(2005-2015). Ecopedagogues
hope to utilize education for sustainable development to make strategic interventions on behalf
of the oppressed, but ecopedagogy also attempts to generate conscientization upon the concept of sustainable
development proper and thereby uncloak it of the sort of ambiguity that presently allows neoliberal economic planners
in either their aggressively imperialist or Third Way economic/political variants to autocratically modernize the world
despite the well-known consequential socio-cultural and ecological costs. Freirean critical pedagogy is synonymous with its popular literacy campaigns7 on behalf of democratic justice and
ecopedagogy accordingly seeks to develop at least three varieties of ecoliteracy throughout society in the name of a
more just, democratic and sustainable planetary civilization: the technical/functional, the cultural, and the critical. Taken together, these three
forms of ecoliteracy should be seen as holistically complimentary to one another, overlapping, and not in a hierarchical, logical, or linear relationship.
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38
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At: Perm
The perm fails- only the alternative has a method that allows us to fully understand the dialectic
between social relations and ecological relations-the inclusion of the aff’s economic focus ensures
the alt is ignored
Rebecca Clausen University of Oregon, and Brett Clark University of Oregon, 2005, The Metabolic Rift and Marine
Ecology: An Analysis of the Ocean Crisis Within Capitalist Production, Organization Environment 2005 18: 422
We draw on theoretical contributions from environmental sociology to understand changes in the human-ocean relationship and to interpret our coevolutionary
relation to the marine environment. Environmental
sociology takes nature seriously, recognizing the dynamic interaction between
nature and society. The consequences of this relationship remain a major area of study. A materialist approach has become the bedrock of
the prominent perspectives and theories within environmental sociology: ecological modernization, the treadmill of production, and the metabolic rift
(Foster, 1999; Mol, 1995; Schnaiberg, 1980). Ecological modernization contends that through the ongoing development of modern
productive systems and institutions, society will advance to a rational, sustainable, and green society. Market forces have to
be allowed to develop to create the technological means to facilitate this transformation within the existing order (Mol, 1995). The treadmill of
production theory runs counter to ecological modernization. Schnaiberg (1980), author of the treadmill of production theory, argues that modern
societies, especially market-dominated ones, are driven by a ceaseless commitment to growth, regardless of its social and
ecological costs. Producers constantly attempt to expand production in the pursuit of more profit.With government support, production is
allowed to expand, increasing the demands placed on nature and generating ever-greater amounts of waste. Both ecological modernization and the
treadmill of production focus on the intersection of the economy and nature, which is appropriate given the centrality of
the economic structure in shaping human interactions with nature. Yet, at the same time, nature remains in the
background. Little effort is dedicated to analyzing the function, interaction, and transformation of natural processes and
cycles with regard to social systems, in terms of their own development. Both realms of the dialectic between nature
and society need to be studied to gain a greater understanding of the interaction and transformations that occur.We
contend that the theory of the metabolic rift, as developed by Marx and explained by Foster (1999, 2000), provides the necessary means
for grappling with the nature-society relation.
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40
At: Framework
Our critique has educational importance in this round- it is vital that in educational settings we
challenge technocratic framings of sustainable development in favor of radical socioeconomic
critique- only we provide an alternate paradigm that encourages ecological health
Richard Kahn in 2008, Assistant Professor of Educational Foundations & Research at the University of North Dakota
From Education for Sustainable Development to Ecopedagogy: Sustaining Capitalism or Sustaining Life?, Green Theory &
Praxis: The Journal of Ecopedagogy Volume 4, No. 1 (2008)
The critical environmental educator Edgar González-Gaudiano (2005) has remarked that like environmental education before it, education
for sustainable
development might be a “floating signifier” or “interstitial tactic” capable of providing diverse groups opportunities to produce alliances as part of the
construction of a new educational discourse. However, he also finds it troubling that non-environmental educators “either appear to be uninformed or have shown
no interest in the inception of a Decade that concerns their work” (p. 244). For his part, Bob Jickling (2005) is
worried by the apparently
instrumentalist and deterministic nature of education for sustainable development thus far. In his opinion, it is extremely
troubling that education for sustainable development’s tendency as a field to date is to treat education as merely a
method for delivering and propagating experts’ ideas about sustainable development, rather than as a participatory and
metacognitive engagement with students over what (if anything) sustainable development even means. Indeed, if this is all that is to be
expected of and from education for sustainable development, then it may be concluded that it basically amounts to the latest incarnation of what Ivan Illich cynically
referred to as the prison of the “global classroom” (Illich and Verne, 1981). Yet it should be pointed out that despite his serious reservations, Jickling notes that
there may be many educators already doing good work under this moniker as well. The next decade will ultimately
decide whether education for sustainable development is little more than the latest educational fad, or worse yet, that it
turns out to be nothing other than a seductive pedagogical “greenwash” developed by and for big business-as-usual in
the name of combating social and ecological disasters. Due to the inherent ideological biases currently associated with the term “sustainable
development,” the decade now underway demands careful attention and analysis by critical educators in this regard.
Specifically, educators will need to explain how, and if, notions of sustainability can critically question the various recipes for disaster (in all of their left, center, and
rightist formulations) that are the well-established social and human development models (in this respect, see Gadotti, 2008). On
the other hand, if
education for sustainable development is utilized strategically to advance a radical ecopedagogy (Kahn, 2008), it could be
the boost that education desperately needs in order to finally begin to adequately deal with the apocalyptic demands
now being wrought upon society by planetary ecological crises. In this way, what has been heretofore known as
environmental education could at last move beyond its discursive marginality and a real hope for an ecological and
planetary society could be sustained through the widespread development of radical socioeconomic critiques and the sort
of emancipatory life practices that could move beyond those programmatically offered by the culture industries and the State.
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41
At: Cap good: Collapse Inevitable
Neoliberal finance capitalism is structured to produce crisis – whenever wealth becomes
concentrated to heavily at the top it has historically produced economic catastrophe
Peet, 2k11
[Richard, Professor of Geography at Clarke University, Contradictions of Finance Capitalism, Monthly Review, December
2011]
These secular shifts produce the defining U-shape to the history of upper-class incomes under capitalism over the last hundred years. Chart 1
shows the percentage of income going to the highest income 0.1 percent, 1.0 percent and 5.0 percent of the U.S. population.11 It is based on
tax returns, which tend to understate income going to the rich, if only because the rich hide their money better and employ tax accountants more
skilled than the bureaucratic accountants used by the Internal Revenue Service. Using the highest income 1 percent as a surrogate for the
“capitalist class,” between 1917 (when the historical tax data begin) and the late 1930s, capitalists under classical liberalism
received between 15 and 25 percent of total reported income, with a peak occurring in 1929, as the Great
Depression began. Between 1945 and 1979, under the Keynesian policy regime, this proportion dropped, to a quite
consistent 10 percent. Then under the neoliberal policy regime, the percentage rose again to 15–25 percent, with a
peak occurring in 2007, as the Great Recession started. In other words liberalism and neoliberalism produce
economic growth that exclusively benefits the rich and super rich in terms of income. Intervention, even by the relatively
non-interventionist, “liberal-democratic” Keynesian state in the United States, reduces the proportion of income going to the super rich and
redistributes income and state-subsidized services to the poorer sections of the population. Neoliberalism is development for the
already rich. This can be taken as indubitable fact. Examining data for fifteen countries with comparable time series ,
Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez find the historical U-shape to be typical for nine countries (UK, United States, Canada,
Australia, New Zealand, India, Argentina, Sweden, and Norway), by comparison with a group of six countries where the share of the top 1
percent was high during liberalism, dropped during Keynesianism, and has remained low since (France, Germany, Switzerland, Netherlands,
Japan, and Singapore).12 Countries in the former, U-shaped group of countries are neoliberal, where the state intervenes exclusively on behalf
of the capitalist class. The latter countries are Keynesian/social democratic remnants, where notions of regulating the economy on behalf of
everyone have diminished but still linger faintly on—some people call this the “European Social Model.”13 The neoliberal policy regime,
stressing unfettered profit-making as the driving force in capitalist expansion, deliberately redirects the economy
towards producing more and more income for people who cannot possibly consume it , no matter how hard they try,
and therefore must save and invest. Neoliberal policy results in the accumulation of huge surpluses in the hands of
relatively few people—150,000 “taxpaying units” in the United States, and perhaps 1 million people in the global
capitalist class. In the neoliberal regime, income from business and capital investment overwhelm even high CEO
salaries leading to immense accumulations in the hands of very few people . The accumulation of these immense
income surpluses as capital under neoliberalism was the leading social force in the recreation of late-twentiethcentury finance capitalism. Neoliberal policy deliberately constructed the main ingredient of finance capitalism —
overaccumulation of money capital in the bank accounts of the wealthy few.
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At: Cap Saves Environment
Economic growth does not lead to widespread efforts to address environmental destruction –
instead, it leads towards measures that improve wealthy areas without concern for others
Blackwater, 2k12
[Bill, Associate Editor of the quarterly Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy, “The Denialism of Progressive
Environmentalism,” Monthly Review, June 2012]
As if that were not enough, the next problem
is the way in which Nordhaus and Shellenberger concentrate solely on one
element of the environmental consequences of economic growth—carbon emissions. In this they perform
intellectual sleight of hand. They are quick to criticize other environmentalists for arguing that there are limits to
economic growth, but the only limit they pay attention to is atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases . About
a range of other limits— such as biodiversity, availability of freshwater, and soil nitrogen—they have nothing to offer.
This is unsurprising: these wider limits cannot be overcome, even in theory, by investments in low-carbon
technologies financed by ongoing growth. Even accepting their terms and concentrating only on carbon emissions, Nordhaus and
Shellenberger are misapplying the central logic within the idea of the EKC. They make great play of the way in which environmentalists are stuck
within a “pollution paradigm,” harking back to campaigns to improve individual aspects of environmental quality, such as cleaning up lakes and
reducing local air pollution. This will not work for global warming, they argue, since the key to tackling this is the creation of zero carbon
infrastructure, which will in turn require the unleashing of the creative forces of economic development. In making this argument, however, it is
precisely Nordhaus and Shellenberger who are stuck within their own pollution paradigm. Where the EKC has any purchase is precisely in the
area of local pollution. Urban air quality in affluent regions has improved since the 1950s with the passing of clean air acts, deindustrialization,
and improvements in motor vehicle technology. But where there is no evidence for an EKC is in the net impact of economic
growth on the environment overall. Carbon emissions are, in fact, a near perfect anti-argument to the EKC, since
they are both so intimately associated with economic growth and, in themselves, non-polluting in an immediate
sense, being neither toxic to breathe nor even personally noticeable. The logic of the EKC will tend to lead towards
measures which simply improve the ambient environment of wealthy areas , for instance by locating power plants
and heavy industry elsewhere, allowing more affluent consumers to continue enjoying the economic benefits of
fossil fuels without so much of the accompanying local pollution—that is, local to them.
42
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At: Cap Solves Efficiency
The relentless pursuit of economic growth under capitalism will subvert any efficiency gains made
by the affirmative – only a transition away from the capitalist system can achieve a restoration of
the metabolic relation to nature.
Foster in 2009(John Bellamy, Professor of Sociology at Oregon, “The Ecological Revolution,” Page 62-64)
Recently, however, in his Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism, the Environment, and Grossing from Crisis to Sustainability, Speth has emerged as a
devastating critic of capitalism's destruction of the environment. In this radical rethinking, he has chosen to confront the full perils brought on by the present
economic system, with its pursuit of growth and accumulation at any cost. "Capitalism
as we know it today," he writes, "is incapable of
sustaining the environment." The crucial problem from an environmental perspective, he believes, is exponential economic
growth, which is the driving element of capitalism. Little hope can be provided in this respect by so-called
"dematerialization" (the notion that growth can involve a decreasing impact on the environment), since it can be shown that the
expansion of output overwhelms all increases in efficiency in throughput of materials and energy. Hence, one can only
conclude that "right now ... growth is the enemy of [the] environment. Economy and environment remain in collision." Here, the issue of
capitalism becomes unavoidable. "Economic growth is modern capitalism's principal and most prized product." Speth favorably
quotes Samuel Bowles and Richard Edwards's Understanding Capitalism, which bluntly stated: "Capitalism is differentiated from other economic systems by its
drive to accumulate, its predisposition toward change, and its built-in tendency to expand." The principal environmental problem for Speth then is capitalism as
the "operating system of the modern economy. "Today's
corporations have been called 'externalizing machines. '" Indeed, "there
are fundamental biases in capitalism that favor the present over the future and the private over the public." Quoting
the system's own defenders, Paul Samuelson and William Nordhaus, in the seventeenth edition of their textbook on Macroeconomics, Speth points out that
capitalism is the quintessential "Ruthless Economy," engaged "in the relentless pursuit of profits." Building on this critique, Speth goes on to conclude in his
book that: (1) "today's
system of political economy, referred to here as modern capitalism, is destructive of the
environment, and not in a minor way hut in a way that profoundly threatens the planet"; (2) "the affluent societies
have reached or soon will reach the point where, as Keynes put it, the economic problem has been solved ... there is
enough to go around"; (3) "in the more affluent societies, modern capitalism is no longer enhancing human wellbeing"; (4) "the international social movement for change-which refers to itself as 'the irresistible rise of global anticapitalism'-is stronger than many imagine and will grow stronger; there is a coalescing of forces: peace, social
justice, community, ecology, feminism-a movement of movements"; (5) "people and groups are busily planting the
seeds of change through a host of alternative arrangements, and still other attractive directions for upgrading to a
new operating system have been identified"; and (6) "the end of the Cold War ... opens the door ... for the
questioning of today's capitalism." Speth does not actually embrace socialism, which he associates, in the Cold War manner, with Soviet-type
societies in their most regressive form. Thus, he argues explicitly for a "nonsocialist" alternative to capitalism. Such a system would make use of markets (but
not the self-regulating market society of traditional capitalism) and would promote a "New Sustainability World" or a "Social Greens World" (also called "EcoCommunalism") as depicted by the Global Scenario Group. The latter scenario has been identified with radical thinkers like William Morris (who was inspired by
both Marx and Rusltin).ln this sense, Speth's arguments are not far from that of the socialist movement of the twenty-first century, which is aimed at the core
values of social justice and ecological sustainability. The
object is to create a future in which generations still to come will be able
to utilize their creative abilities to the fullest, while having their basic needs met: a result made possible only
through the rational reorganization by the associated producers of the human metabolism with nature.13 Such
rational reorganization of the metabolism between nature and society needs to be directed not simply at climate
change but also at a whole host of other environmental problems. No single issue captures the depth and breadth of what we call "the
environmental problem," which encompasses all of these ecological contradictions of our society and more. If we are facing a "moment of truth"
with respect to ecology today, it has to do with the entire gamut of capitalism's effects on natural (and human)
reproduction. Any attempt to solve one of these problems (such as climate change) without addressing the others is
likely to fail, since these ecological crises, although distinct in various ways, typically share common causes. Only a
unified vision that sees human production as not only social, but also rooted in a metabolic relation to nature, will
provide the necessary basis to confront an ecological rift that is now as wide as the planet .
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At: Cap k2 Growth
Conventional economic measures disprove the argument that neoliberal, free-market capitalism is
best for growth
Peet, 2k11
[Richard, Professor of Geography at Clarke University, Contradictions of Finance Capitalism, Monthly Review, December
2011]
Dividing the postwar era into these two periods, the Keynesian social democratic policy regime up to 1980 and the neoliberal
policy regime dominant after, we can compare the results of two, intracapitalist forms of social economy. The measure
used by conventional economists to measure economic well-being is economic growth— “growth is good.” Economic growth in
the OECD countries, the richest in the world, averaged 3.5 percent a year in the period 1961–80, basically during
Keynesianism, and 2.0 percent a year in 1981–99, basically during neoliberalism . In developing countries (excluding
China) the equivalent figures were 3.2 percent and 0.7 percent.6 In other words, Keynesianism vastly outperformed
neoliberalism in conventional (mainstream ) terms. So why were all those number-crunching economists not
adherents of Keynesianism in the 1980s and ‘90s? The answer can only be that mainstream economics is not “science
for humanity,” but rather “ideology on the side of capital.”
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At: Cap solves hunger
Hunger is not a result of food shortages but an economic organization of society that fosters
overabundance – overproduction causes unemployment and makes food unaffordable despite the
fact that enough is produced annually to feed everyone
D’Amato, 2k12
[Paul, Managing Editor of the International Socialist Review, Protecting the Environment, July 27th, 2012,
http://socialistworker.org/2012/07/27/protecting-the-environment]
Some 800 million people in the world go hungry. But it isn't because there isn't enough food. Figures provided in the
United Nations' Human Development Report for 1999 show that food production outstripped population growth by 25 percent
over the last decade. According to the 1998 edition of the excellent book World Hunger: Twelve Myths, there's enough food
produced in the world to give every person 3,500 calories a day--well higher than the medically recommended
requirement. People go hungry not because of shortages, but because they can't afford to buy enough food. In 1844,
Frederick Engels wrote that "every adult produces more than he can himself consume." More than 150 years later,
human productivity has leaped far beyond anything Engels could have imagined . The irony of capitalism is that it
isn't scarcity that produces hunger and unemployment but overabundance . Capitalist crisis, Karl Marx and Frederick
Engels wrote in the Communist Manifesto, produces the "absurd" situation of people thrown out of work because there's
"too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce." There is, in short, plenty to go around.
The shortages argument is used by the ruling class to convince us that inequality can't be overcome .
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47
No Root Causes
No single cause of conflict
Barnett et al 7
Michael, Hunjoon Kim, Madalene O’Donnell, Laura Sitea, Global Governance, “Peacebuilding: What is in a Name?”,
Questia
Because there are multiple contributing causes of conflict, almost any international assistance effort that addresses any
perceived or real grievance can arguably be called "peacebuilding." Moreover, anyone invited to imagine the causes of violent
conflict might generate a rather expansive laundry list of issues to be addressed in the postconflict period,
including income distribution, land reform, democracy and the rule of law, human security, corruption, gender
equality, refugee reintegration, economic development, ethnonational divisions, environmental degradation,
transitional justice, and on and on. There are at least two good reasons for such a fertile imagination. One, there is no master variable
for explaining either the outbreak of violence or the construction of a positive peace but merely groupings of factors across
categories such as greed and grievance, and catalytic events. Variables that might be relatively harmless in some contexts can be a potent cocktail in others.
Conversely,
we have relatively little knowledge regarding what causes peace or what the paths to peace are.
Although democratic states that have reasonably high per capita incomes are at a reduced risk of conflict, being
democratic and rich is no guarantor of a positive peace, and illiberal and poor countries, at times, also have had their share of success.
Second, organizations are likely to claim that their core competencies and mandates are critical to peacebuilding. They might be right. They also might be
opportunistic. After all, if peacebuilding is big business, then there are good bureaucratic reasons for claiming that they are an invaluable partner.
Claims of Root Causality are Grounded in Deterministic Theories That Preclude Effective Solutions
Hutchinson ‘4
Fred Hutchison - March 22, 2004. “American innovation and the culture war: A golden age of American innovation”.
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/hutchison/040322
When liberals speak of the "root causes" of social problems, they typically are borrowing ideas from economic determinism. Root
cause arguments
obscure rather than enlighten. The poor are not responsible for their poverty because of root causes — we are told. Criminals
are not resssponsible for crime because of root causes. Terrorists are not responsible for murder because of root causes. Such thinking rules
out the idea of human conscience, and moral responsibility. When the belief in root causes relieves us of responsibility for our
actions it also weakens the belief in the existence of free will. Nothing will destroy a golden age of innovation faster than a
paralysis of the will. If we doubt we have a will because of a belief in the myth of root causes, the will becomes either
paralyzed or undisciplined. We become ether zombies or maniacs — and return to adolescence.
Capitalism and structural violence is not the root cause of war - We have to solve large-scale violent
conflicts before we can focus on everyday forms of violence.
Goldstein 1
Joshua Goldstein, Int’l Rel Prof @ American U, 2001, War and Gender, p. 412
First,
peace activists face a dilemma in thinking about causes of war and working for peace. Many peace scholars and activists
support the approach, “if you want peace, work for justice. ” Then, if one believes that sexism contributes to war one can work
for gender justice specifically (perhaps among others) in order to pursue peace. This approach brings strategic allies to the peace movement
(women, labor, minorities), but rests on the assumption that injustices cause war. The evidence in this book suggests that causality runs
at least as strongly the other way. War is not a product of capitalism, imperialism, gender, innate aggression, or any other
single cause, although all of these influence wars’ outbreaks and outcomes. Rather, war has in part fueled and sustained these and other
injustices.9 So,”if you want peace, work for peace.” Indeed, if you want justice (gender and others), work for peace. Causality
does not run just upward through the levels of analysis, from types of individuals, societies, and governments up to war. It runs downward too. Enloe suggests
that changes in attitudes towards war and the military may be the most important way to “reverse women’s oppression.” The
dilemma is that peace work focused on justice brings to the peace movement energy, allies, and moral grounding, yet, in light of this book’s evidence, the
emphasis on injustice as the main cause of war seems to be empirically inadequate.
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Cap Good- Solves War
Turn – Capitalism solves war – interdependency, democracy and constructive competition
Griswold, 05 (Daniel, director of the Center for Trade Policy Studies at Cato, “Peace on earth? Try free trade among
men”, http://www.freetrade.org/node/282)
As one little-noticed headline on an Associated Press story recently reported, "War declining worldwide, studies say." According
to the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute, the number of armed conflicts around the world has been in decline for the past
half century. In just the past 15 years, ongoing conflicts have dropped from 33 to 18, with all of them now civil conflicts
within countries. As 2005 draws to an end, no two nations in the world are at war with each other. The death toll from war has also been falling. According to
the AP story, "The number killed in battle has fallen to its lowest point in the post-World War II period, dipping below 20,000 a year by one measure. Peacemaking
missions, meanwhile, are growing in number." Those estimates are down sharply from annual tolls ranging from 40,000 to 100,000 in the 1990s, and from a peak of
700,000 in 1951 during the Korean War. Many causes lie behind the good news -- the end of the Cold War and the spread of democracy, among them -- but
expanding trade and globalization appear to be playing a major role. Far from stoking a "World on Fire," as one misguided American author
has argued, growing commercial ties between nations have had a dampening effect on armed conflict and war, for three
main reasons. First, trade and globalization have reinforced the trend toward democracy, and democracies don't pick
fights with each other. Freedom to trade nurtures democracy by expanding the middle class in globalizing countries and equipping people with tools of
communication such as cell phones, satellite TV, and the Internet. With trade comes more travel, more contact with people in other countries, and more exposure to
new ideas. Thanks in part to globalization, almost two thirds of the world's countries today are democracies -- a record high. Second,
as national
economies become more integrated with each other, those nations have more to lose should war break out. War in a
globalized world not only means human casualties and bigger government, but also ruptured trade and investment ties
that impose lasting damage on the economy. In short, globalization has dramatically raised the economic cost of war. Third, globalization allows nations
to acquire wealth through production and trade rather than conquest of territory and resources. Increasingly, wealth is
measured in terms of intellectual property, financial assets, and human capital.
Capitalism solves war
Cudd 10 – Dean of Humanities and Professor of Philosophy @ KU
Anne Cudd, “Capitalism for and Against: A Feminist Debate,” Google Book
Does capitalism cause more wars? This has long been an argument of socialists against capitalism, but it seems a flimsy one.
First, it is clear that the communist experiments of the twentieth century were every bit as militaristic and capable of aggressive wars as the
capitalist ones. Second, it is commonly asserted, and I think Professor Holmstrom would agree, that democratic nations do not wage war against
each other. But democratic countries tend toward capitalism, since that seems to be what people choose when given the chance.
As with slavery, the logic of capitalism tells against war, in general, as that wipes out potential trading partners. Capitalist
competition is a positive-sum game, not a zero or negative sum. I agree wholeheartedly with Professor Holmstrom's assertion that security is
than broader military security; the security of persons and property generally is the necessary condition for capitalist development.
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Cap Good- Solves Environment
Capitalism solves environment-it encourages people to use resources efficiently
Walberg and Bast, 03 (Herbert J. Walberg, distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution, and Joseph L. Bast,
C.E.O. of the Heartland Institute, October 23, 2003, “Education and Capitalism: How Overcoming Our Fear of Markets
and Economics Can Improve America's Schools”, page X)
WHY CAPITALISM PROTECTS THE ENVIRONMENT What has made this vast improvement in environmental quality possible in the United States? Why have countries
without capitalist institutions made less progress? The security of personal possessions made possible by the capitalist institution of private-property rights is a key
reason why capitalism protects the environment. Where
property rights are secure, the owners of property (land as well as other physical
assets) are more likely to invest in improvements that increase the property’s long-term value.Why plant trees if yur right to
eventually harvest them is at risk? Why manage a forest for sustained yields in the future if someone else will capture the profit of their eventual harvest?
Evidence that secure property rights are the key to good stewardship of assets is all around us. Privately owned houses
are better maintained than rental units. Privately owned cars and trucks are better maintained than fleet vehicles (owned
by an employer) and leased vehicles. In the former Soviet Union, privately owned gardens—representing only a small share of the land devoted to agriculture—
produced as much as half of the fruits and vegetables produced by the entire country. In virtually every neighborhood in the United States, most front yards are
neatly groomed and often elaborately landscaped, whereas the strip of public land between the sidewalk and the street is often weedy, poorly trimmed, and
neglected. Markets, the
second capitalist institution, tend to increase efficiency and reduce waste by putting resources
under the control of those who value them most highly. This tends to ratchet downward the amount of any resource
that is not used or consumed during production, a practice that produces cleaner-burning fuels and machines, loweremission manufacturing processes, fewer byproducts shipped to landfills, and so on. A good example of this is the fact that the
amount of energy required to produce a dollar of goods and services in the United States fell 1.3 percent a year from 1985 to 2000 and is expected to fall 1.6 percent
per year from 2000 to 2020.48 Finally, the wealth created
by the institutions of capitalism makes it possible to invest more
resources to protect the environment. Once again, the United States is the best example of this tendency. The cost of complying with environmental
regulations in 2000 was approximately $267 billion, or nearly $2,000 for every household.49 Only a capitalist society can afford to spend so much.
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Cap Good- Growth
Capitalism is key to growth-it encourages new production
Norberg 3 – MA in History
Johan Norberg, Fellow at Timbro and CATO, MA with a focus in economics and philosophy, In Defense of Global
Capitalism, pg. 64
The growth of world prosperity is not a “miracle” or any of the other mystifying terms we customarily apply to countries that
have succeeded economically and socially. Schools are not built, nor are incomes generated, by sheer luck, like a bolt from the
blue. These things happen when people begin to think along new lines and work hard to bring their ideas to fruition. But people
do that everywhere, and there is no reason why certain people in certain places during certain periods in history should be
intrinsically smarter or more capable than others. What makes the difference is whether the environment permits and
encourages ideas and work, or instead puts obstacles in their way. That depends on whether people are free to explore their
way ahead, to own property, to invest for the long term, to conclude private agreements, and to trade with others. In short, it
depends on whether or not the countries have capitalism. In the affluent world we have had capitalism in one form or another
for a couple of centuries. That is how the countries of the West became “the affluent world.” Capitalism has given people both
the liberty and the incentive to create, produce, and trade, thereby generating prosperity.
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51
At: Environment Impact- It’s resilient
The environment is resilient -- it has withstood ridiculous amounts of destruction
Easterbrook 95, Distinguished Fellow, Fullbright Foundation
(Gregg, A Moment on Earth pg 25)
IN THE AFTERMATH OF EVENTS SUCH AS LOVE CANAL OR THE Exxon Valdez oil spill, every reference to the environment
is prefaced with the adjective "fragile." "Fragile environment" has become a welded phrase of the modern lexicon, like "aging hippie" or "fugitive
financier." But the notion of a fragile environment is profoundly wrong. Individual animals, plants, and people are distressingly fragile. The environment that
contains them is close to indestructible. The living environment of Earth has survived ice ages; bombardments of cosmic
radiation more deadly than atomic fallout; solar radiation more powerful than the worst-case projection for ozone
depletion; thousand-year periods of intense volcanism releasing global air pollution far worse than that made by any
factory; reversals of the planet's magnetic poles; the rearrangement of continents; transformation of plains into
mountain ranges and of seas into plains; fluctuations of ocean currents and the jet stream; 300-foot vacillations in sea
levels; shortening and lengthening of the seasons caused by shifts in the planetary axis; collisions of asteroids and
comets bearing far more force than man's nuclear arsenals; and the years without summer that followed these impacts.
Yet hearts beat on, and petals unfold still. Were the environment fragile it would have expired many eons before the
advent of the industrial affronts of the dreaming ape. Human assaults on the environment, though mischievous, are pinpricks
compared to forces of the magnitude nature is accustomed to resisting.
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52
At: Cap Collapse Inevitable
Cap is sustainable – panics and recessions strengthen it
Friedman, 2010 (George, “The Global Crisis of Legitimacy,” STRATFOR, May 4,
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/20100503_global_crisis_legitimacy?utm_source=GWeekly&utm_medium=email&utm
_campaign=100504&utm_content=readmore&elq=9bc82c399a6d4ec6bdb0dd4b45b1c193)
Financial panics are an integral part of capitalism. So are economic recessions. The system generates them and it becomes stronger
because of them. Like forest fires, they are painful when they occur, yet without them, the forest could not survive. They impose
discipline, punishing the reckless, rewarding the cautious. They do so imperfectly, of course, as at times the reckless are rewarded and the
cautious penalized. Political crises — as opposed to normal financial panics — emerge when the reckless appear to be the beneficiaries of the crisis they have
caused, while the rest of society bears the burdens of their recklessness. At that point, the crisis ceases to be financial or economic. It becomes political. The
financial and economic systems are subsystems of the broader political system. More precisely, think of nations as consisting
of three basic systems: political, economic and military. Each of these systems has elites that manage it. The three systems are
constantly interacting — and in a healthy polity, balancing each other, compensating for failures in one as well as taking
advantage of success. Every nation has a different configuration within and between these systems. The relative weight of each system differs, as does the
importance of its elites. But each nation contains these systems, and no system exists without the other two.
Capitalism isn’t collapsing – financial crises create a demand for the market – this is empirically
proven
Zakaria, ’09 [Fareed, Editor of Newsweek International, Former managing editor of Foreign Affairs, “The Capitalist
Manifesto: Greed is Good” http://www.newsweek.com/id/201935]
Consider our track record over the past 20 years, starting with the stock-market crash of 1987, when on Oct. 19 the Dow Jones lost
23 percent, the largest one-day loss in its history. The legendary economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote that he just hoped that the
coming recession wouldn't prove as painful as the Great Depression. It turned out to be a blip on the way to an even
bigger, longer boom. Then there was the 1997 East Asian crisis, during the depths of which Paul Krugman wrote in a Fortune
cover essay, "Never in the course of economic events—not even in the early years of the Depression—has so large a part of the world
economy experienced so devastating a fall from grace." He went on to argue that if Asian countries did not adopt his radical strategy—currency
controls—"we could be looking at the kind of slump that 60 years ago devastated societies, destabilized governments, and eventually led to war." Only one
Asian country instituted currency controls, and partial ones at that. All rebounded within two years. Each crisis convinced
observers that it signaled the end of some new, dangerous feature of the economic landscape. But often that novelty
accelerated in the years that followed. The 1987 crash was said to be the product of computer trading, which has, of course, expanded dramatically
since then. The East Asian crisis was meant to end the happy talk about "emerging markets," which are now at the center of world growth. The collapse of Long-Term
Capital Management in 1998—which then–Treasury secretary Robert Rubin described as "the worst financial crisis in 50 years"—was meant to be the end of hedge
funds, which then massively expanded. The technology bubble's bursting in 2000 was supposed to put an end to the dreams of oddball Internet startups. Goodbye,
Pets.com; hello, Twitter. Now we hear that this crisis is the end of derivatives. Let's see. Robert Shiller, one of the few who predicted this crash almost exactly—and
the dotcom bust as well—argues that in fact we need more derivatives to make markets more stable. A
few years from now, strange as it may sound, we
might all find that we are hungry for more capitalism, not less. An economic crisis slows growth, and when countries
need growth, they turn to markets. After the Mexican and East Asian currency crises—which were far more painful in those countries
than the current downturn has been in America—we saw the pace of market-oriented reform speed up. If, in the years ahead, the
American consumer remains reluctant to spend, if federal and state governments groan under their debt loads, if
government-owned companies remain expensive burdens, then private-sector activity will become the only path to
create jobs. The simple truth is that with all its flaws, capitalism remains the most productive economic engine we have
yet invented. Like Churchill's line about democracy, it is the worst of all economic systems, except for the others. Its chief vindication today has come halfway
across the world, in countries like China and India, which have been able to grow and pull hundreds of millions of people out of poverty by supporting markets and
free trade. Last month India held elections during the worst of this crisis. Its powerful left-wing parties campaigned against liberalization and got their worst drubbing
at the polls in 40 years.
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53
Cap Inevitable- Human Nature
Human nature means economic competition is inevitable
Wilkinson 5 – MA in Philosophy
Will Wilkinson, MA in Philosophy, former Academic Coordinator of the Social Change Project and the Global Prosperity
Initiative at The Mercatus Center at George Mason University, “Capitalism and Human Nature,” 1-2005,
http://www.cato.org/research/articles/wilkinson-050201.html
Tragically, human nature isn't at all as advertised, and neither is pine needle tea. According to the U.S. State Department, at least one million North
Koreans have died of famine since 1995. Marx's theory of human nature, like Kim Jong Il's theory of pine needle tea, is a biological fantasy, and
we have the corpses to prove it. Which may drive us to wonder: if communism is deadly because it is contrary to human nature , does that imply
that capitalism, which is contrary to communism, is distinctively compatible with human nature? A growing scientific discipline called evolutionary
psychology specializes in uncovering the truth about human nature , and it is already illuminating what we know about the possibilities of
human social organization. How natural is capitalism? Evolutionary Psychology 101 Evolutionary psychology seeks to understand the unique nature of the
human mind by applying the logic and methods of contemporary evolutionary biology and cognitive psychology. The main working assumption of
evolutionary psychology is that the mind is a variegated toolkit of specialized functions (think of a Swiss Army knife) that has evolved through natural
selection to solve specific problems faced by our forebears. Distinct mental functions—e.g., perception; reading other people's intentions; responding
emotionally to potential mates—are underwritten by different neurological "circuits" or "modules," which can each be conceived as mini computer programs
selected under environmental pressure to solve specific problems of survival and reproduction typical in the original setting of human evolution, the
Environment of Evolutionary Adaptedness, the "EEA." Strictly speaking, the EEA is a statistical composite of environmental pressures that account for the
evolutionary selection of our distinctively human traits. Loosely, the EEA was the period called the Pleistocene during which humans lived as hunter-gatherers
from about 1.6 million years ago up until the invention of agriculture about 10,000 years ago. According to evolutionary psychologists, the basic
constitution of the human mind hasn't changed appreciably for about 50,000 years . Thus the evolutionary psychologist's slogan: modern
skulls house Stone Age minds. As pioneers of evolutionary psychology Leda Cosmides and John Tooby put it: The key to understanding how the modern mind
works is to realize that its circuits were not designed to solve the day-to-day problems of a modern American—they were designed to solve the day-to-day
problems of our hunter-gatherer ancestors. Understanding the problems faced by members of human hunter-gatherer bands in the EEA can therefore help us to
understand a great deal about human nature, and the prospects and pathologies of modern social systems. First, a word of caution: We cannot expect to draw
any straightforward positive political lessons from evolutionary psychology. It can tell us something about the kind of society that will tend not to work, and
why. But it cannot tell us which of the feasible forms of society we ought to aspire to. We cannot, it turns out, infer the naturalness of capitalism from the
manifest failure of communism to accommodate human nature. Nor should we be tempted to infer that natural is better. Foraging half-naked for nuts and
berries is natural, while the New York Stock Exchange and open-heart surgery would boggle our ancestors' minds. What evolutionary psychology really helps
us to appreciate is just what an unlikely achievement complex, liberal, market-based societies really are. It helps us to get a better grip on why relatively free
and fabulously wealthy societies like ours are so rare and, possibly, so fragile. Evolutionary psychology helps us to understand that successful market liberal
societies require the cultivation of certain psychological tendencies that are weak in Stone Age minds and the suppression or sublimation of other tendencies
that are strong. Free, capitalist societies, where they can be made to work, work with human nature. But it turns out that human nature is not easy material to
work with. There is a rapidly expanding library of books that try to spell out the moral, political and economic implications of evolutionary psychology. (The
Origins of Virtue by Matt Ridley, Darwinian Politics by Paul Rubin, and The Company of Strangers by Paul Seabright are good ones). Below is a short tour of
just a few features of human nature emphasized by evolutionary psychologists that highlight the challenges of developing and sustaining a modern market
liberal order. We are Coalitional The size of hunter-gather bands in the EEA ranged from 25 to about 150 people. The small size of those groups ensured that
everyone would know everyone else; that social interactions would be conducted face-to-face; and that reputations for honesty, hard work, and reliability
would be common knowledge. Even today, people's address books usually contain no more than 150 names. And military squadrons generally contain about as
many people as Pleistocene hunting expeditions. Experiments by psychologists Leda Cosmides and Robert Kurzban have shown that human beings have
specialized abilities to track shifting alliances and coalitions, and are eager to define others as inside or outside their own groups. Coalitional categories can
easily lead to violence and war between groups. Think of Hutus and Tutsis, Albanians and Serbs, Shiites and Sunnis, Crips and the Bloods, and so on ad
nauseam. However, coalitional categories are fairly fluid. Under the right circumstances, we can learn to care more about someone's devotion to the Red Sox or
Yankees than their skin color, religion, or social class. We cannot, however, consistently think of ourselves as members only of that one grand coalition: the
Brotherhood of Mankind. Our disposition to think in terms of "us" versus "them" is irremediable and it has unavoidable political
implications. Populist and racialist political rhetoric encourages people to identify themselves as primarily rich or poor, black or white. It is important to
avoid designing institutions, such as racial preference programs, that reinforce coalitional categories that have no basis in biology and may heighten some of
the tensions they are meant to relax. A great deal of the animosity toward free trade, to take a different example, depends on economically and morally
inappropriate coalitional distinctions between workers in Baltimore (us) and workers in Bangalore (them). Positively, free trade is laudable for the way it
encourages us to see to members of unfamiliar groups as partners, not enemies. We are Hierarchical Like many animals and all primates, humans form
hierarchies of dominance. It is easy to recognize social hierarchies in modern life. Corporations, government, chess clubs, and churches all have formal
hierarchical structures of officers. Informal structures of dominance and status may be the leading cause of tears in junior high students. The dynamics of
dominance hierarchies in the EEA was complex. Hierarchies play an important role in guiding collective efforts and distributing scarce resources without
having to resort to violence. Daily affairs run more smoothly if everyone knows what is expected of him. However, space at the top of the hierarchy is scarce
and a source of conflict and competition. Those who command higher status in social hierarchies have better access to material resources and mating
opportunities. Thus, evolution favors the psychology of males and females who are able successfully to compete for positions of dominance. Living at the
bottom of the dominance heap is a raw deal, and we are not built to take it lying down. There is evidence that lower status males naturally form coalitions to
check the power of more dominant males and to achieve relatively egalitarian distribution of resources. In his book Hierarchy in the Forest, anthropologist
Christopher Boehm calls these coalitions against the powerful "reverse dominance hierarchies." Emory professor of economics and law Paul Rubin usefully
distinguishes between "productive" and "allocative" hierarchies. Productive hierarchies are those that organize cooperative efforts to achieve otherwise
unattainable mutually advantageous gains. Business organizations are a prime example. Allocative hierarchies, on the other hand, exist mainly to transfer
resources to the top. Aristocracies and dictatorships are extreme examples. Although the nation-state can perform productive functions, there is the constant
risk that it becomes dominated by allocative hierarchies. Rubin warns that our natural wariness of zero-sum allocative hierarchies, which helps us to guard
against the concentration of power in too few hands, is often directed at modern positive-sum productive hierarchies, like corporations, thereby threatening the
viability of enterprises that tend to make everyone better off. There is no way to stop dominance-seeking behavior. We may hope only to
channel it to non-harmful uses. A free society therefore requires that positions of dominance and status be widely available in a multitude of
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productive hierarchies, and that opportunities for greater status and dominance through predation are limited by the constant vigilance of "the people"—the
ultimate reverse dominance hierarchy. A flourishing civil society permits almost everyone to be the leader of something, whether the local Star Trek fan club
or the city council, thereby somewhat satisfying the human taste for hierarchical status, but to no one's serious detriment. We are Envious Zero-sum
Thinkers Perhaps the most depressing lesson of evolutionary psychology for politics is found in its account of the deep-seated
human capacity for envy and, related, of our difficulty in understanding the idea of gains from trade and increases in productivity—the idea of an everexpanding "pie" of wealth. There is evidence that greater skill and initiative could lead to higher status and bigger shares of resources for an individual in the
EEA. But because of the social nature of hunting and gathering, the fact that food spoiled quickly, and the utter absence of privacy, the benefits of individual
success in hunting or foraging could not be easily internalized by the individual, and were expected to be shared. The EEA was for the most part a zero-sum
world, where increases in total wealth through invention, investment, and extended economic exchange were totally unknown. More for you was less for me.
Therefore, if anyone managed to acquire a great deal more than anyone else, that was pretty good evidence that theirs was a stash of ill-gotten gains, acquired
by cheating, stealing, raw force, or, at best, sheer luck. Envy of the disproportionately wealthy may have helped to reinforce generally adaptive norms of
sharing and to help those of lower status on the dominance hierarchy guard against further predation by those able to amass power. Our zero-sum mentality
makes it hard for us to understand how trade and investment can increase the amount of total wealth. We are thus ill-equipped to easily understand our own
economic system. These features of human nature—that we are coalitional, hierarchical, and envious zero-sum thinkers—would seem to make liberal
capitalism extremely unlikely. And it is. However, the benefits of a liberal market order can be seen in a few further features of the human mind and social
organization in the EEA. Property Rights are Natural The problem of distributing scarce resources can be handled in part by implicitly coercive
allocative hierarchies. An alternative solution to the problem of distribution is the recognition and enforcement of property rights. Property rights are
prefigured in nature by the way animals mark out territories for their exclusive use in foraging, hunting, and mating. Recognition of such rudimentary
claims to control and exclude minimizes costly conflict, which by itself provides a strong evolutionary reason to look for innate tendencies to
recognize and respect norms of property. New scientific research provides even stronger evidence for the existence of such property
"instincts." For example, recent experimental work by Oliver Goodenough, a legal theorist, and Christine Prehn, a neuroscientist, suggests that the human
mind evolved specialized modules for making judgments about moral transgressions, and transgressions against property in particular. Evolutionary
psychology can help us to understand that property rights are not created simply by strokes of the legislator's pen. Mutually
Beneficial Exchange is Natural Trade and mutually beneficial exchange are human universals, as is the division of labor. In their groundbreaking paper,
"Cognitive Adaptations for Social Exchange," Cosmides and Tooby point out that, contrary to widespread belief, hunter-gatherer life is not "a kind of retroutopia" of "indiscriminate, egalitarian cooperation and sharing." The archeological and ethnographic evidence shows that hunter-gatherers were involved in
numerous forms of trade and exchange. Some forms of hunter-gatherer trading can involve quite complex specialization and the interaction of supply and
demand. Most impressive, Cosmides and Tooby have shown through a series of experiments that human beings are able easily to solve complex logical
puzzles involving reciprocity, the accounting of costs and benefits, and the detection of people who have cheated on agreements. However, we are unable to
solve formally identical puzzles that do not deal with questions of social exchange. That, they argue, points to the existence of "functionally specialized,
content-dependent cognitive adaptations for social exchange." In other words, the human mind is "built" to trade. Trust and Hayek's Two Orders It is
easy to see a kind of in vitro capitalism in the evolved human propensity to recognize property rights, specialize in productive endeavors, and engage in fairly
complex forms of social exchange. However, the kind of freedom and wealth we enjoy in the United States remains a chimera to billions. While our evolved
capacities are the scaffolding upon which advanced liberal capitalism has been built, they are, quite plainly, not enough, as the hundreds of millions who live
on less than a dollar a day can attest. The path from the EEA to laptops and lattes requires a great cultural leap. In recent work, Nobel Prize-winning
economists Douglass North and Vernon Smith have stressed that the crucial juncture is the transition from personal to impersonal exchange. Economic life in
the EEA was based on repeated face-to-face interactions with well-known members of the community. Agreements were policed mainly by public knowledge
of reputation. If you cheated or shirked, your stock of reputation would decline, and so would your prospects. Our evolutionary endowment prepared us to
navigate skillfully through that world of personal exchange. However, it did not prepare us to cooperate and trade with total strangers whom we had never met
and might never see again. The road to prosperity must cross a chasm of uncertainty and mistrust. The transition to extended, impersonal market order requires
the emergence of "institutions that make human beings willing to treat strangers as honorary friends" as Paul Seabright puts it. The exciting story of the way
these institutions piggybacked on an evolved psychology designed to solve quite different ecological problems is the topic of Seabright's book, The Company
of Strangers, as well as an important part of forthcoming works by Douglass North and Vernon Smith. As he so often did, F. A. Hayek anticipated
contemporary trends. Hayek understood that our kind of economy and society, which he called an extended order, or "macro-cosmos," is in many ways alien to
our basic psychological constitution, which is geared to deal with life in small groups, the "micro-cosmos." We live in two worlds, the face-to-face world of the
tribe, family, school, and firm, and the impersonal, anonymous world of huge cities, hyper-specialization, and trans-world trade. Each world has its own set of
rules, and we confuse them at our peril. As Hayek writes in The Fatal Conceit: If we were to apply the unmodified, uncurbed, rules of the micro-cosmos (i.e.,
of the small band or troop, or of, say, our families) to the macro-cosmos (our wider civilization), as our instincts and sentimental yearnings often make us wish
to do, we would destroy it. Yet if we were always to apply the rules of the extended order to our more intimate groupings, we would crush them. So we must
learn to live in two sorts of worlds at once. The balance is delicate. Once we appreciate the improbability and fragility of our wealth and freedom, it becomes
clear just how much respect and gratitude we owe to the belief systems, social institutions, and personal virtues that allowed for the emergence of our "wider
civilization" and that allow us to move between our two worlds without destroying or crushing either. Evolutionary Psychology and Political Humility The
key political lesson of evolutionary psychology is simply that there is a universal human nature. The human mind comprises many
distinct, specialized functions, and is not an all-purpose learning machine that can be reformatted at will to realize political dreams. The shape of society
is constrained by our evolved nature. Remaking humanity through politics is a biological impossibility on the order of curing cancer
with pine needle tea. We can, however, work with human nature—and we have. We have, through culture, enhanced those traits that facilitate trust and
cooperation, channeled our coalitional and status-seeking instincts toward productive uses, and built upon our natural suspicion of power to preserve our
freedom. We can, of course, do better. As Immanuel Kant famously remarked, "from the crooked timber of humanity no truly straight thing can be made." But,
in the words of philosopher, Denis Dutton, It is not . . . that no beautiful carving or piece of furniture can be produced from twisted wood; it is rather that
whatever is finally created will only endure if it takes into account the grain, texture, natural joints, knotholes, strengths and weaknesses of the original
material. Evolutionary psychology, by helping us better understand human nature, can aid us in cultivating social orders that do not
foolishly attempt to cut against the grain of human nature. We can learn how best to work with the material of humanity to encourage and
preserve societies, like own, that are not only beautiful, but will endure.
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Alt Fails- Cap is adaptive
Alt doesn’t solve cap—its too adaptive
Mead 9 – Senior Fellow @ CFR
2/4, Walter Russell, Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow in U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations, Only
Makes You Stronger: Why the recession bolstered America, The New Republic
Even before the Panic of 2008 sent financial markets into turmoil and launched what looks like the worst global recession in decades, talk of
American decline was omnipresent. In the long term, the United States faces the rise of Asia and the looming fiscal problems posed by Medicare and
other entitlement programs. In the short term, there is a sense that, after eight years of George W. Bush, the world, full of disdain for our way of life, seems to
be spinning out of our--and perhaps anybody's--control. The financial panic simply brought all that simmering anxiety to a boil, and the
consensus now seems to be that the United States isn't just in danger of decline, but in the full throes of it--the beginning of a
"post-American" world. Perhaps--but the long history of capitalism suggests another possibility. After all, capitalism has seen a
steady procession of economic crises and panics, from the seventeenth-century Tulip Bubble in the Netherlands and the Stop of
the Exchequer under Charles II in England through the Mississippi and South Sea bubbles of the early eighteenth century, on
through the crises associated with the Napoleonic wars and the spectacular economic crashes that repeatedly wrought havoc and
devastation to millions throughout the nineteenth century. The panics of 1837, 1857, 1873, 1893, and 1907 were especially
severe, culminating in the Great Crash of 1929, which set off a depression that would not end until World War II. The series of
crises continued after the war, and the last generation has seen the Penn Central bankruptcy in 1970, the first Arab oil crisis of 1973, the Third Worl d debt
crisis of 1982, the S&L crisis, the Asian crisis of 1997, the bursting of the dot-com bubble in 2001, and today's global financial meltdown. And yet, this
relentless series of crises has not disrupted the rise of a global capitalist system, centered first on the power of the United Kingdom and
then, since World War II, on the power of the United States. After more than 300 years, it seems reasonable to conclude that financial and
economic crises do not, by themselves, threaten either the international capitalist system or the special role within it of leading capitalist
powers like the United Kingdom and the United States . If anything, the opposite seems true--that financial crises in some way sustain
Anglophone power and capitalist development.
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56
Alt DA- Backlash
Capitalism is inevitable—the alternative strengthens the hand of the right by alienating moderates
Wilson, 2000 (John K, coordinator of the Independent Press Association’s Campus Journalism Project, How the Left
can Win Arguments and Influence People, pages 14-17)
Capitalism is far too ingrained in American life to eliminate. If you go into the most impoverished areas of America, you will find that the people
who live there are not seeking government control over factories or even more social welfare programs; they're hoping, usually in vain, for a fair chance to share in
the capitalist wealth. The poor do not pray for socialism-they strive to be a part of the capitalist system. They want jobs, they want to
start businesses, and they want to make money and be successful. What's wrong with America is not capitalism as a system but capitalism as a religion. We worship
the accumulation of wealth and treat the horrible inequality between rich and poor as if it were an act of God. Worst of all, we allow the government to exacerbate
the financial divide by favoring the wealthy: go anywhere in America, and compare a rich suburb with a poor town-the city services, schools, parks, and practically
The aim is not to overthrow capitalism but to overhaul it. Give
it a social-justice tune-up, make it more efficient, get the economic engine to hit on all cylinders for everybody, and stop
putting out so many environmentally hazardous substances. To some people, this goal means selling out leftist ideals
for the sake of capitalism. But the right thrives on having an ineffective opposition. The Revolutionary Communist Party
helps stabilize the "free market" capitalist system by making it seem as if the only alternative to free-market capitalism is
a return to Stalinism. Prospective activists for change are instead channeled into pointless discussions about the
revolutionary potential of the proletariat. Instead of working to persuade people to accept progressive ideas, the far left
talks to itself (which may be a blessing, given the way it communicates) and tries to sell copies of the Socialist Worker to an uninterested public.
everything else will be better financed in the place populated by rich people.
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57
Alt DA- Transition Wars
Attempting to move away from capitalism will cause transitional conflicts that will end in increased
domination and unsustainable exploitation.
Gubrud, 97 (Mark Avrum at the Center for Superconductivity Research, “Nanotechnology and International Security”)
With molecular manufacturing, international trade in both raw materials and finished goods can be replaced by decentralized
production for local consumption, using locally available materials. The decline of international trade will undermine a powerful
source of common interest. Further, artificial intelligence will displace skilled as well as unskilled labor. A world system based on
wage labor, transnational capitalism and global markets will necessarily give way. We imagine that a golden age is possible, but we
don’t know how to organize one. As global capitalism retreats, it will leave behind a world dominated by politics, and possibly feudal
concentrations of wealth and power. Economic insecurity, and fears for the material and moral future of humankind may lead to the
rise of demagogic and intemperate national leaders. With almost two hundred sovereign nations, each struggling to create a new
economic and social order, perhaps the most predictable outcome is chaos: shifting alignments, displaced populations, power
struggles, ethnic conflicts inflamed by demagogues, class conflicts, land disputes, etc. Small and underdeveloped nations will be more
than ever dependent on the major powers for access to technology, and more than ever vulnerable to sophisticated forms of control or
subversion, or to outright domination. Competition among the leading technological powers for the political loyalty of clients might
imply reversion to some form of nationalistic imperialism.