Global Problems: Capitalism and Environmental Degradation

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Environmental degradation is an escalating world problem which acts to destabilise the world's delicate ecology and detrimentally affect human existence, and that of our planet as a whole.

Environmental degradation is a result of the human exploitation of the earth’s natural resources. While affecting aspects of the whole world, the environmental crisis is most markedly seen in Third World countries.

Environmental destruction is being increasingly discussed throughout the world, with various causes and solutions being suggested. I would argue that it is the capitalist system which is the key obstacle to solving the global ecological crisis, because the capitalist system is itself a fundamental cause of environmental degradation. This degradation occurs primarily through capitalism’s inherent reliance upon exploitation of in particular, poor countries and their natural environment.

I would further argue that capitalism’s intrinsic global problems which we are increasingly faced with today, such as social inequality and environmental destruction, threaten the structure of the capitalist system itself.

Such a perspective on the global environmental crisis and the capitalist world-system, is reached through applying an anthropological perspective to the analysis of the culture of capitalism.

An ‘anthropological imagination’ allows the use of holistic and historical perspectives (looking at a situation in its entirety, and incorporating a historical understanding of a situation, respectively), as well as the process of dialectical reasoning (the development of contradictions and their solutions as a means of elucidation) to critically analyse the cultural, political, economic and historical aspects of capitalism.

An anthropological perspective uses dialectical reasoning to draw out the contradictions of the culture of capitalism, and to illustrate that environmental exploitation is a necessary and fundamental aspect of a capitalist economic system. A historical perspective allows one to look at the developments of capitalism, thus gaining a better understanding of the historical processes that have led to the current ecological crisis. A holistic perspective is essential to an understanding of the process of environmental degradation, as it allows one to explore many related aspects of the culture of capitalism. This leads one to appreciate the complex array of different suggested causes of environmental degradation, and to understand how these fit into the overall picture of the capitalist system.

Destruction of the environment occurs via many processes imposed by humans. Some of the problems that we are faced with at present, are listed below: over the past 100 years the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (caused by land-clearing and industrial emissions) has increased by 25%; Antarctica is hotter now than any time in the past 4000 years; arctic sea ice is up to a third thinner than 20 years ago; in 1995 the hole in the Antarctic ozone layer increased to 22 million square kilometres; almost half of the world's forest has gone – 3 billion hectares; between 1970 and 1990 the amount of the Earth's surface covered by desert increased by 120 million hectares (equivalent to all the currently cultivated land in China); at least 1000 plant and animal species disappear every year; and industrial plants were discharging 661.8 cubic kilometres of untreated water each year in the late 1980s, rising to between 962.5 to 993 cubic kilometres in 2000. (GLW, #400)

Such monumental change to the Earth’s biosphere (the portion of the earth that supports life) is arguably detrimental to the balance which exists between the Earth’s interconnected ecosystems. The result of these processes is an increased risk of danger both to humans and to this planet as a whole. These problems may include danger to organisms through exposure to harmful radiation from the sun due to the expanding ozone hole, loss of land from rising sea levels, and loss of vast food crops due to pathogenic infection as a result of the loss of plant diversity, to name a few.

While plants and animals change their natural environment unintentionally, human beings alter it deliberately, ‘through labour directed toward the satisfaction of their preconceived needs’ (DSP: 52). Environmental degradation stems from the inherent exploitation of the earth’s resources, by the economic world system of capitalism, which dominates the social, political and economic realms of our ‘global’ society. The capitalist private-profit system requires the exploitation of both human labour and natural resources, to gain short-term profits for corporations (DSP: 55). This profit maximisation by capitalists also leads to the development of a social system based on irrational patterns of consumption.

The consumer society, which arose as a development of capitalism in the USA in the early 1900s (Robbins: 4), brought with it a ‘major transition in the rate and level of commodity consumption – the purchase, use, and waste of [commodities]’ (Robbins: 4). The trading of commodities results from the ideological conversion of our rational needs (such as food, shelter, transport) plus unnecessary constructed ‘needs’ (electronic gizmos, beauty products, fast cars) into things which are deemed ‘essential’, which can be bought and sold for economic gain. Such commodification results, for example, in implementation of economic-rational objectives such as substitution of mass public-transport systems with private automotive transport (DSP: 55). Such processes ignore concerns over environmental sustainability, in favour of economic-rational objectives.

Anthropologist Richard Robbins believes that the consumer society, based on the use of raw materials, non-human energy, and the production of waste, is the greatest factor in causing environmental destruction (Robbins: 210). Robbins notes that because of their great levels of consumption, children in the USA produce 35 times the level of environmental damage than children in India (Kennedy, in Robbins: 209). This seems to suggest that the cause of environmental degradation can be placed directly upon individual consumers. Capitalist ideologies certainly espouse this view, with the credo that ‘[ordinary] people are responsible for the crisis’ and that ‘excessive consumption’ by ordinary working people is the cause of the problem (DSP: 56). Robbins suggests the possible alleviation of the environmental problem, ‘if consumers simply said “enough is enough” and stopped consuming as much as they do’ (Robbins: 212). While the behaviour of individual consumers is indeed a factor contributing to the ecological crisis, such arguments appear to diver attention from the ‘fundamentally anti-environmental nature’ of the capitalist mode of production and the patterns of consumption that it forces people to adopt (DSP: 56), and instead scapegoats consumers as the cause of the problem.

Another common argument espoused by dominant cultural ideologies is that overpopulation is the cause of environmental destruction. Population growth has been used to explain a wide range of social problems including poverty, unemployment, inflation, pollution, social unrest; and food, energy and resource shortages (DSP: 34). Many Western ecologists blame the environmental crisis on the rapid growth in human population which has seen increases over the last 40 years equalling the total increase over the four million years since human beings first appeared (DSP: 33). This growth has indeed placed increasing demands on the earth’s finite resources. However, it is argued that this ‘overpopulation’ causes the degradation of the global ecosystem (DSP: 33). Malthusian theory, stemming from Thomas Malthus in late 18th century England, argues for population control as the solution to Third World problems such as poverty, hunger and environmental destruction (DSP: 36).

However, it can be shown that overpopulation is not the fundamental cause of such problems. Both these problems occur not only in ‘overpopulated’ regions of the world, but equally in sparsely populated places such as the African Sahel, to the south of the Sahara (DSP: 39). In this region, mass starvation and great environmental degradation resulted from the introduction of cotton farming to the traditional nomadic cattle herders, by multinational companies (see DSP: 39).

Rapid population growth is a serious problem for poor countries. The capitalist economic system continually drains wealth from the Third World, and deepening poverty and rapid population growth lead many Third World peoples to overexploit their natural resources. This causes environmental degradation which jeopardises the survival of Third World peoples, and that of humanity as a whole (DSP: 39). Environmental and social safeguards are disregarded in many desperate Third World countries, so that these countries can attract Western capital investment. Transnational companies profit from this situation, exploiting workers in slave-like conditions, and exploiting the natural environment to devastating degrees. Thus, problems such as deforestation occur at rates 80 time greater in poor countries than in industrialised countries (DSP: 39), and environmental disasters are becoming commonplace in the Third World. The devastating cyanide spill at a Romanian gold and silver mine in 2000, and another spill in that same year when one tonne of deadly cyanide pellets were accidentally dropped from a helicopter in Papua New Guinea, are two such examples. Similarly, deforestation results in uncontrolled flooding and drought, soil erosion, loss of river and ground water resources, declining agricultural production, and accelerating desertification (DSP: 39).

Thus, while poor nations in particular, and humanity as a whole appear on the brink of an ecological disaster, the responsibility for the environmental problems must not be placed upon poor peoples of the Third World. Rather, the responsibility must rest squarely with the ruling class of the industrialised capitalist countries. This discussion has demonstrated that, through the capitalist system, governments and transnational corporations of the industrialised world have imposed upon the Third World an international private-profit system that takes more from poor countries and the environment than it returns. This leads directly to the depletion of the environment, and the demise of human sustainability and culture. Because capitalism is based on short-term perpetual growth through exploitation, it fails to prevent detrimental social and ecological problems which can only lead to global crisis. This fundamental contradiction in the culture of capitalism must eventually grow so apparent that it leads to the demise of the capitalist system. The economic system of perpetual growth is the fundamental obstacle to the social and economic changes that are required to eliminate poverty, initiate a decline in population growth, and thus alleviate the stress on our precious natural environment.

Bibliography

• Commoner, B. 1971. The Closing Circle. USA: Alfred A. Knopf, INC.

• Democratic Socialist Party (DSP). 1999. Environment, Capitalism & Socialism. NSW: Resistance Books

• Green Left Weekly (GLW). ‘Capitalism and the Environment’. Issue #400, 2000.

• Robbins, R. 1999. Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism. USA: Allyn & Bacon


This essay was first published by Virgil Cameron as an Anthropology Assignment, La Trobe University, 29 October 2001.