Class 1
Introduction: capitalist natures
Christos Zografos, PhD
JUH-UPF Public Policy Centre, Department of Political and Social Sciences, Pompeu Fabra University,
Barcelona, Spain
christos.zografos@upf.edu
Masters in Environmental Studies
Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic
November 2019
C:\Users\U53969\Desktop\PSPC_WEB.png

Introductions
•Introduce myself
•Students introduce themselves
–Name
–Course you are doing in Masaryk University
–Place of origin
–First degree in … from … University
–
2

INTRODUCE MYSELF
•Profile: a bit about me
•Current post
•Background: studies
•Professional record (work)
•Areas of research interest

Class outline
•Introduction to course:
–Logistics
–Evaluations, etc.
•Introduction to some key terms for the course
–Fields and sub-disciplines used in the course
–Terms/ concepts: politics, power, political ecology, etc.
–
•Class: Capitalism and environmental transformation
–“Capitalism inevitably produces environmental degradation”
–“Resource exhaustion is a condition for capitalism”
3

16.05. Introductions. 1, 2
•Me: 2 min
•Them: 8 min (20 seconds per student)
16.15. The course. 3-8
16.25. Key terms. 10-20
16.50. Capitalist natures: why inevitable (the reasoning). 21-31
17.20. When policies fail: Privatising wetlands + Environmental movement. 42, 43
[17.30. 10-min LEEWAY]
17.40. BREAK – 20 mins
18.00. Evidence: the case of soil erosion. 32-35
18.20. Degradation as a condition for capitalism. Classroom activity. 45-46:
15 min: read
15 min: discuss and prepare answers
12 min: each group presents
3 min: I explain
19.10. Degradation as a condition for capitalism. 47-49
19.15. Summarising. 51
19.20. End
[19.30. 10-min LEEWAY]

1. INTRODUCTION TO THE COURSE
•
4

Course structure
•Course aims
–How power influences environmental change and governance
–Environmental social science: political ecology + environmental history
–Develop critical understanding of environmental change and relevance of power and politics in
producing it
•Course logic
•Structure of classes
–Reading and assignment (bring in class; marked)
–Answer assignment in class (individually, small groups, whole class)
–Classroom activities
–Lecturing: expand points from reading; summarise class
– * Notes pages of ppt
•
5

COURSE AIMS
How power influences environmental change and governance, from an environmental social science
perspective.
The classes draw on disciplines of political ecology and environmental history that explain how
environmental change is produced and what are its social implications.
COURSE LOGIC
Based on a political ecology explanation of environmental transformation (will describe what this
means later in this class), the logic of this short course is:
•The political economy is a major force in producing environmental change. Class 1 explains how
this is
•The exercise of power mediates, implements, facilitates that political economy-driven
environmental change. Class 2 presents a mainstream understanding of how power works (power imposed
from the outside), and Class 3 presents a more nuanced, less obvious way in which power operates to
facilitate the political economy-driven production of environmental change
Of course this is political ecology at its ‘barest’, i.e. its most essential; missing are: power as
agency; agency of nature (materiality); hybridity and marginalisation as opportunity; etc.
STRUCTURE OF CLASSES
•Classes based on 1 reading (i.e. article or chapter) done by students before the class
•Students will answer a question (max. 500 words) based on the reading and bring their answers in
class where they are asked to discuss their answers individually, in small groups, or collectively
(whole class) in the classroom.
•The class is complemented with classroom activities
•and a more ‘traditional’ lecture format in I explain further points related to the topic and
concludes with a summary of main points raised with the class.
•Participation in class: very important. I want the class to be participatory (not any type of
participation)

Course evaluation
Essay (70%)
•Max 1,000 words (excluding references)
•Deadline: Friday 13 December 2019
–Late submissions: ‘Fail’
–If you get less than 50% overall mark, then chance for another short essay (couple of weeks
approx.)
•Individual or Collective essay
–Collective: maximum 2 students per group
–Group will produce one essay
–I mark the essay, i.e. both students get same mark

vTopic: Klein, N. 2016. Let Them Drown. The Violence of Othering in a Warming World.
Performance criteria:
1.Explain in your own words (i.e. without copy-pasting Klein’s text) (i) what Klein means by
“othering” as a source of clim change vulnerability that is violent, and (ii) what she suggests as
a way of dealing with climate change risks and hazards
2.Evaluate Klein’s argument: do you agree/ disagree with Klein, and why?
•State your opinion and support it with arguments and evidence from other studies (e.g. from our
course) or data/ examples (e.g. info from media)
3.Using class bibliography to support your answers
6
Class participation (30%)
•Student commitment and performance in answering class assignment: 10% per assignment
•You should upload (IS) each assignment 2 hours before class
•I provide feedback to each class assignment (IS Notebook) and you can also ask me in person after
the class
•Also: eager to participate and constructive comments in classroom
Grades:
•I personally mark all assignments from a scale of 1 to 10
§1-4 = FAIL
§5-8 = PASS
§9 and 10 = DISTINCTION
•But: for MUNI system purposes I only assign ‘Pass’ or ‘Fail’
•i.e. if you want to know more about your mark, email me
•Erasmus students: need grades before? Contact me

Evaluation tool
% of final mark
Assignments and participation in classroom
30%
Final Essay
70%
Attending all 3 classes: obligatory

A note on answering assignments
•File name of your assignments
–Your_name_assignmentnumber
–E.g. Zografos Christos 3. Zografos Christos ESSAY
NOTHING ELSE PLEASE!
How to answer your assignment:
–First, answer the question, e.g. in one sentence
–Then, substantiate, support your answer with arguments and evidence from the text
• Avoid being descriptive: don’t answer by simply describing a situation and don’t re-state what
the question says!
• Will use answer to today’s assignment (later in class) to explain what I mean – give you a
‘model’ answer to use both for assignments and the essay
7

Other
•Can reach me through my email christos.zografos@upf.edu

•Help with English (unknown words): http://dictionary.cambridge.org/
•Do you have any questions re: course programme, structure, outputs, etc.?
8

2. INTRODUCTION TO KEY TERMS
•
9

I will introduce those terms in a bit of a piecemeal way without linking them directly to something
we will look at immediately in the course
But later on you will (hopefully) see why they are useful, as you will need to understand what I
mean when I’m using them (e.g. environmental governance), and how I use some of them (e.g.
politics, power)

•Political ecology (next)
•
•Environmental history
•
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Interaction: humans – environment

Main ones used in course. Both study: interaction humans – environment
Environmental History
•Study of human interaction with natural world over time.
•In contrast to other historical disciplines, it emphasizes the active role nature plays in
influencing human affairs (nature’s agency).
•Environmental historians study how humans both shape their environment (WORSTER) and are shaped by
it (MCNEILL). –
Examples of studies and books
•Donald Worster ‘Dust Bowl’ – tells story of the Dust Bowl in ecological as well as human terms. A
story on the subject of the land and how humans interact with it.
•Worster links the American livestock industry's exploitation of the Great Plains, and the on-going
problem of desertification (Google books)
•Worster argues that the logic of maximum productivity and desire to replicate the material
landscape of the industrial east prevented farmers from adopting soil conservation measures that
might have spared their farms and families. (L. Kennedy,
https://www.amst.umd.edu/Research/cultland/annotations/Worster1.html)
•John McNeil ‘Mosquito Empires’ (we’ll see) – how mosquitoes have helped defend and then overthrow
Spanish Empire in the Caribbean
•Sam White ‘Climate of Rebellion’ - how imperial systems of provisioning and settlement that
defined Ottoman power in the 1500s came unraveled in the face of ecological pressures and extreme
cold and drought, leading to the outbreak of the destructive Celali Rebellion (1596–1610). This
rebellion marked a turning point in Ottoman fortunes, as a combination of ongoing Little Ice Age
climate fluctuations, nomad incursions, and rural disorder postponed Ottoman recovery over the
following century, with enduring impacts on the region’s population, land use, and economy
Three components; study:
1.Nature itself and its change over time
2.Includes physical impact of humans on the Earth's land, water, atmosphere and biosphere
•How humans use nature
•the environmental consequences of increasing population, more effective technology and changing
patterns of production and consumption
•transition from nomadic hunter-gatherer communities to settled agriculture in the neolithic
revolution
•effects of colonial expansion and settlements, and the environmental and human consequences of the
industrial and technological revolutions
3. Study how people think about nature - way attitudes, beliefs and values influence interaction
with nature especially in form of myths, religion, science

Political ecology (Simsik, 2007)
•Field: to understand relationship human societies – nature
•Environmental change is intrinsically political
–Decisions (environmental governance)
–Consequences (e.g. environmental conflict)
•Environmental change: unqueal distribution of ‘goods’ (benefits) and ‘bads’ (costs)
–Winners and losers -> generation of conflict
–
11

Instead of apolitical explanations of environmental change  (e.g. there are conflicts around
natural resources, because those resources are scarce)
•Use political ecology to study environmental change
•Academic field that seeks to understand relationship human societies – nature
•Posits that environmental change is intrinsically political
•And so are the decisions taken to produce environmental change (environmental governance)
•And the implications or consequences of environmental change, e.g. conflict

What do we mean by “political” in PE?
•Politics as power
–Power as a key analytical term for studying politics
–
•In political ecology:
–Power as a social relation built on asymmetrical distributions of resources and risks (Hornborg,
2001)
–So, we study: practices and processes through which power is yielded and negotiated (Paulson et
al., 2005)
•
12

Yield: “give up control or responsibility of something” (Cambridge Dictionary)

Two Detours
•At this stage, I need to make two detours (pause for a minute) to highlight two conceptual issues
relevant before moving on
1.Definition of “politics”
2.Definition of “power”
3.
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•This is part of “introduction to key concepts”
•Will then move on (next hour) to presenting a political understanding of environmental change

Detour 1: defining politics in political science
•
•Politics: the study of power (Heywood, 2002):
–Politics: the art of government
–Politics: public affairs
–Politics: compromise and consensus
–Politics as power (“4th definition” of politics)
²Simply present these to situate you
–not comment on strengths and limitations
14

Let me make a detour for a minute, in what I see as an effort to try and link this course (and its
approach to the ‘political’) to the rest of your degree
•Politics: the study of power (Heywood, 2002):
•Politics: the art of government
•Politics: public affairs
•Politics: compromise and consensus
•Politics as power: the 4^th definition of politics: Power as a key analytical term for studying
politics
•Simply present these to situate you
•not comment on strengths and limitations of each

Politics: the art of government
•Notion that politics = 'what concerns the state'
–Traditional view of discipline
•To study politics = to study government, or the exercise of authority
•Politics associated with 'policy’
•Source: https://thehill.com
15

TO STUDY POLITICS = TO STUDY GOVERNMENT OR THE EXERCISE OF AUTHORITY
•Study processes through which government responds to pressures from larger society
•By allocating benefits, rewards/penalties
•Which are accepted in society, and considered binding by mass of citizens
POLITICS ASSOCIATED WITH 'POLICY’:
•i.e. with formal decisions that establish a plan of action for the community
FULL TEXT
In many ways, the notion that politics amounts to 'what concerns the state' is the traditional view
of the discipline, reflected in the tendency for academic study to focus upon the personnel and
machinery of government. To study politics is in essence to study government, or, more broadly, to
study the exercise of authority. This view is advanced in the writings of the influential US
political scientist David Easton (1979, 1981), who defined politics as the 'authoritative
allocation of values'. By this he meant that politics encompasses the various processes through
which government responds to pressures from the larger society, in particular by allocating
benefits, rewards or penalties. 'Authoritative values' are therefore ones that are widely accepted
in society, and are considered binding by the mass of citizens. In this view, politics is
associated with 'policy' (see p. 400): that is, with formal or authoritative decisions that
establish a plan of action for the community.
Focus of study on: personnel and machinery of government
FOTO: President Trump on Thursday signed legislation ending a key Obama administration coal mining
rule. The bill quashes the Office of Surface Mining's Stream Protection Rule, a regulation to
protect waterways from coal mining waste that officials finalized in December. The legislation is
the second Trump has signed into law ending an Obama-era environmental regulation. On Tuesday, he
signed a Congressional Review Act (CRA) resolution undoing a financial disclosure requirement for
energy companies
(https://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/319938-trump-signs-bill-undoing-obama-coal-mining-ru
le)

Politics as public affairs
•Beyond the narrow realm of government: ‘public life’ or ‘public affairs’
²'the political' – ‘the nonpolitical' = public vs. private spheres of life
•State (=the public) – Civil Society (=the private) distinction
•Politics: activities +responsibilities exercised by public bodies
16
Source: alexandramitchell.wordpress.com

BEYOND THE NARROW REALM OF GOVERNMENT: POLITICS ARE ABOUT THE ‘PUBLIC LIFE’ OR ‘PUBLIC AFFAIRS’
•Distinction between 'the political' – ‘the nonpolitical’ corresponds to a division between the
public sphere of life vs. the private sphere
•This translates to a (traditional) distinction between the public and the private realm of life
that => division state – civil society
STATE = PUBLIC (‘THE POLITICAL’)
•institutions of state: government, courts, police, army, social-security system
•Public: responsible for collective organisation of life, because funded at the by public’s
expenses (taxes)
CIVIL SOCIETY = PRIVATE (‘THE NON-POLITICAL’)
•Institutions: family/ kinship groups, private businesses, trade unions, clubs, community groups,
NGOs, social movements, etc.
•Set to: satisfy own (private) interests, rather than those of larger society
POLITICS = RESTRICTED TO THE ACTIVITIES OF STATE ITSELF AND THE RESPONSIBILITIES EXERCISED BY
PUBLIC BODIES
•Areas of life that individuals can and do manage for themselves (the economic, social, domestic,
personal, cultural and artistic spheres, etc.) are 'nonpolitical’

Politics as compromise and consensus
•Beyond arena where politics conducted
•Politics: way in which decisions are made
–particular means of resolving conflict: by compromise, conciliation and negotiation, rather than
via use of force and violence
–‘art of the possible’: a “political solution”
–Crick (1962): “a conciliation solution to the problem of order”
•Source: http://www.learningspy.co.uk
17

NOT SO MUCH ARENA WITHIN WHICH POLITICS IS CONDUCTED BUT WAY IN WHICH DECISIONS ARE MADE
•Politics = a particular means of resolving conflict: by compromise, conciliation and negotiation,
rather than through force
POLITICS = 'THE ART OF THE POSSIBLE’
•Also everyday use of term, e.g. when we say that a solution to a problem is  a 'political'
solution = through debate and arbitration, as opposed to e.g. a 'military' solution
CRICK 1962:
•Conflict is inevitable so when social groups and interests possess power they must be conciliated,
cannot merely be crushed
•Politics = 'that solution to the problem of order which chooses conciliation rather than violence
and coercion’
•*NOTE: The Problem of Order = question how and why it is that social orders exist at all (Hobbes
formulated the question, to answer that it is because of the Social Contract)
KEY TO POLITICS = WIDE DISPERSAL OF POWER
View based on resolute faith in the efficacy of debate and discussion, as well as on belief that
society is characterized by consensus rather than by irreconcilable conflict
•Disagreements that exist can be resolved without resort to intimidation and violence

Politics as power
•Politics:
•Not confined to a particular sphere (government, state or 'public‘ realm)
•At work in all social activities and every corner of human existence
–Leftwich (1984): at heart of all collective social activity, formal and informal, public and
private, in all human groups, institutions & societies
•Concerns production, distribution and use of resources in the course of social existence
–is power: ability to achieve a desired outcome through whatever means
•Takes place at every level of social interaction within families, amongst small groups of friends
just as much as amongst nations and on the global stage
•Radical feminist assertion: 'the personal is the political’
18

FULL TEXT
The fourth definition of politics is both the broadest and the most radical. Rather than confining
politics to a particular sphere (the government, the state or the 'public‘ realm) this view sees
politics at work in all social activities and in every corner of human existence. As Adrian
Leftwich proclaimed in What is Politics? The Activity and Its Study (1984:64), 'politics is at the
heart of all collective social activity, formal and informal, public and private, in all human
groups, institutions and societies'. In this sense, politics takes place at every level of social
interaction; it can be found within families and amongst small groups of friends just as much as
amongst nations and on the global stage.
At its broadest, politics concerns the production, distribution and use of
resources in the course of social existence. Politics is, in essence, power: the ability
to achieve a desired outcome, through whatever means.
This notion was neatly that 'the personal is the political'. This slogan neatly encapsulates the
radicalfeminist
belief that what goes on in domestic, family and personal life is intensely
political, and indeed that it is the basis of all other political struggles. Clearly, a more
radical notion of politics underlies this position. This view was summed up by Kate
Millett in Sexual Politics (1969:23), in which she defined politics as 'powerstructured
relationships, arrangements whereby one group of persons is controlled
by another'. Feminists can therefore be said to be concerned with 'the politics of
everyday life'. In their view, relationships within the family, between husbands and
wives, and between parents and children, are every bit as political as relationships
between employers and workers, or between governments and citizens.
BP TEXT: RADICAL FEMINIST ASSERTION: 'THE PERSONAL IS THE POLITICAL’ means:
•what goes on in domestic, family and personal life is intensely political - and indeed is the
basis of all other political struggles
•'the politics of everyday life’: relationships within family, between husbands and wives, and
between parents and children, are every bit as political as relationships between employers and
workers, or between governments and citizens

Detour 2: defining Power
•The 4th definition of politics
–Power as a key analytical term for studying/ understanding politics
vBut what exactly is/ do we mean by power?
ØMax Weber: “chance of a man or a number of men to realise their own will in a social action even
against the resistance of others”
•In political ecology:
–Two ways of understanding and studying power (how it operates)
–
•
19
Source: Public Domain

Two types of power
•Sovereign power
•Capacity (of state and its institutions) to legitimately impose will; e.g. enclose resources for
conservation
•Note 1: multiplies/ controls degradation
•Note 2: non-legitimate force as well
•
•Internalised power
•Power also expressed on how individuals come to obey and take things as natural (e.g. enclosure;
property) •Internalising control and authority as normal and natural
•How power is exercised within individuals
20
Source: mechanicsofpower.wordpress.com
Copyright: David Hayward (source: geotimes.co.id)

Classes 2 and 3 will show examples of both sovereign and internalised power

3. CAPITALIST NATURES: CAPITALISM AND ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION
•
21

CLASS ASSIGNMENT 1
•Robbins explains that “[f]or materialists, environmental degradation is... inevitable in
capitalism” (p. 46).
•Explain in your own words why is this the case, and how does such degradation occurs.
•Do you agree or disagree? And, why?
22

Answer: the green materialist claim
•Robbins, 2004, p.51: because
•“all progress in capitalistic agriculture is the progress in the art, not only of robbing the
labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given
time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility” (Marx, 1967)
23

Because capitalism requires the extraction of value surplus from labour and nature
which involves extracting more than what you re-invest in nature (and compensate labour)

Detour 3: Answering assignments by explaining claims
•Claim/ argument:
–The class question (Robbins’ assertion)
A.Reasoning (reasons)
–Marx’s “because…”
–Simply said: Because capitalist accumulation, a central aspect of capitalism, requires the
degradation of the environment in order to keep the system (Km) going
–Why does it require this? (see explanation, next)
B.Evidence
–With examples
•C. Then: your evaluation/ view
– But again: claim, reasoning, evidence
24

A. Reasons (LOGICAL EXPLANATION)
•
•Value surplus
•Capital accumulation and why it works
•How capital accumulation degrades the environment
•Why degradation is inevitable
•
25

ELEMENTS TO THE ANSWER:
•Value surplus (with labour example)
•Capital accumulation (with labour e.g.)
•Extracting surplus from nature
WHY DEGRADATION IS INEVITABLE: The second contradiction of capitalism

Value surplus: what is it?
•Marx (1867)
–“Yield, profit or return on production capital invested, i.e. amount of the increase in the value
of capital…”
–…after it goes through the production process
–General formula for Capital (Marx): M-C-M’
26
Zentralbibliothek Zürich Das Kapital Marx 1867.jpg

Surplus value = new value created by workers in excess of the cost of their own labour in the
production process; excess: appropriated by capitalist as profit when products are sold
GENERAL FORMULA FOR CAPITAL (Spark Notes)
Marx says that capital's starting point is with the circulation of commodities. The ultimate
product of this commodity circulation is money. We see this every day, when capital enters various
markets in the form of money. Marx distinguishes two kinds of circulation. C-M-C (commodities
transformed into money which is transformed back into commodities) is the direct form of
circulation. In this case we sell commodities in order to buy more, and money acts as a kind of
middle-man. However, there is also another form, M-C-M. In this case, we buy in order to sell;
money is capital. The first phase transforms money into a commodity, the second transforms a
commodity into money. Ultimately, then, we exchange money for money.
•Use-value is the purpose of C-M-C, while exchange-value is the purpose of M-C-M. Money is
indistinguishable, and it seems absurd to exchange it for itself. It is distinguishable only in
amount. Thus, in M-C-M what really occurs is M-C-M', where M' = M + excess. This excess is called
surplus-value. The original value adds to itself and converts the surplus value to capital.
•In the end, money is again the starting point, and from M' we go to M'' and so on. Thus, the
possessor of money becomes the capitalist. He is a capitalist in so far as the increase of wealth
is the sole force behind his actions—in this role he is "capital personified and endowed with
consciousness and a will." His aim is boundless enrichment. M-C-M' is the general formula for
capital, as it appears in the sphere of circulation.

How is it generated?
Source: http://utama.info/
Worker labour (wage) produces one shoe in 1h worth = 10€/ hour
Worker prod (machine): 10€/ 15min = 40€/ hour
or: 4 pairs/ hour
Owner (shoe in mkt) = 40€
4 pairs (produced in 1h)= €160
Operational costs = 20€/ h
Invest (put in prod) = 50€/ hour
Profit (above value investment) = 80€/ hour
27

Example: shoe production with a machine that produces shoes
Worker wage: 10 €/ hour
Worker produces product worth = 10 € every 15 min = 40 €/hour
uBecause worker is productive, can produce an output value > what it costs to hire him
i.e. capitalist is paid 40 € when trading final product in market
Operational costs (e.g. machine depreciation, materials) = 20 €/ h
i.e. Investor puts 50 € in process (includes depreciation), e.g. to buy the factory buildings,
machinery, etc. and gets 80 € out of process
Profit for capitalist: 80 €/ hour; i.e. has made 30 €> than value of his investment

Why is it necessary?
28
http://weknowwhatsup.blogspot.com.es
Source: http://freedombunker.com
Capital accumulation
“Accumulate, accumulate! This is Moses and the Prophets!” (Marx, Capital, Vol 1)

Value surplus 3/4
–Making such easy money (appropriating work of others) is attractive for capitalist
–But is also necessary for maintaining system (Kism)
uIt leads to capital accumulation = net addition to existing wealth + a re-distribution (from
labourer to capitalist) of (created) wealth
uNew K is used to accumulate more K by re-investing in production process, financial assets,
non-productive assets (e.g. works of art), human K, infrastructure, etc., i.e. on assets that
permit creating more K
uK accumulation is motor in engine of capitalist economy

Extracting surplus from nature
•Intensity of extraction > restoration
29
•Niger Delta (Nigeria) (Image: Sosialistisk Ungdom – SU/Flickr)
Tar Sands from space (source: http://stephenleahy.net)

REASONING
When (because) the rate and intensity of extraction > restoration
uBy expropriating nature’s capital and underinvesting in restoration or repair of impacted
ecological systems
uTo make necessary profit (i.e. at the level needed for surplus accumulation):
uCapitalist firm squeezes surplus from ecology – just as it squeezes surplus from labour (workers)
i.e. degradation is inevitable result of capital accumulation, when it becomes (as it regularly
does) a necessary condition to achieve surplus (profit), and capital accumulation

Second contradiction of capitalism
•
•
•Capitalism degrades the material basis upon which it depends •James O’Connor (1988): contradiction
capital accumulation vs. production conditions •Degrading production conditions is inevitable
•
30
Source: http://sovietrussianow.blogspot.com.es/

What James O’Connor called second contradiction of capitalism
Which is a contradiction between K accumulation and production conditions
Marx says that there are THREE TYPES OF PRODUCTION CONDITIONS:
1.External physical conditions: viability of eco-systems, the adequacy of atmospheric ozone levels,
the stability of coastlines and watersheds; soil, air and water quality
2.Labourpower: physical and mental well- being of workers; the kind and degree of socialization;
toxicity of work relations and the workers' ability to cope; and human beings as social productive
forces and biological organisms generally
3.Communal conditions: social capital," "infrastructure”
BACKGROUND INFO
The contradiction: Capitalism degrades the material basis (production conditions) upon which it
depends
• Acid rain; soil erosion; pesticide overuse; climate change, etc.
• The health of workers, social K (e.g. community relation cohesion)
K makes use of those conditions, but it doesn’t produce them. The state either produces (e.g.
infrastructure) or maintains (e.g. viability of ecosystems) them
Without those conditions in place, K cannot be accumulated.
Two implications
• Capitalism carries within it, seeds of own destruction
• Degrading production conditions is inevitable

Why Inevitable?
•Why K degrades those conditions (Spence 2000)?
•It is driven by individual capitals seeking to shore up their profitability through cost-cutting
which degrades, or fails to maintain, the material and social conditions of their own production
•But these conditions are common to capitalist production as a whole, so capital-in-general is
confronted with higher costs further down the road, in order to repair the damage done to the
shared conditions of production by the short-termism of individual capitals (O'Connor, 1998)
31

NOTE 1: O’Connor DESCRIBES A‘TRAGEDY OF COMMONS’ LOGIC
NOTE 2:
As concerns the system, i.e. capitalism, the second contradiction is thus a challenge of
under-production (not producing enough to accumulate K) vs. the first contradiction which is a
contradiction of over-production and over-accumulation
• 1^st contradiction: not being able to realise (i.e. pocket) the surplus value which you have
already extracted from workers
• A problem, because (as a capitalist) you stay with K which you cannot put into ‘productive’ use,
i.e. invest into something that will provide you with profit (surplus value), hence more K and so
keep the treadmill (system) going
• E.g. so the question (basic question in Km) becomes: where to find extra demand to sell product
you need to extract in order to squeeze surplus of labour/ nature/ infrastructure, in a way that
permits reproducing K?

B. EVIDENCE: The case of soil erosion
qhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0F2c1ECuo4
•Soil erosion (www.omafra.gov.on.ca): the wearing away of a field's topsoil
–By natural physical forces of water and wind
–or through forces associated with farming (e.g. tillage)
•Impacts:
–Food production; famine risk
–Diffuse water pollution
–
32
Source: www.newsecuritybeat.org

Food production
Soil erosion makes farming impossible -> famine, large migration, etc.
•Approximately 40% of the world's agricultural land is seriously degraded
•In Africa, if current trends of soil degradation continue, the continent might be able to feed
just 25% of its population by 2025 (UN Institute for Natural Resources in Africa)
Diffuse water pollution
•Soil erosion (especially from agricultural activity) is considered to be the leading global cause
of diffuse water pollution, due to the effects of the excess sediments flowing into the world's
waterways. The sediments themselves act as pollutants, as well as being carriers for other
pollutants, such as attached pesticide molecules or heavy metals

Policy failure
•Blaikie (1985) ‘The political economy of soil erosion in developing countries’
•The problem (RQ):
•Techniques to deal with soil erosion may be successful
•But policies have failed
33

Blaikie (1985) ‘The political economy of soil erosion in developing countries’
•Techniques may be successful
•Techniques: mechanical (e.g. terracing) or agronomic (i.e. farming practices that provide stable
yields, e.g. plant trees) methods applied to deal with erosion
•But policies have failed
•i.e. soil conservation programmes implemented over wide areas and numbers of people that try to
have considerable effects in reducing erosion and improving food production

Why do policies fail 1?
•Classic model of soil conservation
• * Blaikie identifies 3 major problems
1.Erosion = environmental problem
–Ignores social problems leading to erosion
–Coercion and force
2.Laying blame on land-users
–Including: overpopulation
3.The solution: link users to market economy
–
1.
•
34
Source: commons.wikimedia.org

Classic (colonial) model of soil conservation that persists
[there are] implicit assumptions on which policies are based have only slowly evolved from a
colonial, Euro-centric and messianic intellectual frame of reference which has endured the waning
of empire and the regaining of political independence of most former colonies.
Environmental problem
Therefore there is a logical tendency to preclude from view the social reasons why people are using
the land in such a way as to cause excessive soil erosion, and so most conservation policies do not
address them at all.
•Problems of a lack of alternative sources of fuelwood for poor people, unequal landholdings,
political constraints placed upon the pastures of nomads, poor prices imposed by the state for the
produce of rural areas and so forth, tend to lie outside the terms of reference of most
conservation policies.
•When purely environmentally-dictated policies (such as forest closure or forcible destocking of
pastures) do not work because the social context has been analysed insufficiently, force is often
contemplated. This frequently ends up with the state attempting to protect the environment from the
majority of the people who use it. For example, the Agricultural Department of what was then
British Kenya, when faced with the Wakamba who had marched on Government House as a protest against
compulsory destocking in 1938, said:
... unless some pressure is applied to urge improved methods and practices, and unless such
pressure is continuously applied .. .it will not be possible to save the fertile areas of Kenya
from deterioration ... without the application of compulsion under legislation to enforce improved
agricultural practices. (Clayton E. (1964)
A more up-to-date but similar sentiment advocating a tough approach:
Admonition alone does not appear to be enough. A strict legal regime of soil conservation must be
established. (MacAndrews and Chia Lin Sien 1979:30)
Policy 'solutions' of this kind tended to favour erosion works (often paid for by labout inputs on
the part of farmers themselves), terracing, reafforestation and pasture closure, implemented by
compulsory destocking or exclusion from certain vulnerable areas. They were frequently imposed by
colonial regimes using force where necessary. In colonial Ruanda-Burundi, several weeks of free
labour had to be given each year by the commune to build up terraces, bunds and other erosion
works. The paysannat system in the (then) Belgian Congo had similar compulsive elements (Dumont
1970: 36).
Laying blame on locals
•The problem is blamed on the land users themselves, who are seen to have mismanaged the
environment because of lack of environmental awareness, ignorance, apathy and just plain laziness.
•The more pejorative epithets have disappeared in the post-colonial literature, except for one or
two extreme examples like Kon Muang Nan (1978) who holds the view that the shifting cultivation
practised by tribal people in northern Thailand is the most dangerous national problem and one
which undermines national security. The practice should be eliminated or the people expelled from
Thailand altogether, he claims.
Market economy solution
•The last problem identified in the classic or colonial model is that cultivators and pastoralists
who cause soil erosion are insufficiently involved in the market economy.
•Involvement in the production of surpluses for sale in the market implies modern methods of
cultivation and improved productivity, so alleviating the 'population problem' , and the awareness
of financial inducements, and incentive to undertake soil conserving agronomic practices and/or
erosion works.
•The policy implication of this view is a programme to help those farmers who can help themselves
to grow cash crops.

Why do policies fail 2?
•How about some fundamental assumptions?
–Causes of soil erosion: outside afflicted area
–The state is not neutral
–Always winners and losers from erosion and conservation
•Root causes of soil erosion: effect of capitalist economy
–Farmers forced to degrade the land in order to delay their own destruction
–Capitalist production encourages mining of soils
–
35

So, the root causes of soil erosion are not to be found only at the site where land degradation
occurs (Hertford, 1985):
•Farmers forced to degrade the land in order to delay their own destruction
•By those who exploit them (the “winners” or “haves”) within int’l system of production
Capitalist production tends to encourage mining of soils (Robbins 2012):
•Farmers produce for int’l competitive markets, many times because of state-sponsored programmes
(e.g. Malian cotton farmers, or intro crash crops, or agri modernisation programmes) promoted by
int’l agencies (e.g. WB), or introduced by colonial powers
•In int’l competitive markets, when economic (profit) margins decline, costs and risks are passed
downwards to individual producers, who try to extract as much as possible in order to balance their
losses
•This is why they will more readily use pesticides, follow shorter fallowing (time left land to
rest) periods, etc. to ensure they have a crop to sell
•Similarly: this is why they will go deeper into the forest (encroach), to increase production and
offset tighter prices for agricultural produce
•Lost value of (degraded) forest (e.g. biodiversity lost) = extracted from its location to be
accumulated in distant commodity markets (e.g. cotton market in London, NY, etc.)
David Simon (ed) (2006) Fifty Key Thinkers in Development: "A principal conclusion of this book is
that soil erosion in lesser developed countries will not be substantially reduced unless it
seriously threatens the accumulation possibilities of the dominant classes" (p147).

4. TYPES OF CAPITAL ACCUMULATION
•
36

Types of capital accumulation
•Two types of capital accumulation with adverse environmental impacts (degradation):
1.Primitive/ Original accumulation
2.Accumulation by dispossession
37

Let’s now look at evidence of the link capital accumulation – environmental degradation
•The second contradiction “in action”
Go through the two ways of accumulating capital (and their ecological implications)
1.Primitive/ Original Accumulation; evidence: the enclosure of the English Commons (16^th – 19^th
century)
2.Accumulation by dispossession; evidence: NNL policy for conservation of US wetlands (early 21^st
century)

1. Primitive accumulation
•The question: how did some people managed to accumulate capital in the first place?
38
Source: http://pixgood.com

The question: how did some people managed to accumulate capital in the first place?
uAnd become (the class of) capitalists, i.e. those who have amassed capital?
Harvey (2005) summarising Marx: PA entailed
utaking land, e.g. enclosing it
uexpelling a resident population (creating landless proletariat, who became cheap industrial
workers)
ureleasing land for private owners to buy and use it to accumulate K
Preferred materialist example of PA: European (English) enclosures

Primitive accumulation: example
•English 15th – 19th century enclosures
39
Source: https://theliberi.wordpress.com

English 15^th – 19^th century enclosures – although some formally-endorsed enclosure activity since
13^th century (Wikipedia: Enclosure of manorial common land was authorized by the Statute of Merton
(1235) and the Statute of Westminster (1285).
•Currently, in our ʺproperty‐owning democracyʺ, nearly half the country is owned by 40,000 land
millionaires, or 0.06 per cent of the population (Fairlie 2009)
Common lands: privately owned, commonly used
•Based on tradition of common rights
•Arable farming in open fields (subsistence farming)
Fencing (enclosing) land entitled to private owners
•Either buying common rights or law-and-use-of-force to enclose
•Dispossessed commoners become landless working force (class) used in industrial revolution (north
England)
ENGLISH ENCLOSURES
•Replacement of common lands by private property in England (Clark &Clark 2001)
•Enclosure, also spelled Inclosure, the division or consolidation of communal elds, meadows,
pastures, and other arable lands in western Europe into the carefully delineated and individually
owned and managed farm plots of modern times. (Britannica)
•Taha Sutarhwala: Half of available agricultural land in England enclosed (1604-1914): 27,500 km2
(size = > 1/3 of Czech Republic (or) > ½ of Slovakia)
•Land use system: right to use ‘common lands’
•Formally: smallholders
•Informally: landless peasants
•The losers in the process of enclosure were of two kinds. First there were the landless, or nearly
so, who had no ownership rights over the commons, but who gained a living from commons that were
open access, or where a measure of informal use was tolerated. These people had few rights,
appeared on no records, and received nothing in compensation for the livelihood they lost. But
there was also a class of smallholders who did have legal rights, and hence were entitled to
compensation. However, the amount of land they were allocated ʺwas often so small, though in strict
legal proportion to the amount of their claim, that it was of lile use and speedily sold.ʺ
Moreover, the considerable legal, surveying, hedging and fencing costs of enclosure were
disproportionate for smaller holdings. And on top of that, under the ʺSpeenhamlandʺ system of poor
relief, the taxes of the small landowner who worked his own land, went to subsidize the labour
costs of the large farmers who employed the landless, adding to the pressure to sell up to
aggrandizing landowners. (Fairlie, 2009)
•Enclosing land: concentration of land to richer farmers
•Transforming common land (wastes, etc.) into private property through enclosing it (fences) =
obligatory
•High costs of fencing
•High taxes (preexisting poor relief system that practically subsidised large landowners for
employing landless as farmhands/ hired labourers)  (Fairlie)
•Impossible for small farmers to retain land: sell it

Ecological effects of sheep overgrazing
•Ecological degradation: widespread soil erosion and deforestation
40
Source: www.fs.fed.us

ENCLOSED LAND: ADOPTION OF PRACTICES THAT GENERATED MORE PROFIT (INCREASED PROFITABILITY OF LARGE
FARMS)
u Sheep that paid better for their wool (demand for English wool in 16^th cent), tallow (fat for
candles, etc.), and meat
u When sheep prices declined (1650s): improved agricultural practices (fertilisers, new crops) and
economies of scale (higher individual farmer profit from land concentration – although according to
economists at the time, no higher land productivity see: Fairlie 2009)
But those land practices generate environmental impact:
(Intensive) Sheep (farming for profit in competitive markets) destroy soil: overgrazing ->
deforestation, i.e. destruction of trees, forest ecology, and forest services (e.g. soil erosion,
landslide barriers, etc.)
 CONSIDER: “OVERGRAZING TYPICALLY INCREASES SOIL EROSION.
•Reduction in soil depth, soil organic matter and soil fertility impair the land's future natural
and agricultural productivity.
•Soil fertility can sometimes be mitigated by applying the appropriate lime and organic
fertilizers.
•However, the loss of soil depth and organic matter takes centuries to correct. Their loss is
critical in determining the soil's water-holding capacity and how well pasture plants do during dry
weather”.[desertification and drought]
Also consider: substitution of coal for wood (lack of wood) as fuel->smoke and soot in London
(1578: Queen Elizabeth asks brewers to swap back to wood which they cannot)
§Overgrazing reduces usefulness, productivity, and biodiversity of land and is one cause of
desertification and erosion
§Desertification (Princeton University Dictionary): “process of fertile land transforming into
desert typically as a result of deforestation, drought or improper/inappropriate agriculture”
Fairley (2009): The main arguments of those against enclosure were:
(i) that the common pastures and waste lands were the mainstay of the independent poor; when they
were overgrazed, that was often as a result of overstocking by the wealthiest commoners who were
the people agitating for enclosure

2. Accumulation by dispossession
•David Harvey (2004):
–Neoliberal policies in western nations from 1970s onwards…
–…result in centralization of wealth and power in the hands of a few…
–…by dispossessing the public of their wealth or land (publicly-owned assets, e.g. water, forests,
etc.)…
–…that pass to become private property
•Privatisation: main practice
41
Reuters: Roy Letkey (source: www.abc.net.au)

Harvey, 2004: …
Four practices:
1.Privatization (major practice)
2.financialization
3.management and manipulation of crises
4.state redistributions
E.g. Thatcher’s privatisation of social housing UK
uIdea: pass from rental to ownership-> control assets-> increase wealth (increase your assets = a
house)
uHousing speculation for central location housing
uPoorer populations in the periphery (long – and at cases: expensive – commuting to work, makes
their lives more difficult)
uNew homeowners: borrowing money (bank)-> increased profits (housing prices) transferred to banks
uCOSTS: for both poorer populations + new homeowners (debt); BENEFITS banks (increased profits)
David Harvey sees this as "the wholesale commodification of nature in all its forms," a "new wave
of ‘enclosing the commons’"[24] that employs environmentalism in the service of the rapid expansion
of capitalism.[25] This "accumulation by dispossession" releases assets at very low or zero cost,
providing immediate profitability and counteracting overaccumulation.[26]

Robertson, 2000: privatising wetlands
•“No Net Loss”: George Bush Senior
•When wetlands stand in the way
•Solution: restoration wetlands
•Accumulation by dispossession
–Privatising public assets
–Dispossessing public of ecological wealth
•Restored wetlands: a biodiversity and ecosystem perspective
42
Source: http://www.biodiversityoffsets.net/

Exploitation of urban land (e.g. building malls, housing, etc.), a very lucrative (highly
profit-making) economic activity
• Capital accumulation opportunity of high value
Case of wetlands: loss of many million acres more, the extinction of species, the disappearance of
wilderness and wildlife
THE NO NET LOSS POLICY
The solution (George HW Bush): restoration/ mitigation wetlands!
Need to sacrifice wetlands for K accumulation project
•Urban development (malls)
Substitute natural wetlands with artificial ones
•You buy (from state) wetland to use as land to build your mall
(I argue that) this is a case of both
• Privatisation of public assets (wetlands)
• But also: dispossession of wealth (ecological) from public
The first is relatively straightforward: with the justification of restoration, wetlands pass from
being public property to become private (land to sell to e.g. build malls)
The second is a bit more complicated, and has to do with the ecological implications of restored
vs. original wetlands
From a biodiversity and ecosystem perspective
Policies may not be working because restored or created wetlands are often very different from
natural wetlands
•Many restoration projects are fail to recognize that wetlands are parts of LARGER LANDSCAPES
•Use design parameters that exclude important features of natural wetlands
•E.g. invertebrate species assemblages different in coastal constructed vs. natural wetlands
•Differences due to the fact that the SUBSTRATES in the constructed wetland were COARSER AND HAD
LOWER ORGANIC MATTER, which resulted in a LOWER RATE OF COLONIZATION BY PLANTS [lower NUTRIENT
CYCLING-> ECOL DEGRADATION]
Wetland protection policies may be inadequate to preserve and restore ecological processes such as
NUTRIENT CYCLING
• because they mostly focus on individual wetlands and ignore the fact that wetlands are integral
parts of landscapes
Wetland mitigation projects often result in the exchange of one type of wetland for another and
result in a loss of wetland FUNCTIONS AT THE LANDSCAPE LEVEL
No Net Loss: now with EU as well (“to a theatre near you”)!

Implications: environmental movements
•Labour movement
•Environmental movement
43
Image credit: america.gov/Flickr

Pillage of nature must [inevitably] result in political response
As labour movement = result of capital squeezing surplus out of labour’s work (worker’s
exploitation)
Environmental movement = result of exploitation of nature
uParadox: in capitalism’s excesses lie the seeds of more sustainable and equitable practices

5. DEGRADATION AS A CONDITION FOR CAPITALISM
•
44

Up until now, we saw link between capitalism and environmental transformation (degradation) as
capitalism producing degradation due to its main activity (quest for capital accumulation)
Now we want to advance a second claim re: relationship between capitalism and environmental
transformation (degradation):
Environmental degradation is a condition for capitalism in order to exist, i.e. that ecological
degradation is not only an effect of capitalist economy expansion, but is also a condition for its
existence – capitalism needs/ requires degradation in order to exist/ maintain itself

Classroom activity
q Read: “Sugar and early modern world-economy” (J. Moore, 2000)
•Split into 3-4 groups (max: 6 persons)
•Discuss and decide:
–Who did what to whom and where?
–How did they do it and why?
45
Source: www.dansukker.co.uk

10-15 min READ
15-20 min work into groups to generate this
30 min: feedback
•6 groups present their findings in 5 min each
10-15 min: Discussion
•My answer
10-15 min: The commodity frontier thesis
•Explanation
•Reason (logical support)
•Evidence: Madeira
Nevertheless: not all explanation Marxist, but need to keep focus…
SUGGESTION: each looks for answer to 1 question in the text
-1 looks for answer to question: who did it AND to whom
-1 at: why; 1: how; 1: what? 1: where

Who does what, etc.: my mindmap
46
WHO? Capital
WHO? Planters
WHO?
Portuguese empire
Ecology
·Forests
·Soils
·Water
·Wildlife (BR)

WHERE? Madeira -> Brazil -> Barbados

Crisis (exhaustion) of soil and slaves  lowers productivity (hence profitability) which leads to
relocation of activity

WHY?
·K accumulation -> (Need for relocation)

WHY?
·Get wealthy/ make a living (“sell to survive”)
·Mentalities
o“all that mattered”
obelief: forest soil better for sugar

WHY?
·Increase imperial strength (gunpower and political influence, via more wealth from colony)

HOW?
·Introducing pigs, rabbits, etc.
·Forest clearance
·Irrigation works
·Cultivating practices (e.g. terracing)
·Boiling houses
HOW?
·Slave provision (trade)
HOW?
·Financing plantations (Genovese, Flemish K)
·Debt system (upon planters)
·Market competition (upon planters)
WHAT? Exhaustion

Slaves

ALL THAT MATTERED
Slaves typically lived long enough to recoup the original cost, and then some
Who:
Does what:
To whom:
Madeira’s ecology
African slaves
Where:
How:
And, why:

Commodity frontiers
•Claim: “it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” (Jameson, 2003)
•Because the capitalist economy is inherently expansionary, and so are its – unavoidable – adverse
ecological effects (degradation) •Evidence: Madeira and the expansion of “the sugar commodity
frontier” to Brazil (and Barbados)
•
47

Frederic Jameson (2003): Someone once said that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than
to imagine the end of capitalism
REASON
Because capitalist expansion has a frontier mode
• The capitalist economy is inherently expansionary
• And so (EXPANSIONARY) are its – unavoidable – ecological effects (degradation)
Because of this, it constantly generates new ‘commodity frontiers’
• Sites of incorporation of new ‘nature’ and labour resources
• Frontiers (vs. borders)
Why inherently expansionary?
• Because it needs to commodify more and more, in order to respond to the Law of Value (M-C-M’:
must find more C to produce and then produce M’)
• Particularly, because when faced with degradation (it produces) in one place, it needs to expand
in order to continue accumulating, via incorporating new ‘nature’ and labour resources (otherwise
no input)
• *NOTE: important to look at world-economy as unit of analysis vs. nation-state or empire
EVIDENCE: 16^th cent. Madeira and the shift to Brazil (and then Barbados, etc.)

Commodity frontiers
•Why inherently expansionary?
• “Recurrent waves of socio-ecological exhaustion – understood as the inability of a given bundle
of human/extra-human natures to deliver more work to capital – implicate recurrent waves of
geographical expansion” (Moore, 2014)
•
• The necessity of (constant) frontier making
–Sites of incorporation of new resources
48

The necessity of frontier-making.
Recurrent waves of socio-ecological exhaustion – understood as the inability of a given bundle of
human/extra-human natures to deliver more work to capital – implicate recurrent waves of
geographical expansion.
[The commodity frontier strategy has been so decisive not because of the extension of commodity
production and exchange as such – a common misunderstanding of commodity frontier theory (Moore,
2000, 2013c, 2013d). Rather, commodity frontiers were so epoch-making because they extended the
zone of appropriation (of natures’ unpaid work) faster than the zone of commodification. ]
This was the crucial dialectic that Marx put his finger on in addressing the contradictions of the
working day, the tendency towards manifold “industrial patholog[ies],” and the necessity of
incorporating “physically uncorrupted” human natures into the world proletariat (1977). In sum, not
only does capitalism have frontiers; it is a frontier civilization.
NECESSITY OF CONSTANT FRONTIER-MAKING
•K and (K accumulation) needs to constantly expand commodity frontiers
•Commodity Frontiers are sites where new labour (Madeira: slaves) and NRs (forests, land, water)
are “incorporated” in (become part of/ input for) the capital accumulation process, which happens
elsewhere (Genovese and Flemish capital)
•NOTE: those resources are incorporated at no (e.g. Madeira) or very low cost -> profitability
•Why Capitalist/ capital accumulation?
•Madeira case as a case of Genovese and Flemish capital investment
•Incorporating new supplies of land and labour
–New Land: Frontier vs. border
–New labour (slaves)
–Heavy K inputs
–Rationalised labour process
•WHEN: Ecological and labour exhaustion: soil erosion and slave exhaustion -> Shift sugar
production to Brazil
* “implicate” = involve, connect, [engage]

Significance of commodity frontiers
•Importance: how ecological exhaustion in one place drives quest for new spaces/ ecologies and
labour resources elsewhere to exhaust
–In order to accumulate more K to invest for producing more K
–Ecological degradation is not only an effect of capitalist economy expansion, but is also a
condition for its existence
–Moore 2003: “Without the Americas there was no capitalism; without capitalism, there were no
Americas” [as we know them]
•The world as an integrated economy
–World-systems analysis
–
•Term also used to describe conflicts today: https://ejatlas.org
49

Importance of this (THE ARGUMENT): ecological degradation is not only an effect of capitalist
economy expansion, but is also a condition for its existence
• Quijano & Wallerstein 1992: “The Americas were not incorporated in an already existing capitalist
world-economy. There could not have been a capitalist world-economy without the Americas"
• Moore 2003: “Without the Americas there was no capitalism; without capitalism, there were no
Americas” [as we know them]
THE WORLD AS INTEGRATED ECONOMY
•World-systems analysis: the unit of analysis is the = world economy vs. nation-state (empire)
(favoured more traditionally to understand colonialism, empire, etc. and their economics)
•“Amsterdam is standing on Norway”
TERM USED TO DESCRIBE CONFLICTS TODAY
Check the Environmental Justice Atlas project:

6. SUMMARISING
•
50

Take away points
•Environmental change is political
–Winners and losers from environmental change
–Political economy: role in producing change and injustice
–Asymmetrical power relations (more, next classes)
•
•Political economy of capitalism (capitalist natures)
–Capital accumulation and the quest for value surplus produce environmental degradation
–But also: environmental degradation is itself a condition for K accumulation (surplus value)
51

ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE IS POLITICAL
•And so are environmental governance and the conflicts that ensue around it
•Despite apolitical narratives of change and solutions
•Political analysis of environmental change looks for aspects made invisible by apolitical
explanations:
•Winners and losers from environmental change
•Political economy: its role in producing change and injustices
•Asymmetrical (yet: not immutable) power relations facilitate environmental transformations
according to the needs of the political economy (more on this – i.e. how this occurs – in next two
classes)
•Green governance: diverse mechanisms of power
BUT ALSO: ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION IS ITSELF A CONDITION FOR K ACCUMULATION (SURPLUS VALUE)
•Commodity frontiers: when ecology (and manpower) are exhausted, capital moves on to use and
exhaust those resources in other places
Note: a simple definition of what term political economy means/ involves (wikipedia):
Political economy is the study of production and trade and their relations with law, custom and
government; and with the distribution of national income and wealth.
•In the late 19th century, the term "economics" gradually began to replace the term "political
economy" with the rise of mathematical modelling coinciding with the publication of an influential
textbook by Alfred Marshall in 1890.
•use of the term "economics" began to overshadow "political economy" around roughly 1910, becoming
the preferred term for the discipline by 1920
•Today, the term "economics" usually refers to the narrow study of the economy absent other
political and social considerations while the term "political economy" represents a distinct and
competing approach.