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<title>E.3 Can private property rights protect the environment?</title>

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<h1>E.3 Can private property rights protect the environment?</h1>

<p>
Environmental issues have become increasingly important over the
decades. When Murray Bookchin wrote his first works on our 
ecological problems in the 1950s, he was only one of a small
band. Today, even right-wing politicians have to give at least
some lip-service to environmental concerns while corporations
are keen to present their green credentials to the general 
public (even if they do not, in fact, have any). 
</p><p>
As such, there has been a significant change. This is better late 
than never, considering that the warnings made by the likes of 
Bookchin in the 1950s and 1960s have come true to a threateningly 
worrying degree. Sadly, eco-anarchist solutions are still ignored 
but that is unsurprising as they go to the heart of the ecological 
problem, namely domination within humanity as the precondition for 
the domination of nature and the workings of the capitalist economy.
It is hardly likely that those who practice and benefit from that
oppression and exploitation will admit that they are causing the 
problems! Hence the need to appear green in order to keep a 
fundamentally anti-green system going.
</p><p>
Of course, some right-wingers are totally opposed to ecological 
issues. They seriously seem to forget without a viable ecology, 
there would be no capitalism. Ayn Rand, for example, dismissed 
environmental concerns as being anti-human and had little problem 
with factory chimneys belching smoke into the atmosphere (her 
fondness for chimneys and skyscrapers would have have made 
Freud reach for his notepad). As Bob Black once noted, <i>"Rand 
remarked that she <b>worshipped</b> smokestacks. For her . . . 
they not only stood for, they <b>were</b> the epitome of human 
accomplishment. She must have meant it since she was something of 
a human smokestack herself; she was a chain smoker, as were the 
other rationals in her entourage. In the end she abolished her 
own breathing: she died of lung cancer."</i> [<i>"Smokestack Lightning,"</i> 
<b>Friendly Fire</b>, p. 62] The fate of this guru of capitalism is a 
forewarning for our collective one if we ignore the environment 
and our impact on it.
</p><p>
The key to understanding why so many on the right are dismissive of
ecological concerns is simply that ecology cannot be squeezed into
their narrow individualistic property based politics. Ecology is
about interconnectiveness, about change and interaction, about the
sources of life and how we interact with them and they with us. 
Moreover, ecology is rooted in the <b>quality</b> of life and goes not
automatically view quantity as the key factor. As such, the notion
that more is better does not strike the ecologist as, in itself,
a good thing. The idea that growth is good as such is the principle
associated with cancer. Ecology also destroys the individualistic 
premise of capitalist economics. It exposes the myth that the market
ensures everyone gets exactly what they want -- for if you consume 
eco-friendly products but others do not then you are affected by their 
decisions as the environmental impact affects all. Equally, the notion 
that the solution to GM crops should letting "the market" decide fails 
to take into account that such crops spread into local eco-systems and 
contaminate whole areas (not to mention the issue of corporate power
enclosing another part of the commons). The market "solution" in this 
case would result in everyone, to some degree, consuming GM crops 
eventually. None of this can be fitted into the capitalist ideology. 
</p><p>
However, while vocal irrational anti-green perspectives lingers on in 
some sections of the right (particularly those funded by the heaviest 
polluters), other supporters of capitalism have considered the problems 
of ecological destruction in some degree. Some of this is, of course,
simply greenwashing (i.e., using PR and advertising to present a green 
image while conducting business as usual). Some of it is funding 
think tanks which use green-sounding names, imagery and rhetoric to
help pursue a decidedly anti-ecological practice and agenda. Some of
is, to some degree, genuine. Al Gore's campaign to make the world 
aware of the dangers of climate change is obviously sincere and 
important work (although it is fair to point out the lack of green
policies being raised during his 2000 Presidential election campaign
and the poverty of his proposed solutions and means of change).
Nicholas Stern's 2006 report on climate change produced for the UK 
government is another example and it gives an insight into the  
mentality of such environmentalists. The report did produce quite an 
impact (plus its dismissal by the usual suspects). The key reason for 
that was, undoubtedly, due to it placing a money sum on the dangers of 
environmental disruption. Such is capitalism -- people and planet can 
go to the dogs, but any threat to profits must be acted upon. As the 
British PM at the time put it, any Climate Change Bill must be <i>"fully 
compatible with the interests of businesses and consumers as well."</i> 
Which is ironic, as it is the power of money which is causing the bulk 
of the problems we face.
</p><p>
Which is what we will discuss here, namely whether private property can
be used to solve our environmental problems. Liberal environmentalists base 
their case on capitalist markets aided with some form of state intervention. 
Neo-liberal and right-"libertarian" environmentalists base their case purely 
on capitalist markets and reject any role for the state bar that of defining 
and enforcing private property rights. Both, however, assume that capitalism
will remain and tailor their policies around it. Anarchists question that
particularly assumption particularly given, as we discussed in 
<a href="secE1.html">section E.1</a>, 
the fundamental reason why capitalism cannot be green is its irrational 
"grow-or-die" dynamic. However, there are other aspects of the system which 
contribute to capitalism bringing ecological crisis sooner rather than later. 
These flow from the nature of private property and the market competition it 
produces (this discussion, we should stress, ignores such factors as 
economic power which will be addressed in <a href="secE3.html#sece32">section E.3.2</a>).
</p><p>
The market itself causes ecological problems for two related reasons: 
externalities and the price mechanism. It is difficult making informed 
consumption decisions under capitalism because rather than provide 
enough information to make informed decisions, the market hinders the 
flow of relevant information and suppresses essential knowledge. This is 
particularly the case with environmental information and knowledge. Simply put, 
we have no way of knowing from a given price the ecological impact of the 
products we buy. One such area of suppressed information is that involving
externalities. This is a commonly understood problem. The market actively rewards 
those companies which inflict externalities on society. This is the <i>"routine and 
regular harms caused to <b>others</b> -- workers, consumers, communities, the 
environment."</i> These are termed <i>"externalities"</i> in <i>"the coolly technical jargon 
of economics"</i> and the capitalist company is an <i>"externalising 
machine"</i> and it is <i>"no exaggeration to say that the corporation's built in 
compulsion to externalise its costs is at the root of many of the world's 
social and environmental ills."</i> [Joel Bakan, <b>The Corporation</b>, p. 60 and 
p. 61] 
</p><p>
The logic is simple, by externalising (imposing) costs on others (be it 
workers, customers or the planet) a firm can reduce its costs and make 
higher profits. Thus firms have a vested interest in producing externalities. 
To put it crudely, pollution pays while ecology costs. Every pound a 
business spends on environmental protections is one less in profits. 
As such, it makes economic sense to treat the environment like a dump 
and externalise costs by pumping raw industrial effluent into the 
atmosphere, rivers, and oceans. The social cost of so doing weighs little 
against the personal profits that result from inflicting diffuse losses onto 
the general public. Nor should we discount the pressure of market forces in
this process. In order to survive on the market, firms may have to act in ways 
which, while profitable in the short-run, are harmful in the long term. For 
example, a family-owned farm may be forced to increase production using 
environmentally unsound means simply in order to avoid bankruptcy. 
</p><p>
As well as economic incentives, the creation of externalities flows from the 
price mechanism itself. The first key issue, as green economist E. F. Schumacher
stressed, is that the market is based on <i>"total quantification at the expense of 
qualitative differences; for private enterprise is not concerned with what it 
produces but only what it gains from production."</i> This means that the <i>"judgement 
of economics . . . is an extremely <b>fragmentary</b> judgement; out of the large 
number of aspects which in real life have to be seen and judged together before 
a decision can be taken, economics supplies only one -- whether a thing yields 
a profit <b>to those who undertake it</b> or not."</i> [<b>Small is Beautiful</b>, p. 215
and p. 28] This leads to a simplistic decision making perspective:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"Everything becomes crystal clear after you have reduced reality to one -- 
one only -- of its thousand aspects. You know what to do -- whatever produces 
profits; you know what to avoid -- whatever reduces them or makes a loss. And 
there is at the same time a perfect measuring rod for the degree of success or 
failure. Let no-one befog the issue by asking whether a particular action
is conducive to the wealth and well-being of society, whether it leads to 
moral, aesthetic, or cultural enrichment. Simply find out whether it pays."</i> 
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 215]
</blockquote></p><p>
This means that key factors in decision making are, at best, undermined by 
the pressing need to make profits or, at worse, simply ignored as a handicap.
So <i>"in the market place, for practical reasons, innumerable qualitative 
distinctions which are of vital importance for man and society are 
suppressed; they are not allowed to surface. Thus the reign of quantity 
celebrates its greatest triumphs in 'The Market.'"</i> This feeds the drive to
externalise costs, as it is <i>"based on a definition of cost which excludes 
all 'free goods,' that is to say, the entire God-given environment, except 
for those parts of it that have been privately appropriated. This means 
that an activity can be economic although it plays hell with the environment,
and that a competing activity, if at some cost it protects and conserves the 
environment, will be uneconomic."</i> To summarise: <i>"it is inherent in the 
methodology of economics to <b>ignore man's dependence on the natural world.</b>"</i> 
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 30 and p. 29]
</p><p>
Ultimately, should our decision-making be limited to a single criteria, 
namely whether it makes someone a profit? Should our environment be handed 
over to a system which bases itself on confusing efficient resource allocation 
with maximising profits in an economy marked by inequalities of wealth and, 
consequently, on unequal willingness and ability to pay? In other words, 
biodiversity, eco-system stability, clean water and air, and so forth only 
become legitimate social goals when the market places a price on them 
sufficient for a capitalist to make money from them. Such a system can only
fail to achieve a green society simply because ecological concerns cannot
be reduced to one criteria (<i>"The discipline of economics achieves its 
formidable resolving power by transforming what might otherwise be 
considered qualitative matters into quantitative issues with a single 
metric and, as it were, a bottom line: profit or loss."</i> [James C. Scott, 
<b>Seeing like a State</b>, p. 346]). This is particularly the case when even
economists admit that the market under-supplies public goods, of which a
clean and aesthetically pleasing environment is the classic example.
Markets may reflect, to some degree, individual consumer preferences
distorted by income distribution but they are simply incapable of 
reflecting collective values (a clean environment and spectacular views 
are inherently collective goods and cannot be enclosed). As a result, 
capitalists will be unlikely to invest in such projects as they cannot 
make everyone who uses them pay for the privilege.
</p><p>
Then there is the tendency for the market to undermine and destroy 
practical and local knowledge on which truly ecological decisions
need to be based. Indigenous groups, for example, have accumulated
an enormous body of knowledge about local ecological conditions and
species which are ignored in economic terms or eliminated by 
competition with those with economic power. Under markets, in other
words, unarticulated knowledge of soil conditions and bio-diversity
which have considerable value for long-term sustainability is usually
lost when it meets agribusiness.
</p><p>
Practical knowledge, i.e. local and tacit knowledge which James C. Scott 
terms metis, is being destroyed and replaced <i>"by standardised formulas 
legible from the centre"</i> and this <i>"is virtually inscribed in the activities 
of both the state and large-scale bureaucratic capitalism."</i> The <i>"logic 
animating the project . . . is one of control and appropriation. Local 
knowledge, because it is dispersed and relatively autonomous, is all 
but unappropriable. The reduction or, more utopian still, the elimination 
of metis and the local control its entails are preconditions, in the case 
of the state, of administrative order and fiscal appropriation and, in 
the case of the large capitalism firm, of worker discipline and profit."</i> 
[<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 335-6] Green socialist John O'Neill provides a similar 
analysis:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"far from fostering the existence of practical and local knowledge,
the spread of markets often appears to do the opposite: the growth
of global markets is associated with the disappearance of knowledge
that is local and practical, and the growth of abstract codifiable
information . . . the market as a mode of co-ordination appears to
foster forms of abstract codifiable knowledge . . . The knowledge
of weak and marginal actors in markets, such as peasant and 
marginalised indigenous communities, tends to be lost to those
who hold market power. The epistemic value of knowledge claims
bear no direct relation to their market value. Local and often
unarticulated knowledge of soil conditions and crop varieties
that have considerable value for long-term sustainability of 
agriculture has no value in markets and hence is always liable 
to loss when it comes into contact with oil-based agricultural 
technologies of those who do have market power. The undermining 
of local practical knowledge in market economies has also been 
exacerbated by the global nature of both markets and large
corporate actors who require knowledge that is transferable across
different cultures and contexts and hence abstract and codifiable
. . . Finally, the demand for commensurability and calculability runs
against the defence of local and practical knowledge. This is not
just a theoretical problem but one with real institutional embodiments.
The market encourages a spirit of calculability . . . That spirit
is the starting point for the algorithmic account of practical
reason which requires explicit common measures for rational choice
and fails to acknowledge the existence of choice founded upon
practical judgement. More generally it is not amicable to forms
of knowledge that are practical, local and uncodifiable."</i> 
[<b>Markets, Deliberation and Environment</b>, pp. 192-3]
</blockquote></p><p>
Thus the market tends to replace traditional forms of agriculture
and working practices (and the complex knowledge and expertises 
associated with both) with standardised techniques which aim to
extract as much profit in the short-term as possible by concentrating
power into the hands of management and their appointed experts. That
they cannot even begin to comprehend the local conditions and practical
knowledge and skills required to effectively use the resources available
in a sustainable manner should go without saying. Unfortunately, the
economic clout of big business is such that it can defeat traditional
forms of knowledge in the short-term (the long-term effect of such 
exploitation is usually considered someone else's problem).
</p><p>
So, given this analysis, it comes as no surprise to anarchists that
private property has not protected the environment. In fact, it is
one of the root causes of our ecological problems. Markets hide the 
ecological and health information necessary for environmentally 
sound decisions. Ultimately, environmental issues almost always 
involve value judgements and the market stops the possibility of 
producing a public dialogue in which these values can be discussed 
and enriched. Instead, it replaces this process by an aggregation 
of existing preferences (shaped by economic pressures and necessity) 
skewed in favour of this generation's property owners. An individual's 
interest, like that of the public as a whole, is not something which 
exists independently of the decision-making processes used but rather 
is something which is shaped by them. Atomistic processes focused on 
a simplistic criteria will produce simplistic decisions which have 
collectively irrational results. Collective decision making based on 
equal participation of all will produce decisions which reflect <b>all</b> 
the concerns of <b>all</b> affected in a process which will help produce 
empowered and educated individuals along with informed decisions.
</p><p>
Some disagree. For these the reason why there is environmental damage is
not due to too much private property but because there is too little. 
This perspective derives from neo-classical and related economic theory and
it argues that ecological harm occurs because environmental goods and bads 
are unpriced. They come free, in other words. This suggests that the best
way to protect the environment is to privatise everything and to create
markets in all areas of life. This perspective, needless to say, is entirely 
the opposite of the standard eco-anarchist one which argues that our 
environmental problems have their root in market mechanisms, private 
property and the behaviour they generate. As such, applying market norms 
even more rigorously and into areas of life that were previously protected
from markets will tend to make ecological problems worse, not better.  
</p><p>
As would be expected, the pro-property perspective is part of the wider
turn to free(r) market capitalism since the 1970s. With the apparent 
success of Thatcherism and Reaganism (at least for the people who count 
under capitalism, i.e. the wealthy) and the fall of Stalinism in the 
Eastern Block, the 1980s and 1990s saw a period of capitalist triumphantism. 
This lead to an increase in market based solutions to every conceivable
social problem, regardless of how inappropriate and/or insane the 
suggestions were. This applies to ecological issues as well. The 
publication of <b>Free Market Environmentalism</b> by Terry L. Anderson 
and Donald R. Leal in 1991 saw ideas previously associated with the
right-"libertarian" fringe become more mainstream and, significantly,
supported by corporate interests and the think-tanks and politicians
they fund. 
</p><p>
Some see it as a deliberate plan to counteract a growing ecological 
movement which aims to change social, political and economic structures 
in order to get at the root cases of our environmental problems. Activist 
Sara Diamond suggested that <i>"[s]ome farsighted corporations are finding 
that the best 'bulwark' against 'anti-corporation' environmentalism is 
the creation and promotion of an alternative model called 'free market 
environmentalism.'"</i> [<i>"Free Market Environmentalism,"</i> <b>Z Magazine</b>, 
December 1991] Whatever the case, the net effect of this reliance on markets 
is to depoliticise environmental debates, to transform issues which involve 
values and affect many people into ones in which the property owner is 
given priority and where the criteria for decision making becomes one 
of profit and loss. It means, effectively, ending debates over <b>why</b> 
ecological destruction happens and what we should do about it and 
accepting the assumptions, institutions and social relationships of 
capitalism as a given as well as privatising yet more of the world and 
handing it over to capitalists. Little wonder it is being proposed 
as an alternative by corporations concerned about their green image. 
At the very least, it is fair to say that the corporations who punt 
free market environmentalism as an alternative paradigm for environmental
policy making are not expecting to pay more by internalising their
costs by so doing. 
</p><p>
As with market fundamentalism in general, private property based 
environmentalism appears to offer solutions simply because it fails
to take into account the reality of any actual capitalist system. The 
notion that all we have to do is let markets work ignores the fact 
that any theoretical claim for the welfare superiority of free-market 
outcomes falls when we look at any real capitalist market. Once we 
introduce, say, economic power, imperfect competition, public goods, 
externalities or asymmetric information then the market quickly 
becomes a god with feet of clay. This is what we will explore in 
the rest of this section while the <a href="secE4.html">next section</a> will discuss a 
specific example of how laissez-faire capitalism cannot be ecological
as proved by one of its most fervent ideologues. Overall, anarchists 
feel we have a good case on why is unlikely that private property 
can protect the environment.</p>

<h2><a name="sece31">E.3.1 Will privatising nature save it?</a></h2>

<p>
No, it will not. To see why, it is only necessary to look at the
arguments and assumptions of those who advocate such solutions to
our ecological problems.
</p><p>
The logic behind the notion of privatising the planet is simple. 
Many of our environmental problems stem, as noted in the 
<a href="secE3.html">last section</a>, from externalities. 
According to the "market advocates" this is due to there being unowned
resources for if someone owned them, they would sue whoever or
whatever was polluting them. By means of private property and 
the courts, pollution would end. Similarly, if an endangered
species or eco-system were privatised then the new owners would 
have an interest in protecting them if tourists, say, were willing
to pay to see them. Thus the solution to environmental problems 
is simple. Privatise everything and allow people's natural incentive 
to care for their own property take over.
</p><p>
Even on this basic level, there are obvious problems. Why assume that 
<b>capitalist</b> property rights are the only ones, for example? However,
the crux of the problem is clear enough. This solution only works if
we assume that the "resources" in question make their owners a profit
or if they are willing and able to track down the polluters. Neither
assumption is robust enough to carry the weight that capitalism places
on our planet's environment. There is no automatic mechanism by which 
capitalism will ensure that environmentally sound practices will 
predominate. In fact, the opposite is far more likely.
</p><p>
At its most basic, the underlying rationale is flawed. It argues that
it is only by giving the environment a price can we compare its use for 
different purposes. This allows the benefits from preserving a forest 
to be compared to the benefits of cutting it down and building a shopping 
centre over it. Yet by "benefits" it simply means economic benefits, i.e. 
whether it is profitable for property owners to do so, rather than 
ecologically sensible. This is an important difference. If more money 
can be made in turning a lake into a toxic waste dump then, logically, 
its owners will do so. Similarly, if timber prices are not rising at 
the prevailing profit or interest rate, then a self-interested firm will 
seek to increase its profits and cut-down its trees as fast as possible,
investing the returns elsewhere. They may even sell such cleared land 
to other companies to develop. This undermines any claim that private 
property rights and environmental protection go hand-in-hand.
</p><p>
As Glenn Albrecht argues, such a capitalist "solution" to environmental 
problems is only <i>"likely to be effective in protecting species [or 
ecosystems] which are commercially important only if the commercial 
value of that species [or ecosystem] exceeds that of other potential 
sources of income that could be generated from the same 'natural 
capital' that the species inhabits If, for example, the conservation of
species for ecotourism generates income which is greater than that which
could be gained by using their habit for the growing of cash crops, then
the private property rights of the owners of the habitat will effectively
protect those species . . . However, this model becomes progressively less 
plausible when we are confronted with rare but commercially unimportant 
species [or ecosystems] versus very large development proposals that are 
inconsistent with their continual existence. The less charismatic the 
species, the more 'unattractive' the ecosystem, the more likely it will 
be that the development proposal will proceed. The 'rights' of developers
will eventually win out over species and ecosystems since . . . bio-diversity
itself has no right to exist and even if it did, the clash of rights
between an endangered species and multi-national capital would be a
very uneven contest."</i> [<i>"Ethics, Anarchy and Sustainable Development"</i>, 
pp. 95-118, <b>Anarchist Studies</b>, vol. 2, no. 2, pp. 104-5] 
</p><p>
So the conservation of endangered species or eco-systems is not
automatically achieved using the market. This is especially the case 
when there is little, or no, economic value in the species or eco-system 
in question. The most obvious example is when there is only a limited 
profit to be made from a piece of land by maintaining it as the habitat 
of a rare species. If any alternative economic uses for that land yields 
a greater profit then that land will be developed. Moreover, if a
species looses its economic value as a commodity then the property
owners will become indifferent to its survival. Prices change and 
so an investment which made sense today may not look so good tomorrow. 
So if the market price of a resource decreases then it becomes unlikely 
that its ecological benefits will outweigh its economic ones. Overall, 
regardless of the wider ecological importance of a specific eco-system 
or species it is likely that their owner will prioritise short-term 
profits over environmental concerns. It should go without saying that 
threatened or endangered eco-systems and species will be lost under a 
privatised regime as it relies on the willingness of profit-orientated 
companies and individuals to take a loss in order to protect the 
environment.
</p><p>
Overall, advocates of market based environmentalism need to present
a case that <b>all</b> plants, animals and eco-systems are valuable 
commodities in the same way as, say, fish are. While a case for
market-based environmentalism can be made by arguing that fish 
have a market price and, as such, owners of lakes, rivers and
oceans would have an incentive to keep their waters clean in order
to sell fish on the market, the same cannot be said of all species
and habitats. Simply put, not all creatures, plants and eco-systems 
with an ecological value will have an economic one as well. 
</p><p>
Moreover, markets can send mixed messages about the environmental 
policies which should be pursued. This may lead to over investment 
in some areas and then a slump. For example, rising demand for recycled 
goods may inspire an investment boom which, in turn, may lead to 
over-supply and then a crash, with plants closing as the price falls 
due to increased supply. Recycling may then become economically 
unviable, even though it remains ecologically essential. In addition, 
market prices hardly provide an accurate signal regarding the "correct" 
level of ecological demands in a society as they are constrained by 
income levels and reflect the economic pressures people are under. 
Financial security and income level play a key role, for in the market 
not all votes are equal. A market based allocation of environmental 
goods and bads does not reflect the obvious fact the poor may appear 
to value environmental issues less than the wealthy in this scheme 
simply because their preferences (as expressed in the market) are 
limited by lower budgets. 
</p><p>
Ultimately, market demand can change without the underlying demand
for a specific good changing. For example, since the 1970s the 
real wages of most Americans have stagnated while inequality 
has soared. As a result, fewer households can afford to go 
on holidays to wilderness areas or buy more expensive 
ecologically friendly products. Does that imply that the people 
involved now value the environment less simply because they now 
find it harder to make ends meet? Equally, if falling living 
standards force people to take jobs with dangerous environmental 
consequences does than really provide an accurate picture of people's 
desires? It takes a giant leap of faith (in the market) to assume that 
falling demand for a specific environmental good implies that reducing
environmental damage has become less valuable to people. Economic 
necessity may compel people to act against their best impulses, even 
strongly felt natural values (an obvious example is that during 
recessions people may be more willing to tolerate greenhouse gas 
emissions simply because they need the work).
</p><p>
Nor can it be claimed that all the relevant factors in ecological 
decision making can take the commodity form, i.e. be given a price.
This means that market prices do not, in fact, actually reflect 
people's environmental values. Many aspects of our environment 
simply cannot be given a market price (how can you charge people 
to look at beautiful scenery?). Then there is the issue of how to 
charge a price which reflects the demand of people who wish to know 
that, say, the rainforest or wilderness exists and is protected 
but who will never visit either? Nor are future generations taken 
into account by a value that reflects current willingness to pay 
and might not be consistent with long-term welfare or even survival. 
And how do you factor in the impact a cleaner environment has on 
protecting or extending human lives? Surely a healthy environment 
is worth much more than simply lost earnings and the medical bills  
and clean-up activities saved? At best, you could factor this in 
by assuming that the wage premium of workers in dangerous 
occupations reflects it but a human life is, surely, worth 
more than the wages required to attract workers into dangerous 
working conditions. Wages are <b>not</b> an objective measure 
of the level of environmental risks workers are willing to tolerate 
as they are influenced by the overall state of the economy, the 
balance of class power and a whole host of other factors. Simply 
put, fear of unemployment and economic security will ensure that
workers tolerate jobs that expose them and their communities to 
high levels of environmental dangers. 
</p><p>
Economic necessity drives decisions in the so-called "free" market 
(given a choice between clean air and water and having a job, many 
people would choose the latter simply because they have to in order 
to survive). These factors can only be ignored which means that 
environmental values <b>cannot</b>  be treated like commodities and market 
prices <b>cannot</b> accurately reflect environmental values. The key thing 
to remember is that the market does not meet demand, it meets <b>effective</b> 
demand (i.e. demands backed up with money). Yet people want endangered 
species and eco-systems protected even if there is no effective demand 
for them on the market (nor could be). We will return to this critical 
subject in the <a href="secE3.html#sece32">next section</a>.
</p><p>
Then there are the practicalities of privatising nature. How, for 
example, do we "privatise" the oceans? How do we "privatise" whales 
and sharks in order to conserve them? How do we know if a whaling
ship kills "your" whale? And what if "your" shark feeds on "my" fish?
From whom do we buy these resources in the first place? What courts 
must be set up to assess and try crimes and define damages? Then 
there are the costs of defining and enforcing private rights by 
means of the courts. This would mean individual case-by-case
adjudications which increase transaction costs. Needless to say,
such cases will be influenced by the resources available to both
sides. Moreover, the judiciary is almost always the least accountable
and representative branch of the state and so turning environmental
policy decisions over to them will hardly ensure that public concerns
are at the foremost of any decision (such a move would also help 
undermine trial by jury as juries often tend to reward sizeable 
damages against corporations in such cases, a factor corporations
are all too aware of).
</p><p>
This brings us to the problem of actually proving that the particles of 
a specific firm has inflicted a specific harm on a particular person and
their property. Usually, there are multiple firms engaging in polluting
the atmosphere and it would be difficult, if not impossible, to legally
establish the liability of any particular firm. How to identify which 
particular polluter caused the smog which damaged your lungs and garden? 
Is it an individual company? A set of companies? All companies? Or is 
it transportation? In which case, is it the specific car which finally 
caused your cancer or a specific set of car uses? Or all car users? Or 
is it the manufacturers for producing such dangerous products in the 
first place? 
</p><p>
Needless to say, even this possibility is limited to the current 
generation. Pollution afflicts future generations as well and 
it is impossible for their interests to be reflected in court for 
"future harm" is not the question, only present harm counts. Nor can
non-human species or eco-systems sue for damage, only their owners
can and, as noted above, they may find it more profitable to tolerate
(or even encourage) pollution than sue. Given that non-owners cannot
sue as they are not directly harmed, the fate of the planet will rest
in the hands of the property-owning class and so the majority are
effectively dispossessed of any say over their environment beyond 
what their money can buy. Transforming ecological concerns into money 
ensures a monopoly by the wealthy few:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"In other words, the environment is assumed to be something that
can be 'valued,' in a similar way that everything else is assigned
a value within the market economy.
</p><p>
"However, apart from the fact that there is no way to put an 
'objective' value on most of the elements that constitute the 
environment (since they affect a subjective par excellence factor,
i.e. the quality of life), the solution suggested . . . implies
the extension of the marketisation process to the environment 
itself. In other words, it implies the assignment of a market 
value to the environment . . . so that the effects of growth 
onto it are 'internalised' . . . The outcome of such a process
is easily predictable: the environment will either be put under
the control of the economic elites that control the market 
economy (in case an actual market value be assigned to it) or
the state (in case an imputed value is only possible). In 
either case, not only the arrest of the ecological damage is 
-- at least -- doubtful, but the control over Nature by elites
who aim to dominate it -- using 'green' prescriptions this
time -- is perpetuated."</i> [Takis Fotopoulous, <i>"Development or 
Democracy?"</i>, pp. 57-92, <b>Society and Nature</b>, No. 7, pp. 79-80]
</blockquote></p><p>
Another key problem with using private property in regard to environmental 
issues is that they are almost always reactive, almost never proactive. 
Thus the pollution needs to have occurred before court actions are taken
as strict liability generally provides after-the-fact compensation for 
injuries received. If someone does successfully sue for damages, the money 
received can hardly replace an individual or species or eco-system. At best, 
it could be argued that the threat of being sued will stop environmentally 
damaging activities but there is little evidence that this works. If a 
company concludes that the damages incurred by court action is less than 
the potential profits to be made, then they will tolerate the possibility 
of court action (particularly if they feel that potential victims do not 
have the time or resources available to sue). This kind of decision was 
most infamously done by General Motors when it designed its Malibu car. 
The company estimated that the cost of court awarded damages per car was 
less than ensuring that the car did not explode during certain kinds of 
collusion and so allowed people to die in fuel-fed fires rather than 
alter the design. Unfortunately for GM, the jury was horrified (on appeal, 
the damages were substantially reduced). [Joel Bakan, <b>The Corporation</b>, 
pp. 61-5]
</p><p>
So this means that companies seeking to maximise profits have an incentive
to cut safety costs on the assumption that the risk of so doing will be
sufficiently low to make it worthwhile and that any profits generated
will more than cover the costs of any trial and damages imposed. As
eco-anarchist David Watson noted in regards to the Prudhoe Bay disaster,
it <i>"should go without saying that Exxon and its allies don't try their 
best to protect the environment or human health. Capitalist institutions 
produce to accumulate power and wealth, not for any social good. Predictably, 
in order to cut costs, Exxon steadily dismantled what emergency safeguards
it had throughout the 1980s, pointing to environmental studies showing a 
major spill as so unlikely that preparation was unnecessary. So when the 
inevitable came crashing down, the response was complete impotence and 
negligence."</i> [<b>Against the Megamachine</b>, p. 57] As such, it cannot be
stressed too much that the only reason companies act any different (if and 
when they do) is because outside agitators -- people who understand and 
cared about the planet and people more than they did about company profits 
-- eventually forced them to.
</p><p>
So given all this, it is clear that privatising nature is no guarantee
that environmental problems will be reduced. In fact, it is more likely
to have the opposite effect. Even its own advocates suggest that their 
solution may produce <b>more</b> pollution than the current system of state 
regulation. Terry L. Anderson and Donald R. Leal put it this way:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"If markets produce 'too little' clean water because dischargers do
not have to pay for its use, then political solutions are equally
likely to produce 'too much' clean water because those who enjoy the
benefits do not pay the cost . . . Just as pollution externalities
can generate too much dirty air, political externalities can generate
too much water storage, clear-cutting, wilderness, or water quality
. . . Free market environmentalism emphasises the importance of market
process in determining optimal amounts of resource use."</i> [<b>Free
Market Environmentalism</b>, p. 23]
</blockquote></p><p>
What kind of environmentalism considers the possibility of "too much"
clean air and water? This means, ironically, that from the perspective 
of free-market "environmentalism" that certain ecological features may be 
over-protected as a result of the influence of non-economic goals and 
priorities. Given that this model is proposed by many corporate funded
think tanks, it is more than likely that their sponsors think there is 
"too much" clean air and water, "too much" wilderness and "too much" 
environmental goods. In other words, the "optimal" level of pollution
is currently too low as it doubtful that corporations are seeking to
increase their costs of production by internalising even more 
externalities.
</p><p>
Equally, we can be sure that "too much" pollution <i>"is where the company 
polluting the water has to pay too much to clean up the mess they make. It 
involves a judgement that costs to the company are somehow synonymous with 
costs to the community and therefore can be weighed against benefits to the
community."</i> Such measures <i>"grant the highest decision-making power over 
environmental quality to those who currently make production decisions. A 
market system gives power to those most able to pay. Corporations and firms,
rather than citizens or environmentalists, will have the choice about
whether to pollute (and pay the charges or buy credits to do so)."</i> [Sharon
Beder, <b>Global Spin</b>, p. 104]
</p><p>
The surreal notion of "too much" clean environment does indicate another 
key problem with this approach, namely its confusion of need and demand 
with <b>effective</b> demand. The fact is that people may desire a clean 
environment, but they may not be able to afford to pay for it on the market. 
In a similar way, there can be "too much" food while people are starving to 
death simply because people cannot afford to pay for it (there is no effective 
demand for food, but an obvious pressing need). Much the same can be said of 
environment goods. A lack of demand for a resource today does <b>not</b> mean 
it is not valued by individuals nor does it mean that it will not be valued 
in the future. However, in the short-term focus produced by the market such 
goods will be long-gone, replaced by more profitable investments.
</p><p>
The underlying assumption is that a clean environment is a luxury which 
we must purchase from property owners rather than a right we have as 
human beings. Even if we assume the flawed concept of self-ownership,
the principle upon which defenders of capitalism tend to justify their
system, the principle should be that our ownership rights in our bodies 
excludes it being harmed by the actions of others. In other words, a
clean environment should be a basic right for all. Privatising the 
environment goes directly against this basic ecological insight.
</p><p>
The state's environmental record <b>has</b> often been terrible, particularly 
as its bureaucrats have been influenced by private interest groups when 
formulating and implementing environmental policies. The state is 
far more likely to be "captured" by capitalist interests than by 
environmental groups or even the general community. Moreover, its 
bureaucrats have all too often tended to weight the costs and benefits 
of specific projects in such a way as to ensure that any really desired 
ones will go ahead, regardless of what local people want or what the 
environmental impact will really be. Such projects, needless to say, will 
almost always have powerful economic interests behind them and will seek 
to ensure that "development" which fosters economic growth is pursued. 
This should be unsurprising. If we assume, as "market advocates" do, 
that state officials seek to further their own interests then classes 
with the most economic wealth are most likely to be able to do that 
the best. That the state will reflect the interests of those with most 
private property and marginalise the property-less should, therefore, 
come as no surprise.
</p><p>
Yet the state is not immune to social pressure from the general public 
or the reality of environmental degradation. This is proved, in its 
own way, by the rise of corporate PR, lobbying and think-tanks into 
multi-million pound industries. So while the supporters of the market 
stress its ability to change in the face of consumer demand, their 
view of the alternatives is extremely static and narrow. They fail,
unsurprisingly, to consider the possibility of alternative forms of 
social organisation. Moreover, they also fail to mention that popular 
struggles can influence the state by means of direct action. For them, 
state officials will always pursue their own private interests, 
irrespective of popular pressures and social struggles (or, for that
matter, the impact of corporate lobbying). While it is possible that 
the state will favour specific interests and policies, it does not 
mean that it cannot be forced to consider wider ones by the general 
public (until such time as it can be abolished, of course). 
</p><p>
As we discussed in <a href="secD1.html#secd15">section D.1.5</a>, the 
fact the state can be pressured 
by the general public is precisely why certain of its secondary functions 
have been under attack by corporations and the wealthy (a task which their 
well-funded think-tanls provide the rationales for). If all this is the case 
(and it is), then why expect cutting out the middle-person by privatising 
nature to improve matters? By its own logic, therefore, privatising nature 
is hardly going to produce a better environment as it is unlikely that 
corporations would fund policies which would result in more costs for
themselves and less access to valuable natural resources. As free market
environmentalism is premised on economic solutions to ecological problems
and assumes that economic agents will act in ways which maximise their
own benefit, such an obvious conclusion should come naturally to its 
advocates. For some reason, it does not.
</p><p>
Ultimately, privatising nature rests on the ridiculous notion that a clean 
environment is a privilege which we must buy rather than a right. Under "free 
market environmentalism" private property is assumed to be the fundamental right 
while there is no right to a clean and sustainable environment. In other 
words, the interests of property owners are considered the most important 
factor and the rest of us are left with the possibility of asking them for 
certain environmental goods which they may supply if they make a profit 
from so doing. This prioritisation and categorisation is by no means obvious 
and uncontroversial. Surely the right to a clean and liveable environment
is more fundamental than those associated with property? If we assume
this then the reduction of pollution, soil erosion, and so forth 
are not goods for which we must pay but rather rights to which we 
are entitled. In other words, protecting species and ecosystem as well 
as preventing avoidable deaths and illnesses are fundamental issues 
which simply transcend the market. Being asked to put a price on nature 
and people is, at best, meaningless, or, at worse, degrading. It
suggests that the person simply does not understand why these things
are important.
</p><p>
But why should we be surprised? After all, private property bases itself 
on the notion that we must buy access to land and other resources required 
for a fully human life. Why should a clean environment and a healthy body
be any different? Yet again, we see the derived rights (namely private 
property) trumping the fundamental base right (namely the right of 
self-ownership which should automatically exclude harm by pollution).
 That this happens so consistently should not come as too great a 
surprise, given that the theory was invented to justify the appropriation 
of the fruits of the worker's labour by the property owner (see 
<a href="secB4.html#secb42">section B.4.2</a>). Why 
should we be surprised that this is now being used to 
appropriate the rights of individuals to a clean environment and
turn it into yet another means of expropriating them from their
birthrights?</p>

<h2><a name="sece32">E.3.2 How does economic power contribute to the ecological crisis?</a></h2>

<p>
So far in this section we have discussed why markets fail to allocate 
environmental resources. This is due to information blocks and costs, 
lack of fully internalised prices (externalities) and the existence 
of public goods. Individual choices are shaped by the information 
available to them about the consequences of their actions, and the 
price mechanism blocks essential aspects of this and so information 
is usually partial at best within the market. Worse, it is usually
distorted by advertising and the media as well as corporate and 
government spin and PR. Local knowledge is undermined by market 
power, leading to unsustainable practices to reap maximum short 
term profits. Profits as the only decision making criteria also leads 
to environmental destruction as something which may be ecologically
essential may not be economically viable. All this means that the 
price of a good cannot indicate its environmental impact and so that 
market failure is pervasive in the environmental area. Moreover, 
capitalism is as unlikely to produce their fair distribution of
environmental goods any more than any other good or resource due 
to differences in income and so demand (particularly as it takes 
the existing distribution of wealth as the starting point). The reality 
of our environmental problems provides ample evidence for this 
analysis.
</p><p>
During this discussion we have touched upon another key issue, namely
how wealth can affect how environmental and other externalities are 
produced and dealt with in a capitalist system. Here we extend our 
critique by addressed an issue we have deliberately ignored until
now, namely the distribution and wealth and its resulting economic 
power. The importance of this factor cannot be stressed too much, as
"market advocates" at best downplay it or, at worse, ignore it or
deny it exists. However, it plays the same role in environmental 
matters as it does in, say, evaluating individual freedom within 
capitalism. Once we factor in economic power the obvious conclusion
is the market based solutions to the environment will result in, as 
with freedom, people selling it simply to survive under capitalism
(as we discussed in <a href="secB4.html">section B.4</a>, for example). 
</p><p>
It could be argued that strictly enforcing property rights so that
polluters can be sued for any damages made will solve the problem
of externalities. If someone suffered pollution damage on their 
property which they had not consented to then they could issue 
a lawsuit in order to get the polluter to pay compensation for the
damage they have done. This could force polluters to internalise 
the costs of pollution and so the threat of lawsuits can be used as
an incentive to avoid polluting others.
</p><p>
While this approach could be considered as <b>part</b> of any solution to
environmental problems under capitalism, the sad fact is it ignores 
the realities of the capitalist economy.  The key phrase here is "not 
consented to" as it means that pollution would be fine if the others 
agree to it (in return, say, for money). This has obvious implications
for the ability of capitalism to reduce pollution. For just as working 
class people "consent" to hierarchy within the workplace in return for 
access to the means of life, so to would they "consent" to pollution.
In  other words, the notion that pollution can be stopped by means of
private property and lawsuits ignores the issue of class and economic 
inequality. Once these are factored in, it soon becomes clear that 
people may put up with externalities imposed upon them simply because
of economic necessity and the pressure big business can inflict.
</p><p>
The first area to discuss is inequalities in wealth and income.
Not all economic actors have equal resources. Corporations and the
wealthy have far greater resources at their disposal and can spend
millions of pounds in producing PR and advertising (propaganda),
fighting court cases, influencing the political process, funding 
"experts" and think-tanks, and, if need be, fighting strikes and
protests. Companies can use <i>"a mix of cover-up, publicity campaigns 
and legal manoeuvres to continue operations unimpeded."</i> They can go 
to court to try an <i>"block more stringent pollution controls."</i> [David 
Watson, <b>Against the Megamachine</b>, p. 56] Also while, in principle, 
the legal system offers equal protection to all in reality, wealthy 
firms and individuals have more resources than members of the general 
public. This means that they can employ large numbers of lawyers and 
draw out litigation procedures for years, if not decades.
</p><p>
This can be seen around us today. Unsurprisingly, the groups which bear 
a disproportionate share of environmental burdens are the poorest ones. 
Those at the bottom of the social hierarchy have less resources available
to fight for their rights. They may not be aware of their rights in 
specific situations and not organised enough to resist. This, of course,
explains why companies spend so much time attacking unions and other 
forms of collective organisation which change that situation. Moreover
as well as being less willing to sue, those on lower income may be more 
willing to be bought-off due to their economic situation. After all, 
tolerating pollution in return for some money is more tempting when 
you are struggling to make ends meet.
</p><p>
Then there is the issue of effective demand. Simply put, allocation of
resources on the market is based on money and not need. If more money can be
made in, say, meeting the consumption demands of the west rather than the
needs of local people then the market will "efficiently" allocate resources
away from the latter to the former regardless of the social and ecological
impact. Take the example of Biofuels which have been presented by some as a 
means of fuelling cars in a less environmentally destructive way. Yet this
brings people and cars into direct competition over the most "efficient"
(i.e. most profitable) use of land. Unfortunately, effective demand is
on the side of cars as their owners usually live in the developed countries.
This leads to a situation where land is turned from producing food to
producing biofuels, the net effect of which is to reduce supply of food, 
increase its price and so produce an increased likelihood of starvation.
It also gives more economic incentive to destroy rainforests and other
fragile eco-systems in order to produce more biofuel for the market.
</p><p>
Green socialist John O'Neill simply states the obvious:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"[The] treatment of efficiency as if it were logically independent
of distribution is at best misleading, for the determination of
efficiency already presupposes a given distribution of rights
. . . [A specific outcome] is always relative to an initial
starting point . . . If property rights are changed so also
is what is efficient. Hence, the opposition between distributional
and efficiency criteria is misleading. Existing costs and benefits
themselves are the product of a given distribution of property
rights. Since costs are not independent of rights they cannot 
guide the allocation of rights. Different initial distributions
entail differences in whose preferences are to count. Environmental
conflicts are often about who has rights to environment goods, and 
hence who is to bear the costs and who is to bear the benefits 
. . . Hence, environmental policy and resource decision-making 
cannot avoid making normative choices which include questions of
resource distribution and the relationships between conflicting
rights claims . . . The monetary value of a 'negative externality' 
depends on social institutions and distributional conflicts -- 
willing to pay measures, actual or hypothetical, consider 
preferences of the higher income groups [as] more important than 
those of lower ones. If the people damaged are poor, the monetary 
measure of the cost of damage will be lower -- 'the poor sell 
cheap.'"</i> [<b>Markets, Deliberation and Environment</b>, pp. 58-9]
</blockquote></p><p>
Economic power also impacts on the types of contracts people make. It does 
not take too much imagination to envision the possibility that companies 
may make signing waivers that release it from liability a condition for 
working there. This could mean, for example, a firm would invest (or 
threaten to move production) only on condition that the local community 
and its workers sign a form waiving the firm of any responsibility for 
damages that may result from working there or from its production process. 
In the face of economic necessity, the workers may be desperate enough to
take the jobs and sign the waivers. The same would be the case for local
communities, who tolerate the environmental destruction they are subjected
to simply to ensure that their economy remains viable. This already happens, 
with some companies including a clause in their contracts which states the 
employee cannot join a union. 
</p><p>
Then there is the threat of legal action by companies. <i>"Every year,"</i> 
records green Sharon Beder, <i>"thousands of Americans are sued for speaking
out against governments and corporations. Multi-million dollar law
suits are being filed against individual citizens and groups for
circulating petitions, writing to public officials, speaking at, 
or even just attending, public meetings, organising a boycott and 
engaging in peaceful demonstrations."</i> This trend has spread to 
other countries and the intent is the same: to silence opposition
and undermine campaigns. This tactic is called a SLAPP (for <i><b>"Strategic
Lawsuits Against Public Participation"</b></i>) and is a civil court action
which does not seek to win compensation but rather aims <i>"to harass, 
intimidate and distract their opponents . . . They win the political
battle, even when they lose the court case, if their victims and
those associated with them stop speaking out against them."</i> This 
is an example of economic power at work, for the cost to a firm is 
just part of doing business but could bankrupt an individual or 
environmental organisation. In this way <i>"the legal system best
serves those who have large financial resources at their disposal"</i>
as such cases take <i>"an average of three years to be settled, and
even if the person sued wins, can cost tens of thousands of 
dollars in legal fees. Emotional stress, disillusionment, diversion
of time and energy, and even divisions within families, communities
and groups can also result."</i> [<b>Global Spin</b>, pp. 63-7]
</p><p>
A SLAPP usually deters those already involved from continuing to freely 
participate in debate and protest as well as deterring others from joining 
in. The threat of a court case in the face of economic power usually 
ensures that SLAPPS do not go to trial and so its objective of scaring off 
potential opponents usually works quickly. The reason can be seen from 
the one case in which a SLAPP backfired, namely the McLibel trial. After
successfully forcing apologies from major UK media outlets like the BBC,
Channel 4 and the Guardian by threatening legal action for critical
reporting of the company, McDonald's turned its attention to the small
eco-anarchist group London Greenpeace (which is not affiliated with
Greenpeace International). This group had produced a leaflet called 
<i>"What's Wrong with McDonald's"</i> and the company sent spies to its meetings
to identify people to sue. Two of the anarchists refused to be intimidated
and called McDonald's bluff. Representing themselves in court, the two
unemployed activists started the longest trial in UK history. After
three years and a cost of around £10 million, the trial judge found 
that some of the claims were untrue (significantly, McDonald's had 
successfully petitioned the judge not to have a jury for the case, 
arguing that the issues were too complex for the public to understand).
While the case was a public relations disaster for the company, McDonald's 
keeps going as before using the working practices exposed in the trial and 
remains one of the world's largest corporations confident that few people 
would have the time and resources to fight SLAPPs (although the corporation 
may now think twice before suing anarchists!).
</p><p>
Furthermore, companies are known to gather lists of known "trouble-makers" 
These "black lists" of people who could cause companies "trouble" (i.e., 
by union organising or suing employers over "property rights" issues) 
would often ensure employee "loyalty," particularly if new jobs need 
references. Under wage labour, causing one's employer "problems" can 
make one's current and future position difficult. Being black-listed 
would mean no job, no wages, and little chance of being re-employed. 
This would be the result of continually suing in defence of one's 
property rights -- assuming, of course, that one had the time and money 
necessary to sue in the first place. Hence working-class people are a 
weak position to defend their rights under capitalism due to the power 
of employers both within and without the workplace. All these are strong 
incentives <b>not</b> to rock the boat, particularly if employees have signed 
a contract ensuring that they will be fired if they discuss company 
business with others (lawyers, unions, media, etc.). 
</p><p>
Economic power producing terrible contracts does not affect just labour,
it also effects smaller capitalists as well. As we discussed in 
<a href="secC4.html">section C.4</a>, rather than operating "efficiently" to allocate resources within 
perfect competition any real capitalist market is dominated by a small 
group of big companies who make increased profits at the expense of their
smaller rivals. This is achieved, in part, because their size gives such 
firms significant influence in the market, forcing smaller companies out of
business or into making concessions to get and maintain contracts. 
</p><p>
The negative environmental impact of such a process should be obvious.
For example, economic power places immense pressures towards monoculture 
in agriculture. In the UK the market is dominated by a few big supermarkets.
Their suppliers are expected to produce fruits and vegetables which meet
the requirements of the supermarkets in terms of standardised products 
which are easy to transport and store. The large-scale nature of the 
operations ensure that farmers across Britain (indeed, the world) have 
to turn their farms into suppliers of these standardised goods and so
the natural diversity of nature is systematically replaced by a few 
strains of specific fruits and vegetables over which the consumer can
pick. Monopolisation of markets results in the monoculture of nature.
</p><p>
This process is at work in all capitalist nations. In American, for
example, the <i>"centralised purchasing decisions of the large restaurant
chains and their demand for standardised  products have given a handful 
of corporations an unprecedented degree of power over the nation's food 
supply . . . obliterating regional differences, and spreading identical 
stores throughout the country . . . The key to a successful franchise 
. . . can be expressed in one world: 'uniformity.'"</i> This has resulted
in the industrialisation of food production, with the <i>"fast food chains 
now stand[ing] atop a huge food-industrial complex that has gained control 
of American agriculture . . . large multinationals . . . dominate one 
commodity market after another . . . The fast food chain's vast 
purchasing power and their demand for a uniform product have encouraged 
fundamental changes in how cattle are raised, slaughter, and processed 
into ground beef. These changes have made meatpacking . . . into the
most dangerous job in the United States . . . And the same meat industry
practices that endanger these workers have facilitated the introduction
of deadly pathogens . . . into America's hamburger meat."</i> [Eric Schlosser, 
<b>Fast Food Nation</b>, p. 5 and pp. 8-9]
</p><p>
Award winning journalist Eric Schlosser has presented an excellent insight 
in this centralised and concentrated food-industrial complex in his book
<b>Fast Food Nation</b>. Schlosser, of course, is not alone in documenting the 
fundamentally anti-ecological nature of the capitalism and how an alienated 
society has created an alienated means of feeding itself. As a non-anarchist,
he does fail to drawn the obvious conclusion (namely abolish capitalism) but 
his book does present a good overview of the nature of the processed at work
and what drives them. Capitalism has created a world where even the smell and 
taste of food is mass produced as the industrialisation of agriculture and food 
processing has lead to the product (it is hard to call it food) becoming bland 
and tasteless and so chemicals are used to counteract the effects of producing 
it on such a scale. It is standardised food for a standardised society. 
As he memorably notes: <i>"Millions of . . . people at that very moment were 
standing at the same counter, ordering the same food from the same menu, 
food that tasted everywhere the same."</i> The Orwellian world of modern corporate 
capitalism is seen in all its glory. A world in which the industry group formed 
to combat Occupational Safety and Health Administration regulation is called 
<i>"Alliance for Workplace Safety"</i> and where the processed food's taste has 
to have the correct <i>"mouthfeel."</i>  Unsurprisingly, the executives of these
companies talk about <i>"the very essence of freedom"</i> and yet their corporation's 
<i>"first commandant is that only production counts . . . The employee's duty 
is to follow orders. Period."</i> In this irrational world, technology will solve 
all our problems, even the ones it generates itself.  For example, faced with 
the serious health problems generated by the industrialisation of meat processing, 
the meatpacking industry advocated yet more technology to "solve" the problems 
caused by the existing technology. Rather than focusing on the primary causes 
of meat contamination, they proposed irradiating food. Of course the firms 
involved want to replace the word <i>"irradiation"</i> with the phrase <i>"cold 
pasteurisation"</i> due to the public being unhappy with the idea of their 
food being subject to radiation. 
</p><p>
All this is achievable due to the economic power of fewer and fewer firms
imposing costs onto their workers, their customers and, ultimately, the 
planet.
</p><p>
The next obvious factor associated with economic power are the pressures 
associated with capital markets and mobility. Investors and capitalists 
are always seeking the maximum return and given a choice between lower 
profits due to greater environmental regulation and higher profits due 
to no such laws, the preferred option will hardly need explaining. After 
all, the investor is usually concerned with the returns they get in their
investment, <b>not</b> in its physical condition nor in the overall environmental 
state of the planet (which is someone else's concern). This means that 
investors and companies interest is in moving their capital to areas which 
return most money, not which have the best environmental impact and legacy. 
Thus the mobility of capital has to be taken into account. This is an 
important weapon  in ensuring that the agenda of business is untroubled by 
social concerns and environmental issues. After all, if the owners and 
managers of capital consider that a state's environmental laws too 
restrictive then it can simply shift investments to states with a more 
favourable business climate. This creates significant pressures on 
communities to minimise environmental protection both in order to retain 
existing business and attract new ones.
</p><p>
Let us assume that a company is polluting a local area. It is usually the 
case that capitalist owners rarely live near the workplaces they own,
unlike workers and their families. This means that the decision makers 
do not have to live with the consequences of their decisions. The "free 
market" capitalist argument would be, again, that those affected by the
pollution would sue the company. We will assume that concentrations of
wealth have little or no effect on the social system (which is a <b>highly</b>
unlikely assumption, but never mind). Surely, if local people did
successfully sue, the company would be harmed economically -- directly, 
in terms of the cost of the judgement, indirectly in terms of having 
to implement new, eco-friendly processes. Hence the company would be
handicapped in competition, and this would have obvious consequences 
for the local (and wider) economy.
</p><p>
This gives the company an incentive to simply move to an area that 
would tolerate the pollution if it were sued or even threatened with
a lawsuit. Not only would existing capital move, but fresh capital 
would not invest in an area where people stand up for their rights. 
This -- the natural result of economic power -- would be a "big stick" 
over the heads of the local community. And when combined with the costs 
and difficulties in taking a large company to court, it would make
suing an unlikely option for most people. That such a result would occur
can be inferred from history, where we see that multinational firms have
moved production to countries with little or no pollution laws and that
court cases take years, if not decades, to process.
</p><p>
This is the current situation on the international market, where there is 
competition in terms of environment laws. Unsurprisingly, industry tends 
to move to countries which tolerate high levels of pollution (usually 
because of authoritarian governments which, like the capitalists themselves, 
simply ignore the wishes of the general population). Thus we have a market 
in pollution laws which, unsurprisingly, supplies the ability to pollute 
to meet the demand for it. This means that developing countries <i>"are 
nothing but a dumping ground and pool of cheap labour for capitalist 
corporations. Obsolete technology is shipped there along with the 
production of chemicals, medicines and other products banned in the 
developed world. Labour is cheap, there are few if any safety standards, 
and costs are cut. But the formula of cost-benefit still stands: the 
costs are simply borne by others, by the victims of Union Carbide, 
Dow, and Standard Oil."</i> [David Watson, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 44] 
This, it should be noted, makes perfect economic sense. If an accident 
happened and the poor actually manage to successfully sue the company, any 
payments will reflect their lost of earnings (i.e., not very much).
</p><p>
As such, there are other strong economic reasons for doing this kind of
pollution exporting. You can estimate the value of production lost because 
of ecological damage and the value of earnings lost through its related 
health problems as well as health care costs. This makes it more likely 
that polluting industries will move to low-income areas or countries 
where the costs of pollution are correspondingly less (particularly 
compared to the profits made in selling the products in high-income areas). 
Rising incomes makes such goods as safety, health and the environment 
more valuable as the value of life is, for working people, based on 
their wages. Therefore, we would expect pollution to be valued less 
when working class people are affected by it. In other words, toxic 
dumps will tend to cluster around poorer areas as the costs of paying for 
the harm done will be much less. The same logic underlies the arguments of
those who suggest that Third World countries should be dumping grounds for 
toxic industrial wastes since life is cheap there
</p><p>
This was seen in early 1992 when a memo that went out under the name of 
the then chief economist of the World Bank, Lawrence Summers, was leaked 
to the press. Discussing the issue of <i>"dirty"</i> Industries, the memo 
argued that the World Bank should <i>"be encouraging MORE migration 
of the dirty industries"</i> to Less Developed Countries and provided three 
reasons. Firstly, the <i>"measurements of the costs of health impairing 
pollution depends on the foregone earnings from increased morbidity 
and mortality"</i> and so <i>"pollution should be done in the country with 
the lowest cost, which will be the country with the lowest wages."</i>
Secondly, <i>"that under-populated countries in Africa are vastly 
UNDER-polluted, their air quality is probably vastly inefficiently 
low compared to Los Angeles or Mexico City."</i> Thirdly, the <i>"demand for 
a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have 
very high income elasticity."</i> Concern over pollution related illness
would be higher in a country where more children survive to get them. 
<i>"Also, much of the concern over industrial atmosphere discharge is 
about visibility impairing particulates . . . Clearly trade in goods 
that embody aesthetic pollution concerns could be welfare enhancing. 
While production is mobile the consumption of pretty air is a 
non-tradable."</i> The memo notes <i>"the economic logic behind dumping a 
load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we 
should face up to that"</i> and ends by stating that the <i>"problem with 
the arguments against all of these proposals for more pollution"</i> in 
the third world <i>"could be turned around and used more or less 
effectively against every Bank proposal for liberalisation."</i> [<b>The
Economist</b>, 08/02/1992]
</p><p>
While Summers accepted the criticism for the memo, it was actually 
written by Lant Pritchett, a prominent economist at the Bank. 
Summers claimed he was being ironic and provocative. <b>The Economist</b>, 
unsurprisingly, stated <i>"his economics was hard to answer"</i> while 
criticising the language used. This was because clean growth may
slower than allowing pollution to occur and this would stop <i>"helping 
millions of people in the third world to escape their poverty."</i> 
[15/02/1992] So not only is poisoning the poor with pollution is 
economically correct, it is in fact required by morality. Ignoring 
the false assumption that growth, any kind of growth, always benefits 
the poor and the utter contempt shown for both those poor themselves
and our environment what we have here is the cold logic that drives 
economic power to move location to maintain its right to pollute our 
common environment. Economically, it is perfectly logical but, in fact, 
totally insane (this  helps explain why making people "think like an 
economist" takes so many years of indoctrination within university 
walls and why so few achieve it).
</p><p>
Economic power works in other ways as well. A classic example of this
at work can be seen from the systematic destruction of public transport 
systems in America from the 1930s onwards (see David St. Clair's <b>The 
Motorization of American Cities</b> for a well-researched account of this).
These systems were deliberately bought by automotive (General Motors), 
oil, and tire corporations in order to eliminate a less costly (both 
economically <b>and</b> ecologically) competitor to the automobile. This 
was done purely to maximise sales and profits for the companies involved 
yet it transformed the way of life in scores of cities across America. It 
is doubtful that if environmental concerns had been considered important 
at the time that they would have stopped this from happening. This means 
that individual consumption decisions will be made within an market whose 
options can be limited simply by a large company buying out and destroying 
alternatives.
</p><p>
Then there is the issue of economic power in the media. This is well understood 
by corporations, who fund PR, think-tanks and "experts" to counteract environmental 
activism and deny, for example, that humans are contributing to global warming. 
Thus we have the strange position that only Americans think that there is a 
debate on the causes of global warming rather than a scientific consensus. The
actions of corporate funded "experts" and PR have ensured <b>that</b> particular 
outcome. As Sharon Beder recounts in her book <b>Global Spin: The Corporate
Assault on Environmentalism</b>, a large amount of money is being spent on 
number sophisticated techniques to change the way people think about the 
environment, what causes the problems we face and what we can and should
do about it. Compared to the resources of environmental and green organisations,
it is unsurprising that this elaborate multi-billion pound industry has poisoned 
public debate on such a key issue for the future of humanity by propaganda and 
dis-information.
</p><p>
Having substantial resources available means that the media can be used
to further an anti-green agenda and dominate the debate (at least for a
while). Take, as an example, <b>The Skeptical Environmentalist</b>, a book 
by Bjørn Lomborg (a political scientist and professor of statistics at 
the University of Aarhus in Denmark). When it was published in 2001, it 
caused a sensation with its claims that scientists and environmental 
organisations were making, at best, exaggerated and, at worse, false 
claims about the world's environmental problems. His conclusion was 
panglossian in nature, namely that there was not that much to worry 
about and we can continue as we are. That, of course, was music to the 
ears of those actively destroying the environment as it reduces the
likelihood that any attempt will be made to stop them. 
</p><p>
Unsurprisingly, the book was heavily promoted by the usual suspects and, 
as a result received significant attention from the media. However, the 
<b>extremely</b> critical reviews and critiques it subsequently produced 
from expert scientists on the issues Lomborg discussed were less 
prominently reviewed in the media, if at all. That critics of the book 
argued that it was hardly an example of good science based on objectivity, 
understanding of the underlying concepts, appropriate statistical 
methods and careful peer review goes without saying. Sadly, the fact
that numerous experts in the fields Lomborg discussed showed that his 
book was seriously flawed, misused data and statistics and marred by 
flawed logic and hidden value judgements was not given anything like the 
same coverage even though this information is far more important in terms 
of shaping public perception. Such works and their orchestrated media
blitz provides those with a vested interest in the status quo with 
arguments that they should be allowed to continue their anti-environmental 
activities and agenda. Moreover, it takes up the valuable time of those 
experts who have to debunk the claims rather than do the research needed 
to understand the ecological problems we face and propose possible solutions.
</p><p>
As well as spin and propaganda aimed at adults, companies are increasingly 
funding children's education. This development implies obvious limitations 
on the power of education to solve ecological problems. Companies will 
hardly provide teaching materials or fund schools which educate their 
pupils on the <b>real</b> causes of ecological problems. Unsurprisingly, a
1998 study in the US by the Consumers Union found that 80% of teaching
material provided by companies was biased and provided students with
incomplete or slanted information that favoured its sponsor's products
and views [Schlosser, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 55] The more dependent a school is
on corporate funds, the less likely it will be to teach its students
the necessity to question the motivations and activities of business.
That business will not fund education which it perceives as anti-business
should go without saying. As Sharon Beder summarises, <i>"the infiltration
of school curricula through banning some texts and offering corporate-based
curriculum material and lesson plans in their place can conflict with
educational objectives, and also with the attainment of an undistorted
understanding of environmental problems."</i> [<b>Op. Cit.</b>, pp. 172-3]
</p><p>
This indicates the real problem of purely "educational" approaches to
solving the ecological crisis, namely that the ruling elite controls 
education (either directly or indirectly). This is to be expected, as
any capitalist elite must control education because it is an essential
indoctrination tool needed to promote capitalist values and to train a
large population of future wage-slaves in the proper habits of obedience
to authority. Thus capitalists cannot afford to lose control of the
educational system. And this means that such schools will not teach
students what is really necessary to avoid ecological disaster: namely
the dismantling of capitalism itself. And we may add, alternative schools
(organised by libertarian unions and other associations) which used
libertarian education to produce anarchists would hardly be favoured
by companies and so be effectively black-listed - a real deterrent to
their spreading through society. Why would a capitalist company employ
a graduate of a school who would make trouble for them once employed 
as their wage slave?
</p><p>
Finally, needless to say, the combined wealth of corporations and the rich 
outweighs that of even the best funded environmental group or organisation
(or even all of them put together). This means that the idea of such groups
buying, say, rainforest is unlikely to succeed as they simply do not have 
the resources needed -- they will be outbid by those who wish to develop 
wilderness regions. This is particularly the case once we accept the 
framework of economic self-interest assumed by market theory. This implies 
that organisations aiming to increase the income of individual's will 
be better funded than those whose aim is to preserve the environment for 
future generations. As recent developments show, companies can and do use
that superior resources to wage a war for hearts and minds in all aspects
of society, staring in the schoolroom. Luckily no amount of spin can nullify
reality or the spirit of freedom and so this propaganda war will continue
as long as capitalism does.
</p><p>
In summary, market solutions to environmental problems under capitalism
will always suffer from the fact that real markets are marked by economic
inequalities and power.</p> 

<h2><a name="sece33">E.3.3 Can capitalism's focus on short-term profitability 
deal with the ecological crisis?</a></h2>

<p>
No a word, no. This is another key problem associated with capitalism's 
ability to deal with the ecological crisis it helps create. Due to the
nature of the market, firms are forced to focus on short-term profitability
rather than long-term survival. This makes sense. If a company does not
make money now, it will not be around later.
</p><p>
This, obviously, drives the creation of "externalities" discussed 
in previous sections. Harmful environmental effects such as pollution, 
global warming, ozone depletion, and destruction of wildlife habitat 
are not counted as "costs of production" in standard methods of accounting 
because they are borne by everyone in the society. This gives companies a 
strong incentive to ignore such costs as competition forces firms to 
cut as many costs as possible in order to boost short-term profits.
</p><p>
To give an obvious example, if a firm has to decide between installing
a piece of costly equipment which reduces its pollution and continuing
as it currently is, then it is more likely to do the latter. If the firm
<b>does</b> invest then its costs are increased and it will lose its 
competitive edge compared to its rivals who do not make a similar 
investment. The "rational" decision is, therefore, not to invest,
particularly if by externalising costs it can increase its profits or market 
share by cutting prices. In other words, the market rewards the polluters 
and this is a powerful incentive to maximise such activities. The market, 
in other words, provides incentives to firms to produce externalities 
as part their drive for short-term profitability. While this is rational
from the firm's position, it is collectively irrational as the planet's 
ecology is harmed.
</p><p>
The short-term perspective can also be seen by the tendency of firms to 
under-invest in developing risky new technologies. This is because basic 
research which may take years, if not decades, to develop and most 
companies are unwilling to take on that burden. Unsurprisingly, most 
advanced capitalist countries see such work funded by the state (as we 
noted in <a href="secD8.html">section D.8</a>, over 
50% of total R&D funding has been provided 
by the federal state in the USA). Moreover, the state has provided 
markets for such products until such time as markets have appeared for 
them in the commercial sector. Thus capitalism, by itself, will tend to 
under-invest in long term projects:
</p><p><blockquote><i>
"in a competitive system you do <b>short-term planning only</b> . . . 
Let's take corporate managers, where there's no real confusion about
what they're doing. They are maximising profit and market share in
the short term. In fact, if they were not to do that, they would no 
longer exist. Let's be concrete. Suppose that some automobile company,
say General Motors, decides to devote their resources to planning
for something that will be profitable ten years from now. Suppose
that's where they divert their resources: they want to think in some
long-term conception of market dominance. Their rivals are going to
maximising profit and power in the short term, and they're going to
take over the market, and General Motors won't be in business.
That's true for the owners and also for the managers. The managers
want to stay managers. They can fight off hostile take-over bids,
they can keep from being replaced, as long as they contribute to 
short-term profitability. As a result, long-term considerations 
are rarely considered in competitive systems."</i> [Noam Chomsky, 
<b>Language and Politics</b>, p. 598]
</blockquote></p><p>
This does not mean that firms will not look into future products nor
do research and development. Many do (particularly if helped by the
state). Nor does it imply that some industries do not have a longer-term 
perspective. It simply shows that such activity is not the normal state
of affairs. Moreover, any such "long-term" perspective is rarely more 
than a decade while an ecological perspective demands much more than this.
This also applies to agriculture, which is increasingly being turned 
into agribusiness as small farmers are being driven out of business.
Short-termism means that progress in agriculture is whatever increases 
the current yield of a crop even if means destroying the sources of 
fertility in the long run in order to maintain current fertility by 
adding more and more chemicals (which run off into rivers, seep into 
the water table and end up in the food itself.
</p><p>
This kind of irrational short-term behaviour also afflicts capital
markets as well. The process works in the same way Chomsky highlights. 
Suppose there are 3 companies, X, Y, and Z and suppose that company X 
invests in the project of developing a non-polluting technology within 
ten years. At the same time its competitors, Y and Z, will be putting 
their resources into increasing profits and market share in the coming 
days and months and over the next year. During that period, company X 
will be unable to attract enough capital from investors to carry out 
its plans, since investors will flock to the companies that are most 
immediately profitable. This means that the default position under 
capitalism is that the company (or country) with the lowest standards 
enjoys a competitive advantage, and drags down the standards of other 
companies (or countries). Sometimes, though, capital markets experience 
irrational bubbles. During the dot.com boom of the 1990s, investors did 
plough money into internet start-ups and losses were tolerated for a 
few years in the expectation of high profits in the near future. When 
that did not happen, the stock market crashed and investors turned 
away from that market in droves. If something similar happened to 
eco-technologies, the subsequent aftermath may mean that funding 
essential for redressing our interaction with the environment would 
not be forthcoming until the memories of the crash had disappeared
in the next bubble frenzy.
</p><p>
Besides, thanks to compound interest benefits far in the future have
a very small present value. If $1 were left in a bank at 5% annual 
interest, it would be worth more than $2 million after 300 years. So 
if it costs $1 today to prevent ecological damage worth $2 million 
in the 24th century then economic theory argues that our descendants 
would be better off with us putting that $1 in the bank. This would 
suggest that basing our responsibility to future generations on 
economics may not be the wisest course.
</p><p>
The supporter of capitalism may respond by arguing that business leaders 
are as able to see long-term negative environmental effects as the rest of 
us. But this is to misunderstand the nature of the objection. It is not 
that business leaders <b>as individuals</b> are any less able to see what's
happening to the environment. It is that if they want to keep their jobs
they have to do what the system requires, which is to concentrate on what
is most profitable in the short term. Thus if the president of company X
has a mystical experience of oneness with nature and starts diverting
profits into pollution control while the presidents of Y and Z continue
with business as usual, the stockholders of company X will get a new
president who is willing to focus on short-term profits like Y and Z. 
As Joel Bakan stresses, managers of corporations <i>"have a legal 
duty to put shareholders' interests above all others . . . Corporate 
social responsibility is thus illegal -- at least when it is genuine."</i> 
Ones which <i>"choose social and environmental goals over profits -- 
who try and act morally -- are, in fact, immoral"</i> as their role 
in both the economy and economic ideology is to <i>"make much as 
much money as possible for shareholders."</i> [<b>The Corporation</b>, pp. 36-7
and p. 34]
</p><p>
In general, then, if one company tries to devote resources to develop
products or processes that are ecologically responsible, they will simply
be undercut by other companies which are not doing so (assuming such
products or processes are more expensive, as they generally are as the
costs are not inflicted on other people and the planet). While some 
products may survive in small niche markets which reflect the fact that
many people are willing and able to pay more to protect their world, in
general they will not be competitive in the market and so the ecologically
damaging products will have the advantage. In other words, capitalism has 
a built-in bias toward short-term gain, and this bias -- along with its
inherent need for growth -- means the planet will continue its free-fall 
toward ecological disaster so long as capitalism exists.
</p><p>
This suggests that attempts to address ecological problems like pollution 
and depletion of resources by calling for public education are unlikely
to work. While it is true that this will raise people's awareness to the 
point of creating enough demand for environment-friendly technologies and 
products that they will be profitable to produce, it does not solve the
problem that the costs involved in doing such research now cannot be met 
by a possible future demand. Moreover, the costs of such technology can
initially be quite high and so the effective demand for such products may
not be sufficient. For example, energy-saving light bulbs have been 
around for some time but have been far more expensive that traditional
ones. This means that for those on lower-incomes who would, in theory,
benefit most from lower-energy bills cannot afford them. Thus their
short-term income constrains undermine long-term benefits. 
</p><p>
Even if the research is completed, the market itself can stop products
being used. For example, the ability to produce reasonably inexpensive solar 
photovoltaic power cells has existed for some time. The problem is that they 
are currently very expensive and so there is a limited demand for them. This 
means that no capitalist wants to risk investing in factory large enough to 
take advantage of the economies of scale possible. The net effect is that 
short-term considerations ensure that a viable eco-technology has been 
margainalised.
</p><p>
This means that no amount of education can countermand the effects of market 
forces and the short-term perspective they inflict on us all. If faced with 
a tight budget and relatively expensive "ecological" products and technology, 
consumers and companies may be forced to choose the cheaper, ecologically 
unfriendly product to make ends meet or survive in the market. Under 
capitalism, we may be free to choose, but the options are usually lousy 
choices, and not the only ones potentially available in theory (this is
a key problem with green consumerism -- see <a href="secE5.html">section E.5</a>). 
</p><p>
The short-termism of capitalism has produced, in effect, a system
which is <i>"a massive pyramid scheme that will collapse somewhere down
the line when all the major players have already retired from the game. 
Of course when the last of these hustlers cash in their chips, there 
won't be any place left to retire to."</i> [David Watson, <b>Op. Cit.</b>, p. 57]
</p>

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