>There is a quite strong anti-malthusian basis for environmentalism. It
>is a view that we have plenty of resources to support a much larger
>population than we have - but not enough to do so in a horribly
wasteful
>manner - and that in fact capitalism is using resources in a horribly
>wasteful manner. (Waste here is defined as overloading sources and
sinks
>in such a manner that we will run out of them in the foreseeable
future.
I just can't see it. Run out of what, exactly? Forests? Hardly. Oil? Known oil reserves are rising, not falling. Water? more than three quarters of the earth's surface is water. Clean air? It is getting cleaner.
There may indeed be absolute limits to natural resources, but since our own impact on these so far is infinitesimal (less than a mile depth of the Earth's surface!) that is an academic question.
The only rational meaning to such a proposition could be that we might have occasionally come close to the limits on resources *at the current level of technological development*. But to assume that the known level of resources is the same thing as the absolute level of resources would be to make the same mistake as Malthus and the Club of Rome.
FURTHER is capitalism really uniquely wasteful? More wasteful than Stalinism, or feudalism. Hillel Ticktin made a very good case that 'waste' was the defining economic category of Stalinism. Certainly, the Soviet Union squandered goods and labour at a rate that has not been seen since. Feudal societies squandered human potential in grotesque ways, as did ancient societies. Capitalist society is the first that has - however one-sidedly - generated a mechanism that rewards the application of labour saving technology.
Waste is a famously subjective category, too. Do you mean that Nike trainers are 'waste', or MacDonalds hamburgers, or motorway journeys? That rather depends on whether you use these items.
If you mean that capitalism produces things for which it has not established a market, then yes, that's wasteful, from the imaginary standpoint of the society of the rationally associated producers.
>Why does capitalism tend to waste resources more in this particular
>manner? The economists on this list are extremely familiar with part of
>the answer - externalities. A great deal of what we think of as
>environmental damage consists of the natural tendency of capitalists to
>put their costs onto workers to the extent that they can get away with.
>Most forms of pollution save the polluter money by disposing of waste
>more cheaply at the expense of the health of those the pollution harms.
>Similarly exhausting common resources deprives someone else of the
>ability to use them - perhaps today, perhaps in the future.
'Externalities' is an interesting concept, but one that it strikes me is loaded with capitalistic bias. I would be loathe to use it without trying to critique it first.
In the first instance it is an attempt to inscribe those non-spontaneous exigencies within the rules of value allocation. So 'externalities' are generally seen as 'social costs'. But such a view assumes the reality of a social order outside of capitalism that must be protected. What can such an order be but an idealisation of capitalist society itself.
With the concept of 'externalities' market ideologists are trying to integrate those costs of social stability that do not spontaneously beget value. In other words, this is that old refrain of the 'independent' state, that supposedly stands above vested interests (but turns out to be the ideal collective of the capitalist class).
>
>This leads to the first question James Heartfield asked - as to whether
>environmentalism in inherently anti-mass and anti-worker. Obviously
>environmentalists operating from premises I've outlined above have good
>reason not to be anti-mass or anti-worker, and in fact good reason to
>support egalitarianism and anti-capitalism.
I'm sorry but this does not seem persuasive. If capitalism is wasteful, and resources are limited, then the logical conclusion is not a popular struggle against capitalism, but an elite campaign to restrict consumerism: environmentalism.
>
>But environmentalism does have one weakness that might exacerbate these
>tendencies that afflict all U.S. movements at this historical moment.
>Paradoxically, perhaps one could say dialectically, this stems from a
>strength. Environmental problems affect mainly the working class. But
>they can't avoid affecting the rich to some extent as well. Not even
>the rich can drink exclusively bottled water, nor is bottled water free
>of contamination. Very few of the rich want to spend all their time
>mansions surrounded by pristine forests, and never sample the pleasure
>of the city.
If Gar means that the moral exigency of world collapse tends to minimise rather than emphasise different class interests, then of course he's right. But that is indeed the problem. Environmentalism is one of those bogus ideologies that 'transcends' class differences, so often thrown up by middle class people who dread social conflict.
>
>As a result some capitalists, and a quite large number of members of
the
>coordinator class, are attracted to environmental movement. Because
>they can give more money, more time, and often have more business
skills
>they tend to gain influence out of proportion to their numbers.
Well, that certainly seems to be true of the environmental movement which is not just overwhelmingly elitist in its outlook but in its membership as well -- James Heartfield