Michael Redclift

Introduction

p 123 - divergence of the views of the North and South in terms of the North’s desire to manage the South in its use of the environment

p 124 - if industrial capitalism is the endpoint of development then we are in trouble since it has clearly failed to manage the environment well

people often fail to look at the historical and international aspects of the issue

1 - review existing perspectives on environmental change under capitalism

2 - figure out what ‘environment’ means within the different contexts of the different stages of development

3 - look at the parts of environmental change directly related to political ideology and policy

The Environment without the market

very little concern with the history of capitalism in the environmental debate

various approaches -- ‘internationalization of nature’ ‘neo-Malthusianism’ ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ ‘slowness of political change’

p 125 - the neo-Malthusians ignore what Marx pointed out that the problem is the distribution of resources more than an absolute lack -- allows the North to blame the problems on the South rather than to admit that much of the problems stem from their own economic system

p 126 - ecocentric perspective: that as we developed we have lost our ‘respect’ for nature and with it our ability to proceed by trial and error -- the ecocentrisists have argued that we are the cause of many of the structural problems in the Less Developed Countries (LDCs) -- building bridges to the past to get at what was developing before the influence of colonies

none of these deal with capitalism’s role in development -- they all say that the environment is a separate and more or less important issue, but they do not connect it historically with capitalistic development nor explore how we can develop without hurting the environment

The problem-centered solution: Environmental managerialism

p 127 -- consists of many techniques and technologies (and ideologies) which allow the environmental problems to be ‘managed’ -- it doesn’t even attempt to solve the underlying contradiction between capitalistic development and the environment

land-use planning: asses what the land is good for and make sure that activities take place in the most suitable locations -- also includes biological reserves

establishes lists of conservation priorities so that they can decide how to change things to do so -- farming: change the inputs to do less damage -- however, most weight is given to ‘productivity’ rather than ‘sustainability’ or ‘equtiy’

p 128 -- emphasis on measurable quantities so the impact can be assessed

often resettlement plans and legal regulations

the underlying assumption is that there is a ‘sustainable’ balance which we must achieve -- not explicitly in conflict with development

assumption that everyone has the same long-term goals and that they are our only hope of survival

with these assumptions there is not much room for disagreement over the conflicts of different interest groups

The Environment and Capitalist Development

most environmental strategies see the environment as being necessarily outside of the realm of the market and developmental capitalism

the effects of the Northern environmetalist policies on the South need to be assessed -- food dumping forces the South to move to non-traditional, more harmful crops

the market/environmental relationship becomes much clearer in the historical context

Small-scale societies

p 129 - there are no pre-capitalistic societies any more, colonialism took care of that, but in the process, all resources were not abused despite the pressures of the market to do so for material gain

the influence of a capitalistic society does not always change the household relations and actions -- the people new to capitalism are not advanced capitalists, so they don’t take advantage of the resources the way capitalists do -- when you have a ‘natural economy’ the integration is greatest and the trend towards abusive capitalism is smallest

also depends on how the individuals can secure their rights to the land

Post-industrial Environments

p 130 - tendency to isolate the environmental change in post-industrial societies from agricultural change in general

1 - have food security at the national level -- doesn’t mean great production systems, just that policies exist to maintain a good food supply

2 - farmers are organized and remarkably homogenious

3 - the emphasis is currently on environmental sustainability whereas in the LDCs it is on agricultural stability -- this may become more of a problem in the North in the future

the current trend in the North is towards putting breaks on the market to prevent damage to the environment -- contraction of farming as opposed to expansion

p 131 - in the North there is a real separation between environmental and agricultural policies -- independent significance is given to the environment over food production

Structurally Transformed Environments

places which have been transformed by contact with (international) capitalistic (agricultural) markets, but the change is not universal -- caused by rapid urban growth, government intervention, the green revolution, contract farming, etc. -- in many places it is just beginning to have an environmental impact -- in places where it has failed (Brazil & beef) it results in increased marginalization

the class structure in such areas is formative and the interests are rarely organized

p 132 - main factor -- whether development occurs do to outside market ‘logic’ or due to some other local pre-colonial factor

different local (household) structures value different parts of the environment differently

meeting point of the simple household market and that of the external ones

in general the interests in private property grow and there is much more interest in unsustainable production than in conservation -- result of a new class obtaining the ideological legitimacy to use new agricultural technologies

change from valuing use to exchange of goods/resources

Objections to environmental managerialism

p 133 - pays no attention to the conceptual framework within which we understand the problems nor to the international economic framework within which they occur

does not propose a better model of development

does not consider the social and economic consequences of saving the environment

can’t just compensate for environmental damage, but needs to help the poor get to a place where they won’t cause more damage

associate particular problems explicitly with particular areas

Elements in an alternative theoretical project

P 135 - how to sustain the Natural resource base of industrial economies

Conclusion

p 136 - few people have looked at the market as the cause of degradation

most discussion just looks at ways we can meet conservation objectives and take into account non-market externalities -- environmental managerialism has achieved a state of ideological legitimacy

this analysis does not take into account the historical development of capitalism. it also ignores what goes on in the households

p 137 - ‘the environment’ is an historical construction

need to look more at sustainability

the local people are aware of the degradation