What's Capitalism Got to Do with Environmental Justice from a Global Perspective?
The short answer is that capitalism - or at least a form of market organization, characterized by certain kinds of property ownership, goods treated as commodities, and background political institutions - contributes to the destruction of regional ecologies, species extinction, natural resource depletion, and the destabilization of vital planetary systems that support life on Earth.
Rather than look at environmental justice primarily through the lens of the consumption behavior of individuals and its aggregate impact on the planet we should examine the consequences of the mode of production that differentially shapes the organization of land, labor, and way of life for people around the world. So we have to ask: What social conditions - good and bad - are causally attributable to capitalism, alone or in combination with other social forces?
Capitalism has been credited with: securing a relatively long term peace and widespread prosperity; the emancipation of the laboring classes from feudal subordination; the creation of new economic opportunities that mitigate and erode legacy effects of racial and gender inequality; helping to bring the colonial era to an end; ushering in material conditions hospitable to the growth of democracy; and raising the global standard of living through unprecedented technological innovations.
And capitalism is often blamed for: fueling socially destructive, privately profitable regional military conflict; setting in motion a economic dynamic that simultaneously produces concentrations of wealth and human misery; expanding the domain of goods subject to commodification, thereby exacerbating and entrenching racial and gender hierarchies; unleashing patterns of resource extraction from fragile lands and labor exploitation of vulnerable peoples, during both the classical era of colonial rule and the neocolonial era; contributing to the demise of democratic institutions and undermining processes of collective control over key aspects of social life; and fostering endless economic growth and overconsumption that has resulted in massive environmental degradation and rapid resource depletion.
On this page we present a series of recorded lectures and other video clips, each accompanied by some recommended readings (pdfs are often included), and brief text introducing the topics. There are a number of the cross-cutting themes: the main ways in which global markets are structured, for example: global supply chains that rely more on contract than ownership and more on informal, precarious labor instead of formal employment arrangements; the ways in which natural resource contracts and concessions are structured, market risks are allocated, burdens of legal compliance are shifted, and environmental negative externalities are generated; the relation between global financial institutions and nation-states, in particular, the issues of tax avoidance and the hyper-mobility of capital, their role in imposing austerity programs on debtor nations, and the role of the financial sector in the growth of public and private debt and the consequent shrinkage of "policy space" for dealing with infrastructure replacement and the fallout of global market bubbles.
The first topics are:
Among the additional topics to be included at some later point are:
The short answer is that capitalism - or at least a form of market organization, characterized by certain kinds of property ownership, goods treated as commodities, and background political institutions - contributes to the destruction of regional ecologies, species extinction, natural resource depletion, and the destabilization of vital planetary systems that support life on Earth.
Rather than look at environmental justice primarily through the lens of the consumption behavior of individuals and its aggregate impact on the planet we should examine the consequences of the mode of production that differentially shapes the organization of land, labor, and way of life for people around the world. So we have to ask: What social conditions - good and bad - are causally attributable to capitalism, alone or in combination with other social forces?
Capitalism has been credited with: securing a relatively long term peace and widespread prosperity; the emancipation of the laboring classes from feudal subordination; the creation of new economic opportunities that mitigate and erode legacy effects of racial and gender inequality; helping to bring the colonial era to an end; ushering in material conditions hospitable to the growth of democracy; and raising the global standard of living through unprecedented technological innovations.
And capitalism is often blamed for: fueling socially destructive, privately profitable regional military conflict; setting in motion a economic dynamic that simultaneously produces concentrations of wealth and human misery; expanding the domain of goods subject to commodification, thereby exacerbating and entrenching racial and gender hierarchies; unleashing patterns of resource extraction from fragile lands and labor exploitation of vulnerable peoples, during both the classical era of colonial rule and the neocolonial era; contributing to the demise of democratic institutions and undermining processes of collective control over key aspects of social life; and fostering endless economic growth and overconsumption that has resulted in massive environmental degradation and rapid resource depletion.
On this page we present a series of recorded lectures and other video clips, each accompanied by some recommended readings (pdfs are often included), and brief text introducing the topics. There are a number of the cross-cutting themes: the main ways in which global markets are structured, for example: global supply chains that rely more on contract than ownership and more on informal, precarious labor instead of formal employment arrangements; the ways in which natural resource contracts and concessions are structured, market risks are allocated, burdens of legal compliance are shifted, and environmental negative externalities are generated; the relation between global financial institutions and nation-states, in particular, the issues of tax avoidance and the hyper-mobility of capital, their role in imposing austerity programs on debtor nations, and the role of the financial sector in the growth of public and private debt and the consequent shrinkage of "policy space" for dealing with infrastructure replacement and the fallout of global market bubbles.
The first topics are:
- basic ideas about what structural injustice is, and how it might differ in global or domestic contexts, or differ based on the particular social group typically subjected to deprivation, disadvantage, and disempowerment
- climate change, and why we should think about it as an issue of injustice, rooted in the structure of the global political economy
- Emerging problems in feeding the world, and the unfair structure of the global system of food production
- Water scarcity and issues of justice posed by water privatization
- global labor pools, outsourcing, economic migration, and the implications for the preservation of social safety nets
Among the additional topics to be included at some later point are:
- Definitions of capitalism that are intended to reveal what makes it a distinctive mode of production and a template for social organization.
- Periodization - ways demarcating epochs of capitalist organization, corresponding to features of markets and background political institutions presumed to be distinctive in both organization and consequences.
- Characteristics of 21st century capitalism - what is global capitalism like now, and what are its current and likely consequences for land, labor, and way of life?
- Neoliberalism - what is it, where and how did it originate, and what does it have to do with the way nation-states and supranational institutions regulate the global economy?
- Imperialism and capitalism connections - a topic of ongoing debate, given that some have argued that imperialism represents the highest stage of capitalism, while others have traced the origins and rationale for empire to pre-capitalist social arrangements?
- China’s role and significance in the global economy, with it peculiar brand of expansionist, state capitalism, and the probable environment footprint of its belt and road initiative, massive urban relocation efforts, and large-scale water projects.
Structural Injustice: Race, Gender, and Economics
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The primary background readings discussed in this lecture are from:
Madison Powers and Ruth Faden, Structural Injustice: Power, Advantage, and Human Rights, chapters 4 and 7. |
Structural Injustice: Manifestations within and across countries
This first video introduces issues of structural injustice that occur within and across nations. Illustrative readings are found in sections 1 and 2 of chapter 7, Powers & Faden, Structural Injustice. We begin our inquiry into global capitalism by exploring environmental sacrifice zones in the US and the globalization of various kinds of sacrifice zones. The first part of the lecture focuses on the kinds of effects that are definitive of any pattern of structural injustice, along with the diversity of causal mechanisms that produce or contribute to those effects. The second part explores whether patterns of structural injustice found in the US context are replicated in their effects and causes beyond the US borders. |
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The primary background readings discussed in this lecture include:
Paul Taylor, Race: A Philosophical Introduction, chapter 2. Kate Manne, Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny, chapters 1-2. Madison Powers and Ruth Faden, Structural Injustice: Power, Advantage, and Human Rights, chapter 4. Iris Young, "Responsibility and Global Justice," Social Philosophy and Policy 23 (01):102-130. Note: the lectures also refer to various YouTube videos that illustrate some of the main opposing positions. |
Patterns of Structural Injustice: Perspectives on Race and Gender
Any effort to analyze the role of capitalism or the organization of the global political economy in creating and maintaining structural injustice must pause to consider arguments about the role of race and gender as irreducible explanations of patterns structural injustice. This lecture explores these issues by comparing Kate Manne's view of misogyny with Paul Taylor's account of racism. Our task is to consider three main ideas: First, what are the similarities and differences between structural racial injustice and structural gender injustice? Second, what is the role of power and its exercise in these forms of structural injustice? Powers & Faden argue that structural injustices of all kinds typically have their roots in unjust exercises of power. However, Iris Young emphasizes the way patterns of socioeconomic injustice often (but not always) emerge from morally benign actions of many individuals. How do these contrasting positions regarding the role of power in the origins of socioeconomic injustice articulate with the views developed by Manne and Taylor? Third, Manne describes the relation between personal and structural instances of gender-based injustice (see especially pp. 67-77). How well does such distinction between (and linkages across) the personal and the structural match the insights developed in Taylor's account of the various forms that racism take? |
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The primary background readings discussed in this lecture include:
Madison Powers and Ruth Faden, Structural Injustice: Power, Advantage, and Human Rights, chapter 7: "Separate and Unequal cities, § 7.3 (206-219); Environmental Sacrifice Zones, § 7. 1 (188-196). David Naguib Pellow, What is Critical Environmental Justice?, chapter 2: "Black Lives Matter as an Environmental Justice Challenge" (34-66). Note: the lectures also refer to various YouTube videos that illustrate some of the main opposing positions. |
Race, Class, and Environmental Sacrifice Zones
As Paul Taylor puts it, every group subject to structural injustice on the basis of group membership "catches hell" in it own specific way. Moreover, some people will "catch hell" simultaneously in multiple, overlapping, mutually reinforcing ways, This phenomenon is widely known as intersectionality. . But this is where disagreement begins. Activists and philosophers have proposed a range of analyses of the environmental sacrifice zones that are disproportionately located in low income communities of color in the US. For some, race always trumps class as the explanation. For others, opportunity for advantage taking in low income communities is always the decisive factor. Consider two views of the primary motivation at work: (1) power is exercised to maintain social control through coercive state action with the aim of preserving racial hierarchy, political dominance, and enforce social exclusion; (2) power is exercised to preserve economic opportunities for the extraction of wealth and the exploitation of the labor of vulnerable, dependent, disempowered populations, whatever the racial composition of the communities. Alternatively, the right answer might be neither 1 nor 2, but some combination of 1 and 2. |
Climate change as an issue of global structural injustice (five videos)
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1. Climate change and the global poor:
Climate change is an important matter of justice because some of the worst effects will be felt by the world's poorest unless we act quickly, and that means we also need fair ways of figuring out who has responsibility to do what. What considerations should be appealed to in order to decide what fairness demands? |
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2. Mitigation and adaptation duties:
Climate change has serious ramifications for human wellbeing. It seems we need to avoid the worst impacts, but what exactly needs to be done? What are our options? How much will they cost? Should we give priority to some duties? |
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3. Models of moral responsibility:
We’ve come to see that our moral response to climate change will be challenging, and includes adaptation and mitigation. But who is responsible for making this response a reality and why? Does the burden fall on nations, corporations, or individuals? What arguments can we rely upon to answer the question? |
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4. Human rights and the duties of nations:
Nations are specially positioned to support and protect human rights. Climate change seems to undermine some of these basic rights, and so it only seems natural that nations would be specially implicated. But there are collective action problems that put full resolution of climate change challenges beyond what any nation can do. |
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5. Climate change and personal responsibility:
What should I do? Does morality demand that I change my behavior? For example, should I stop flying on airplanes?Does it matter that my actions on their own will make no difference to the outcome? |