Sadie Inman
October 7th, 2020
Critical Geography
Response Paper 6
While reading the chapter on “cheap energy” I couldn’t help but think of resource management and the continuing trend towards sustainability. The effect our resource management and exploitation have had on the earth is becoming noticeable and it has been for 4 centuries (since the beginning of the mini ice age). Capitalism is driven by energy in many forms and the need for cheap energy is what makes it capitalism and not just production. There is the need to get the most production out of every unit of energy, the energy does not need to be sourced ethically and there is no concern for the effects of its extraction. It is based on the “destruction of the commons” and the new ownership of land and resources by the government. The ruling class realized the value of raw resources and consequently, forests and land areas were money in the eyes of capitalists.
There has been a recent shift in the view of resources in the last 100 years and that is slowly moving over to the energy industry. It isn’t possible to extract and consume without regard to the effects, because eventually, it will affect profit and everyone. Therefore more thought has to be put into where and how energy is extracted. That means it isn’t cheap and “capitalism’s insatiability for fuel is a part of its ecology”. That could mean a paradigm shift in the mode of production in the future.
Another key aspect of cheap energy is it’s forcing people into its economy. There is no way to abstain from capitalism without enough money to retreat from it. This is an important aspect of capitalism because it’s a trap. Taking away the commons means that living off the land is no longer an option, you have to buy the land, and to do so you need money, and to get the money you have to enter the cash-economy and succeed at the system set in place. This mode of production has trapped countless people in the United States that are working two jobs to make ends meet and never being able to save up to enjoy their lives.
I hope that there is a big change in the way that the world and large corporations view people and resources. That is not possible without the end of the current mode of production. Karl Marx would say that requires a rebellion. There is also the chance that as the climate changes this mode will no longer be appropriate and it will cause hunger throughout the world before this change. Hopefully, that can be moderated with adapting sustainable resource management and that will shape our mode of production.
Sadie, the expansion of capital into every part of the globe is the defining feature of our current mode of production, globalization, and its dominant form of ideology, neoliberalism. You are right that there is no longer a position outside, and that even the atmosphere has become another commons that the energy sector has utilized as a dumping ground.
ReplyDeleteWhat did you make of the authors' keyword "reparative ecology"? This one emerges precisely from their reflection on climate change and the challenge it imposes upon capital. Keep in mind, too, Gramsci's sense of the role of the intellectual--it applies not only for capitalist.