The commodification of nature is an area of research within critical environmental studies that is concerned with the ways in which natural entities and processes are made exchangeable through the
market
Market is a term used to describe concepts such as:
*Market (economics), system in which parties engage in transactions according to supply and demand
*Market economy
*Marketplace, a physical marketplace or public market
Geography
*Märket, an ...
, and the implications thereof.
Drawing upon the work of
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...
,
Karl Polanyi
Karl Paul Polanyi (; hu, Polányi Károly ; 25 October 1886 – 23 April 1964),''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. 2003) vol 9. p. 554 was an Austro-Hungarian economic anthropologist and politician, best known ...
,
James O’Connor and
David Harvey
David W. Harvey (born 31 October 1935) is a British-born Marxist economic geographer, podcaster and Distinguished Professor of anthropology and geography at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He received his P ...
, this area of work is
normative
Normative generally means relating to an evaluative standard. Normativity is the phenomenon in human societies of designating some actions or outcomes as good, desirable, or permissible, and others as bad, undesirable, or impermissible. A norm in ...
and critical,
[Prudham, William Scott (2009) ‘Commodification’, in Castree, Noel, et al. (eds) ''A Companion to Environmental Geography'', Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, pp. 123-142. (p. 125)] based in
Marxist geography
Marxist geography is a strand of critical geography that uses the theories and philosophy of Marxism to examine the spatial relations of human geography. In Marxist geography, the relations that geography has traditionally analyzed — natural ...
and
political ecology. Theorists use a
commodification framing in order to contest the perspectives of "
market environmentalism," which sees marketization as a solution to
environmental degradation. The
environment has been a key site of conflict between proponents of the expansion of market norms, relations and modes of
governance
Governance is the process of interactions through the laws, norms, power or language of an organized society over a social system ( family, tribe, formal or informal organization, a territory or across territories). It is done by the gove ...
and those who oppose such expansion. Critics emphasize the contradictions and undesirable physical and ethical consequences brought about by the commodification of
natural resources
Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. ...
(as inputs to production and products) and processes (
environmental services or conditions).
Most researchers who employ a commodification of nature framing invoke a
Marxian conceptualization of commodities as "objects
produced for sale on the market" that embody both
use and
exchange value. Commodification itself is a process by which goods and services not produced for sale are converted into an exchangeable form.
[Kosoy, Nicolás and Corbera, Esteve (2010) ‘Payments for Ecosystem Services as Commodity Fetishism’, ''Ecological Economics'', 69(1): pp. 1228-1236.] It involves multiple elements, including
privatization
Privatization (also privatisation in British English) can mean several different things, most commonly referring to moving something from the public sector into the private sector. It is also sometimes used as a synonym for deregulation when ...
,
alienation, individuation, abstraction,
valuation and displacement.
As capitalism expands in breadth and depth, more and more things previously external to the system become “internalized,” including entities and processes that are usually considered "natural."
Nature
Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans are ...
, as a concept, however, is very difficult to define, with many layers of meaning, including external environments as well as humans themselves. Political ecology and other critical conceptions draw upon strands within Marxist geography that see nature as "
socially produced," with no neat boundary separating the "social" from the "natural." Still, the commodification of entities and processes that are considered natural is viewed as a "special case" based on nature's biophysical
materiality, which "shape
sand condition
trajectories of commodification."
Origins and development
Classical liberalism and enclosure
The commodification of nature has its origins in the rise of
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
. In
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
and later elsewhere, "
enclosure
Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or " common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
" involved attacks upon and eventual near-elimination of
the commons
The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons c ...
—a long, contested and frequently violent process Marx referred to as "
primitive accumulation."
Classical liberalism
Classical liberalism is a political tradition and a branch of liberalism that advocates free market and laissez-faire economics; civil liberties under the rule of law with especial emphasis on individual autonomy, limited government, econo ...
, the ideological aspect of this process, was closely bound to questions of the environment. Privatization was presented as "more conducive to the careful stewardship of natural resources than the commons" by thinkers like
Bentham,
Locke and
Malthus. The
neo-Malthusian
Malthusianism is the idea that population growth is potentially exponential while the growth of the food supply or other resources is linear, which eventually reduces living standards to the point of triggering a population die off. This event, ...
discourse of
Garrett Hardin's "
Tragedy of the Commons
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy i ...
" (1968) parallels this perspective, reconceptualizing public goods as "scarce commodities" requiring either privatization or strong state control.
Ecology Against Capitalism
As Foster points out in ''Ecology Against Capitalism'', the environment is not a commodity (such as most things are treated in capitalism) but it is rather the biosphere that sustains all life that we know of. However, it is important to note that in our society, it is treated as a capitalistic value. For example, a price is put on lumber in a certain forest or the quality of water in a river or stream, or the minerals that are available under ground. These ways of putting a price on the ecosystem tend to forget to put a price on exploiting it. This can cause more damage to an ecosystem if the externalities for business are not taken into consideration. One way to fix this problem is taxes that will increase the cost of environmental damage. For example, a carbon tax would help society get off of fossil fuels and go towards renewables much faster. This is one step that many scientists and experts agree needs to happen in order to transition away from
fossil fuels and delay or even prevent
man-made climate change. Deregulation of governmental programs such as the EPA, and other environmental organizations may be good for business, but it doesn't serve the people who must live on a more polluted earth.
Capitalist expansion
Marxists define capitalism as a socio-economic system whose central goal is the
accumulation of more wealth through the production and exchange of commodities. While the commodity form is not unique to capitalism, in it economic production is motivated increasingly by exchange.
Competition provides constant pressure for innovation and growth in a "restless and unstable process," making the system expansionary and "tendentially all-encompassing."
Through market
globalization
Globalization, or globalisation (English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-ise, -ize (-isation, -ization), see spelling differences), is the process of foreign relation ...
, the tendency Marx described in the
''Communist Manifesto'' in which "
e need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe," capitalism converts nature into "an appendage of the production process." As
Neil Smith argues, "
part of the earth’s surface, the atmosphere, the oceans, the geological substratum, or the biological superstratum are immune from transformation by capital."
Neoliberal nature
Since the late 1980s, an ideology of "market environmentalism" has gained prominence within environmental policy.
Such a perspective is based in
neoclassical economic theory, which sees
degradation
Degradation may refer to:
Science
* Degradation (geology), lowering of a fluvial surface by erosion
* Degradation (telecommunications), of an electronic signal
* Biodegradation of organic substances by living organisms
* Environmental degradatio ...
as a result of the absence of prices in environmental goods. Market environmentalism gained widespread acceptance through the rise of neoliberalism, an approach to human affairs in which the "
free market
In economics, a free market is an economic system in which the prices of goods and services are determined by supply and demand expressed by sellers and buyers. Such markets, as modeled, operate without the intervention of government or any ot ...
" is given priority and money-mediated relations are seen as the best way to deliver services.
A neoliberal approach constructs nature as a "world currency," valued in international markets and given "the opportunity to earn its own right to survive." This "selling nature to save it" approach requires economic valuation — either indirectly, as with
cost-benefit analysis and
contingent valuation
Contingent valuation is a survey-based economic technique for the valuation of non- market resources, such as environmental preservation or the impact of externalities like pollution. While these resources do give people utility, certain aspects ...
, or through direct commodification.
While commodification efforts are propelled in large part by
private firms seeking new areas of investment and avenues for the circulation of
capital, there are also explicit policy prescriptions for privatization and market exchange of resources, production
byproducts and processes as the best means to rationally manage and conserve the environment.
Stretching and deepening
The commodification of nature occurs through two distinct "moments" as capitalization "stretches" its reach to include greater distances of space and time, and "deepens" to penetrate into more types of goods and services.
External nature becomes an "accumulation strategy" for capital, through traditional examples like
mining
Mining is the extraction of valuable minerals or other geological materials from the Earth, usually from an ore body, lode, vein, seam, reef, or placer deposit. The exploitation of these deposits for raw material is based on the economic ...
and
agriculture
Agriculture or farming is the practice of cultivating plants and livestock. Agriculture was the key development in the rise of sedentary human civilization, whereby farming of domesticated species created food surpluses that enabled people t ...
as well as new "
commodity frontiers" in
bioprospecting
Bioprospecting (also known as biodiversity prospecting) is the exploration of natural sources for small molecules, macromolecules and biochemical and genetic information that could be developed into commercially valuable products for the agric ...
and
ecotourism
Ecotourism is a form of tourism involving responsible travel (using sustainable transport) to natural areas, conserving the environment, and improving the well-being of the local people. Its purpose may be to educate the traveler, to provide fund ...
.
David Harvey sees this as "the wholesale commodification of nature in all its forms," a "new wave of ‘enclosing the commons’" that employs environmentalism in the service of the rapid expansion of capitalism. This "
accumulation by dispossession
Accumulation by dispossession is a concept presented by the Marxist geographer David Harvey. It defines neoliberal capitalist policies that result in a centralization of wealth and power in the hands of a few by dispossessing the public and priv ...
" releases
asset
In financial accounting, an asset is any resource owned or controlled by a business or an economic entity. It is anything (tangible or intangible) that can be used to produce positive economic value. Assets represent value of ownership that can ...
s at very low or zero cost, providing immediate profitability and counteracting
overaccumulation
Overaccumulation is one of the potential causes of the crisis of capital accumulation. In crisis theory, a crisis of capital occurs due to what Karl Marx refers to as the internal contradictions inherent in the capitalist system which result in t ...
.
Aspects of commodification
At the most abstract level, commodification is a process through which qualitatively different things are made equivalent and exchangeable through the medium of
money
Money is any item or verifiable record that is generally accepted as payment for goods and services and repayment of debts, such as taxes, in a particular country or socio-economic context. The primary functions which distinguish money are as ...
. By taking on a general quality of exchange value, they become
commensurable.
Commodification turns on this apparent dissolution of qualitative difference and its “renegotiation,” as commodities are standardized in order to maintain a constant identity across space and time.
Commodity status is not something intrinsic to a natural entity, but is rather an assigned quality,
brought about through an active process. The conversion of a whole class of goods or services
necessitates changes in the way nature is
concept
Concepts are defined as abstract ideas. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks of the concept behind principles, thoughts and beliefs.
They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. As such, concepts are studied by ...
ualized and
discursively represented.
There is no "single path" to commodification.
Noel Castree
Noel Castree FAcSS (born 2 April 1968) is a British geographer whose research has focused on capitalism-environment relationships and, more recently, on the role that various experts play in discourses about global environmental change. He is cu ...
stresses that commodification in fact involves several interrelated aspects, or "relational moments," that should not be confused or conflated as they can be employed independently of each other.
''Privatization'' is the assigning of
legal title to an entity or process. A commodity needs to be owned, either by an individual or a group, in order to be traded.
Privatization of natural entities can entail enclosure or the representation thereof (as with
intellectual property rights
Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...
), and represents a shift in social relations, changing rights of access, use and disposal as things move from communally-, state- or unowned modes into private hands.
''Alienability'' is the capacity of a given commodity to be separated, physically and morally, from its seller. If a commodity is not alienable, it cannot be exchanged and is thus shielded from the market.
For example, human organs might be privatized (owned by their bearer) but very rarely would they be considered alienable.
''Individuation'' is the representational and physical act of separating a commodity from its supporting context through legal and/or material boundaries. This could involve "splitting" an ecosystem into legally-defined and tradable property rights to specific services or resources.
''Abstraction'' is the assimilation of a given thing into a broader type or process, the transformation of particular things into classes.
Through ''functional abstraction'', "wetlands" are constructed as a generic category despite the uniqueness of physical sites
and different gasses and activities are equated through
carbon markets. Through ''spatial abstraction'' things in one place are treated as the same as things located elsewhere so that both can form part of the same market.
''Valuation'' is the manifestation of all expressions of worth (
aesthetic, practical,
ethical
Ethics or moral philosophy is a branch of philosophy that "involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong behavior".''Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy'' The field of ethics, along with aesthetics, concerns ma ...
, ''et cetera'') through a single exchange value. Monetization is thus foundational to capitalism, rendering things commensurable and exchangeable, allowing for the separation of production, circulation and consumption over great gulfs of time and space.
''Displacement'' involves something appearing as "something other than itself." Commodities might be better thought of as "socio-natural relations" than
reified as things "in and of themselves," but through spatio-temporal separation of producers and consumers, the histories and relations of commodities become obscured.
This is Marx's
commodity fetishism
In Marxist philosophy, the term commodity fetishism describes the economic relationships of production and exchange as being social relationships that exist among things (money and merchandise) and not as relationships that exist among people ...
, the "making invisible" of the social relationships and embeddedness of production.
Problems with commodification
Critics
A critic is a person who communicates an assessment and an opinion of various forms of creative works such as art, literature, music, cinema, theater, fashion, architecture, and food. Critics may also take as their subject social or governme ...
see environmental degradation as stemming from these processes of commodification, and generally include at least implicit criticism of one or more aspect. There appear to be three broad "problem areas" from which the commodification of nature is critiqued: ''practical'', in terms of whether or not nature can be properly made into a commodity; ''moral'', in terms of the ethical implications of commodification; and ''consequential'', in terms of the effects of commodification on nature itself.
Practical problems
Much of the literature relates commodification of nature to the issue of materiality—the significance of biophysical properties and context. The qualitative differences of a heterogeneous biophysical world are seen to be analytically and practically significant, sources of unpredictability and resistance to human intention that also shape and provide opportunities for capital circulation and accumulation.
The tangible non-human world thus affects the construction of social and economic relations and practice, inscribing ecology in the dynamics of capital. While some "natures" are readily subsumed by capitalism, others "resist" complete commodification, displaying a form of "
agency."
The ecological characteristics of
marine fish
Saltwater fish, also called marine fish or sea fish, are fish that live in seawater. Saltwater fish can swim and live alone or in a large group called a school.
Saltwater fish are very commonly kept in aquariums for entertainment. Many saltwater f ...
, for example, affect the forms that privatization, industry structure and
regulation
Regulation is the management of complex systems according to a set of rules and trends. In systems theory, these types of rules exist in various fields of biology and society, but the term has slightly different meanings according to context. Fo ...
can take. Water, also, does not commodify easily due to its physical properties, which leads to differentiation in its governing institutions.
The demarcation and pricing of nature-based commodities is thus problematic. Divisibility and exclusion are difficult, as it is often not possible to draw clean property rights around environmental services or resources.
Likewise, pricing is a problem as many species, landscapes and services are unique or otherwise irreplaceable and
incommensurable. Their monetary values are thus in many ways arbitrary, as they do not follow changes in quality or quantity but rather social preference, failing to convey "real" ecological value or reasons for conservation.
Moral difficulties
A single monetary value also denies the multiplicity of values which could be attributed to nature — non-monetary systems of cultural and social importance.
The environment can express relations between generations as a sort of
heritage.
Livelihood
A person's livelihood (derived from ''life-lode'', "way of life"; cf. OG ''lib-leit'') refers to their "means of securing the basic necessities (food, water, shelter and clothing) of life". Livelihood is defined as a set of activities essential t ...
, territorial rights and "
sacred
Sacred describes something that is dedicated or set apart for the service or worship of a deity; is considered worthy of spiritual respect or devotion; or inspires awe or reverence among believers. The property is often ascribed to objects ( ...
ness" poorly translate into prices, and dividing a communal-social value — a forest, for instance — into private property rights can undermine the relations and identity of a community.
Neoliberal policies have been implicated in greatly altered patterns of access and use. Markets generally deal poorly with issues of
procedural fairness
In English law, natural justice is technical terminology for the rule against bias (''nemo iudex in causa sua'') and the right to a fair hearing (''audi alteram partem''). While the term ''natural justice'' is often retained as a general conc ...
and
equitable distribution
Division of property, also known as equitable distribution, is a judicial division of property rights and obligations between spouses during divorce. It may be done by agreement, through a property settlement, or by judicial decree.
Distributio ...
, and critics see commodification as producing greater levels of
inequality
Inequality may refer to:
Economics
* Attention inequality, unequal distribution of attention across users, groups of people, issues in etc. in attention economy
* Economic inequality, difference in economic well-being between population groups
* ...
in power and participation while reinforcing existing vulnerabilities.
Ecosystem benefits might be considered "normative
public goods
In economics, a public good (also referred to as a social good or collective good)Oakland, W. H. (1987). Theory of public goods. In Handbook of public economics (Vol. 2, pp. 485-535). Elsevier. is a good that is both non-excludable and non-riv ...
" — even when commodified, there is a sense that individuals ''ought'' to not be excluded from access. When
water privatization
Water privatization is short for private sector participations in the provision of water services and sanitation. Water privatization has a variable history in which its popularity and favorability has fluctuated in the market and politics. One o ...
prices people out, for instance, a sense of use
rights
Rights are legal, social, or ethical principles of freedom or entitlement; that is, rights are the fundamental normative rules about what is allowed of people or owed to people according to some legal system, social convention, or ethical theory ...
inspires
protest
A protest (also called a demonstration, remonstration or remonstrance) is a public expression of objection, disapproval or dissent towards an idea or action, typically a political one.
Protests can be thought of as acts of cooper ...
.
While neoliberal approaches are often presented as neutral or
objective
Objective may refer to:
* Objective (optics), an element in a camera or microscope
* ''The Objective'', a 2008 science fiction horror film
* Objective pronoun, a personal pronoun that is used as a grammatical object
* Objective Productions, a Brit ...
, they disguise highly political approaches to resources and the interests and power of certain actors.
Problematic consequences
Through commodification, natural entities and services become vehicles for the realization of profit, subject to the pressures of the market where
efficiency overrides other concerns. With climate commodities, the profit motive incentivizes buyers and sellers to ignore the
steady erosion of the climate mitigation goal. Market exchange is "reason-blind," but without rational assessment of different strategies and the ecological importance of particular natural entities, commodification cannot effectively deliver on conservation.
Harvey thus declares that there is something "inherently anti-ecological" about capitalist commodification. It ignores and simplifies complex relations, obscuring origins and narrowing things to a single service or standard unit.
The treatment of things as the same for a particular end — either profit or a single utility — leads to a homogenization and simplification of the biophysical. As governments and private firms seek to maximize carbon content for emissions markets, they invest preferably in
tree plantations over complex forest ecosystems, eliminating species diversity, density and resulting in
domino effect
A domino effect or chain reaction is the cumulative effect generated when a particular event triggers a chain of similar events. This term is best known as a mechanical effect and is used as an analogy to a falling row of dominoes. It typically ...
s on processes such as water flow.
The neglect of relational aspects also ignores the
emergent and embedded character of ecosystem functions. Components are frequently dependent on each other and the result of interactions between
biotic and non-biotic factors across space and at multiple levels. Alienation and individuation may thus be counterproductive to the provision of ecosystem services, and veils human perception of what an ecosystem is and how it functions—and consequently how to best conserve and repair it.
John Bellamy Foster argues that neglect of such relational aspects is a result of economic reductionism. This reductionism leads to an inefficiency in promoting biodiversity since as ecosystems are simplified into more basic commodities they can no longer support as diverse a set of organisms as they could precommodification. This creates a concern that the commodification of nature lends itself toward undermining biodiversity through its pursuit of attaching a value to nature.
Karl Polanyi voiced this concern when addressing the concept of treating nature as a commodity. If nature were treated as a commodity it would be concentrated down to its base parts and destroyed. Polanyi highlighted many of the concerns that contemporary environmentalists have by noting that nature's commodification would lead to its pollution, overuse, and eventually imperil human life
Crisis and resistance
Incomplete capitalization and the fictitious commodity
When confronted with natural "barriers to accumulation," capitalists attempt to overcome them through technical and social innovation. This often involves the modification of nature to fit the needs of production and exchange, allowing for fuller realization of profits. Nature is "subsumed" to capitalist accumulation, losing its "independent" capacity and approaching "the archetype of a ‘pure’ commodity."
However, as nature becomes "
rationalized" and internalized, increasing the control of capitalists over exchange, production and distribution, a new contradiction emerges. Capitalist penetration into natural commodities can never be complete, because a certain amount of production, by definition, takes place prior to human intervention. Because natural entities and processes do not require capital or labor to be produced, and their social, cultural and/or ecological value ''exceeds'' the market value placed upon them, they are considered
pseudo-
The prefix pseudo- (from Greek ψευδής, ''pseudes'', "false") is used to mark something that superficially appears to be (or behaves like) one thing, but is something else. Subject to context, ''pseudo'' may connote coincidence, imitation, ...
or
fictitious commodities The concept of fictitious commodities (or false commodities) originated in Karl Polanyi
Karl Paul Polanyi (; hu, Polányi Károly ; 25 October 1886 – 23 April 1964),''Encyclopædia Britannica'' (Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica Inc. 2003) v ...
.
This basic fictitiousness is the origin of the material contradictions that arise when natural commodities are treated ''as if'' they were "true" commodities, as completely privatizable, alienable, separable, ''et cetera''.
Possible consequences of commodifying nature
Many scholars believe that ecology and capitalism are against one another regarding climate change.
As environmental economics is a relatively new field of study, and capitalism a significantly older economic system, radical change of current capitalist systems is highly unlikely while internalization of natural resources into the economy is much more feasible.
John Bellamy Foster
John Bellamy Foster (born August 15, 1953) is an American professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and editor of the '' Monthly Review''. He writes about political economy of capitalism and economic crisis, ecology and ecological crisis ...
believes that commodification of nature might be more dangerous than the impending danger of climate change and ecologic disaster. Foster fears that commodification of nature might lead to a system that favors economy over ecology (endangering natural resources) and promote a form of
neocolonialism
Neocolonialism is the continuation or reimposition of imperialist rule by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony). Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, ...
that acknowledges the elements of capitalism, globalization, and cultural imperialism, but disregards the idea of colonialism altogether.
Degradation of resources, underproduction of conditions
As fictitious commodities with origins outside of capitalist production, the value of nature, counter to the neoclassical assumption, ''cannot'' be fully accounted for in monetary terms, and there is a resultant tendency toward the
overexploitation and "underproduction" of nature.
Natural entities that are commodified are subjected to the competitive drive for accumulation. Capitalism is "ecologically irrational," with a systematic tendency to overexploit its natural resource base. At the same time, what O’Connor terms the "
conditions of production" (all the phenomena upon which capitalism depends but is unable to produce itself, including environmental conditions and processes) are subjected to indiscriminate degradation as they ''cannot'' be fully commodified.
This is the
"second contradiction" of capitalism, between the
relations and
forces of production
Productive forces, productive powers, or forces of production (German: ''Produktivkräfte'') is a central idea in Marxism and historical materialism.
In Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels' own critique of political economy, it refers to the combinat ...
and its conditions.
[O’Connor 1998] Capitalism undermines its own production system, "producing its own scarcity."
Reclaiming the commons?
Recruiting nature into relations of capitalist exchange "incites a good deal of push back," as these entities and services "matter a great deal to ordinary people."
[Henderson 2009 (pp. 276-277)] Social needs compete politically for access and control of an increasingly commodified nature, and as price is insufficient to resolve these competing claims,
counter-movements emerge,
expressing the "
crisis tendencies" of capitalist nature
through socio-political struggles over representation and access.
Protest movements, transnational coalitions, instances of alternative practices and counter-discourses all fall within a broad tent of resistance struggles to "reclaim the commons." This can be seen as Polanyi's "
double movement," in which tendencies toward and against market coordination interact, based in a rejection of the treatment of the environment as alienable market goods.
Specific Examples in Modern Society
While there are numerous natural resources that are being capitalized upon all across the world, there are several more notable examples of commodification of nature. The following examples are some that are either more prevalent or larger in scale and scope.
Emissions Trading
Emissions trading
Emissions trading is a market-based approach to controlling pollution by providing economic incentives for reducing the emissions of pollutants. The concept is also known as cap and trade (CAT) or emissions trading scheme (ETS). Carbon emission ...
, commonly referred to as cap and trade, embodies commodification of nature in that it allows for the trade of pollution and emissions within a given limit for a specific environment. Rather than simply outright prohibiting or allowing pollution and other various negative externalities, cap and trade essentially permits members of an industry to buy and sell units of emission with a maximum set for the industry as a whole.
While there are various outlooks on whether emissions trading is effective in cutting emissions or pollution, it is pertinent to understand that this concept takes a company or individual's emissions and presents them as something that can be bought or sold on a specialized market.
Drinking Water
As
capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system based on the private ownership of the means of production and their operation for profit. Central characteristics of capitalism include capital accumulation, competitive markets, price system, priva ...
has spread in leaps and bounds, so too has its reach on previously universal resources; one such resource is
drinking water
Drinking water is water that is used in drink or food preparation; potable water is water that is safe to be used as drinking water. The amount of drinking water required to maintain good health varies, and depends on physical activity level, a ...
.
As more and more people struggle to find access to clean water, a major economic industry has formed in response, striving to provide this resource to consumers.
Water, a fundamental resource to human survival, now is a multibillion-dollar industry.
Essentially what this means is that something that used to be completely free and public has been taken and turned into a privatized service. One modern example of water commodification is the current conflict going on in
Flint, Michigan.
Petroleum
As
petroleum
Petroleum, also known as crude oil, or simply oil, is a naturally occurring yellowish-black liquid mixture of mainly hydrocarbons, and is found in geological formations. The name ''petroleum'' covers both naturally occurring unprocessed crud ...
has begun to be used for fuel and other various mechanical and transportation uses, the demand for the natural resource has skyrocketed. As a result, an economic industry has formed that completely revolves around the extraction and sale of the resource. By extension, many other industries also rely on the resource such as the automotive industry or anyone that relies on transportation for their business.
Oil is just one of many natural resources being taken from the environment to be sold in markets of various size and influence across the globe. What sets this resource apart from others, however, is that so many other industries are reliant upon oil that it has become one of the most sought after resources across the world.
See also
*
Accumulation by dispossession
Accumulation by dispossession is a concept presented by the Marxist geographer David Harvey. It defines neoliberal capitalist policies that result in a centralization of wealth and power in the hands of a few by dispossessing the public and priv ...
*
Commodification
*
Commodity (Marxism)
In classical political economy and especially Karl Marx's critique of political economy, a commodity is any good or service ("products" or "activities") produced by human labour and offered as a product for general sale on the market. Some other p ...
*
Commodity fetishism
In Marxist philosophy, the term commodity fetishism describes the economic relationships of production and exchange as being social relationships that exist among things (money and merchandise) and not as relationships that exist among people ...
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The commons
The commons is the cultural and natural resources accessible to all members of a society, including natural materials such as air, water, and a habitable Earth. These resources are held in common even when owned privately or publicly. Commons c ...
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Critical geography
Critical geography is theoretically informed geographical scholarship that promotes social justice, liberation, and leftist politics. Critical geography is also used as an umbrella term for Marxist, feminist, postmodern, poststru ...
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Eco-socialism
Eco-socialism (also known as green socialism or socialist ecology) is an ideology merging aspects of socialism with that of green politics, ecology and alter-globalization or anti-globalization. Eco-socialists generally believe that the expansi ...
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Environmental sociology
Environmental sociology is the study of interactions between societies and their natural environment. The field emphasizes the social factors that influence environmental resource management and cause environmental issues, the processes by whic ...
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Green imperialism
Green imperialism or eco-imperialism or eco-colonialism or environmental imperialism is a derogatory epithet alluding to what is perceived as a Western strategy to influence the internal affairs of mostly developing nations in the name of env ...
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Neoliberalism
Neoliberalism (also neo-liberalism) is a term used to signify the late 20th century political reappearance of 19th-century ideas associated with free-market capitalism after it fell into decline following the Second World War. A prominent fa ...
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Political ecology
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Primitive accumulation of capital
In Marxian economics and preceding theories,Perelman, p. 25 (ch. 2) the problem of primitive accumulation (also called previous accumulation, original accumulation) of capital concerns the origin of capital, and therefore of how class distinctio ...
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Tragedy of the commons
Tragedy (from the grc-gre, τραγῳδία, ''tragōidia'', ''tragōidia'') is a genre of drama based on human suffering and, mainly, the terrible or sorrowful events that befall a main character. Traditionally, the intention of tragedy i ...
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Emissions trading
Emissions trading is a market-based approach to controlling pollution by providing economic incentives for reducing the emissions of pollutants. The concept is also known as cap and trade (CAT) or emissions trading scheme (ETS). Carbon emission ...
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Commodification of water
The commodification of water refers to the process of transforming water, especially freshwater, from a public good into a tradable commodity also known as an economic good. This transformation introduces water to previously unencumbered market ...
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Natural resource
Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest and cultural value. ...
References
Further reading
Notable contemporary studies concerning the commodification of nature include:
* Bakker, Karen (2002
‘From state to market?: water ''mercantilización'' in Spain’ ''Environment and Planning A'', 34(1): pp. 767–790.
* Bakker, Karen (2007
‘The “Commons” Versus the “Commodity”: Alter-globalization, Anti-privatization and the Human Right to Water in the Global South’ ''Antipode'', 39(3): pp. 430–455.
* Corbera, Esteve, Brown, Katrina, and Adger, W. Neil (2007
‘The Equity and Legitimacy of Markets for Ecosystem Services’ ''Development and Change'', 38(4): pp. 587–613.
* Duffy, Rosaleen (2002
''A Trip Too Far: Ecotourism, Politics, and Exploitation'' London: Earthscan.
* Kloppenburg, Jr., Jack Ralph (2004
''First the Seed: The Political Economy of Plant Biotechnology, 1492-2000, Second Edition'' Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
* Kosoy, Nicolás and Corbera, Esteve (2010
‘Payments for Ecosystem Services as Commodity Fetishism’ ''Ecological Economics'', 69(1): pp. 1228–1236.
* Lohmann, Larry (2010
‘"Strange Markets" and the Climate Crisis’ in Bonilla, O. and Galvez, E. ''Crisis Financier o Crisis Civilizatoria'', Quito: Instituto de Estudios Ecologistas del Tercer Mundo.
* Mansfield, Becky (2004
‘Rules of Privatization: Contradictions in Neoliberal Regulation of North Pacific Fisheries’ ''Annals of the Association of American Geographers'', 94(3): pp. 565–584.
* McAfee, Kathleen (1999
‘Selling Nature to Save It? Biodiversity and Green Developmentalism’ ''Environment and Planning D: Society and Space'', 17(2): pp. 133–154.
* Prudham, William Scott (2005
''Knock on Wood: Nature as Commodity in Douglas-Fir Country'' London: Routledge.
* Robertson, Morgan McEuen (2004
'The Neoliberalization of Ecosystem Services: Wetland Banking and Problems in Environmental Governance’ ''Geoforum'', 35(3): pp. 361–373.
* Shiva, Vandana (1998
''Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge'' Cambridge: Green Books.
* Swyngedouw, Erik (2005
‘Dispossessing H2O: The Contested Terrain of Water Privatization’ ''Capitalism Nature Socialism'', 16(10): pp. 81–98.
* Unmüßig, Barbara (2014
"Monetizing Nature: Taking Precaution on a Slippery Slope ''Great Transition Initiative.''
{{Commodity
Environmental economics
Ecology
Commodification
Environmental studies
Ethically disputed business practices