Promoting critical discussions and analysis of the environmental and food justice movements among activists, organizers, and research scholars. Developed and moderated by Devon G. Peña.
Moderator's Note: With permission of the author, Jill Richardson, we are re-posting this important update on the recent letter to the USDA by Dr. Huber calling for a ban on glyphosate herbicide until concerns related to environmental and health risks are addressed. We posted Dr. Huber's letter to the USDA earlier as well as a more recent letter in which he verifies the claim that the USDA is ignoring scientific evidence of the dangers of the herbicide to plants and animals, including possibly humans. The original story by Ms. Richardson can be read at Alternet.
Why Is Damning New Evidence About Monsanto's Most Widely Used Herbicide Being Silenced?
By Jill Richardson, AlterNet
Dr. Don Huber did not seek fame when he quietly penned a confidential letter to Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack in January of this year, warning Vilsack of preliminary evidence of a microscopic organism that appears in high concentrations in genetically modified Roundup Ready corn and soybeans and "appears to significantly impact the health of plants, animals and probably human beings." Huber, a retired Purdue University professor of plant pathology and U.S. Army colonel, requested the USDA's help in researching the matter and suggested Vilsack wait until the research was concluded before deregulating Roundup Ready alfalfa. But about a month after it was sent, the letter was leaked, soon becoming an internet phenomenon.
Huber was unavailable to respond to media inquiries in the weeks following the leak, and thus unable to defend himself when several colleagues from Purdue publicly claiming to refute his accusations about Monsanto's widely used herbicide Roundup (glyphosate) and Roundup Ready crops. When his letter was finally acknowledged by the mainstream media, it was with titles like "Scientists Question Claims in Biotech Letter," noting that the letter's popularity on the internet "has raised concern among scientists that the public will believe his unsupported claim is true."
Now, Huber has finally spoken out, both in a second letter, sent to "a wide number of individuals worldwide" to explain and back up his claims from his first letter, and in interviews. While his first letter described research that was not yet complete or published, his second letter cited much more evidence about glyphosate and genetically engineered crops based on studies that have already been published in peer-reviewed journals.
The basis of both letters and much of the research is the herbicide glyphosate. First commercialized in 1974, glyphosate is the most widely used herbicide in the world and has been for some time. Glyphosate has long been considered a relatively benign product, because it was thought to break down quickly in the environment and harm little other than the weeds it was supposed to kill.
According to the National Pesticide Information Center, glyphosate prevents plants from making a certain enzyme. Without the enzyme, they are unable to make three essential amino acids, and thus, unable to survive. Once applied, glyphosate either binds to soil particles (and is thus immobilized so it can no longer harm plants) or microorganisms break it down into ammonium and carbon dioxide. Very little glyphosate runs off into waterways. For these reasons, glyphosate has been thought of as more or less harmless: you spray the weeds, they die, the glyphosate goes away, and nothing else in the environment is harmed.
But Huber says this is not true. First of all, he points out, evidence began to emerge in the 1980s that "what glyphosate does is, essentially, give a plant AIDS." Just like AIDS, which cripples a human's immune system, glyphosate makes plants unable to mount a defense against pathogens in the soil. Without its defense mechanisms functioning, the plants succumb to pathogens in the soil and die. Furthermore, glyphosate has an impact on microorganisms in the soil, helping some and hurting others. This is potentially problematic for farmers, as the last thing one would want is a buildup of pathogens in the soil where they grow crops.
The fate of glyphosate in the environment is also not as benign as once thought. It's true that glyphosate either binds to soil or is broken down quickly by microbes. Glyphosate binds to any positively charged ion in the soil, with the consequence of making many nutrients (such as iron and manganese) less available to plants. Also, glyphosate stays in the soil bound to particles for a long time and can be released later by normal agricultural practices like phosphorus fertilization. "It's not uncommon to find one to three pounds of glyphosate per acre in agricultural soils in the Midwest," says Huber, noting that this represents one to three times the typical amount of glyphosate applied to a field in a year.
Huber says these facts about glyphosate are very well known scientifically but rarely cited. When asked why, he replied that it would be harder for a company to get glyphosate approved for widespread use if it were known that the product could increase the severity of diseases on normal crop plants as well as the weeds it was intended to kill. Here in the U.S., many academic journals are not even interested in publishing studies that suggest this about glyphosate; a large number of the studies Huber cites were published in the European Journal of Agronomy.
If Huber's claims are true, then it follows that there must be problems with disease in crops where glyphosate is used. Huber's second letter verifies this, saying, "we are experiencing a large number of problems in production agriculture in the U.S. that appear to be intensified and sometimes directly related to genetically engineered (GMO) crops, and/or the products they were engineered to tolerate -- especially those related to glyphosate (the active chemical in Roundup® herbicide and generic versions of this herbicide)."
He continues, saying, "We have witnessed a deterioration in the plant health of corn, soybean, wheat and other crops recently with unexplained epidemics of sudden death syndrome of soybean (SDS), Goss' wilt of corn, and take-all of small grain crops the last two years. At the same time, there has been an increasing frequency of previously unexplained animal (cattle, pig, horse, poultry) infertility and [miscarriages]. These situations are threatening the economic viability of both crop and animal producers."
Some of the crops Huber named, corn and soy, are genetically engineered to survive being sprayed with glyphosate. Others, like wheat and barley, are not. In those cases, a farmer would apply glyphosate to kill weeds about a week before planting his or her crop, but would not spray the crop itself. In the case of corn, as Huber points out, most corn varieties in the U.S. are bred using conventional breeding techniques to resist the disease Goss' wilt. However, recent preliminary research showed that when GE corn is sprayed with glyphosate, the corn becomes susceptible to Goss' wilt.
Huber says in his letter that "This disease was commonly observed in many Midwestern U.S. fields planted to [Roundup Ready] corn in 2009 and 2010, while adjacent non-GMO corn had very light to no infections." In 2010, Goss' wilt was a "major contributor" to an estimated one billion bushels of corn lost in the U.S. "in spite of generally good harvest conditions," says Huber.
The subject of Huber's initial letter is a newly identified organism that appears to be the cause of infertility and miscarriages in animals. Scientists have a process to verify whether an organism is the cause of a disease: they isolate the organism, culture it, and reintroduce it to the animal to verify that it reproduces the symptoms of the disease, and then re-isolate the organism from the animal's tissue. This has already been completed for the organism in question. The organism appears in high concentrations in Roundup Ready crops. However, more research is needed to understand what this organism is and what its relationship is to glyphosate and/or Roundup Ready crops.
In order to secure the additional research needed, Huber wrote to Secretary Vilsack. Huber says he wrote his initial letter to Secretary Vilsack with the expectation that it would be forwarded to the appropriate agency within the USDA for follow-up, which it was. When the USDA contacted Huber for more information, he provided it, but he does not know how they have followed up on that information. The letter was "a private letter appealing for [the USDA's] personnel and funding," says Huber. Given recent problems with plant disease and livestock infertility and miscarriages, he says that "many producers can't wait an additional three to 10 years for someone to find the funds and neutral environment" to complete the research on this organism.
If the link between the newly discovered organism and livestock infertility and miscarriages proves true, it will be a major story. But there is already a major story here: the lack of independent research on GMOs, the reluctance of U.S. journals to publish studies critical of glyphosate and GMOs, and the near total silence from the media on Huber's leaked letter.
Moderator's Note: As a contribution to the Seed Sovereignty Documents series, we are posting this important editorial missive from our colleague, Dr. Vandana Shiva. It originally appeared in the April 27, 2011 issue of the Deccan Chronicle. In this editorial, Shiva addresses the theft of indigenous seeds - of the germplasm itself but also the appropriation and disruption of farmers' ability to practice and protect their own agroecological resources and knowledge base. This happens under the regime of trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs), qua patenting, and illustrates the impact of agrobiodiversity commoditization and enclosure in the context of the recent trend toward the signing of memorandum of understanding (MoUs) agreements between Monsanto and governmental authorities in Rajasthan, India.
Great seed robbery
By Vandana Shiva
The seed, the source of life, the embodiment of our biological and cultural diversity, the link between the past and the future of evolution, the common property of past, present and future generations of farming communities who have been seed breeders, is today being stolen from the farmers and being sold back to us as "propriety seed" owned by corporations like the US-headquartered Monsanto.
Under pressure from the Prime Minister's Office, various state governments are signing MoUs (memorandums of understanding) with seed corporations to privatise our rich and diverse genetic heritage. For example, the government of Rajasthan has signed seven MoUs with Monsanto, Advanta, DCM-Shriram, Kanchan Jyoti Agro Industries, PHI Seeds Pvt. Ltd, Krishidhan Seeds and J.K. Agri Genetics.
The Rajasthan government's MoU with Monsanto, for example, focuses on maize, cotton, and vegetables (hot pepper, tomato, cabbage, cucumber, cauliflower and water melon). Monsanto controls the cottonseed market in India and globally. Monsanto also controls 97 per cent of the worldwide maize market and 63.5 per cent of the genetically-modified (GM) cotton market. DuPont, in fact, had to initiate anti-trust investigations in the US because of Monsanto's growing seed monopoly. Sixty Indian seed companies have licensing arrangements with Monsanto, which has the intellectual property on Bt. cotton.
In addition, Monsanto has cross-licensing arrangements with BASF, Bayer, DuPont, Sygenta and Dow to share patented, genetically-engineered seed traits with each other. The giant seed corporations are not competing with each other. They are competing with peasants and farmers over the control of the seed supply. And, in effect, monopolies over seed are being established through mergers and cross-licensing arrangements.
Monsanto, which controls 95 per cent of the cottonseed market, has pushed the price of seed from `7 per kg to `3,600 per kg, with nearly half being royalty payments. It was extracting `1,000 crores per annum as royalty from Indian farmers before Andhra Pradesh sued it in the Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Commission.
The commodified seed is ecologically incomplete and ruptured at two levels: First, it does not reproduce itself, while, by definition, seed is a regenerative resource. Genetic resources are thus, through technology, transformed from a renewable into a non-renewable resource. Second, it does not produce by itself; it needs the help of purchased inputs. And, as the seed and chemical companies merge, the dependence on inputs will increase.
The failure of hybrid sunflower in Karnataka and hybrid maize in Bihar has cost poor farmers hundreds of rupees. There are no liability clauses in the MoUs to ensure farmers' rights and protection from seed failure. The seeds that will be used for essentially derived varieties by corporations like Monsanto are originally farmers' varieties. The Farmers' Rights and Plant Genetic Resources Act is a law to protect farmers' rights, but nothing in the MoUs acknowledges, protects or guarantees farmers' rights. It is, therefore, violative of the Farmers' Rights Act.
The MoUs are one-sided and biased in favour of corporate intellectual property rights. The Monsanto MoU states: "Monsanto's proprietary tools, techniques, technology, know-how and intellectual property rights with respect to the crops shall remain the property of Monsanto although utilised in any of the activities outlined as part of the MoU". So the issue here is not technology, but seed monopoly.
What is being termed a public-private partnership (PPP) and is being conducted under the supervision of the state is, in fact, the great seed robbery. Rajasthan is an ecologically fragile area. Its farmers are already vulnerable. It is a crime to increase their vulnerability by allowing corporations to steal their genetic wealth and then sell them patented, genetically engineered, ill-adapted seeds. We must defend seeds as our commons. We must protect the seeds of life from the seeds of suicide.
Farmers breed for resilience and nutrition. Industrial breeding responds to intensive chemical and water inputs so that seed companies can increase profits. The future of the seed, the future of the food, the future of farmers lies in conservation of the biodiversity of our seed. Navdanya's research also shows that biodiversity-based ecological agriculture produces more food than monocultures.
Hybrids and Genetically Modified Organism (GMO) produce less nutrition per acre and are vulnerable to climate change, pests and disease. Replacing agro-biodiversity with hybrid and GM crops is a recipe for food insecurity.
The MoUs will, in effect, facilitate bio-piracy of Rajasthan's rich biodiversity of drought-resilient crops, which become more valuable in times of climate change. By failing to have any clauses that respect the Biodiversity Act and the Farmers' Rights Act, the MoUs promote biopiracy and legalise the great seed robbery.
According to the MoUs, private companies' seed distribution will be based on "seed supply and distribution arrangements involving leverage of extensive government-owned network". In other words, selling hybrids and then GMOs will be subsidised by allowing the use of public land for "technology demonstration farms to showcase products, technology and agronomic practices on land made available by the government of Rajasthan".
Besides the handing over of seed and land, "Monsanto will be helped in the establishment of infrastructure towards the fulfilment of the collaboration objectives specified above through access to relevant capital subsidy and other schemes of the government of Rajasthan".
While public resources will be freely given away to Monsanto as a subsidy, Monsanto's Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) monopolies will be protected. This is an MoU for "Monsanto takes all, the public system gives all". It is clearly an MoU for privatisation of our seed and genetic wealth, our knowledge, and a violation of farmers' rights.
Seed sovereignty is the foundation of food sovereignty. Seed freedom is the foundation of food freedom. The great seed robbery threatens both. It must be stopped.
* Dr Vandana Shiva is the executive director of the Navdanya Trust
The extreme libertarians have finally done it! They have made a film about Ayn Rand. Early reviews suggest "Part 1" is as awful as the objectivist egotistic prose bequeathed by the right's newly-rediscovered intellectual doyenne-in-chief. This dead white woman, with privileged roots in pre-Leninist Russia, represents the latest source that neoliberals have turned to in order to rationalize the theory of the state of economic exception: Only the rich count and our futures and freedoms rest on their shoulders. Rand's well-worn paradigm of greed-is-good basically proposes that freedom, liberty, and prosperity are products of the "super-productivity" of the wealthy elite few and everyone below is basically parasitic. A "political strike" on investments, or withdrawal of capital from the labor market, is the optimum strategy employed by John Galt, Rand's hero in her epic Atlas Shrugged. Allow me: Where Hayek is the free marketer's Marx, Rand is their Lady Gaga as novelist-philosopher.
For those who have never heard of the author, Ayn Rand - and yes, Ron Paul did name his son, "Rand" - this is the "Goddess" of free market fundamentalists. She wrote two novels and some screenplays that, well, did not get much attention in their time but have lately been "rescued" from critical obscurity by the new right-wing intellectuals [sic] of the Tea Party Movement run by Citizen's United, Inc.
Given this new wave of propaganda from the extreme libertarian-authoritarian strain that influences so much of Tea Party thinking, I decided to share the following rather extended conversation that took place in an online community discussion board (GoPost) I created for a class I taught on environmental anthropology at the University of Washington during the Autumn 2008 quarter. This was intended as a conversation with students during the extended course work we do on the Web and is therefore a matter of public record. I have eliminated the names and context revealing excerpts to protect the confidentiality of the participants.
The discussion began with an item I posted to initiate the analysis and critique of an important proposal for the "Global Population Speak Out" (GPSO), a campaign led by scientists who hail principally from the US and other Western nations and seeks to place the population issue at the center of discussions on the multiple threats to Earth ecosystems. I was suggesting a serious oversight on the part of the scientists: The destruction of biodiversity is accompanied by the destruction of cultural diversity. Indigenous place-based cultures, that nurture and protect biodiversity and are ecosystem people, are also harmed by the encroachments of capitalist maldevelopment and destruction of habitat. That was the focus of the conversation thread I wanted to start. In the end, the students responded with a total of 29 posts and 617 views. The comments run for more than 15 pages in text format.
Oddly and yet fruitfully, the conversation took an intriguing turn that led from a discussion of the role of capitalism as the principal source of ecological degradation, as opposed to a simplistic Malthusian argument about over-population, to a discussion of Ayn Rand and her take on the "nature" of capitalism and "human nature." Here are excerpts from this conversation I had with students in the fall of 2008:
GOPOST CONVERSATION THREAD
Posted Nov 1, 2008 9:25 AM Edited Nov 1, 2008 5:14 PM by dpena (Board owner)
Dear students:
The Global Population Speak Out (GPSO) is a campaign led by scientists who hail principally from the US and other Western nations to place the population issue at the center of discussions on the multiple threats to the Earth's ecosystems. About a week ago I forwarded to the class listserv the email from GPSO calling on other "authoritative" scientific voices to join in this call. I trust the class has had a chance to read the email. If you have not, I am resending it today for your perusal. Please be sure to read this email.
In an earlier post, I characterized this campaign as problematic and asked the class for comments on why this campaign might be viewed as problematic. So far the only student to respond was --- who made a very interesting set of observations on October 29 under the Miscellaneous rubric (it is the first message at the top of that conversation rubric; actually, it will be the second one after I post this reply).
I now want to respond to the GPSO and also reply to some of the concerns posted by ---. First, a summary of key aspects of the GPSO campaign email. The authors of the letter are correct to argue that:
1. Our global ecological plight continues to worsen. A recent WWF Living Planet Report suggests that in "a moderate business-as-usual scenario…exhaustion of ecological assets and large-scale ecosystem collapse become increasingly likely."
They are not entirely correct in pointing out that:
2. "Media coverage of the problem is sorely lacking." Indeed, coverage of global climate change, the ozone hole, massive extinctions and threats to biodiversity appear to be a major source of headlines in all media. However, I especially take exception to the next part of their argument which is that:
3. "Particularly underreported is the fundamental link between the size and growth of the human population and environmental degradation. It is no comfort that the rate of global population growth has slowed in recent years..."
Indeed, the GPSO emphasizes that the greatest threat to our planet is overpopulation. I disagree and insist that the greatest threat to our planet is capitalism and more specifically the globalization of capitalism as the singular economic model embraced by all nations including now India and China. Why am I reframing the threat as capitalism instead of overpopulation? The argument is a complex one so please bear with me and read the following rather long missive on this issue:
(1) History of Overpopulation Discourse: First, I want to start with a brief history of the overpopulation discourse and an interesting example from history that illustrates the problematic nature of the claims. The overpopulation thesis was really first put on the discursive map by Thomas Malthus, an English philosopher, mathematician, and heir of a prosperous family from Surrey. He published the first edition of "An Essay on the Principle of Population" in 1798. What became the Malthusian thesis is simple and elegant: While population growth expands geometrically, our food supply expands arithmetically. Thus, population growth overtakes the growth of our food supply resulting in mass famine and starvation. A corollary of his argument was that the growth of population was also the principal cause of poverty. An extension of the Malthusian argument, was popularized by the American scientist, Paul Ehrlich, in a book called The Population Bomb (1968). Ehrlich argued that the principal cause of environmental degradation was overpopulation. It appears that this argument is still embraced by the majority of Western natural scientists as is evident not just from a review of the signature list endorsing the GPSO letter but from any review of the scientific literature on population and the environment. Indeed, our own PoE Program often includes syllabi and lectures that emphasize overpopulation as the key factor underlying ecological degradation.
Now, admittedly, the GPSO letter acknowledges that consumption is also part of the problem; the consumption issue was ignored by Ehrlich in the 1968 book; it was largely as a result of criticisms by anthropologists and, yes, Marxist scholars studying consumption that the population "problem" was recast as also involving a "consumption" problem. One of the most significant events in this recasting was the realization in the early 1980s that the average American consumed as many natural resources as 1000 average inhabitants of India. It was also realized that the average American produced as much waste (including the all important carbon footprint) as 2500 Indians! Not only were Americans consuming much more they were also producing a lot more waste. Of course, today the situation is a bit different with the growth of industrial capitalism in India and China and yet, even today, the ratios are still approximately 1:300 (US compared to India) and 1:500 compared to China. More on this in a moment.
I want to turn to history for another important nuance in the population versus consumption problematic. I have often lectured on the state of the environment in 1519-21 by comparing London, Madrid, and the Aztec twin-city capital of Tenochtitlan-Tlatelolco. What does this comparison reveal? In a nutshell:
In 1519, London and Madrid (two of the largest population centers in Europe at the time), had a population of around 90,000 people. The populations there were just recovering from the effects of the "Black Plague." The Aztec (really Colhua Mexica) island twin-cities, and the surrounding land-side settlements around Lakes Texcoco-Xoximilco-Chalco had over one million inhabitants.
The forests around London and Madrid had been clearcut and devastated in areas as far as 100 km from the city centers. The forests surrounding the Aztec capital were intact; indeed, they were protected areas because they provided the water supply for the island twin-cities.
London and Madrid had raw sewage running freely in the streets and alleyways. This was a persistent health hazard and would remain so for some time since sanitary systems would not be developed for another 150 years in the case of London and 200+ years in the case of Madrid. In contrast, the Aztecs had the world's most efficient and effective sewage recycling system comprised of public bathrooms and several thousand canoes that would collect the human waste and recycle it as a fertilizer for the famous floating gardens (xinampas) of Lakes Chalco and Xoximilco.
The average resident of London and Madrid in 1519 lived to the ripe old age of about 34 years. The average Tenocha in the Aztec capital city lived to the age of 43. So, the Aztecs were a lot more healthy compared to the Europeans as judged by the longevity and lower morbidity.
The average resident of London and Madrid had a severely restricted diet comprised primarily of a few grains (rye, barley, and some times wheat). The average Tenocha not only had protein rich grains like Amaranth in their diets, they also benefited from the corn-bean-squash sacred trinity and access to fish, deer, other mammals, and numerous reptiles, insects, and wild edible and medicinal plants (indeed, the Aztec ethnopharmacopia listed more than 1000 medicinal plants at the time of the Spanish conquest).
In a word, while the Aztec urban area had 10 times the population of London and Madrid, the environment was intact, prospering under careful management, and the citizens were also healthier and leading longer lives. Biodiversity was intact in Mexica bioregion while it was devastated in the European capitals. This evidence suggests that there is no simple population = environmental degradation correlation. It is not the number of people but what and how they are consuming and inhabiting a place that is more important.
(2) The second reason for finding the letter problematic is that it completely ignores capitalism as the source of environmental degradation. Several points need to be made here: First, capitalism requires an unlimited supply of "cheap" labor and this means that policies favoring high birth rates were (and still are) the norm wherever the capitalist system has taken root. Second, capitalism undermines the autonomy and self-reliance of numerous communities and this often includes the imposition of a patriarchal division of labor in which men produce and women reproduce; the removal of women from the sphere of production meant in part that they were no longer able to effectively limit their fertility. Third is the problem of the "second contradiction" of capitalism: To exist, capitalism cannot accept limits to growth; capital must constantly expand its production and hence consumption; it must break down barriers to expand markets and access to natural resources for raw materials and exploitable sources of labor. Since capitalism is inherently expansionist it eventually and inevitably must degrade the environment; this is the second contradiction: because of its expansionist quality, capitalism inevitably destroys the natural conditions of production (land, water, other resources, and labor).
Now, many, indeed most, scientists and environmentalists have argued that this is true not just of capitalism but of all forms of industrial economic organization including socialism and communism. The problem is not capitalism per se but industrialism (deep ecologists are an example of this view). However, this is a flawed argument since industrialism predates capitalism and yet plenty of cases exist where industrial organization did not bankrupt or degrade nature on a massive scale. Also, we have never yet seen a country or society organize the economy on the basis of socialism or, better, communism. The Soviet Union and China were not socialist and even less so communist. The USSR was a state-capitalist formation (see for e.g., Herbert Marcuse's book, Soviet Marxism, an ironic title since there was very little of Marx in the organization brought forth by the Bolsheviks; recall that Lenin not only destroyed the "factory soviets," the workers' factory councils that were supposed to democratically manage the factories, he also adopted the American system of "scientific management" or Taylorism to catch up and surpass the USA and its economic might): workers were still commodities; products were still commodities (and had prices); this was a centralized command and control form of industrial capitalism in contrast to the anarchy of the free market form of Western capitalism, although even in this second case, for e.g., during the Great Depression, the state had to take control and command the planning process to save capitalism from the capitalists! This is already happening again right now with the nationalization of failed banks and the $700 billion bailout that represents the "socialization" of the risks of private investment decisions. The USA is in this sense "socialist" whenever crisis requires it. None of this is communism and we have never seen a communist society take root yet (I will explain this later in class lectures and postings).
(3) Another issue is that prior to the rise of industrial capitalism and in many places colonialism and imperialism, most so-called third-world countries had steady-state populations. In some places this was a consequence of the high rates of mortality that neutralized high fertility rates. However, a more profound, and much less recognized, reason for the low population growth rates was that women were able to use natural methods to control their own fertility rates. Throughout pre-colonial Africa, the Americas, and Asia, women used natural herbs to prevent pregnancy or to induce abortion. With conquest, colonialism, and the intrusion of capitalism, the traditional ethnogynecological knowledge was lost and in many places forbidden. Women healers and parteras (midwifes) were burned at the stake as "witches" all over Europe and the Americas. Everyone should read one of the most significant books ever written about this issue: Sylvia Federici's Caliban and the Witch (I guarantee you, this book will change your mind about the contours of human history). Moreover, with the persecution of the witches, came compulsory Christianization and with this quite extreme pro-natalist ideologies and policies; by pro-natalist I mean pro-birth (get and keep as many women as possible pregnant in part to grow the armies of workers and soldiers needed to advance the cause of Western empires and "progress." The destruction and displacement of women from the central role they played in medical care was a fundamental aspect of the transition from steady-state populations to uncontrolled growth of populations in the West as well as in Africa, Asia, and the Americas.
(4) The carrying capacity of the planet. The letter does not address this concept. What is the carrying capacity of the planet? Is it 6, 10, 15, 20 billion people, or what? The answer is complex but must recognize three things: First, carrying capacity is not static; it can increase or decrease depending on many factors including the nature of our food systems and the ability for humans to engage in ecological restoration. Indeed, one reason that the current population IS so destructive has to do with the capitalist nature of our agricultural systems (industrial monocultures compared to traditional agroecosystems are incredibly destructive of ecosystems and biodiversity). Moreover, we have enough food right now to feed the entire planet and then some; why is hunger so rampant? In the USA right now, we have at least 20 million people going hungry every day. The problem is not overpopulation but maldistribution of food and the use of food as a "political weapon." Second, the carrying capacity depends on our carbon footprint; if we make a transition to renewable alternative energy systems, and we must in a post-Peak Oil world, this will allow us to increase the size of the human population while at the same time restoring natural ecosystems. Third, carrying capacity is affected by diet; too many of us in the industrialized capitalist world eat way too much meat (beef, pork, chicken, fish, etc.). This reduces the carrying capacity of the planet, increases hunger since instead of eating grains we feed the grains to livestock while millions of human beings go hungry. We need to make a transition to a diet that does no longer rely on meat produced in confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs) or "factory farms." A transition to vegetarian/vegan diets would help to eliminate world hunger and increase the carrying capacity of the Earth. I'll have more to say about all this later in the quarter; suffice it for now to note that not all local cultures have to go vegetarian or vegan to be sustainable.
I have other objections to this letter from the GPSO which clearly fails to pass the test of historical accuracy or demonstrate the courage it takes to critically examine the capitalist nature of the environmental crisis. Capitalism, I have said elsewhere, is the invisible elephant inside the conservation biology and sustainable development living room. It is, in other words, the unacknowledged gorilla; the source that remains unmentionable. The invisible hand is only invisible because we refuse to acknowledge its ugliness, brutality, irrationality, and insatiable appetites.
When scientists are ready to stop acting and being dumb in the sphere of political economy, then I will sign this letter. When they show some intelligence and courage regarding critical social theory; when they acknowledge that the system that feeds them with multi-billions in research grants in the making of an ultimately anti-democratic "market-steered" military-scientific-industrial iron triangle; when they acknowledge the role of greed, hyper-individualism, militarism, imperialism, racism, sexism, classism, homophobia, nationalism, ageism, and all the forms of division that capital exploits to keep us all under control and that are the extended tentacles and prostheses of capitalism, then I will sign the letter.
For now, I will remain steadfast in my insistence that scientists should show a bit more of the same curiosity they demonstrate in the natural sciences when it comes to more critically examining and studying the economic systems that underlie the "business-as-usual" they complain about as the source of our ecological, cultural, and social devastation. For now, I remain steady in accusing them all of being naively ideological when it comes to (mis)understanding the global capitalist system that is commodifying all of life and destroying our lonely little blue planet in the process.
I urge you all to have courage and write to the GPSO with the words I have written, or your own version, that wakes them up from this self-deluding slumber. Now is a good time - given the current crisis of capitalism - to shake them up and get them to understand that the principal problem is not overpopulation but capitalism.
Student Response, Posted Nov 2, 2008 3:51 PM
In addressing of the earth's carrying capacity: Earlier this past week I had proposed a question to Dr. Peña in regards to GEO's and received an answer that I had not really anticipated but that has been replaying in my mind like a catchy tune from the Beatles.
The question was as follows: "Is returning agriculture to being used with out the use of trans-genetics capable of supporting supply and demand?" One of the benefits often associated with Bt rice is that the crop yields are greater than non genetically engineered rice. As is mentioned in the June 2004 issue of "Science Direct" the article "Achieving successful deployment of Bt rice" supports this notion:
"The global population is steadily growing while the amount of arable land is steadily decreasing. Thus, it is essential that sustainable strategies be implemented to use agricultural resources efficiently to yield an abundant healthy diet."
I've never agreed with humanity playing God and controlling evolution but I have always thought that if there was a way to feed those in need perhaps it would be worth the risk... and if we didn't want to take the risk then the industrialized countries as a whole would have to employ better consumption policies such as becoming more resourceful and less wasteful even less glutinous in some cases.
Back to the question posed to Dr. Peña. Dr. Peña answered me (as best I remember) by explaining that the use of GEO's are not necessary to sustain the world population and that implementing local agricultural practices and giving up the desire for year round seasonal produce from exotic locations would provide a sustainable earth for everyone with out the use of GEO's. I hope that I did not misinterpret Dr. Pena in what he was telling me and it does make sense but I must admit I would hate to sacrifice year round strawberries.
However, the concept of seasonal and local agricultural sustainability got me thinking. How would we do it... I mean I always had a garden I worked in while growing up in Canada and I learned a lot about working with the local flora in doing so, but I doubt I could create a sustainable method.... Then it hit me! This is why colonization of self sustaining people and the local environment can have such detrimental effects. The Native Americans obviously had it figured out and despite how much I enjoy my way of life in the pacific northwest... I understand that not only is much of that knowledge gone but so is the environment that complimented it. I don't regret being a Canadian American and living in the beautiful pacific northwest and I don't believe anyone should despite knowing the history of our home but I believe that we all have a responsibility to preserve our local ecosystem (Puget sound being the second largest in North America) as well as the knowledge of how to work the land with sustainable local agriculture and farming practices.
I believe capitalism is a large part of the destruction of local agriculture as it is a self perpetuating and relies on growing consumption of resources. I believe this is because capitalism is an open market where competing profit seeking individuals and corporate machines strive to be at the top. This is not to say that capitalism is all bad but rather needs a stronger set of checks and balances to prevent the loss
Everyone in America has a carbon footprint so I found out mine... it would take about 1 and half earths for everyone in the world to live like I currently do. If you're curious about yours you can go to carboncounter.org.
Student Response Posted Nov 2, 2008 8:41 PM
I agree with you, Prof. Peña, that capitalism and a totally absurd rate of consumption are the reasons why population growth is an environmental issue in the first place. But it is still an issue! The population is growing at unprecedented, exponential rates - every day we step into unknown territory with regards to earth's systems' ability to hold more of us. Like genetic engineering, this is an uncontrolled and irreversible experiment. It makes sense to use the precautionary principle. And it seems like you agree with this, since you express dismay at women losing their ability to control their own fertility as they lose access to their traditional medicinal herbs.
I'm not sure exactly where you saw in the GPSO literature that "greatest threat to our planet is overpopulation". The only direct assessment of the problem's magnitude is that "the size and growth of the human population is a fundamental driver of the crisis we face". They do quote Jeffery McKee as calling stopping population growth, "the greatest and most effective conservation measure to save Earth's biodiversity" and say something similar in their literature, but there is a difference between identifying the greatest problem and the greatest solution. Perhaps these are people wary of setting their one and only goal as disassembling the dominant paradigm.
And that makes sense! Our world is in peril and we will need as many people doing as much as they can to save ourselves from catastrophe. You have a role teaching young people about problems in the world and working with communities like the one in Colorado (and other important things); I have a role working with my peers on climate change and food issues; Vandana Shiva has a role fighting biopiracy and genetic engineering; the GPSO has a role expanding the discussion about population. The work they are doing has a place too - it is the work that is meaningful to those people, and it has relevance to the same struggle. (I mean, right? Isn't it important that while some activists work to help regain a woman's access to the herbs her ancestors used to control when they got pregnant, others teach her how to use a condom? Do you really think those forces are antagonistic?) It doesn't make sense to say that because this group only looks at one part of the entire picture that their point is invalid. You supported my cause by letting me talk to our class about Power Vote, even if consumption is really the root issue behind our carbon emissions. Why not support the GPSO?
Actually, I think you kind of already have. They want to get important people in the movement to "speak out" about population issues, something you are already doing just by bringing this issue up in our class. To join them, all you have to do now is say you'll do it again in February.
To avert the crisis ahead of us, everyone in the movement will have to work together. It doesn't make sense to tear apart the work others are doing towards the same goal. Engage in discussion with them if you take issue with the way they word things. But if you really want to address huge issues like capitalism, work to build a coalition with others trying to heal the world. We will need everyone.
Student Response Posted Nov 2, 2008 8:43 PM
I have been reading, rereading, and forming a response to this post for the last 2 hours. My complete reply is not done yet. It will be within the week. I need to receive clarifications for certain concepts beforehand. For the time being, I would like to state that I believe that capitalism is not the "problem", is not the source for environmental degradation.
The mere statement "the greatest threat to our planet is capitalism" is a disturbing one because it seems to disregard the standards capitalism sets of humans to be able to carry out their work. Mainly, the idea that a government should not interfere with a persons ability or desire to produce and create because it has no right to. (Ayn Rand, anyone? I'll come back to this later.)
Do not regard this as the statement, "people can take take take from the environment and disregard their place as humans in a biosphere- whoopie free market, AKA the opportunity to destroy!"
I do not view capitalism as an invisible hand, a blank check for any aspect (resource) on the planet. This, I believe, is why we disagree on the issue. I understand capitalism as the opportunity to do your work, without restriction, for the betterment of something you feel strongly about. With such an understanding, you can perhaps see why the blatant condemnation of capitalism struck me as inhuman.
Capitalism can work, and optimally, but not in a world in which people gain for the sake of gaining (mindlessly, without the will of creating something they believe to be truly good).
I will be more comprehensive, but I felt I needed to state that for the time being.
Professor Peña, if you have been inspired to teach myself and the class something about capitalism that I am discounting, please state it. I want to understand the issue entirely, but I think our base definition of capitalism, and therefore our understanding of its capabilities to aid the planet, do not match.
Student Response Posted Nov 3, 2008 12:33 AM
I understand [directed to student making previous post] that you are not finished with your entire position on the important issue Dr. Peña has put in center stage. I need some clarification to your statements above,
On 11/02/2008 8:43 PM --- said:
Do not regard this as the statement, "people can take take take from the environment and disregard their place as humans in a biosphere- whoopie free market, AKA the opportunity to destroy!"
I do not view capitalism as an invisible hand, a blank check for any aspect (resource) on the planet. This, I believe, is why we disagree on the issue. I understand capitalism as the opportunity to do your work, without restriction, for the betterment of something you feel strongly about.
I find it very interesting that you had to qualify your argument for capitalism with the first quote above. Why did you include that? From my perspective, take, take, take is exactly what a profit driven society resorts to. Your first statement above is precisely how Western economic ideology has played itself out. Also, what do you mean by humans and their place in the biosphere?
That sounds to me like some type of hierarchy you must have in mind and that type of prioritization or discrete categorization is the mindset that serves to separate, on some level, humans from their environment.
Last but not least, and I hope you expand on this idea later (I am looking forward to your next post as it sounds like it will be very thoughtful), but with respect to your second paragraph as quoted above, your word choice reflects the hyper-individualism capitalism encourages. Society today is so far removed from the "good for the group as a whole" mentality that what an individual believes strongly in is not automatically noble or altruristic in fact you use the term "something" and that is where it lies today - in things/goods/products/commodities.
Do you feel that restrictions are not warranted even at this stage in the game? Who lives without restrictions? Even in nature there are restrictions. Are you a god fearing person? The idea of uninhibited action would negate any and all forms of religion which serve as a guide to acceptable human behavior. I just want to understand where you are coming from, please help.
Professor Peña's Response Posted Nov 3, 2008 9:01 AM
These are all fascinating and very thoughtful, serious-minded responses. I commend all of you for the seriousness with which you have approached this post on overpopulation and capitalism.
--- is correct that I do think population is an issue, but it is not the singular issue and cannot be resolved one way or the other without accounting for the role of capitalism. The example of London, Madrid, and Teonchtitlan/Tlatelolco is a very instructive one that none of you mentioned. It is instructive because it demonstrates that the carrying capacity of the earth is "plastic," i.e., can increase or decrease depending not so much on the size of the population as on what and how much the population is consuming, how it produces these articles of consumption, how those are distributed, and how the culture views the human relationship with the environment.
In a world that makes food sovereignty a human right, which entails deconstructing all the CAFOs, de-commodifying food, and turning toward the limits of our own foodsheds and eating locally and seasonally, we can indeed sustain a population of at least 10-15 billion according to most scientific estimates I have read about. So, in this strict sense of the ratio of calories available to humans that must be nourished, we are not anywhere near the carrying capacity of the Earth. This however requires a radical cultural shift away from our omnivorous and heavily carnivorous diet in the cities and toward one based on vegetables, fruits, and grains. Urban agriculture is another factor that must be considered and expanded. Cities can produce a lot more food than is currently the case; imagine converting all the football stadiums and fields into urban gardens, and doing the same with open spaces and indeed planned subdivisions. Or, imagine rooftop and terraced gardens like those that characterized the Aztec twin cities. Indeed, some scientists estimate that cities can become almost self-reliant if we reorganize our priorities and shift land from real estate to real food production.
This last idea is the reason we have to reconsider capitalism: as long as land is treated as just another commodity (a thing with a price up for sale to the highest bidder), we will not be able to transform our urban areas into sustainable gardens.
In response to ---, I start by re-quoting a part of her post:
"The mere statement "the greatest threat to our planet is capitalism" is a disturbing one because it seems to disregard the standards capitalism sets of humans to be able to carry out their work. Mainly, the idea that a government should not interfere with a persons ability or desire to produce and create because it has no right to. (Ayn Rand, anyone? I'll come back to this later.)"
Of course the statement is disturbing, I meant for it to be provocative because we are so far down this road of free market fundamentalism that only radical ideas and challenges can wake us up from this mass-induced slumber party. When you state that I am disregarding "the standards capitalism set," I wonder: who set the standards? Did we get to vote on it? Was it democratically determined that capitalism was the only and the best way to organize our economic activities? Whose standards are you talking about? Certainly not the standards embraced by indigenous peoples everywhere I would venture to say with confidence. So, this type of thinking preempts the opposition by "naturalizing" capitalism (read Karl Marx's Grundrisse for a brilliant critique of the idea held by neoclassical and neoliberal economists that capitalism is the most natural form of organizing production).
As for the second part of ---'s statement regarding government interference in the "free" market and Ayn Rand and all that:
Capitalism constantly requires state intervention to survive, and that IS part of the problem. Helena Norberg-Hodge, in her brilliant book, Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, notes that there is no such thing as free trade. So-called free markets depend heavily on governmental subsidies: agricultural subsidies in the USA are a yearly multi-billion dollar affair and much of this goes to corporations that don't even produce an ounce of food! Trade subsidies come in many forms including the state investments in roads, highways, bridges, port facilities, electrical power transmission lines, etc., all of which are necessary for international capitalist trade to occur. If it were a free market, then corporations would have to build their own sea ports, airports, bridges, and other transportation infrastructure; this amounts to a multi-trillion dollar state subsidy for capitalism.
If it were a free market, then corporations would have to pay for pollution clean-up, right? But they don't, the taxpayers, the state, pick up the costs of the so-called "negative externalities" of capitalism. Only there are no such things as externalities, there is only an avoidance of a full cost accounting of the social, environmental, and human costs of private investment decisions.
Another huge subsidy is education: Without educated, trained and skilled workers, paid for by taxpayers, how can corporations function and compete? Indeed, one of the interesting issues in the current presidential campaign is the idea that the government needs to invest more in science, math, and engineering education because the US is losing its advantage and this reduces the ability for the country to remain innovative and competitive. Of course, part of the reason education is so problematic is that it also indoctrinates our students to be obedient and to embrace with blind faith the ideology of free market fundamentalism.
I could go on but the point is well established and that is: without government subsidies capitalism goes kaput. ---, are you saying it is OK for the government to interfere with subsidies but not with regulations? How is that fair?
I was amazed by Allan Greenspan's testimony before Congress a week ago when he admitted that his model was flawed. How nice for the rest of us who are now losing our homes that he got to bet on our futures based on a flawed model. What was his model? It was Ayn Rand's model based on the ideology of hyper-individualist freedom to invest, divest, and make a profit without the weighty constraints of social obligations, environmental cost-accounting, and the evil of equality.
So, yes, I have read Ayn Rand, and must say it is one of the most destructive set of ideas ever championed in the name of freedom. Freedom to exploit? Dominate? Freedom to be free of any sense of responsibility for others? This is why later in the quarter I will lecture on Michael Taylor's brilliant critique of "rational choice theory" (Rand was as objectivist variant of RCT) which concludes that the rationality of the free market capitalists is not a science but an ideology of disconnection, an ideology as old as the Hobbesian nightmare; it is a spent ideology that can only remain dominant through coercion, violence, war, and the suppression of diversity. It can only remain dominant because, as General and President Eisenhower warned, it is embedded in the most corrupt set of institutions ever created - the iron triangle of the military-congressional-industrial complex.
My sense is that the only way through this crisis is a radical restructuring of our institutions that includes what ecofeminists call "economic conversion" away from our defense-based economy toward one that produces homes, health care, food, and other basic human necessities instead of weapons of mass destruction. Did you all know that $1 million invested in producing F-16As nets you half a job while a $1 million investment in housing or health care can create 100 jobs? The math is simple; the politics obstructing us not so simple.
Finally, a further historical note about government intervention in so-called free markets: The Great Depression was an over-production/under-consumption crisis caused by the same speculative greed that has led us into the current crisis. It has often been noted that FDR's New Deal "saved capitalism from the capitalists." And so here we are again facing a new crisis, one that is in many ways quite different from the Great Depression because we have had both (largely outsourced) over-production and over-consumption financed by credit-card and other forms of private and public debt. However, the crisis is occurring in the "realization phase of profit," rather than in the sphere of production itself. The current crisis was largely a result of "Randian" ideologies of de-regulation (even Greenspan understands that you can't count on the greedy self-interest of free individuals to prevent the speculative investments that drove this collapsing bubble). There are new "exotic" financial instruments like "Collateralized Debt Obligations" (CDOs) and the even more nefarious "Credit Default Swaps" (CDSs) that do not involve producing anything and are instead pretty much like a gambling bet: CDSs basically are bets that a corporate or government bond will default on its interest payments or dividends. We have seen Wall Steet invent a whole new set of exotic instruments that are completely unregulated and basically involve the bizarre notion that we can make money by "commodifying risk." Woah! How is that for science?
Student Response Posted Nov 3, 2008 7:18 PM
Professor Peña, I an hoping to speak to you about your post and my understanding of capitalism when I meet with you this week, for the time being I have chosen to respond to the questions that may give some background to my reasoning:
---, I included the quote for 3 reasons I can count:
First, because I saw it as the counter-argument I was beginning to refute. Professor Peña stated, in his first post, “To exist, capitalism cannot accept limits to growth; capital must constantly expand its production and hence consumption; it must break down barriers to expand markets and access to natural resources for raw materials and exploitable sources of labor. Since capitalism is inherently expansionist it eventually and inevitably must degrade the environment”. I found fault with that statement, because it referred to capitalism as a cancer, when my own understanding of capitalism is that it is, fundamentally, a system which protects the ability of people to carry out their work without unnecessary regulation.
Second, I wanted to begin the explanation that people carrying out their work (in a capitalist system) does not cause destruction of nature (again, capitalism does not mean cancer).
Thirdly, because I referred to ideas Ayn Rand held regarding capitalism, I expected arguments against her ideas, and that somehow, she provides a model of a hyper individualist, greedy, profit-driven system which leads to the freedom to destroy (exploit) nature. I do not find such a definition applicable to her philosophy; I think it demonizes the principles she held (about people not being smacked down by a government that limits their ability to work and create) and then wrongly associates those principles with the current situation of the planet (environmentally, economically).
To put more simply, capitalism in itself is not the cause for the destruction of the environment. Something else is at work here, and I think you actually mentioned a part of what it is:
“From my perspective, take, take, take is exactly what a profit driven society resorts to.”
You said, a profit-driven society. If you were to add a word and say “a mindlessly profit-driven society”, I would agree with you. I think that a mindlessly profit-driven society is indeed a problem. That’s not capitalism. Capitalism requires a demand, and a supply. It requires that something is created for the betterment of a society.
I find it funny that people who argue against Ayn Rand often go back to, “Freedom to be free of any sense of responsibility for others” (as Professor Peña does in his second post) when the entire system of capitalism is based on what people need, and other people working to make it available. How is that a “model based on the ideology of hyper-individualist freedom to invest, divest, and make a profit without the weighty constraints of social obligations, environmental cost-accounting, and the evil of equality.” ?
The quality of capitalism I understand to be most appealing is that it allows people with good ideas, working with other people with good ideas, to go out and accomplish a task. To do certain work, the product of which is valuable to everyone.
Yes, these people make profit. Because they are bettering life for others. For themselves. For future people with good ideas. You see why I see capitalism as an extremely productive, collaborative effort of individuals bettering the planet?
Destruction of the planet has nothing to do with it. Perhaps it is the mindlessly profit-seeking maneuvers of certain people (corporations or other humans) which resembles cancer. Perhaps it is that which prompts exploitation of nature, and the exploitation of indigenous knowledge. Profit, for the sake of profit. With no regard to what is truly valuable or why it would be.
That is not what Ayn Rand, or capitalism, stands for. I cannot see how the work of intellectual people striving for better would throw the planet to shit. With that logic, capitalism is not at fault here.
---, to continue responding, you wrote: “your word choice reflects the hyper-individualism capatilism encourages. Society today is so far removed from the "good for the group as a whole" mentality that what an individual believes strongly in is not automatically noble or alturistic in fact you use the term "something" and that is where it lies today - in things/goods/products/commodities.”
First, let me address this reflection of hyper-individualism that capitalism encourages you find in my word choice. My word choice is probably the product of my beliefs that individuals do indeed have a right and need to find that which drives them, and then contribute it to the world. So yes, capitalism encourages this individualism (as I have explained in previous paragraphs).
Then you note my use of “something”. It is funny really, because I did not mean it as things/goods/products/commodities, as you mentioned. When writing, and now after rereading those words, I meant it as an idea.
“for the betterment of something you feel strongly about” - for the betterment of that which you find wrong or inadequate with/in this world.
As for “ Society today is so far removed from the "good for the group as a whole" mentality that what an individual believes strongly in is not automatically noble or altruistic”
...it just seems odd to me that you infer that what an individual believes strongly should be automatically noble or altruistic. You do not state that a problem of society is that what an individual believes strongly in is not backed by any rational thought or education. Any real understanding.
If you ask what “good of the group as a whole” requires - I think the answer is well defined individual pieces of the puzzle to fit into that whole. It does not require mindless altruism for the sake of altruism.
About your last set of questions...
---Do you feel that restrictions are not warranted even at this stage in the game? Who lives without restrictions?
You would have to agree that “restrictions” is a very very vague term. What stage of what game. I would say that people who do not see restrictions live without restrictions?
---Even in nature there are restrictions.
What do you mean by that and what is it tied to.
---Are you a God-fearing person?
After giving some thought to this, my answer is no. It is true that I feel uncomfortable about blind belief in God. As well as blind disbelief in God. I do profess that the question came a bit out of left field. If you’re in my quiz section (or not), we could certainly talk about this some time.
---The idea of uninhibited action would negate any and all forms of religion which serve as a guide to acceptable human behavior.
Acceptable human behavior? Acceptable? Human behavior? Its convenient that you didn’t ask a question tied to that statement. Saves me 5 hours.
"Also, what do you mean by humans and their place in the biosphere?"
That sounds to me like some type of hierarchy you must have in mind and that type of prioritization or discrete categorization is the mindset that serves to separate, on some level, humans from their environment."
Your question throws me off honestly because I don't see the connection of my thoughts and what you thought I meant by them. By disregarding a human's place in the biosphere, I meant disregarding their responsibility to their place (and their people, and themselves). I meant an individuals place among (within?) their surroundings. The duty people have to live... righteously.
Professor Peña's Response Posted Nov 3, 2008 8:53 PM
Dear ---:
Thank you for the great effort and thoughtfulness you have put into these last two posts which are a defense of your concept of capitalism and of Ayn Rand's objectivist philosophy of rationality. I will focus my comments on two components of your post that seem crucial to your argument:
First, is the idea that " the entire system of capitalism is based on what people need, and other people working to make it available." There is a bit of truth in this statement but I suspect it is not the one you intended. It is true that capitalism is based on "other people working to make it available," but the problem is that the only people really working are the workers, and not the managers or owners. The owners/managers could be said to work at controlling and directing the workers but it is the workers that actually perform the labor in the production process. Capitalists by definition must force (I do mean force since the commodification of labor imposes labor as a compulsory activity if the workers are to gain access to the means of their subsistence and reproduction) "other people" to work for them. Therein lies the problem: workers work, capitalists profit. A simplification of the problem but one that holds true no matter where you are. Incidentally, I am a proponent of worker ownership and self-management of the process of production. This is what social scientists call "workplace democracy."
The other part of the argument, that "capitalism is based on what people need," is equally problematic. Who defines need? How do needs come into being? Do we really need 10,000 different varieties of patent leather shoes including the $5000 Manolo Blahniks celebrated in "Sex in the City"? Or would only a few well-crafted varieties suffice in the interest of protecting our ecosystems and ourselves from the ill-effects of rampant consumerism? You will object and state that consumer choice is a basic freedom. I suggest that this type of freedom of choice is banal, trivial, and ultimately meaningless.
We must therefore first understand that under capitalism "needs" are largely "manufactured," and that is why most corporations must invest billions a year in advertisements using every trick in the psychology of consumer behavior that they can manipulate to get the consumer to believe that, by God, I must purchase a new Hummer every year or I cannot keep up with Arnold Schwarzenegger!
So, before we can argue that capitalism fulfills human needs, we might do well to consider what needs are. And that is part of the problem: capitalism creates needs that are simply not necessary to our well-being and indeed are harmful, destructive, and debasing of humans and the environment. Do we need pornography? 8000 to 10,000 square foot McMansions? All the little gadgets sold by Ronco on late-night TV ads that break down the second time you use them? Do we need a health care system that places profits above health? Do we really need to have a thousand varieties of toothpaste just so that China can export them tainted with melamine or the other poisons that fake the protein content of milk and kill thousands of unsuspecting consumers?
Apparently, in Ayn Rand's world, we do need all these little gadgets and commodities since it is the realization of her ideology that "selfishness is a virtue." The objectivist diatribes of Ayn Rand are an ideology, not a science, and not really even a philosophy since the logic is so utterly flawed on the basis of its presumed universality. I believe one of the most important lessons you all can derive from this class is to understand that selfishness is not a virtue and it is indeed a maladaptive evolutionary response to stress. Too many cultures in the world, most of the ones we are learning about in this class, value cooperation as much if not more than competition. But Rand would have you forget this diversity and accept the triumph of the Western culture's obsession with acquisitiveness and materialism as if these are universal values. Sorry, ghost of Ayn, they are not universal values but culturally specific ones that require the backing of military prowess to defend and impose across the globe.
I will reiterate a recommended reading: Michael Taylor's book, Rationality and the Ideology of Disconnection. In this fine little masterpiece, Taylor demonstrates how rational choice theorists (including the objectivist strand) believe not just in making selfishness a virtue but in elevating it to the status of universal condition of human existence. And yet, evolutionary biologists have demonstrated numerous times that cooperation, not competition, is the key to the survival of the species. The problem with ideologues like Ayn Rand and her minions is that they have elevated their culturally and social class-specific values to the status of immutable, objective natural law. I consider this nothing less than a form of behavioral totalitarianism; kind of odd for a crowd that believes only in the absolute freedom of the individual, unless of course that individual is a worker trying to organize a union to defend the rights of workers against their ever ruthless bosses!
Student Response Posted Nov 4, 2008 10:30 PM
Professor Peña, I do have some points I want to address regarding your response to the 2 components you identified in my post.
Beginning from the second paragraph, you write:
“The other part of the argument, that "capitalism is based on what people need," is equally problematic. Who defines need? How do needs come into being? Do we really need 10,000 different varieties of patent leather shoes including the $5000 Manolo Blahniks celebrated in "Sex in the City"? Or would only a few well-crafted varieties suffice in the interest of protecting our ecosystems and ourselves from the ill-effects of rampant consumerism? You will object and state that consumer choice is a basic freedom. I suggest that this type of freedom of choice is banal, trivial, and ultimately meaningless.”
My objection is not that consumer choice is a basic freedom. I am not an advocate of “rampant consumerism”, nor an advocate of the principle that we need 10,000 varieties of crap (any crap, in any color!). What I hope my argument has demonstrated thus far, is that I am looking to identify a system that promotes the efficient process of producing and making available what people need (without unwarranted restrictions by the government, in order to protect freedoms I believe people have, which I’ve mentioned in earlier posts).
I am wondering if capitalism is the right system.
You have so far argued that capitalism is not the ideal system for people to live sustainably (for a variety of reasons). In fact, you have brought up a sort of golden nugget. You stated: “I am a proponent of worker ownership and self-management of the process of production. This is what social scientists call "workplace democracy." You suggest that this system does not have the qualities of capitalism which you find fault with.
[I still do not understand how “Capitalists by definition must force ‘other people’ to work for them- and, “workers work, capitalists profit”- I must not be reading the same definitions or making all the connections you are. This I hope to get answered very soon, aka tomorrow]
So this “workplace democracy” is interesting to me. I would like to hear an explanation of how it bypasses the evils of capitalism which you have identified.
HOWEVER. Your argument against capitalism is not squeaky clean to me for another reason:
“We must therefore first understand that under capitalism "needs" are largely "manufactured," and that is why most corporations must invest billions a year in advertisements using every trick in the psychology of consumer behavior that they can manipulate to get the consumer to believe that, by God, I must purchase a new Hummer every year or I cannot keep up with Arnold Schwarzenegger!”
So, before we can argue that capitalism fulfills human needs, we might do well to consider what needs are. And that is part of the problem: capitalism creates needs that are simply not necessary to our well-being and indeed are harmful, destructive, and debasing of humans and the environment...?”
To go all rhetorical analysis on you - first you say that under capitalism needs are manufactured [by someone, is implied, is it not?] hen you say that capitalism creates these needs.
How can a system create needs? I would agree and say that under capitalism, certain people have manipulated others desires and produced thousands of varieties of things unneeded.
I would not venture to say that capitalism, as a system, has indeed single-handedly created these needs and the problems you associate with them (gain gain gain, destroy destroy destroy, for the sake of profit and profit only, yielding an unsustainable way of living).
My point/question is this: is it really capitalism which creates these needs, or is it people who manipulate others (and the environment) for the sake of profit, and steer progress (which I argue, is what capitalism promotes) in the wrong direction, with complete disregard to their responsibility as ...humans? If in fact, it is not capitalism, but other factors that are more traceable in contributing to an unsustainable way of living... I say we address those.
Also, Professor Peña, "Apparently, in Ayn Rand's world, we do need all these little gadgets and commodities since it is the realization of her ideology that "selfishness is a virtue."
I would argue heatedly that these "little gadgets and commodities" are not the realization of her ideology. Would you be able to see the logic within the idea that these "little gadgets and commodities" are exactly the useless societal nuances (for extreme lack of a better term- forgive me) she condemns? Through reading, I found that she advocated capitalism and the successful role of the individual in such a system, not mindless creation of things with no real value. Also, I do not wish to disregard your question of who defines needs and how needs come into being.
To put shortly... I think it is important to recognize that in any society, it seems that when basic "needs" are taken care of (food, shelter, some sort of energy supply perhaps), people move to satisfying their wants.
Now who defines wants is equally, if not even more interesting. I think we can all agree that needs are an overall shorter list than wants. A system which works to satisfy the wants of people can indeed get harder to keep track of (intro capitalism...?)
I am going to cut short- because I need to get off this blog thing and go eat something, but.
If we were to expand to the discussion of who defines want and how want comes into being (in regards to society and systems like capitalism)... well that would simply blow the lid off whatever we've begun!
Professor Peña's Response Posted Nov 5, 2008 1:57 PM
--- is demonstrating a thoughtful and provocative engagement with discourse that I wish more students would emulate. Thanks ---. I will this time not so much reply to several issues, really points of clarification, that you raise in the most recent posting. Instead, I will play Socrates and ask you to clarify, define, and critically reconsider undefined concepts and then to challenge for yourself those undefined concepts:
You state:
"I am looking to identify a system that promotes the efficient process of producing and making available what people need (without unwarranted restrictions by the government, in order to protect freedoms I believe people have, which I’ve mentioned in earlier posts)."
Several points about this paragraph that need to be clarified and/or defined:
1. What is efficiency? How is it defined? Who defines it? Same problem as with "needs." The dominant definition of efficiency is capitalist and western. Efficiency is usually defined as the fastest and least expensive way to produce as many things as possible and get these to market as fast as possible. This is the standard definition of efficiency you'll find in most business management textbooks. Efficiency is also often defined in terms of growing specialization in a deskilled labor market with a high division of labor. Efficiency is sometimes defined as mechanical effectiveness. What is the concept of efficiency that you have in mind and why would capitalism be the system that best meets this efficiency demand?
2. What are "unwarranted restrictions by the government"? How do we define what is warranted and unwarranted in the problematic of state regulation of private markets? Is there only one definition? Is it the same all of the time and everywhere? Or, are there perhaps historical (temporal) and place-bound (spatial) variations in what is required to prevent or mitigate the effects of capitalism?
3. And finally, for now, since we don't seem to agree on a definition of capitalism itself, I ask you to define it. What is capitalism? Where does your definition come from? Is it a definition related to a particular set of ideologies? How is your definition of capitalism to be considered in terms of the Foucaultian "games of truth" that is the power/knowledge discourse regime?
If you can answer these questions and define these concepts clearly and unambiguously then I will feel comfortable with an extension of our discussion...
