Capitalism is the underlying force behind huge industrial impacts on the environment today. One famous Marxist political ecologist who critiques capitalism is Jason Moore, who speaks about the profit motive and competition now seen through capitalism, enforced with violence, which causes an increase in the use of the world’s resources and pollution. Technological advancements of today have caused even greater changes to the planet. For example, the global livestock industry in modern agro-industrialization is guilty of polluting the environment, harming people and animals, and working within the capitalist system.
Marxist political ecology is an analysis of the political-economic factors that drive ecological change and industrial transformations under capitalism, like the drive for capital accumulation and social and environmental exploitation. The capitalist aspect of the profit motive causes an over-accumulation of resources, and has become an integral component of how companies operate today. The drive to accumulate in the early development of capitalist (and nationalist) relations drove Marco Polo to commodify nature in the New World, meaning, attaching it with a desirable and material value. From there, Marco Polo and other explorers were allowed to claim nature as their own, colonize it, and “get rid” of those threatening these endeavors using violence. If one were to question the legalized violence that comes about from capitalist-type relations, they should study modern slavery, for which police were first used to catch runaway slaves.
Indeed, capitalists still push “under-class” people off of their lands on behalf of the drive for profit through privatization. Obidzinski talks about one new privatization initiative and the resulting social implications from the modern palm oil plantations in West Papua, West Kalimantan, and Papua. Unlike before, these plantations now unevenly distributed benefits among workers, signifying a profit motive, exploitation of workers, and an increased rate of extraction from the earth -- things that have been studied to be true in many research initiatives. Many people have lost individual property and have materially suffered from the control on their incomes, and their normal way of lives has been uprooted on behalf of the companies operating in their lands.
The profit-motive incentive of capitalism is one of the main causes of so much environmental degradation. Previously, people normally produced enough for their sustenance and had no need to do more, or it was not plausible considering their tools. Though, one sees a contrast to that even after the beginning of capitalist relations, when the early colonist leaving the harsh material conditions of the Old World used fairly large amounts of land and resources, including human resources from natives, in order to simply subside and/or become competitive in the market economy. Moore discusses that these huge impacts on the earth today are largely due to the use of fossil fuels, which rose substantially around the 1800’s, 200 years after the extraction method had been invented, as capitalist relations caused an increase in its use and therefore detriment to the earth, which was the beginning of the end for the planet.
Transitioning to the particular example of a new industrial transformation is the global livestock industry. One significant environmental issue stemming from this industry is the huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions it releases, accounting for about one-fifth of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. These emissions mainly include carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, and more, making it the largest anthropogenic force. Livestock and manure alone account for far over half of the emissions. Meanwhile, other forms of air pollution from the industry, like hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, airborne particulate matter, volatile organic compounds, and more, pollute the planet more than ever before.
One way in which humans suffer from the huge production of livestock meat is through run-off pollution effects. “Concentrated” animal feeding operations are notorious for aerial pollution of chemicals like ammonia and hydrogen sulfide, and particulate matter, including fecal matter, animal feed, and skin cells. This type of dangerous and varied pollution has brought about a number of intense infections and diseases, including birth defects to those living around the site, lung dysfunctions, and a rise in infant mortality, as noted at one site surroundings to be related to one site’s doubling of its livestock numbers. However, due to a lack of air pollution data available, it is hard to track down specific causes of these effects with complete verification.
With regards to the rights of animals, there is some debate about the standard for livestock rights. Britain has established five key principles to measure the freedom for any livestock: malnutrition, thermal and physical discomfort, injury and disease, fear and stress, and freedom to express the most normal patterns of behavior. In most livestock industries of today, these freedoms are not met by any means, as companies cram as many animals in their lot of property as they can, and spend as little money as possible improving the rights and health of the animals before they die. For example, most pigs in global livestock industries today become mentally crazed in some way or another, and suffer intense physical pain due to their cramped conditions and unnatural growth.
