Incompatibility of capitalism and environmental sustainability

Incompatibility of capitalism and environmental sustainability
Introduction
Capitalism is the dominant economic policy in most of the developed world. In the United States, policymakers hail capitalism is the ultimate solution to most of the world’s socioeconomic problems, such as poverty reduction, education access, and healthcare affordability (Cahen-Fourot, 2020). Most European nations, including the United Kingdom and most of the EU members, tend to adopt similar arguments with minor caveats. However, policymakers often ignore its potential adverse effects on the environment. Capitalism refers to an economic system characterised by infinite production and consumption (Schweickart, 2010).
On the other hand, environmental sustainability encompasses the efficient use of resources, promoting green measures in production and effective waste management systems. Since capitalists prioritise profit maximisation, they want to minimise their costs of production. As such, they are less likely to invest in expensive environment sustainability measures with no immediate economic benefits (Magdoff, 2011). From this perspective, it is evident that environmental sustainability and pure capitalism are incompatible. Therefore, this essay evaluates various elements of capitalism that makes it incompatible with ecological sustainability. The paper also examines whether there are capitalistic actions that can make it compatible with environmental sustainability.
Discussion
Capitalism involves private ownership of capital goods and property. In a capitalistic economic system, market demand and supply forces determine the quantity and quality of goods and services produced and consumers. In free-market capitalism, private firms or consumers’ are unrestrained (Bell, 2015). These actions determine investment, production and purchase decisions. Today, most capitalism leaning nations, especially the UK and EU, exert controls on what the firm or the consumer, can do (Schweickart, 2010). This has led to a mixed capitalist economic system. Government regulations determine ownership of the business, production processes and consumption activities.  Capitalism proponents claim that it is the most efficient economic system to improve living standards and eradicate poverty. However, critics like Cahen-Fourot (2020) linked capitalism to socioeconomic inequalities, market failures, environment damages, short-termism, materialistic culture, unpredictable economic cycles of booms and busts. Magdoff (2011) explained that capitalism leads to over-production and over-consumption of goods that adversely impact the environment. Overproduction is associated with pollution, loss of biodiversity and shifting economic costs to future generations.
Overproduction and over-consumption linked to capitalistic economic systems negatively impact environmental sustainability. Environmental sustainability encompasses the protection and maintenance of environmental resources for future generations (Schweickart, 2010). Environmental sustainability improves the quality of human life as it has the capacity to preserve the earth’s supporting ecosystems. It stabilises the relationship between the living world and human culture. Environmental sustainability involves ensuring the long-term health of the ecosystem, inter-generational decision-making, and diversification of energy sources to include renewable resources. Environmental sustainability encompasses prevention of the consequences of artificial global warming, protection of biodiversity and fair treatment of ecological resources. In contrastingly, the dominant capitalist economic system focuses on the present and short-term economic utility (Bell, 2015).
Environmental collapse is a product of the capitalist de- and re-territorialisation process. This process encompasses organisation and nurture of social, economic and cultural relationships around capitalist ideals and practices. As a result, economic interests are the main drivers of the human relationship with nature. From this perspective, Magdoff (2011) explained that humans view nature as a source of economic resources and thus an essential component of their profit-maximisation motives. The capitalist construction of nature-human relationship shifted power relations towards humans. Consistent with this argument, Bell (2015) suggested a direct connection between capitalism and the environment. The study identified the dialectical relationship between society and nature from the link between capitalist production and ecosystems.
Another challenge to environmental sustainability in a capitalist economic system is the internalisation of externalities. Externalities such as production are high costs that are often transferred to workers in lower wages while others are transferred to society (Cahen-Fourot, 2020). Environmentally sustainable means of production implies that the firm must internalise a significant proportion of the externality costs. Vlachou (2004) argued that most producers would oppose initiatives that internalise the environmental costs of productions. Internalisation of externality costs could significantly reduce firm profits.
Furthermore, it is doubtful the political elites would implement sufficient restrictions capable of considerably reducing negative environmental externalities. Besides, classical economists like Adam Smith and David Ricardo argued that firm and consumer decision making should emphasise utility maximisation and cost minimisation. The economic system vouches to exploit the natural environment for human benefits (Vlachou, 2004). These arguments led to the emergence of capitalism, an economic system with little regard for long-term environmental sustainability, resulting in considerable environmental damages such as pollution.
In a capitalist system, firms consider nature as a repository for their wastes, creating negative externalities. Nature is regarded as an immediate production condition. This makes it impossible to achieve environmentally sustainable means of production. In line with this argument, studies stated that environmental problems like resource depletion and pollution arise due to capitalists’ appetite for natural environment appropriation. However, Vlachou (2004) argued a case for environmental regulations from a capitalistic perspective. In his argument, he observed that excessive appropriation of the environment negatively impacts the capital’s productivity—a decline in capital productivity results in an increase in production costs for the capitalists. In turn, capitalists impose pollution costs on the workers in the form of a reduction in wages. Therefore, pollution only benefits the producer but harms the entire society, including its employees. Capitalist-oriented mass production resulted in ecological crises and climate change. Foster (2002) considered climate change to be an outcome of greenhouse gas emissions. The rapid acceleration of climate change is currently changing the earth system as natural environments and habitats are destroyed.
The essential features of capitalism include profit prioritisation, labour exploitation, intensive or mass production and environmental exploitation. These features mean that an effective capitalist economic system is most likely to result in an ecological catastrophe. Vanheule (2016) described capitalism as ‘production for the sake of production’. This type of production leads to overexploitation of human labour and the environment resulting in worldwide pollution and worsening of its health. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from human activities are responsible for the current global warming trends. Vlachou (2004)      linked the rapid rise in GHG emissions from factors to rising sea levels and loss of tropical forests. Global warming continues to destroy coral reefs, thus killing several sea species. Vanheule (2016) indicated that firms and individuals were clearing global tropical forests for a for-profit motive. Agribusiness practices result in soil destructions, while toxic wastes often diffuse into the environment. Nitrogen from fertilisers and other harmful substances used in agriculture usually flow into rivers, lakes and oceans, resulting in reduced oxygen levels in these water bodies.
Capitalism driven urbanisation and socio-ecological developments are the main drivers of adverse modifications to the environment. Swyngedouw (2018) showed that these trends are associated with pollution, soil erosion, biodiversity loss, soil erosion and deforestation. Capitalism led to the commodification of the environment.  It is a significant threat to water availability, land resources and glaciers. Productive activities are degrading lands, melting glaciers and increasing global carbon emissions. According to Swyngedouw (2018), climate change, specie extinctions and habitat depletion are intertwined with capitalism’s history. For instance, during the 16th century, the South American and Caribbean were cleared and modified to support large-scale sugarcane production. Availability of cheap labour and free nature facilitated this ecosystem destruction.
Furthermore, capitalists considered nature in these new lands to be freely available. Activities such as fracking and extreme drillings considerably impact natural resources (Foster, 2002). For instance, these activities support violent land expropriation and uncontrolled exploitation of naturally existing raw materials.
The Industrial Revolution transformed human lives as it combined human ingenuity with the massive abundance of natural resources (Sklair, 2006). During the time, firms and enterprising entrepreneurs could cheaply access air, water, metals, soil, and hydrocarbons such as coal, thus enjoying a low production cost. These firms only incurred the cost of extraction. There was little concern about environmental sustainability as the air, biodiversity, and forests were still untouched. As these resources become scarce, the need to act responsibly and sustainably also increased (Daly, 1995). More recently, economic activities have made the environment fragile due to progressive degradation and self-reinforcing collapse.
Today, capitalism has infiltrated normative discourses. Capitalists are discussion on how to maximise profits while acting ethically and using resources sustainably. Capitalist businesses are adapting the sustainability idea to sustainable, profitable accumulation processes (Jorgenson, 2003). Companies are investing in ecotourism, creating new sources of capital accumulation and preserving nature as part of their sustainability strategies. Sustainability has become a central pillar of socioeconomic polarisation and consumerism. During the industrial revolution, capitalist-oriented urbanisation processes led to socioeconomic polarisation. Socioeconomic polarisation resulted in elitist neighbourhoods and areas.  Another impact of socioeconomic polarisation was the emergence of socially and ecological deteriorating settings and increased urban poverty.  The Global North’s capitalist metropolis became centres of poverty and socioeconomic marginalisation (Foster, 2002). Besides, capitalists encourage people to consume as much as possible, leading to capital accumulation and profits for the elite at the expense of the poor and the natural environment (Harvey, 2016). Technological advancements and specialisation mean that firms can significantly increase their output over a specified period. Mass production has become one of the main threats to the natural environment. For instance, mass production often leads to the exploitation of natural resources at a much faster rate. On economic sustainability, mass production has led to a considerable increase in wealth inequalities (Beckerman, 1994).
The capitalist revolution that began during the industrial revolution continues to deplete the world’s natural resources without any solution in sight. Industries are using the world’s non-renewable resources, raising concerns about the availability of these resources for future generations (Gribben and Fagan, 2016). In the case where renewable resources are used, they are used faster than they can be replenished. Economists also recognise the enormous amounts of wastes associated with mass production. Companies generate waste from the production, packaging, and sale of a commodity (Thomson, 2015). Under capitalism, people serve the economy. People work under conditions and pay rates that encourage mass consumption so that companies can continue producing. Without mass consumption culture, companies will not sustain their appetite to make more and maximise profits. Consistent with this argument, Marx noted a significant negative impact of capitalist development on the environment (Daly, 1995). Marx highlighted that capitalist production disrupted interactions between humans and nature.
Elsewhere, consumerism and modern consumption trends were hindrances to the attainment of environmental sustainability. According to Ben Ruben et al. (2020), the capitalist system facilitated the mass production of multiple goods and services which are affordable and readily available. Due to a wide variety of choices, people’s appetite to consume also increased considerably. As such, consumption patterns have become significant drivers of ecological degradation. Beckerman (1994) explained that the developed world’s consumption patterns influence the national consumption of raw materials and commodities in developing nations. This means the capitalistic tendencies of the developed world can be felt globally. Daly (1995) determined that intensive consumption in the developed world is the overriding cause of ecological degradation in less developed and emerging economies. An ethical and ecologically sound society is the opposite of the capitalistic one. Environmental sustainability can only be achieved by developing a new production culture, and ideology focused on substantive equality. Asada et al (2011) indicated that substantive equality can only be achieved under social ownership instead of private ownership.
Capitalists linked market expansion to the availability of limited natural resources. Due to this argument, the extraction of natural resources has remained the most critical pillar of the capitalist economic system since the industrial revolution (Vrijheid, 2000). Continuous extraction of natural resources for the production of goods resulted in depleting these resources (Patel, 2011).  Despite the depletion, firms continue to pursue a similar approach to production to sustain their activities. Beckerman (1994) indicated that this approach is not only unsustainable ecologically but also economically. Economically, as resources have become scarce, the cost of extraction has increased significantly, leading to reduced profits and even losses in some cases. On the other hand, depletion of natural resources without considerable economic gains fosters severe environmental crises (Martin, 2016). The environmental crisis arises from the fact that firms can exploit natural resources but cannot generate sufficient income to support internalisation of environmental costs.
Capitalists reduced nature to an essential good in the process of production. Capitalists continue to effectively exploit human labour and nature to satisfy their profit motives (Patel, 2011). For instance, capitalists are replacing the naturally-occurring forests with industrial forests, often single species (Martin, 2016). The replacement of naturally occurring forests lead to biodiversity losses, ecological sterility and accelerated harvesting. In this case, trees no longer serve to regulate the ecosystem but have become essential raw material in the capitalist economic system (Ben Ruben et al., 2020). As a result, the new industrial forests are unable to stop the process of environmental degradation.
Like the capitalist revolution, the world needs an ecological revolution to achieve environmental sustainability. Asada et al. (2011) demonstrated that ecological revolution is the last option to save humankind. Asada et al. (2011) described the ecological revolution as a struggle to make peace with the natural world. Ecological revolution encompasses an economic system that satisfies human needs without compromising the natural life support systems. Ecological revolution also includes economic behaviours and actions that respect limited natural resources availability (Patel, 2011). Companies can still meet their commercial obligations in the contemporary business world when they invest in alternative technologies (Martin, 2016). These technologies should prioritise the transformation of the human relationship with nature and society. An ecological revolution aims to ensure that humans return to more organic and sustainable social-ecological relations (Ben Ruben et al., 2020). Modern economic systems should confront climate change and devise social strategies to address the current ecological crisis.
Conclusion
Capitalism is the most dominant economic system in the world. However, it is incompatible with the current concerns regarding environmental sustainability. This paper explored how capitalism was incompatible with ecological sustainability. The report found that capitalism adversely impacted the environment in depressing resources and the destruction of the environment. The mass production of goods since the industrial revolution led to the overexploitation of renewable resources. As a result, firms and individuals have cleared forests and polluted water sources for economic gains. Studies linked overproduction to global warming and climate change.
Furthermore, the consumerism culture means that firms can continue producing goods and services in large quantities as they are assured of ready markets and maximum profits. While there have been attempts to make firms environmentally sustainable, these efforts are yet to yield positive results. Many companies are reluctant to internalise the expensive pollution costs. As such, many studies suggested that the world need an ecological revolution to address environmental issues. The capitalistic economic system’s current design is incapable of leading ecological sustainability due to the contradicting nature of economic and environmental sustainability goals.
 
 
 
 
References
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