FREE ESSAY ON HOW CAPITALIST STRUCTURE HAS FAILED US

HOW CAPITALIST STRUCTURE HAS FAILED US

Wealth or Health: How Capitalist Structure has Failed Us
Spring 2001
Market forces, in my belief, have always shaped the relationship between humans and their
environment, and I have found it a daunting task to consider the history of such a long
and complicated relationship. In all truth, market forces can be considered as anything
that drives our means of consumption and our economy as a whole, and from this point of
view, they can be seen as existing in some way since the dawn of time. So, instead of
starting at the beginning, I will instead focus on the relationship between humans and
nature from the start of what I see as the beginning of the end. 
The capitalist economy's history, when viewed in light of mans entire existence, has been
rather short and in that span of time, it has managed to catapult much of the world into
a very new and destructive relationship with the Earths natural resources. While the
changes that capitalism has brought about have been slow to evolve, it is a system that
has deeply altered much more than the marketplace and which has forever changed the
world. In this paper, I intend to demonstrate how the core concepts of the capitalist
economy have lead the world into ecological disaster. 
There are many structures on which capitalism is built and a few of the most core
principles are the ones that are most destructive. The tenets of individualism,
efficiency, profit maximization and consumerism can be found at the heart of many of the
most damaging practices of today's world. Since they are main pillars of the capitalist
marketplace, they are very pervasive and have become widespread, standard practices and
ways of thinking. 
Individualism it is a new development in our social structure and one that has left a
very deep impression. While capitalism did not spring up overnight, the period of it's
development is not relevant to this analysis, so I shall consider capitalism from some
hypothetical starting point. Up until this starting point, the community was the central
unit of sociological structure. Families and communities were tightly knit and gave
support to one another. This type of lifestyle provided an accurate sense about how one
person's actions affect everything around them and the relationship that humans had with
their environment reflected this awareness. Yet, with the rise of capitalism, individuals
and not groups, became the focus. This shift in viewpoint now emphasized the rights of
the person over the rights of the community and set up a sociological structure that
could condone the overuse of natural resources, the contamination of public goods, such
as water, and general disregard for the impacts of ones actions. Communities no longer
had the right to control the environment that they lived in, since that environment was
now owned, and the law now protected the rights of the businessman and the property
owners. 
The capitalistic view of efficiency, which in modern times has involved touting the
benefits of privatization and self-regulation, is another culprit in the devastation of
the world's natural resources. While efficiency in the market may have been intended to
prevent the misuse and overuse of resources, modern corporations have seriously modified
it. They have come to use this tenet to protect their interests and to allow them to
continue, unchecked, behaviors which are detrimental to all living beings. They claim
that their more complete knowledge of the situations at hand empower them to be the best
planners and in the name of efficiency, governments have been allowing businesses to
self-regulate. Even when a problem is so serious as to demand regulation, corporations
have been the authors of the very regulations they are subject to. In The Globalization
of Corporate Culture, Karliner sites how "U.S. corporations also helped write laws that
use a risk assessment formula to make economic consideration the determining factor over
health protection when setting environmental standards…" He also mentions that even
the Business Council for Sustainable Development argues self-regulation as the most
efficient mechanism for change, and promotes the spread of capitalist free-market systems
as the ticket to sustainability in the world. The idea that efficiency can be achieved
through the capitalist economy is so pervasive that even those who claim to be
environmental advocates "…have made the worldwide expansion of resources
extraction, production, marketing and consumption synonymous with sustainable
development." (Karliner) 
Profit maximization, one of the most basic concepts of the capitalist structure, is the
tenet that I see as most harmful. Profit is the reason businesses exist, and I certainly
would not argue a return to a non-industrial society, but the goal of profit-maximization
certainly needs to be rethought. Since the market has little or no capacity to reflect
the true cost of environmental degradation, the maxim of profit maximization inherently
leads to serious environmental damage and loss of human and animal life. Some of the most
recent problems with this maxim involve the activities of the P.R industry as related in
Silencing Spring. As the truth has started to come out about the role corporations play
in the destruction of our environment and calls have been made by the public for repair
and prevention, the focus on profit maximization has led businesses to manipulate the
consumer. Instead of cleaning up their act, businesses have engaged in deceitful P.R
programs which air to change the consumers' image of them, rather than change the
problem. Silencing Spring sites a few examples; "…corporate sponsors form
partnerships…" which lead to the downplaying of potential hazards and the building
of a righteous company image, companies are also co-opting a green image through
affiliations with environmental movements because "such companies are finding that cold
cash will buy them good will from the environmental movement." In addition, "some of the
industrial polluters with the worst records have devised "public education" campaigns
that enable them to placate the public while they continue polluting," (Silent Spring)
through the distribution of free literature and so called education materials to schools
and other community forums, all which distort the truth in order to create a more
positive image for the company. While all these activities require a multi-billion dollar
input of cash annually on the part of the companies, the costs are viewed as more
profit-friendly than the improvements necessary to take corrective and preventative
measures. Thus, profit-maximization has encouraged and allowed corporations to deceive
rather than protect. 
The development of a consumerist society is also a result of capitalism. We now exchange
our labor for money that we use to buy all of our necessities. This has separated us from
the means of production and from realizing the truth about many things. Helga Moss makes
several conclusions about the state of our society because of consumerism and these
things are; she sees herself as "delinked from nature and people as producers of the
things that I use to live" and "the fact is that within the market economy, the people
and ecosystems that contribute…are invisible." This separation has changed our view
of natural resources and the production process, so we have turned to a consumerist
lifestyle. This lifestyle reflects a of lack of knowledge concerning the true nature of
the production process. We keep consuming with reckless abandon because we have no way to
relate our actions to the loss of human life and natural resource degradation. This
separation has also begun to separate us from each other. Sustainable methods of
production and consumption are being overrun by a consumerist attitude, and as a result
our "emphasis on economic growth is tearing apart the very foundation of our societies,
the way we live our everyday lives and develop as human beings."(Moss)
While their can be no argument that capitalism has provided many with a prosperity unlike
that of any other time, there is plenty of room for arguments about the resulting quality
of life. Systems of thought and action that have persisted since the dawn of time are
being destroyed little by little and the result is a disintegration of society and nature
that cannot continue without seriously damaging results.