rethinking the exploitation of nature

7/28/2019 Rethinking the exploitation of Nature

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Byron Lloyd Harmon

Rethinking the exploitation of Nature

Phil 492

May 27th 2013

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the Philosophy Major

We cant solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used

when we created them. Albert Einstein

With thanks to Peter Kiernan, Austin Schock, Prof. Jerry Gray, Prof. Smaldone, Prof. Bowersox, andTrevor Fast.

With love for Eloise Bacher without whom this paper would not have been possible.
http://www.themotorlesscity.com/2011/02/11/we-cant-solve-problems-by-using-the-same-kind-of-thinking-we-used-when-we-created-them/http://www.themotorlesscity.com/2011/02/11/we-cant-solve-problems-by-using-the-same-kind-of-thinking-we-used-when-we-created-them/http://www.themotorlesscity.com/2011/02/11/we-cant-solve-problems-by-using-the-same-kind-of-thinking-we-used-when-we-created-them/http://www.themotorlesscity.com/2011/02/11/we-cant-solve-problems-by-using-the-same-kind-of-thinking-we-used-when-we-created-them/


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Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................. 2

The Analogy................................................................................................................................................... 2

Redefining Production .................................................................................................................................. 6

What Kind of Nature is Required ................................................................................................................ 10

Redefining compensation ........................................................................................................................... 15

Conclusion ................................................................................................................................................... 18

Introduction

Globally we extract far more from nature than we give back. Natures production is

exploited in a manner comparable to the industrial proletariat with none of the benefits returning.

While environmental destruction has been common throughout capitalisms brief history, the

immediacy of the problem is ever more pressing. Unfortunately the gravity of the situation is not

self-evident to all. Even excluding climbing CO2 output, the exponential extractive capabilities

of capitalism pit it in conflict with a finite planet. The evidence of environmental degradation is

overwhelming both emotionally and in empirical weight. It suggests that the current way of

thinking will not solve the problem. I propose an alternative understanding of man and natures

economic behavior through an analogy with Marxs labor theory of value. I will examine the

foundational philosophical changes and considerations that would allow for such an analogy.

The Analogy

The analogy that I will beputting forward works by building off of Marxs Labor theory

of value; consequently I will begin with a discussion of Marxs labor theory of value and then


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proceed to build up the analogy alongside the labor theory of value. It will be prudent to begin

with the commodity. For Marx a commodity is a good that is produced because of its exchange

value. That is, in a commodity producing society we might imagine that if I were a barrel maker,

I would produce barrels not because they have direct use value to myself (though they may) but

because I can exchange the barrels for money which I can then exchange for goods which have a

use-value to me. In this series of exchanges, if all items are exchanged at their market value then

no added value is created as the first good has the same exchange value as the end goods. Marx

claims that capitalism turns this basic commodity economy on its head. Rather than proceeding

commodity-> money -> commodity (C-M-C) a capitalist begins with money, buys a commodity,

mixes this commodity with labor in the productive process, and then sells the resulting

commodity for a larger sum of money (M-C-P-C-M.) It is in this productive process that

human labor power is added to commodities in order to produce a commodity of even greater

value. We might imagine that a pencil has a greater exchange-value than its constituent parts and

this difference in value comes out of the human labor power that is embodied in the new pencil.

For Marx the exchange-value of a commodity equals the labor power expended in the production

of that good.

Human labor power, for Marx, is a commodity. That is, the cost of a day of labor is the

cost of producing that labor. In other words, in order for a worker to labor he/she must be given

sufficient rest and sustenance. With market forces driving down wages, proletarians are paid just

enough to have them physically return to the factory the next day to continue working and

provide for their families so that future proletarians may clamber to the factory. In Contrast the

value created by a workers labor far exceeds the cost of the labor. Marx provides the example of


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a farmer in Indonesia who in the span of 6 hours produces enough sustenance for a week, in a

capitalist society this farmer would bepaid 6 hours worth of goods in exchange for a week of

labor. During this week he would then be able to create the equivalent of many days of

sustenance. It is in this difference in value that surplus value is created in a capitalist society and

appropriated privately. In summation a capitalist utilizes the proletariat as an input of production

paying them just enough to produce and return the following day and reap the difference in

value.

Marx draws a number of conclusions from his Labor Theory of value which are relevant

to the analogy. The first is a strong and tangible claim about the injustice of the capitalist mode

of production. By making it clear that wealth of the bourgeoisie comes from the labor of the

proletariat, more specifically that it is derived from the difference in how much use value their

labor creates and how much theyre paid simply to be able to return. The proletariat labors

socially yet their product is appropriated privately. Marx even goes so far as to assert that despite

the exponentially growing means to produce goods and massive market gluts created by

overproduction, the proletariat is actually further impoverished by the capitalist system. It is

abundantly clear that he means for the system to be changed in favor of the proletariat.

Additionally, he sees the surplus (the difference between what the proletariat is paid for their

labor power and the resulting exchange value) being a type of measurable ground over which the

class struggle takes places, both classes, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, fighting over a

greater share and pitting them antagonistically against one another; fueling the dialectic.

I submit that we ought to conceive of capitalist exploitation of nature in an analogous manner.

We can understand the economic relationship between the capitalist and nature in similar terms.


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The capitalist must expend certain resources, comparable to the meager payments to have

laborers return, in order to reap economic benefit from the land. Imagine that we have an

industrial farmer, in order to continuously benefit from the land he must maintain his land, give it

the ability to reproduce itself. Just like the worker who must be sustained in order to return to

labor, so too must a field be sustained or it will become barren. It is clear that capitalists are

creating a surplus value through the exploitation of nature. They invest an amount in seeds,

fertilizer, and other goods and extract a commodity of greater value. If we place our industrial

farmer on different plots of land with significantly varying fertilities and assume the capital and

labor inputs to be constant it is self-evident that differences in crop yields is not contingent upon

the constant input of human labor or capital. Like the proletariat whom Marx claims is made

worse off and driven into a state more barbarous than a cave dweller, so too is nature destroyed

and despoiled. In fact, analogously nature is rarely compensated enough for it to return and

reproduce its labor. It is a worker who is starving and compelled to return to work. Where nature

is used by humans, on aggregate, we do not return or leave it in a state where it can reproduce

that production. Capitalism leaves nature each day less and less able to continue existing.

Like Marxs labor theory of value this analogous framework would lend itself to a

number of conclusions. Perhaps the most prominent is that like the workers who should benefit

from their labor so too should nature. That is, nature should be made to benefit from its

relationship to humans. Additionally, it also pits nature in conflict with the capitalist mode of

production. While nature cannot struggle in the same way as human proletarians, the wellbeing

of nature is in direct conflict with continued capitalist growth and production. There is a material


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contradiction, like the class struggle of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, between the bourgeois

mode of production and the wellbeing of nature.

Redefining Production

There are a number of problems with this analogy as it stands. These problems are largely

conceptual relating to how we conceive of nature in economic terms. Even from a Marxist lens it

is not entirely clear what it means for nature to produce economically, or what it means to

compensate nature for its labor in the manner that we would commonly compensate a worker for

their labor. It is troubling for the analogy that nature seems to recreate itself spontaneously

whereas humans seem in a much more concrete manner to need compensation in order to

reproduce their labor. The remainder of this paper will be dedicated to exploring these questions

and examining what kinds of foundational changes would need to be made to support my

proposition.

As stated above, even from a Marxist lens, it is not well understood what it means for

nature to produce economically. We intuit that in order to produce that a being must furnish that

good upon the market and that a tree does not produce itself, but that it simply grows. A tree

does not furnish itself upon the market. To be more specific, there is a certain intent that goes

along with production. In Das Kapital Marx discusses this intent, that what separates the bee

from the architect is that the architect must realize or effect an object from his imagination where

the bee does not effect its imagination. But even for Marx it is clear that animals still engage in


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Where the production of nature becomes more problematic is when nature is the product

itself. In other words we might ponder whether a tree produces itself. Does a tree produce itself

in the same way that another animal produces an object with use-value? We might also consider

fish or livestock in this category. In this case it appears that the tree, or the wood that it is made

of, is the product. The first inclination is to say that the tree, fish, or cow simply grew; that they

did not build themselves as a human might assemble a house or widget. Since thesis this is an

examination pertaining to economics it will be helpful to place the growing of the plant or animal

in context of the creation of economic value. Let us imagine that we have a cowherd. The

cowherd derives economic value from his/her herd of cattle, whether by the selling of meat or

dairy products. Our inclination is to claim that the cowherd mixes their labor with the cows

through the process of butchery or the creation of dairy products and the furnishing of these

goods on the market for exchange. But the cowherds production is contingent upon the cows.

That is, without the cows the cowherds actions would not yield value. The quality of the meat

and dairy products is also largely contingent upon the cows. While domestic cows would not

have existed without human interference, we can very easily imagine a herd of cattle surviving

on its own without the guidance of a cowherd. We might imagine that the herd is made more

abundant or larger through the tending of the cowherd, but its existence is not necessarily owed

to the cowherd. Rather, we are to conclude that the final product is a function of the actions of

the cowherd and some process inherent to the cows. The same can be said of fish and trees. A

logger can only derive economic value from a hillside if there are trees to be felled. That is, the

process that creates the organism is integral to the production process. So while we may not want

to say that nature produces itself like a human produces a widget, it does play the most integral


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role in the production process. In this sense, production is due to or the result of nature. This, the

reader will note, is simply a roundabout way of saying that nature produces itself. Or at the very

least, that it plays the most essential role in the production of the final product, wood.

Next we may wonder to what degree this kind of production is analogous to the social

production done by humans. One of Marxs more important insights is that goods are produced

socially. In order to produce goods we enter into social relations with others. On a factory floor a

worker produces a good with the interaction of his coworkers. It is a reciprocal relationship

where actions and goods are exchanged. This social aspect exists even between stages of

production of goods. For example a factory must enter into a definite relationship with other

people who supply the raw materials and into a relationship with distributers. Goods in

capitalism are produced by humans in social relations not individually. Similarly, production

cannot take place without humans interacting with nature. Every economic activity interacts with

nature. When we eat we draw upon nature. When we fuel our cars we draw upon nature. When

we build our houses we draw upon nature. Like our human relationships, our current relation

with nature is not a mutually beneficial one.

In an analogous sense, nature too produces socially. Just as it takes a village to raise a

child, it takes a biotic community to grow a tree. A fish will not spontaneously grow in a sterile

body of water. Nor a cow on barren land. Most life relies upon other organisms for nourishment,

often to mutual benefit. In the case of a tree, fungus draws water to the roots of the tree, but

extracts nutrients from the tree roots. A fir tree does not grow individually. Rather they flourish

as part of a larger forest process of succession where a series of smaller to larger plant species

build off of one another. Like humans who through their individual actions cumulatively make


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civilization, so too is a forest made. We used different terms to refer to these kinds of

relationships rather than social; they are symbiotic, and biological. And, we map them with food

chains. Ultimately, they describe a series of interdependent resource relationships. There are

some issues with this analogy of social production. The largest is that human social relations in

production define human social organization. The mode of human production that is made up of

both technology and human relations determines the power relations between humans. The

master and the apprentice, the slave and the master, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, the serf

and the feudal lord are all examples of economic relations in human society that define the social

hierarchy. This is not to say that certain animal species do or do not have hierarchies within their

particular bands or herds. But that it is clear that the interaction of the fungus and the tree is not

an economically driven power relation. What comes out of Marxs account of social production

is an understanding of the interdependence of human economic behavior, that goods are not

produced individually. By extending this analogy first between humans and nature, and then

between nature itself, it is clear that goods are produced in an integrally interdependent way from

the very most bottom of nature, through all of the natural relationships to where humans extract

it from nature. Production is not just social amongst humans but throughout nature inclusive of

humans.

What Kind of Nature is Required

The analogy would also require a conception of nature that differs significantly from

Marxism. Marx was writing out of the enlightenment tradition where nature was conceived of in

mechanistic terms and separated fundamentally from the realm of human activity and


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consideration. Nature in this milieu is passive and subject to the power of humans; it is a

resource to be drawn from and used with the same consideration as a tool. Further scientific

knowledge, in this view, is a means to greater control and utilization of nature. Much of Marxs

writing referencing nature points away from this conception, but nonetheless is still problematic

for the analogy as it does not go far enough.

In Marxs writing he makes a significant number of references to nature though his focus

on human economic behavior. Nature is revealed peripherally to his larger discourse. For Marx,

humans are a part of nature. Yet, we are distinct from the other animals in the universality of our

production. We are able to look at the production of other animals and build according to our

wants and needs. We are able to take an image in our minds and set our will to manifesting that

idea in the world around us, whereas other animals seem to set about their production as a matter

of instinct. Additionally, in his view nature plays a very strong determining role in human

economic behavior. The metal vein determines where we mine. The fertile soil determines where

we sow. The forests determine where we log. Despite acknowledging that labor is not the only

source of material wealth, of use values produced by labor. As William Petty puts it, labor is its

father and the earth its mother. (Das Kapital) Marx still posits that nature is passive to be acted

upon by man. He asserts that The soil in the virgin state in which it supplies man with the

necessaries or the means of subsistence ready to hand, exists independently of him, and is the

universal subject2of human labour. (Das Kapital) That is, despite all of the dependence upon

nature for our economic activity we are still separate from it and nature is the servant to our

2Here it is not entirely clear what sense of the word Subject that Marx is using. Subject of suggests a meaning

comparable to a lord and his subjects. If it were meant that nature was that which labor was directed toward or

upon, that labor was applied to it, we might imagine that it would be worded that nature was universally subject

to, rather than the universal subject of.


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needs and labor. We are to think that nature determines our economic behavior yet is the subject

of our labor, at our whim.

For the analogy to function, this view needs to be pushed further. Most simply moral

consideration would need to be extended to nature, and not because it benefits humans. In Book

1 Chapter1 part 1 of Das Kapital Marx defines use-value citing John Locke The natural worth

of anything consists in its fitness to supply the necessities, or serve the conveniences of human

life. This is a very limiting definition of use-value. It does not appear a drastic stretch of the

imagination that one could apply use-values to non-human entities. It seems straight forward that

cat food would have direct use-value to a cat or fodder to livestock. While plants and animals

cannot participate per se in the exchange aspect of our economy that is not to say that the goods

and products created therein cannot be made to their benefit. Additionally, we need to

acknowledge our integral relationship with nature. Just as we are economically interdependent

with our fellow humans so too, it seems Marx is saying, do we relate with nature. Marx discusses

what he refers to as Species being in regards to humans. Species being is a kind of human

nature, specifically our propensity toward creating and molding the world around us and a kind

of freedom. In this view our very humanness is alienated under capitalism; we are rent from our

social relations, our fellow humans; we are alienated from our labor. We are more and more

thrown in an ever more barbarous living condition. Our basic needs that were once a given are

one by one commodified and turned into another tool to further enslave us. Humans are pitted

against one another finding greater means to extract profit from one another, men cease to be

ends in themselves and have become only a means to profit. As nature is harnessed to a greater

and greater degree for capitalist production is its species being not also stripped from it? If there


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is some kind of moral imperative to maximize or promote beings fulfilling their species being, it

seems that this imperative would also apply to nature.

Along a related vein, the extension of human ethical systems to a greater and greater

realm of consideration appears to be a larger historical trend. Thinker Aldo Leopold inA Sand

County Almanac notes how in ancient Greece there was indeed a system of ethics guiding

behavior, but this realm of consideration simply did not apply to slaves. To the Greeks how one

treated their slaves was simply beyond good or evil, they were property and could be dispensed

with as one pleased. He then notes that as time passes the realm of moral consideration has also

expanded to include a larger and larger group of entities. Similarly, Marx writes that humans

consciousness is a reflection of our economic activity. That is, our ideation is a result of our

mode of production. Correspondingly, Leopold writes The extension of ethics to this third

element [referring to the land, animals and plants] in human environment is, if I read the

evidence correctly, an evolutionary possibility and an ecological necessity. That is, if the

capitalist mode of production comes into conflict with the wellbeing of the environment and our

mode of production is, by necessity, forced to change, then so too will our ideation. Ideologically

we will be made by our economic circumstance to extend morality to nature. Just as political

rights were extended to the bourgeoisie and universal human rights proclaimed (for certain

individuals) as capitalism came to realize itself, so too it seems will rights and moral

consideration be extended to nature when the economic necessity arises.

Moral consideration and value (here referring to ethical weight, rather than in the

economic sense of use-value or exchange value) is incorporeal; it is not something inherent or

extant to the world. When asked where the inherent value of a human or a tree resides, we can


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poke, prod, measure, titrate, filter, mass spectrometer, and weigh the tree or human and we will

never find a physical worldly manifestation of value. Verily, in the words ofProtagoras Man is

the measure of all things. We may suppose, and this is perhaps a bold assumption, that humans

are the only animal that places value upon objects, ideas, and states of affairs in the world around

them. An object has subjective value to a particular human insofar as that particular human

ascribes value to the object. What we ascribe value to, we might imagine, is the result of instinct,

emotion, contemplative reflection, life experience, and social instruction. Often harm occurs

because we fail to take the time to ascribe value. In most of our everyday life we act according to

habit and without valuing. In this sense value is a verb, it is something that is done before ethical

action can be taken either consciously and reflectively or in an axiomatic way. Like Leopolds

Greeks who did not apply moral consideration to their slaves, under capitalism, as an aggregate,

we do not value or apply moral consideration to nature. When we value, whether conscious or

not, we often do not reflect on the logical necessity of doing so. Personal experience suggests

that our valuation is not always a thought about the logical necessity for that value. It is not often

that we find ourselves contemplating the categorical imperative for action or the utility

maximizing consequences of an action. The conclusion is that we dont necessarily need a

logically compelling reason to ascribe value but rather that value can be ascribed to nature

without recourse to logical justification. Indeed our justification often follows as a consequence

of our valuation. For the analogy to function properly and be acted upon with ethical weight as a

moral imperative nature must be valued like human life, in an aesthetic way where damage and

harm to it appears wrong on its face intrinsically just as the suffering of our fellow humans (at

least those that we include in our realm of moral consideration) causes us to react emotively.


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Redefining compensation

The difference in value between the wage of the worker and the surplus value generated

in the production process is of key importance to Marxs labor theory of value and his larger

world view. This difference is used as the tangible manifestation of capitalist exploitation of the

proletariat. The goal of revolution in this context is the redistribution of the benefits of the

proletariats social production. It is clear that the private appropriation of the goods that were

produced by the proletariat collectively is viewed as unjust by Marx. To remedy the situation we

are to use capitalisms massive productive capabilities to the benefit of all, so that everyone is

compensated for their labor.

Analogously, nature is also exploited by capitalism. There is a clear difference between

what nature is given and what surplus value is extracted from it. Globally capitalism extracts

resources from nature at a rate greater than nature is able to replenish itself. Nature in this sense

is like the proletariat that is paid just enough to return, except that nature is not even granted this

minimum. Instead nature is like a laborer who is paid less than the requisite amount to reproduce

their labor, but returns each day until exhaustion. Concretely speaking, this exhaustion takes

many forms. We can look at fish stocks which are fished at a greater rate than the fish reproduce.

We can look at our diminishing forests that grow slower than we cut them down. We can look at

soils that are depleted of nutrients from over utilization. Our intuition is that there is a

dissimilarity between the direct payment of a worker for their labor and our use of natural

resources. Nature appears to spontaneously regenerate itself whereas a worker cannot but is

instead dependent upon their wage. We might rather compare nature to a self-sufficient serf who

has greater and greater demands being levied upon him by a feudal lord without any


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compensation or obligations due. In the case of the serf, he is able to sustain himself because he

has access to land and resources that are not due to the feudal lord. Under capitalism the wage

workers livelihood is completely contingent upon the wage, he needs income to pay for housing,

heating, food etc and has no independent source of income. More and more the situation of

nature is shifting to resemble the position of the industrial worker. We might imagine that a

forests ability to restore itself is independent of capitalism. That is, natural weather patterns and

precipitation will allow it to reproduce itself and that this is a source beyond capitalism. And to a

large degree this is true. But what of the farmers field? The soil is parched and devoid of

nutrients. It is the industrial farmer that provides it with nutrients and water so that it might grow

the next harvest. Rivers that once flowed to the ocean now dry up. Where we were once able to

extract from nature what we needed, we have been compelled to do so at ever increasing rates.

Where nature once provided in sufficient amount, we have replaced with ordered production;

production which has its continuance contingent upon the capitalist. Where there were forests

that produced timber we have tree farms. Where there were abundant fish we now have fish

farms. Just like the industrial worker that Marx claims is worse off under capitalism and stripped

of his/her species being, so too is nature.

Similar to how Marx draws a number of claims from the labor theory of value regarding

the redistribution of wealth and dramatic shift in social relations, we are to draw similar

conclusions from the analogy. Marx advocates a dramatic change in social relations and the

mode of production. Under capitalism, goods are produced in a series of social relations but are

ultimately appropriated into private hands. Political economy tells us that the end or goal of an

enterprise is the creation of profit in the interest of the proprietor. Workers are not hired out of


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the good will of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie does not have a vested interest in the wellbeing

of those employed beyond that which is profitable to themselves. The relationship of the

employer to the employee boils down to callous cash payment. Marx sees the social

appropriation of private property as a means to changing the mode of production. Instead of

societys production going to benefit the capitalist class this production would be used to the

benefit of all and as a means of realizing the enlightenment goals of liberty and freedom for all.

Analogously this means that we would have to dramatically rethink the nature of our relationship

with nature. It would indeed be a curious thing to suggest that nature appropriate the means of

production. Rather, we can instead imagine a relation in which nature was made to benefit from

its role in the production process. Instead of simply draining nature of its resources and not

providing for nor allowing time for it to restore itself we could produce goods and embark on

projects that are conducive to the wellbeing of nature. The wellbeing of nature should be seen as

an end in itself. Clearly attempting to value nature in economic terms because it benefits us does

not work. In this new view nature is dynamic with human activity. The goal is neither to

develop nature to its fullest to meet human economic concerns nor conservation as we know it.

A helpful concept in this regard is Professor Callicotts explication of Leopolds concept of

ecosystem health. Summarized the view is that The concept of health, in both its literal and

figurative sense, is at once descriptive and prescriptive, objective and normative. That is we

have this notion of human health wherein certain states are objectively good and bad and that by

analogy we can apply this mode of thinking to nature, that certain states of nature are objectively

better and others not. Just as we are still figuring things out with human health there is a learning

curve involved. Callicott and Leopold also assert that human economic behavior need not be a


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zero sum game and has the potential of coexisting with nature. The concept of ecosystem health

provides a basis for action.

Conclusion

The exploitation of nature under capitalism is analogous to the exploitation of the proletariat.

Nature, like the proletariat is a source of surplus value. Despite its clear role in production, nature too is

further impoverished and immiserated by capitalism. Natures livelihood is more and more contingent

upon the bourgeoisie. Like Marxs theories that center around the industrial proletariat that require a

reframing of moral consideration and economic production, so too is it only possible to extend Marxs

labor theory of value analogously to nature by reframing moral consideration, economic production and

compensation to include nature. As demonstrated the extension of these categories to nature are

substantial in some aspects, counter intuitive in others, though in many places slight definitional

changes. Though in aggregate changes of this sort amount to radically different conception. Given our

current environmental situation where nature is exploited globally at a greater rate than it reproduces

itself we are currently on limited time. The current way of thinking has created the situation. While that

same thinking has brought marginal change advancing the interests of nature, it is doing too little too

slowly. It has not stemmed the tide of over exploitation of nature, nor slowed it. While I do not mean to

assert that I have the answer, it is clear that we need a new mode of thinking to address the problem,

one that aesthetically, emotionally and axiomatically takes the wellbeing of nature into consideration on

the same level as human suffering. Seeing a tree being felled unnecessarily should tear at our heart

strings, as if one of our fellow humans were needlessly and senselessly being killed. Sadly, we live in a

world in which the distant suffering of human beings does not affect us.


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Bibliography

Armstrong, Susan J., and Richard George Botzler. Environmental Ethics: Divergence and

Convergence. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003. Print.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. The Marx-Engels Reader. Ed. Robert C. Tucker. New York:

Norton, 1978. Print.

Marx, Karl. Capital. Ed. Fredrick Engels. Vol. 1. New York: Random House, 1906. Print.

rethinking the exploitation of nature

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