The Commons Catastrophe
How capitalism is catastrophical and Participatory Economics offers hope
Daniël Hemink Student number: 0563765 Supervisor: dhr. dr. P.A. Raekstad Second reader: dhr. dr. S. Rezaeiejan
June, 2017
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Acknowledgements
I should like to express my most sincere gratitude to my supervisor, dhr. dr. Paul Raekstad, who was most helpful in constructing my thesis. Paul was as generous with his time as he was with his advice. I preferred dhr. dr. Said Reazadjian as a second reader, for Said is an inspiring lecturer and sympathetic man. Both gentlemen have had a positive influence on my critical and creative thinking.
I enjoyed the studies Political Science and History at the University of Amsterdam. I want to thank the staff of the UvA, my fellow students, and my family and friends who were close to me in both the good times and bad. I dedicate this thesis to the anonymous writer of this 17th century poem:
The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose off the common
But leaves the greater villain loose Who steals the common from the goose
The law demands that we atone When we take things we do not own
But leaves the lords and ladies fine Who takes things that are yours and mine
The poor and wretched don’t escape If they conspire the law to break
This must be so but they endure Those who conspire to make the law
The law locks up the man or woman Who steals the goose from off the common
And geese will still a common lack Till they go and steal it back
3 Abstract
There is abundant evidence which shows that capitalism does not work well: returning crises, growing inequality and degradation of our environment. This thesis argues that within capitalism we are facing a ‘Commons Catastrophe’ (CC). This catastrophe is in multiple ways related to how we deal with everything we share: the commons and the community are
disrupted and our ecosystem is in grave danger. A CC occurs, if:
[1] A sequence of events that disrupts the commons and the community occurs and/or
[2] Unsustainable levels of ecological degradation are reached which risk the complete destruction of the world we live in.
Because of the CC in capitalism, it is imperative to envision and install alternative models of society. This thesis puts Participatory Economics (Parecon) forward as a viable alternative to capitalism. The primary purpose of this study is to determine to what extent Parecon could prevent a CC. The secondary purpose of this thesis is to show how mainstream economic discourse promotes capitalism and objects participatory models.
This thesis has a tripartite structure. First the newly coined, disjunctive concept of CC is presented. After that, it is investigated to what extent capitalism leads to a CC. In the second part of this thesis, the viability of Parecon as an alternative to capitalism is examined. In the third and final part, it is investigated to what extent Parecon could forestall a CC.
It is theoretically plausible that Parecon could forestall a CC because of the social ownership of the commons. In Parecon, the community –in contrast to the state or private parties- has economic decision-making power and incorporates social costs and social benefits in its deliberations. Parecon upholds economic democracy, economic justice and human solidarity. Parecon opposes mainstream economic discourse and entails a positive notion of the
commons and the community.
Keywords: capitalism, Commons Catastrophe, Participatory Economics, economic democracy, economic
4 Table of Contents Introduction ... 6 Research Question ... 6 Conceptualisation ... 6 Historical Discourse ... 7 Thesis Outline ... 9 Relevance ... 11
1. The Commons Catastrophe ... 12
1.1 History and Discourse of the Commons and Capitalism ... 13
1.1.1 Tragedy of the commons and other conventional concepts. ... 14
1.1.2 Life, Liberty and property. ... 14
1.1.3 The Second Enclosure. ... 16
1.1.4 New movements, new commons. ... 17
1.2 The Destructive Logic of Capitalism ... 20
1.2.1 Capitalism as natural state and the freedom myth. ... 21
1.2.2 Capitalism means market dependence. ... 23
1.2.3 Market enclosure. ... 24
1.3 Ecological Degradation & Capitalism’s Crisis Management ... 28
1.3.1 Planetary boundaries. ... 28
1.3.2 Green capitalism. ... 29
1.3.3 Neoliberal crisis management. ... 30
2. Parecon: a Viable Alternative to Capitalism ... 32
2.1 There Is No Alternative? ... 32
2.2 Parecon ... 33
2.2.1 Goals. ... 33
2.2.2 Institutions. ... 34
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2.4 Examples of Participatory Movements ... 41
3. Parecon and the Commons Catastrophe ... 43
3.1 How Does Parecon Prevent a CC [1]? ... 43
3.1.1 How does Parecon deals with the commons? ... 44
3.1.2 Does Parecon disrupts the community? ... 45
3.2 How does Parecon prevent a CC [2]? ... 48
3.3 Reservations ... 50
3.4 Answer to Garret Hardin and Elinor Ostrom ... 50
Conclusion ... 53
What I Did Not Do ... 54
Summary Part 1 ... 54 Summary Part 2 ... 56 Summary Part 3 ... 58 Place in Debate ... 58 Further Research ... 59 Final Remarks ... 61 Literature ... 63
6 Introduction
Capitalism is catastrophical. The market system disrupts the society and leads to an ecological disaster. Whether it is the depletion of common resources like oil or the pollution of the global commons like the ecosystem: the current catastrophe is intrinsically related to the commons. Capitalism leads to the disruption of society and deteriorates what we hold in common. To elucidate this process, I coin the term Commons Catastrophe (CC).
Research Question
In order to prevent a CC from occurring, an alternative model has to be put in practice. Robin Hahnel and Michael Albert (1991a) created Participatory Economics (Parecon). I assess whether Parecon is a viable alternative to capitalism. Parecon is an economic model that is based around participation, self-management and social ownership of the commons. My research question is: to what extent could Parecon prevent a CC from occurring? Conceptualisation
For analytical purposes I divide CC in two parts. A CC occurs, if:
[1] A sequence of events that disrupts the commons and the community occurs and/or
[2] Unsustainable levels of ecological degradation are reached which risk the complete destruction of the world we live in.
CC is a disjunctive concept: one of the two attributes has to occur for CC to exist. For CC to occur [1] or [2] is sufficient and one of the two attributes is necessary to exist. I deliberately chose ‘catastrophe’, implicating a disastrous state of affairs and the probability of an end to humanity. When conceptualising CC [1], I paraphrase William McNeill’s (1989, p.1) description of a catastrophe: “some sequence of events that disrupts established routines of life and inflicts suffering or death on many”. Instead of ‘established routine’, I focus on ‘commons and community’.
The idea of reason in Enlightment philosophy cut men off from nature and created the ‘civic community’. The CC [2] implicates that people are part of nature; nature’s catastrophe equals human’s catastrophe. The society is embedded in the limited, natural world. Hence, the
implicit idea of unlimited wealth and continuous capital accumulation in capitalism is flawed. In this thesis I use capitalism to denote the dominant system of human organisation wherein markets are crucial to the economy. Whether capitalism is described as welfare state
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capitalism or neoliberalism, it is not working well. Within capitalism, natural commons like fossil fuels are depleting (CC [1]) and global commons like the ecosystem deteriorate (CC [2]). The commons paradigm is a frame for thinking beyond growth. In the critique of
capitalism, the market narrative today often makes way for the commons as an analytical tool. Moreover, the ascent of the commons paradigm in academic literature can be seen as a
symptom of the failures of capitalism. Like McCarthey (2005), I employ the commons as part of counterhegemonic projects.
The contradiction of the concept of commons lies in the fact that when goods are privatised in capitalism, they are not viewed as common anymore. For instance, if all the forests in the world are privatised, one could still consider them commons, because they do not belong to certain private parties yet are part of the world where all and everybody belongs too. For the interest of clarity, I coin the concepts capitalist commons and participatory commons. The former denotes commons that are market-dependent and are rapidly privatised, the latter denotes everything we share as common. Furthermore, the participatory commons describes commons that are governed by the community.
Historical Discourse
The First Enclosure that began around 1500 in England revolved around the transfer of common lands from the community to private ownership (Wordie, 1983). This process of privatisation marks the beginning of capitalism. Thus, from the advent of capitalism, the commons is inseparable from this economic system. A market is needed to trade goods and connect producers and consumers with each other. Over time, the society became market-dependent: everyone became dependent on the market for its basic needs and fulfillment of their potential, whether it was an individual person or a company (Brenner, 2006; Wood, 1999, 2002).
In their famous Manifest, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels state that class struggle begins with the destruction of the primordial commonwealth (Marx & Engels, 1998, p.7). Following the German historian Friedrich Wilhelm Maurer, they viewed jointly owned land as the archetype of society. The flourishing of a society depends on the way it deals with what is in common. Karl Marx wrote in Capital (1976) that enclosure of the English commonwealth played a pivotal role in the transition from a feudal to a capitalist system. The correlation of social problems and enclosed common land is already evident in Thomas More’s Utopia (2016).
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Marx and Engels view Thomas More with his 1516 work Utopia as predecessor of their communistic doctrine (Marx & Engels, 1998, p. 5). Thomas More (2006) criticized the enclosure of the commons for bringing about social problems in sixteenth century England. Hitherto, the local communities relied on the common grounds for their livelihood. Following the enclosure of the commonwealth, the commercial interests of wealthy commercial
landowners were prioritized over the interests of local communities.
The enclosure of the commons leads to economic and social problems. Yet, private ownership is inherent to capitalism. The mainstream economic discourse does not entail optimistic notions of collective ownership. Garret Hardin writes in ‘Tragedy of the commons’ (1969) about jointly owned land that is prone to overuse and depletion. Over time, the subsequent measures to prevent this (privatisation and government intervention) have not prevented the tragedy of the commons. Many economic models fail to recognize the value of cooperation. Instead, rational choice and private ownership of the commons are championed. The deadlock of market-dependence leads state and non-state actors, whether capitalist or non-capitalist, to throw in the towel and find a way to deal with a system that is viewed as impossible to replace.
In the last decades there is a countermovement discernible. The most important protagonist of counterhegemonic discourse is Elinor Ostrom. She made an important contribution to the work on the commons. Ostrom (2015) proposes eight principles that are foundational to governing the commons in a successful way. Ostrom argues that there is an alternative way, outside of the scope of the market and state actors: the community could manage the commons successfully if the proposed principles preeminent. In this thesis I argue it is necessary to alter the system itself, because in capitalism the commons are not governable.
In Parecon, the community manages the commons. The absence of a CC in Parecon implicates that cooperation is rational. Rationality points to a sensible and justifiable decision. If a CC [2] occurs, it will possibly include death and suffering to every individual. An individual can rationally choose to prevent this by opposing capitalism and install a new system (together with other individuals). Moreover, if a CC [1] exists, the society is in demise. The society is made up by individuals. Therefore, it can be viewed as rational if individuals opt for another system. In this line of thought, ‘rational humans’ could choose for Parecon, because in Parecon the individual needs are reconciled with the collective needs.
9 Thesis Outline
The proposed tripartite argument structure is as follows: capitalism leads to a CC (chapter 1), Parecon is a viable alternative to capitalism (chapter 2) and Parecon prevents a CC (chapter 3). The primary purpose is to investigate to what extent Parecon could prevent a CC. The secondary purpose is to explore how mainstream economic discourse favors
capitalism and is not receptive to alternative participatory models of economy. The first chapter elaborates on the concept of CC. Through the lens of the commons paradigm I will argue how capitalism is defect and to what extent capitalism is incapable of forestalling CC. Throughout chapter 1 I employ elements of critical discourse analysis and focus on relations between discourse and social elements like power relations and ideologies (Fairclough, 2013, p. 9).Within a historical framework I illuminate the pessimism which surrounds the common paradigm. This thesis uses insights from language studies, history and environmental studies, yet the focus is on political philosophy.
The ‘free market’ and the ‘growth imperative’, both perpetuated by neoclassical economists, are used in a narrative about progress. The ‘social perspective’ of capitalism leads to a certain world-view (Fairclough, 2013, p. 11). Capitalism is linked to the freedom of individuals and enterprises. I term this ‘the freedom myth’. Yet, these principles give way to the enclosure of the commons. Present day neoliberalism propels enclosure and destruction of the commons at an unprecedented scale. The market dependence that is essential to capitalism, leads to the commodification of the commons. In the Second Enclosure of today, immaterial things like intellectual property rights and global commons like the ocean are being privatised (Barnes, 2001). Because these commons are traded in the market, they are prone to market failures (Young, 2011). These market failures disrupt the commons and the community. In short: the privatisation of the commons leads to a CC.
Unlike optimists, capitalism cannot account for making the world a green place to live:
ecological dangers are not prevented and sustainability issues are not incorporated sufficiently into the statutory aims. Capitalism gives way to the supremacy of self-interest. Decisions arising from individual logic are not necessarily the best decisions for the entire society. Individual rationality can lead to collective irrationality. The rise of capitalism equals the demise of the commons. Mainstream economic discourse entails a negative historical connection between capitalism and the commons paradigm.
On the local level, community initiatives are undermined in capitalism. Common resources are extracted for the benefit of private parties. Private parties do no invest substantially in
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sustainable solutions. On the state level, capitalism is not capable of organizing a just society containing economic democracy, economic justice and human solidarity. On a global level our ecosystem is deteriorating rapidly. Capitalism’s indifference to human well-being is evident in what Loewenstein (2015) calls disaster capitalism. Not only harbors capitalism crises, it even exposes mechanisms to profit from them. Crises often lead to individual gains and collective losses (Klein, 2007). Capitalism is the root of the demise and does not entail a solution for local, national or global environmental problems.
Capitalism exposes a sequence of events that disrupt commons and community, hence CC [1]. Furthermore, it leads to destructive levels of ecological degradation, hence CC [2]. The
capitalist narrative of the commons adds to the catastrophism. In chapter 1 I argue that a CC is evidently present in capitalism.
In the second chapter I will present Parecon as a viable alternative to capitalism. First, I will explain what goals and institutions define Parecon. Then, the critique of Parecon is
investigated. The working of Parecon entails many technical difficulties. In line with Hahnel (2016), I assert that in theory Parecon is a viable alternative to capitalism. When investigating the viability of Parecon, I do not include transformational obstacles. Thus, I will not
incorporate the transition from capitalism to another economic system and the installment itself. Chapter two is about whether Parecon is viable after installment.
In the third chapter, as a conclusive part, I will investigate to what extent Parecon could prevent a CC. Just like the evaluation of a CC in capitalism, I will assess CC [1] and CC [2] separately. Because of social ownership of the commons everybody owns everything we share in Parecon. Privatization is no force for inequality anymore. In a Participatory Planning
procedure morality can be applied to economic decision-making. Human solidarity is
strengthened because of balanced job-complexes that provide in the equal distribution of less empowering and desirable jobs. Economic democracy is necessitated by the participatory structure of the economy. The effort ratings in Parecon and a fair allocation of resources lead to economic justice. Furthermore, ecological deliberations are likely to be included in the assessment of councils’ proposals. It is theoretically plausible that CC is prevented in Parecon. Furthermore, Parecon can structure a flourishing society. The ideal theory of Parecon informs idealism in economic thinking, hence, opposes the mainstream economic discourse.
11 Relevance
Notwithstanding the advantages of short-term growth and a certain degree of wealth distribution, in the twenty first century the failures of capitalism are clearer than ever:
returning crises, inadequate measures against pollution, no common ground for sustainability measures, and growing inequality between the rich and poor. The list goes on. Still, capitalism is in place. Our global modern economy struggles with the challenges of global common resources like water, air and the entire ecosystem. We are losing this battle and are overstepping planetary boundaries, entering what is called ‘the 6th
mass extinction’ (Rockström et al, 2009; Ceballos et al, 2015).
Still the notion seems widespread that ‘there is no alternative’ (TINA). Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister of The United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990, ushered this phrase implicating the global victory of welfare state capitalism over other economic systems, especially
socialism and communism. This TINA-doctrine demonstrates the way in which capitalism is taken for granted the last decades. Even so-called ‘socialists’ seem to adhere to the dominant model of capitalism. The introduction of welfare state capitalism is seen as a socialist
accomplishment to make capitalism more humane. This thesis joins the debate about
substituting capitalism with alternative models of society by arguing CC occurs in capitalism. I assert Parecon is the right model to replace capitalism with.
The last decades, scholars and activists use the commons paradigm as an important part of a counterhegemonic project (Bakker, 2007; Boyle, 2003, 2008; Bollier, 2001, 2013, 2014; Hahnel, 2015a; McCarthey, 2005; Rowe, 2013; Shiva, 2002, 2016; Young, 2011). In Parecon, the notion of capitalist commons is replaced by the participatory commons. Additionally, this thesis takes part in the debate over private and collective property. Parecon leads to a
flourishing society and the absence of private property is an important part of its ideal. As the secondary aim of this thesis, I want to elucidate the pessimistic notion of the commons that is visible in the mainstream economic discourse; the capitalist narrative objects participatory movements that have a focus on community and social ownership of the commons.
I coin the concept of CC to denote the grave dangers we are exposed to within capitalism. A CC is evident in capitalism. Preventing the CC is crucial to the survival and the sustainability of human species. I term the concept of Commons Catastrophe to give urgency to the
implementation of a new system. Parecon is put forward as a viable alternative to capitalism. In this thesis, I defend the position that an alternative to capitalism, namely Parecon, can prevent a CC.
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1. The Commons Catastrophe
We are at a crucial moment in human history. We face what I term the Commons Catastrophe (CC). A CC occurs if:
[1] A sequence of events that disrupts the commons and the community occurs and/or
[2] Unsustainable levels of ecological degradation are reached which risk the complete destruction of the world we live in.
For a CC to occur, [1] or [2] is sufficient and one of the two attributes is necessary to exist. In this chapter I investigate to what extent capitalism leads to [1] and/or [2]. CC is a disjunctive concept, because one of its attributes is needed to establish a CC. My thesis specifies the possession of either one attribute or another: all other instances are excluded. In this chapter, I elaborate on this concept of CC. Because of analytical purposes I differentiate between an endogenous and exogenous notion of CC. I coin the neologism of CC to give urgency to installing an alternative to the deadlock of capitalism. In this part I will elaborate on what CC exactly is.
First, in a historical assessment (1.1), I will give an overview of the concept of the commons, and qualify its discourse as an overall pessimistic one. I bring forward the contextual and the historical relation between commons and capitalism and place my work within a
counterhegemonic tradition. Further, I differentiate between capitalist commons and participatory commons.
In the second section (1.2) I will elucidate the first, endogenous notion of CC [1]: A system constitutes a sequence of events that disrupts commons and community. I investigate the way commons are dealt with in a market society: a society that is based upon a market economy (Polanyi, 1957). I analyze how the commons fall prey to capitalism’s destructive logic via market enclosure: “the process through which resources held in common for all to use are gradually being taken over by corporate interests” (Bollier, 2001). Furthermore, in the capitalistic doctrine, the commons and the community are marginalized. If something is privatized, it is not common anymore: hence, capitalist commons. Economic justice,
economic democracy and human solidarity are in demise and in this process the commons as well as the community are disrupted. The first section is mainly a theoretical enterprise. I treat the empirical world of environmental destruction separately in the final section (1.3) of this chapter. It is about the second, exogenous notion of CC [2]: A system reaches
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unsustainable levels of ecological degradation risking the complete destruction of the world we live in. This exogenous notion of CC (for example global warming) is partly a function of the endogenous notion (carbon dioxide pollution derived from capital accumulation), yet partly about the world outside the scope of markets (if capitalism was eliminated today, we would still face global warming). Additionally, in this section I argue that capitalism is not consistent with sustainability issues (capital accumulation leading to pollution is not reconcilable with anti-pollution measures).
In the here and now, the majority of the world needs a fair and just system which guarantees justice, democracy and solidarity. As populations grow, CC becomes ever more pressing. Economic justice, economic democracy and human solidarity are factors that correlate with ecological sustainability. One of the peculiarities of capitalism is that, unlike the demise of democracy, justice and solidarity, environmental destruction does form a real threat to many capitalists. The end of this chapter draws attention to capitalist measures to prevent ecological degradation.
1.1 History and Discourse of the Commons and Capitalism
In the last decades, critical discourse analysis plays an important part in social research1. I use discourse in this sense: ‘a way of construing aspects of the world associated with a
particular social perspective’ (Fairclough, 2013, p.11). In this sense, capitalism is a social perspective. In this section I give a short assessment of the ‘capitalism induced’ discourse of the commons. Discourse analysis illuminates how capitalism infects the concept of the commons. Further, I put mainstream concepts of collective decision-making forward. The commons concept is from its advent correlated with capitalism. From the fifteenth to the twentieth century, the majority of English commonly owned land was transferred into private hands (Wordie, 1983). The First Enclosure can be considered the transition from feudalism to capitalism (Marx, 1976). Before capitalism things were already held in common2. Yet, the
1 Critical discourse analysis conflates critical social analysis with language studies. Critical social analysis
has a normative and explanatory component. It is normative in the sense that it evaluates existing realities and assesses the relation between realities and certain values which are considered (whether contentious or not) fundamental for a just society. It is explanatory for it tries to explain existing realities by structures and mechanisms that drives them. In this thesis I want to make use of critical social analysis to illuminate how the disruption of the commons and the community as well as ecological destruction can be explained as an effect of forces associated with capitalism. (Fairclough, 2013, p. 9).
2 Romans already wrote about ‘communis’ which refers to things held in common. Yet, modern usage of
commons, referring to ‘land held in commons’, originates in the late 15th century (Harper, 2011). This
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First Enclosure marked the beginning of the widespread disruption of the commons and the community.
Karl Polanyi (1957) calls enclosure ‘a revolution of the rich against the poor’ (p. 37). Undisputedly, the wealthy landowners were the beneficiaries of this policy measures. Commonly owned land gave commoners labour opportunities. During the First Enclosure, local farmers lost their jobs (Wordie, 1983). Harvests were not directed to the community, but commercialized by small groups. The enclosure deprived the poor of their livelihood. The advantages were that property systems were innovated and production increased (Boyle, 2003, p. 44). Yet, the disadvantages outweighed the advantages. In the sixteenth century Thomas More (2016) wrote that enclosure was unjust and harmful in its consequences.
1.1.1 Tragedy of the commons and other conventional concepts. The rather conventional notion of the commons that More (2016) employs, denotes commonly owned land, like forests, a pasture or woodland. These lands were cultivated by commoners: a broad social division referring to ‘ordinary’ people with little political or economic power. Garrett Hardin’s Tragedy of the commons (2009) reflects on how shared common resources are overused and eventually depleted. First published in 1968, for decades this article helped build a narrative where the concept of commons is linked to tragedy.
Garrett Hardin uses a fable of common grazing pasture where group of cowherds work. He considers it rational for every herd to maximize his or her profits. Hence, the cowherd will opt for the most grazing as possible for his cows. If every rational individual acts out of self-interest, this process leads to overgrazing. This could eventually deplete the grazing pasture. In the twenty-first century, under the influence of game-theory, the community, the commons were interlinked in new concepts of decision-making. Besides the tragedy of the commons, prisoner’s dilemma and collective action also rendered a pessimistic outlook on the commons (Bollier, 2002)3. All concepts are about forces in human nature that supposedly dismiss rational cooperation. Long-term advantages or common interests are rejected in favor of the short-term vision of the ‘rationalist, self-interested individual’ (Ostrom, 2015).
Research after research used these concepts as a base for one of their main arguments: it is irrational for any rational human to work together when there is no direct reward. The
3 I will not elaborate on the concepts of the prisoner’s dilemma or the collective action problem. For an
extensive treatment of both concepts and their interlinkedness I refer to a lucid article by Robert Hardin (no family of Garrett): Hardin, R. (1971). Collective action as an agreeable n‐prisoners' dilemma. Systems
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concepts focus on liberty and property. Individuals are seen as the sole holders of property hereby contradicting collective property. Theories that involve the rational choice of individuals do not take community-based action into account.
1.1.2 Life, Liberty and property. It is insightful to understand the political philosophy that underpins capitalism. The TINA-doctrine shows that protagonists of
capitalism use political philosophy to construe economic policy and denounce alternatives of capitalism. The tragedy of the commons is a good example of how neoclassical theory is interpreted4. This concept points to a liberal tradition based on John Locke. According to Locke (1713), everyone has natural rights to life, liberty and property. The government is morally obliged to serve people with this trident in mind. In The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith (2017), the second father of classical liberalism, wrote about the "invisible hand" guiding the course of free markets.
The social contract of Locke protects individuals and puts them in a reciprocate relation with the state. From the fable of Hardin was distilled: private property should be promoted and/or the state should regulate the economy. In his treatment of private rights of property and individual freedom, Locke used concepts of Thomas Hobbes. In Leviathan Hobbes (2006) paints a picture of a world with constant chaos. Anarchy reigns if it is not for a sovereign (the state) who can install the rules to live by and has coercive power to keep its subjects in place. According to Hobbes, motivation of humans is based on what is good for them. People naturally fight with one another to obtain own good5. Consequently, cowherds will naturally opt for the most profit and need guidance.
The tragedy of the commons-concept informs politics, culture and science to this very day (Euler 2015, p. 33). Government intervention and privatised property are seen as the possible solutions for the tragedy of the commons. Conservative neoliberal thought diminishes the role of the state, so private ownership suited the capitalist project better. The ‘natural economic order’ is served best when everybody seeks to fulfill self-interests. The market will adjust itself to the greatest benefit of all (Friedman, 2009).
Neoliberals use its Darwinian logic to marginalise collectively managed property (Bollier 2002, p. 9). The concepts public and community are separated from private and individual. In mainstream economic -capitalist induced - theory four types of goods are discerned: private
4 Garrett Hardins Tragedy of the commons (2009) arguably is one of the most famous and cited concepts in
the realm of economics and natural resources literature.
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goods, club goods, common resources and public goods. Instead of using inclusiveness and non-competitiveness, the categories are classified on the basis of excludability and
rivalrousness. Private goods, like bread and wine, are rivalrous. This means the bread and wine cannot be consumed by two persons at the same time. Private goods are also excludable, for one person can be excluded from eating cheese when he cannot purchase it. See figure 1 for the other classifications; notice the capitalistic trace.
The term public good denotes what is already open to everyone. In a market society, the state usually purchases this good when pressure from groups or individuals informs public policy (Bollier, 2002, p. 12).
In the capitalist narrative, the common property institutions are seen as counterproductive.6 This could be the case, because the commons are confused with open-access regime, in which a resource is open to everyone without restriction (Bollier, 2002, p. 12). Hardin’s (2009) tragedy of the commons, as he later acknowledged, was about pastures with open-access. There was no authority, let alone regulation. Still, neoliberals stubbornly turn to above mentioned theories as legitimization for their policies.
There is, however, plentiful evidence that contradict this line of reasoning. On a global scale, internet proves that this conviction is unattainable. Many open source networks connect people who are exchanging information and software. More or less anonymous individuals share ideas, programs and reviews all the time. They do this without asking for anything but improvement of the system in return. When things are not commodified, and not market-dependent, there is more room for cooperation. I come back to this later on in my thesis.
6 Capitalism is the mainstream economic model. The capitalist narrative (i.e. story) is part of neoclassical
or liberal discourse.
Figure 1
Private Goods Common Resources
Club Goods Public Goods
Excludable Non-excludable
Rival Non-rival
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At the local level, volunteering of any kind shows people want to ‘make a difference’ without personal ‘gain’ (capitalistic terminology). They earn respect and help out their community. Family members and friends help each other out constantly without reward other than love and affection. In these instances, price and profit are not involved while progress is reached.
1.1.3 The Second Enclosure. At this point in time we are amidst a Second Enclosure (Boyle, 2003)7. The “enclosure is the historical antonym and nemesis of the commons”, as ‘commons historian’ Pete Linebaugh (2014, p. 1) wrote down so eloquently. In the First Enclosure, peasants were driven away from the land by wealthy land owners (Wordie, 1983). The Second Enclosure has its focus on immaterial things like knowledge, or things not
considered commons before like our ecosystem. It is undeniable that the level and scale of the enclosure heightens over time: first the land was enclosed, now the sky has no limit.
In the 1990’s, the practice of deregulation and privatisation was more widespread than ever before. The capitalist narrative entailed the same slogan as after World War II: “the free world”. The neoliberal era coincided with the end of the Cold War; a defeat of
communism.8The process of privatisation of today’s Second Enclosure is similar to the First Enclosure, because it is about common ownership turning into private ownership.
1.1.4 New movements, new commons. During the proclamation of the victory of capitalism in the 1990s, its opponents began clearing their throat. An enclave of opposition to the alleged triumph of capitalism was formed. It was part of the ‘Third Way’: an alternative viewpoint to communism and capitalism. In the next chapter I bring forward a model that originated during this period: Parecon.
The last decades non-cooperative game-theory informed new studies and insights in many fields. A current boast in literature concerning the commons is partly derived from economic theory about property and institutions, property arrangements and common pool resources. The environmental turn provided a body of literature that described the relation between human actions and environmental consequences (Mancilla, 2016).
7 Scholars differ in how many stages of enclosure they discern and what typifies them. For instance,
according to James Boyle (2008) we are now amidst a second enclosure movement where the human mind is being enclosed.
8 The Cold War can be described as an ideological battle between capitalism and communism. In the end,
communism by many was seen as the loser, as antidote to freedom. Francis Fukuyama (1989) proclaimed ‘the end of history’: western liberalism triumphed and its belief in the free market was transferred all over the ever more globalised system of nation-states and regional arrangements. Communism has its obvious similarities with the commons paradigm, especially its arduous relationship with capitalism. I would consider it an omission not to point to the demise of communism and its probable impact on envisioning alternatives to the free market.
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Despite the predominantly pessimistic narrative on commons, recently there is reason for optimism. The last decades transnational movements began to emerge that coincided with the growth of the World Wide Web and open source networks (Bollier, 2014). People from different cultures started to play computer games with each other through peer-to-peer communication.9 The Linux software development community sprang up and sites like Wikipedia embellish the digital universe with information for and by everyone that wants to get involved10. National and international groups share deep convictions on sharing the commons and protecting them, evident in the Occupy movement and other anti-globalization protests.
Nobel Prize in Economics winner Elinor Ostrom shows in her work how communities are able to manage natural resources in a successful way, without the government or private agents interfering11. Ostrom (2015) composed eight principles for managing the commons12. In my view, it is harmful that Ostroms work gives rise to the idea of a ‘governable common’. Ostrom (2015) depicts instances, where government and law do not interfere vehemently. Her examples entail irrigation systems in Spain and the Philippines, grazing pastures in
Switzerland, and Japanese forests. These projects are not under tight control of capitalism. In time they will be, because of the thirst for expansion that defines capitalism. I follow Rosa Luxembourg’s (2003) argumentation that the logic of capitalism entails the expansion into non-capitalist areas in order to attain new markets for labour as well as trading of goods.13 The seventh principle that Ostrom proposes to protect the commons is: “The rights of appropriators to devise their own institutions are not challenged by external governmental authorities” (Ostrom, 2015, p. 101). A market society inherently challenges non-market actors. I contend that ‘higher’ authorities will oppose community appropriators when certain commons resources are significantly valuable within the economy of a particular area. The
9 The online-game industry has grown enormously over the last decade and became a ‘media force’ to be
reckoned with (Williams, 2002). Multi-player online battle arenas with hundreds of millions of users are the domain of games like Call of Duty, Witcher III and Heroes of the storm (‘King Pesmerga’, ‘Tanqus’, ‘DonMarino’).
10 Both Linux and Wikipedia are non-profit organisations. The owners of Linux and Wikipedia could,
however, use their data for infinite business opportunities.
11 Officially, The Nobel Prize is called Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences.
12 Among other things: define clear group boundaries, ensure that those affected by the rules can
participate in modifying the rules, use sanctions for rule violators and provisions have to be made for dispute resolution.
13 Furthermore, current day globalisation points to an ever more integrated world wherein different
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market will eventually absorb these commons since market allocation supposedly leads to the greatest benefit to all.
Furthermore, when the market society will not be directly involved in extracting a common resource, capitalism is directly harmful in its effects on society as a whole and the ecosystem we live in. An environmental catastrophe affects everything we hold in common. These parts of the CC will be discussed in the next sections.
Still, the value of Ostroms work for common resources can hardly be underestimated. Throughout her work, Ostrom explains how the commons paradigm is about a shared understanding of allocation of scarce use rights. Consequently, when we do not share the same conception of commons, we do not have everything in common. Since the emergence of much commons research, there is ample differentiation of the conceptualization of the
commons.14
It can puzzle the student of the CC and reader of this thesis how the commons is used and what is meant by it. When common resources like fish in the sea or parks are being privatised, they are not common anymore in the capitalistic sense. For the interest of clarity, I would like to distinguish the latter from the former. I coin the concepts participatory commons and capitalist commons to discern two types of commons
The participatory commons denotes parks and roads but also knowledge and democracy: everything we share is common. If commons are privatised, they are still commons. Ostrom takes a naturalistic notion of commons and does not employ the commons as a social
construct. The participatory common depicts a natural or manmade resource that is common, and should consciously be held and used in common. It is a social construct because in discourse it is materialised in a certain manner.
Consequently, there is no participatory commons without what Linebaugh (2014) refers to as commoning: people that govern the commons. In this thesis I investigate whether the
community, as opposed to the state or a corporation, should govern the commons. I study the absence of this process in a market-based system like capitalism, a defect leading to CC. This chapter is about how the commons are market-dependent within capitalism and being
14 Differentiation between tangible and intangible common assets is not uncommon. Next to commons,
there are anti-commons depicting commons resources which are used less when privatised. Some scholars discern different realms of the commons: natural resources, public domains and gift economies. David Bollier (2013) calls “the robust circulation of gifts within communities” an indispensable condition for a
gift economy (p. 8). The concept of the global commons refers to the entire ecosystem, oceans and the
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privatised rapidly so I will investigate the capitalist commons. The next chapters are about a new system and to what extent CC could be prevented in a future model of society; hence, I will make use of the participatory commons.
This section showed the obscure togetherness of the terms commons and capitalism. The liberal notion of ‘life, liberty and property’ fueled the narrative of capitalism as mainstream economic discourse and a liberal philosophy typified commons as ‘anti-progress’. This is part of the TINA-doctrine. When postulating CC in a capitalist system, it is imperative to explain what this dominant capitalist system entails. What is ‘the sequence of events’ within
capitalism that composes a catastrophe? I will focus on this question in the next section. 1.2 The Destructive Logic of Capitalism
CC [1] A sequence of events that disrupts the commons and the community occurs Capitalism is the dominant model of our world. Protagonists of capitalism have tied it strictly to freedom, democracy and prosperity. Capitalism is a system where ‘economic units rely on the market for everything they need’ (Brenner, 2006, p.23). From the advent of
capitalism on, inescapable market dependence leads to commodification of the commons. This commodification process in turn implicates privatisation of commons. In this section I will elaborate on this ‘sequence of events’ which can be considered the first, endogenous part of CC, the motor of disruption: capitalism constitutes a sequence of events that disrupts the commons and the community.
Figure 2
The Destructive Logic of Capitalism
I introduced the concepts of the commons and capitalism and elucidated their
interconnectedness in economic discourse. This section is about why a CC is unstoppable in a world where capitalism prevails. The CC is the consequence of both the enclosure of the commons, and at the same time, the demise and neglect of the commons. I treat the enclosure of the commons meaning the legal process of transferring common resources to private hands.
Capitalism’s Dominance Market Dependence Market Enclosure Commons Catastrophe
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In my analysis of CC I use the capitalistic notion of common; they are not common anymore when privatised. The CC points to the demise of economic democracy, economic justice and human solidarity and the advancement of ecological degradation.
I define economic democracy as substantial participation of humans in the economic process, with as its central tenet that people have decision-making power in proportion to the extent that they are affected by a decision (Hahnel & Albert, 1991a). Economic justice means a fair distribution of wealth and allocation of resources, human solidarity points to a sense of community that reconciles individual with collective needs and ecological sustainability is about making the human organisation compatible with environmental concerns. These categories are all intertwined.
1.2.1 Capitalism as a natural state and the freedom myth. Capitalism has a firm grip on world affairs. Today, neoliberal capitalism dominates society in political, cultural and economic ways (Heynen & Robbins, 2005; Giroux, 2004; Jessop, 2002). Neoliberal capitalism is presented as an inevitable and natural state (Davies & Bansel, 2007). Perry Anderson (2000) describes neoliberalism as ‘the most successful ideology in world history’. One can trace back capitalism to the philosophy of John Locke. According to Locke (1713) capital adds value to nature. The person who has capital has the natural right to own the natural resources. This right implicitly diminishes the rights of the community. In the
narrative of capitalism there are strong ties with freedom and democracy. I refer to this as the freedom myth.
Milton Friedman is one of the most well-known and articulate protagonists of neoliberalism. Friedman (2009) thinks free institutions (institutions outside the scope of the coercive state) should flourish. The self-regulatory market is king. Friedman echoes the theories of Locke and Hobbes15. The market eliminates the source of coercion by staying free of political
authority. Government is in place to organise human experience and serve communities. If we –as a thought experiment- substitute government with community, its defect becomes more visible. Following Friedman’s line of thought, private corporations and individuals have to be free from the community, have to be free to act out of self-interest.
15 It may seem I use narrative and discourse interchangeably. With narrative I point to a story, which is
made ‘whole’ by its tellers: there should be no gaps in the storyline. A ‘good’ story must be coherent and comprehensible. When using discourse I point to the overall social practice of producing, distributing and consuming texts within a social context that informs this practice and is affected by it.
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People in the tradition of John Locke and Milton Friedman link freedom to capitalism. In this line of thought, it is not difficult to distillate a ‘natural’ connection between democracy and capitalism. The individual supposedly holds the freedom to reign. Today, it is often
questioned whether capitalism and democracy are a great fit (Hamzaee et al., 2017; Krogh, 2014; Streeck, 2015). I will elaborate on economic democracy later on in this section. The freedom myth entails that capitalism leads to ‘freedom of the individual’, whether this refers to individual humans or individual corporations. The theory of freedom does not involve models of how common resources are depleting. Furthermore, the ‘freedom of the community’ is a non-issue in mainstream economic discourse.
An issue apparent from classical Athens until the present time, the freedom of the individual versus the community’s common good, is evident in the commons paradigm. The connection of freedom and market is false in more than one way. First, people are dependent to a market; therefore, market logic controls movement of actors within it. Market failures and crises have a great impact on people’s lives16
. Furthermore, certain people work within factories for wages that are minimal, and they possibly hate the factory work. Just because there is possibly no other source of income nearby to sustain their livelihood they are -in one way or another- forced to work there. For their basic needs they are relying on the market. The factory could produce cigarettes, while the workers hate smoking. The common good is not incorporated in the aims of market actors. They aim for profit.
Second, the market itself is not free, not without manipulation. In present day neoliberalism, state Treasuries interfere constantly with the market by means of adjusting interest rates. Additionally, organisations like WTO and IMF are meant to support the ‘free market’ when giving loans to poor countries and facilitate the process of managing exchange rates. Laissez-fair policy is always planned in modern day capitalism. The core of neoliberalism in
economic policy is deregulation, privatisation and laying a foundation for economic enterprise in securing property rights (Stiglitz, 1999). The discrepancy between the philosophy and policy of IMF and WTO implicates capitalism’s inconsistency. On the one hand IMF and WTO “are institutional bastions of belief in the free market system” (Stiglitz, 1999, p. 587). On the other hand they regularly interfere in markets by adjusting exchange rates, smoothing trade and helping out creditors that are in troubled water.
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Why the state cannot interfere with the market and make the system more just? How exactly does the state adhere to neoliberal policy? Karl Polanyi concludes in The Great
Transformation (1957) that both the nation state and the market economy come together in one concept: the market society. Not only private actors (e.g. humans) in Wood’s analysis are market dependent, the state is market dependent too, or perhaps formulated more sharply: a market economy involves a society of which the institutions are overpowered by market mechanisms (Polanyi, 1957).
The state apparatus, it can be argued, is just as enclosed as the rest of the commons. State ownership does not circumvent capitalist forces. The state is part of the market society. The corporations need the state for the creation of its laws. The state should enforce these laws and uphold democracy, since capitalists do not want to change the status quo (Boettke, Coyne & Leeson, 2008). National policy is influenced by scholars and lobbyists of neoliberal stripes, which can best be described by the example of the Chicago School.
Milton Friedman was part of the Chicago School. This was a school of thought strongly connected with neoliberalism.17 John Maynard Keynes’ economic interventionism, where a state for example interferes within market society by way of fiscal adjustments, was seen as the enemy (Gray et al., 2015). Friedman and others advocated deregulation in order to support growth rates, governments should sell off assets to corporations and social programs should be on the margins of government policy.
1.2.2 Capitalism means market dependence. It is clear capitalism is dominant and its narrative is filled with the freedom myth. Furthermore, state and capitalism come together in a market society. The next step in the sequence that means catastrophe is
market-dependence. Ellen Meiksin Wood (1999) differentiates between market-enablement and market-dependence.
Protagonists of capitalism often refer to the market as enabler of human potential. People can turn to the market for profit, self-reproduction, their basis needs, well-being and improvement of life-style. In The politics of Capitalism (1999) Wood begins her argument postulating the market as imperative. The imperative market is about how people are forced to respond to the capitalist market. There is no way around dealing with it.
17 The protagonists of this school of thought were referred to as the ‘Chicago Boys’. They were affiliated
with the University of Chicago. Their compeers at The University of California at Berkley were known as the ‘Berkley Mafia’. Both groups were influential advisers on financial and monetary policies. They advised governments in the United States of America as well as abroad, for example in Chile.
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Like Brenner (2006) and Wood (1999, 2002), I look at capitalism through the lens of market-dependence. This market-dependence automatically makes economic factors subject to imperatives of competition and growth. In pre-capitalist society, the market did not have the central place in human life it eventually acquired. Producers, like peasants, generally were in possession of land. Exploitation consisted of coercion. In short, a landlord could attain a part of the production of a farmer simply by force; supposedly it returned the favor with
‘protection’18
.
Certain strategies are necessary for success in the market: specialization, seeking low-cost techniques, enhancing labor productivity. Competitiveness, growth-imperative and private ownership are features of the market economy. Accumulation and innovation are driven by competition. Wood argues that simply because there is a market, there arises a market-dependency. This market dependence entails the commercialization of society, the
commodification of the commons and the privatisation of the commons. Capitalist narrative focusses on market opportunities and circumvents market failures.
Both Keynesian and neoliberal politics could not hinder crises returning and could certainly not keep up growth rates after the post-war boom. They differ in that Keynesian politics refers to measures that adjust the system and neoliberal politics is characterised by laissez-faire. Yet, whether it is Keynesian obstruction or neoliberal enhancement, both economic thoughts focus on market opportunities instead of markets inherent failures19.
Young (2011) discerns three types of market failure. First, under a private-property regime it is rational for the owner of resources to use up the resource completely before investing in other resources. Second, certain arrangements can include usage of resources that deteriorates land instead of choosing for production that improves the land. Third, commodification of resources may lead to negative externalities like climate change20. Bollier (2014) adds that extreme market dominance tends to undermine civic trust and inhibits a shared vision that is required in a well-functioning society. The CC [1] points to this kind of disruption of the commons and the community.
18 See the next subsection: according to Bollier (2001), a kind of ‘feudal’ era could return in the
advancement of the dystopia of the market enclosure.
19 After the financial crisis of 2008, there was a resurgence of Keynesian policies named ’New Keynesian
economics’ (Gilchrist et al., 2016). History has showed, however, that neoliberal and Keynesian policy cannot hinder crises from returning.
20 Externality costs are paid for by the community. For example, the externality cost air pollution normally
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1.2.3 Market enclosure. Why is there no regulation that prevents market enclosure? The proposals to prevent privatisation are often viewed as paternalistic (Friedman, 2009). Liberal thought consists of the idea that corporations can freely come to a shared decision, hence make a fair deal. This has everything to do with the role of the legislator: the state. The state is a market player and deregulation is part of the ideal of the free-market. A market is not free when heavily regulated. On the contrary, initiatives that enhance market functioning are widespread. Competition on a global level led to even more national deregulation than already was the case in the 1980s and 1990s.
Market society is a system where the state is submissive to the market. In a market society, the commons and the community have a negative connotation. Market dependence leads to the commodification of the commons. Commodification refers to the creation of an economic good. For example, a price is attached to water in order to be traded within the market
(Bakker, 2005). This commodification in turn leads to privatisation because wat was formerly common (water) is turned into private ownership.21. This is typical for the capitalist common because it is about commons that are market-dependent and are being privatised.
I explained how capitalism is framed within a liberal ideology and is the dominant social perspective on world affairs. Further, capitalism means market dependence leading to
commodification and subsequent privatisation of common goods. Why does the privatisation of the commons leads to a CC [1]?
In short, it is unfair because it disproportionately benefits the capitalist elite and deprives the community of the common resources. An unfair system leads to the disruption of the
commons and the community: hence, a CC [1] occurs. Privatisation is about growth and capital accumulation in the short-term; it does not involve deliberations that involve a just society over a longer period of time. What is more, a sense of community is not strengthened because the focus on individualism. Privatisation is the motor of the CC.
The First Enclosure had its positive effects: away with the master-commoner relationship and ‘vassals’ transformed into ‘freeholders’ (Wordie, 1983; Bollier, 2014). A ‘commercial’ elite got a hold of the commons. This led to greater harvests and lower costs in the short-term. Yet, mass-privatisation, deregulation and globalization put more distance between capitalist
21 I use privatisation and market enclosure interchangeably, although market enclosure refers to market
forces as coercive in the process of commodification of the commons and privatisation denotes the process of private actors getting ownership of the capitalist commons.
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owners and localities. Local entities benefit from long term plans and long-lasting commitment.
Local communities have an investment horizon spanning over decades. Indigenous communities in the United States, when making deliberations about what to harvest and consume, consider the impact on the seventh generation from now (LaDuke, 2017). Yet, market-dependence means living by the rules of the market. Rational corporations pursue short-term profit and, like in the fable of Hardin, do not make costly long term analysis and policy prescriptions.
The slogan of localities is “All for one, one for all” (Linebaugh, 2014, p. 13). Human solidarity is at the heart of a good functioning society. If we zoom in from a global to local level, we see commoning in every form and shape. In the near future, capitalism can throw us back to medieval fiefdoms, as Bollier (2002) warns us. When everything is mediated by the market, in which everything is privately owned, “every minor property-holder demands tribute for the right to cross his land or ford his streams” (p. 23).
Capitalism’s respect for property rights, both intellectual and material, can make a student of commons feel like a sane person hospitalised. In the first place there was no respect at all for common property. The rights of the community were trampled upon since the First Enclosure (Wordie, 1983). A legal framework permits extensive property rights of corporations and the unbounded attainment of wealth. Often, promising community-based projects are doomed unless they are handled as private property and protected by law in that respect (Eisenberg, 2012). The case of New York city-gardens illustrates neoliberal encroachment within the urban space. In the evolution of enclosure, it is evident that more and more is enclosed, from material to immaterial things. Market-dependence implicates that the logic of the market dictates the workings of society.
We should seek for a humane and productive balance between commons and markets, Bollier (2002) states. I do not agree. As Young (2011) explains, the market will absorb the commons, and the laws of the market will not protect the commons: resources are used up when no longer profitable, the degradation of land could be considered a non-issue and negative externalities are not taken into account.
The all-encompassing market dependence and subsequent market enclosure leads to the absence of economic democracy (the capital elite holds power over common resources and productive forces, everyone is market dependent so market failures have great impact on
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people’s lives, the capitalist elite makes economic decisions that affect the majority of people’s live), economic injustice (externality costs paid for by community, less social programs, and decrease of human solidarity (focus on individual needs instead of community needs, focus on competition and accumulation of capital that makes human beings
competitors instead of cooperators). Our sense of commons and community is equally undermined. A system where individual gain and outmanoeuvring competitors is rewarded does not strengthen the sense of commons and community.
Taken ecological sustainability into account, we face a disastrous end if neoliberalism has its unlimited way. The concern with ecological degradation is shared by capitalists. Yet, market imperatives do not allow for sustainable solutions. How do capitalist forces adhere to crises and possible catastrophe? In order to asses CC [2] I will elaborate on sustainability issues within the capitalist framework in the next section.
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1.3 Ecological Degradation & Capitalism’s Crisis Management
CC [2] Unsustainable levels of ecological degradation are reached which risk the complete destruction of the world we live in.
The market enclosure claims common resources. Additionally, market forces are not capable of retaining the commons when facing destruction. The destructive logic of capitalism can be disguised by its protagonists, but global warming is noticed by every sensible
individual. I established so far that the narrative of the commons is filled with pessimistic notions of collective ownership. Furthermore, capitalism’s destructive logic implies a CC [1] by enclosure. For the marginalised people, the attainment of the participatory commons is essential. Then, the economic decision-making power of the community can be restored and a fair system put in place. For the wealthy people, often, the symbol of disaster is the demise of our ‘global commons’ ecosystem (CC [2]) for even many capitalists take environmental degradation seriously.
This section treats the exogenous notion of the CC: capitalism reaches unsustainable levels risking the complete destruction of the world we live in. It is about the forces outside of the system that point to disaster. Notwithstanding its disastrous effect on our ecosystem, capitalism is passive when it comes to real solutions.
The second section of this chapter primarily describes the societal downfall. Now I will investigate the ecological degradation within capitalism. We are at the most dangerous
moment in the history of humanity. This section is about the end of the world and we know it: ecological destruction. I asses the inevitability of environmental catastrophe and the way capitalists deal with capitalism’s inadequacy to rescue the planet.
1.3.1 Planetary boundaries. For some scholars it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism (Kovel, 2007). I like to argue that both endings likely will coincide if nothing fundamentally changes. The Stockholm Resilience Centre have made a report where they state that we have crossed, or are near crossing nine ‘planetary boundaries’: climate change, the disruption of the nitrogen phosphorus cycles, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, freshwater usage, land cover change, species extinction, aerosol landing and chemical use (Röckström et al., 2009).
Garrett Hardins most influential article about the tragedy of the commons is constructed with the notion in mind that is derived from Enlightment thought: the division between human and nature. Hardin views humans as separable and superior to natural world. The term
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Anthropocene refers to a human-dominated geological epoch (Lewis & Maslin, 2015). People show a lack of respect for ecological concerns when they view themselves as dominant and tend to modify (the rest of) nature for their own benefit22. What could be considered sensible and justifiable community action is overruled by individualistic logic.
You do not have to search for doom thinkers to understand the fragility of the earth and the role humans play in its destruction. As John Bellamy Foster (2011) explains, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were influenced by scientists who studied human destruction of the natural environment. In Capital Marx (1976) asserts capital accumulation is disregardful of the destruction of its own human and natural bases, because it gives no other purpose than the pursuit of individual benefit.
As already stated in the last section, the local and indigenous communities recognise the importance of future generations, but the market by its very nature does not. Profit
maximization is about the here and now, not about future prospects. Market does not integrate future generations into the plans for the present. Barnes (2001) describes air, water and forests as ‘our shared inheritance’. Within the capitalist paradigm, ‘inheritance’ usually points to capital being transferred.
The tragedy of the commons in a reversed way is evident in the pollution of our shared
inheritance. Instead of taking something out of the common ground, now something is put into the common air. However inescapable market enclosure is, why not circumventing the CC through somewhat like a capitalist backdoor? I summarise why this is unheard of, besides the fact that it obscures the fact that the capitalist system is rigged.
1.3.2 Green capitalism. For some, like the current American president, simply denying truth about ecological destruction seems the only ‘sustainability measure’. Others try to use capitalism in order to make the world more sustainable. Privatisation often is a cure worse than the disease.
Recent years green capitalism is a so-called ‘environment-friendly’ approach to capitalism. Some people, Al Gore is one of them, suggest green capitalism is the answer to
environmental degradation. Green corporations with ‘social responsible’ policy prescriptions supposedly will lead the way to a bright future. It is hard to proof if it is just a public relations strategy in response to social activism, which is appropriately called 'greenwash’. The
proliferation of ‘green’ unintentionally seems to reveal the goal: keep making dollars.
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Green capitalism is a way for the economic elite to stay in power. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) is about surpassing profit to attain social beneficial goals (Karnani, 2014). Rather, CSR should be about that. Due to systemic focus on short-term growth and benefits, capitalists are not interested in future sustainability issues. The emission-trading has shown to promote profits while increase the amount of carbon-emissions. This is because large companies that trade emissions effectively have an advantage over their competitors and can produce more. The concept of fossil capitalism is termed, because capitalism is
intrinsically linked to fossil fuels (Altvater, 2009). Since large companies still rely heavily on fossil fuels, the level of pollution increases. Hence, market-based ‘solutions’ often are worse than nothing (Foster, 2011; Stevens, 2017).
The case of Coca-Cola in India is a poignant example of how corporate social responsibility leads to a CC. Coca-Cola had a clear defined CSR yet never followed through when the opportunity was there to make enormous profits. The extraction of ground water at Coca-Cola factories led to a water crisis that disrupted the commons and the community in an Indian region (Karnani, 2014).
1.3.3 Neoliberal crisis management. Following the Marxist line of thought, one could argue that a crisis leads to revolution. Did the crises of the last century led to the overturning of a system? No. Capitalism’s sinister side is most apparent when it comes to crises, no matter what kind. Crises are used by protagonists of capitalism to enforce enclosure (Klein, 2007).
When people are in shock by what happened it is the best moment to enforce things that are unpleasant, because it takes time for people to notice what just happened and to organise in protest. Friedman (2009, p. ix): “only a crisis – actual or perceived – produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around”. All too often, these ideas stem from capitalist theory.
The Chicago School economists argued that a market crash could spark right-wing revolution just like it could lead to left-wing revolutions. This theory became known as “the crisis hypothesis”. Each crisis, more money is earned by the capital elite compared to before the crisis. Massive private gains coincide with public losses. (Klein, 2007).
Already since the 1980s it is evident that climate change poses a serious threat to humans as well as the rest of nature (Heynen & Robbins, 2005). The world governance institutions – regional constructs, nation states, corporations and non-governmental organisations- have
