Theory Application: The Economics of Waste

October 3, 2023

We can’t take the economy out of the equation of ecological damage and, for some theorists, it is the imperative factor in our current ecological crisis. Inherent to capitalism is a commitment to the wealth accumulation by expanding production through boundless extraction, depletion, pollution, and wasting of the environment to maximize profit. Two theoretical propositions on the origins and relations of the socio-economic structure, ecological damage, and waste are “The Treadmill of Production '' and “The Tragedy of the Commons,” by Schnaiberg and Gould (2009) and Hardin (2005), respectively. Henceforth, they will be referred to as “the Treadmill” and “The Tragedy”, respectively, for brevity’s sake.

“The Treadmill” illustrates the captive place we are in under global free market capitalism and threat of ecological crisis. There are two processes in the treadmill of production: 1) expansion of production; 2) advancement of technological capabilities (Schnaiberg & Gould, 2009). They converge to create a system proliferating products and consumers of the products, waste outputs, and ecological damage – all in the name of wealth accumulation by a few (p 51). Industrial and consumer wastes and waste in the form of human labor force oppression, are churned out at a proportional rate as products and consumers (Schnaiberg & Gould, 2009). On one hand, we are stuck on the treadmill since we rely on the economic system as a whole for our survival as we are tied to it by the need for jobs, which the free market economy provides. On the other hand, the labor force, good only for their capacity and efficiency in profitable production, are discarded when they age, get sick/hurt, or when technology advances to make them obsolete. Schnaiberg and Gould claim that the system encourages expansion and wealth accumulation and with it, greater resource extraction and, as a result of technological advance, more toxic waste being introduced into the environment by producers (56). “The Tragedy” parallels how people become subservient to the treadmill of production. While Angus’ (2008) rebuttal to Hardin’s (2005) original theory of “The Tragedy" is more plausible overall, (i.e. since there’s no scientific or historical evidence that property communally owned will lead to ruin, nor any that private ownership/control is the suitable answer to ecological damage, Hardin is describing a rational capitalist, not a rational person), Hardin’s original arguments and assumptions demand attention. The commons refers to any communally held resource; the tragedy therein, asserts that “Individuals locked into the logic of the commons are free only to bring universal ruin,” since rational man will always seek their individual maximization of common resources without thought for ecological impacts so that they maximize profit (Hardin, 2005). He argues that ecological costs come in two forms: environmental withdrawals and environmental additions. With withdrawal, resources are depleted (taken) till ruin to extract as many economic benefits as possible. The tragedy shows up in reverse with pollution and other wastes (environmental additions) such that, it’s not about taking something out of the commons, but about putting something in — sewage, chemical, radioactive and heat wastes, noxious and dangerous fumes, and/or distracting and unpleasant ads (Hardin, 2005). We continually add waste and pollution to our environment because the rational man finds his share of the cost of the wastes he discharges into the commons is less than the cost of purifying his wastes before releasing them – and since this is true for everyone, we are locked into a system of “fouling our own nest”, so long as we behave only as independent, rational, free enterprises (Hardin, 2005). This theory is based on the idea that ecological costs (which are shared) are less than benefits (which are individual). He offers “mutually agreed upon mutual coercion” as the solution to the tragedy of the commons (Hardin, 2005). Where the above authors proposed (mostly) the origins of the current reality, Another offers an alternative: Degrowth, which averts assumptions that pollution and waste problems are merely a population problem (core assumption of Hardin’s theory) by ingraining an anti-imperialism into ecosocialism (Miller McDonald, 2021). This perspective forces us to deal with the reality of the current socio-ecological model: global free-market capitalism demands high levels of consumption to make expanding production most profitable and efficient, thus, the consumption levels rely on extraction and appropriation from “over there” – i.e., colonial “frontiers” (Miller McDonald, 2021), and on sending our waste “over there” to be dealt with (Flora, 2010)

The image is a colossal pile of waste stretching as far as the eye and camera can see with a very serene sky in the background. 

Finally, and not the least bit unimportant, Miller McDonald (2021) asserts that: “Our relationship with nature will mimic the structure of our society. If we organize society around hierarchy, domination and extraction (which is true of both capitalism and any form of authoritarianism), then our relationship with nature will be hierarchical, dominating and extractive. But if we organize society around egalitarianism, reciprocity and care, then our relationship with nature will be egalitarian, reciprocal and caring.” Thus, “it’s not some innate quality of humans that has destroyed the planet, it’s a product of how the system of capitalism operates (Raymond, 2019). We are currently stuck on a treadmill that is dangerously structuring our society and its ecological responses and if we do not reorganize, from a society of individual profiteers to a collective society of citizens, we are surely in for a tragedy thatHardin (2005) describes.

Works Cited

Angus, I., & says: (2008, August 25). The myth of the tragedy of the Commons. Climate & Capitalism.

https://climateandcapitalism.com/2008/08/25/debunking-the-tragedy-of-the-commons/

Flora, G. (2010). Remapping Relationships: Humans in Nature. In R. Heinberg & D. Lerch (Eds.), The Post Carbon

Reader: Managing the 21st Century’s sustainability crises (pp. 184–193). essay, Watershed Media.

Miller McDonald, S. (2021, February 17). Ecosocialism is the horizon, degrowth is the way. resilience.

https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-02-17/ecosocialism-is-the-horizon-degrowth-is-the-way/

Raymond, R. R. (2019, November 18). Humans aren’t inherently destroying the planet - capitalism is. Truthout.

https://truthout.org/articles/humans-arent-inherently-destroying-the-planet-capitalism-is/

Payne, D.G., Newman, R.S. (2005). Garrett Hardin (1915–2003). In: Payne, D.G., Newman, R.S. (eds) The Palgrave

Environmental Reader. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-73299-9_24

Schnaiberg, A., & Gould, K. A. (2009). Treadmill Predispositions and Social Responses: Population, Consumption, and

Technological Change. In L. King & D. McCarthy (Eds.), Environmental sociology: From Analysis to Action (2nd ed.,

pp. 51–60).essay, Rowman & Littlefield.