Less is More Flashcards
Arc of industrilisation
Relative harmony with nature, then rapid industrilization after the 1950’s
Jason Moore on development of human systems:
Not the anthropocene, but the Capitalocene.
What makes capitalism unique from fuedalism?
Not markets, but organising it around perpetual growth and profit motive “take more than you give back”.
Narrative of capitalism:
Homo economicus; we are inherently selfish and have a tendency to accumulate.
Outcome of feudalism downfall:
Elite dissatisfaction with disaccumulation; Conquistador Hernan Cortes killed 100k indigenous people in Mexico and destroyed Aztec capital, awarded kingdoms highest honor
Trade fuelling capitalism from Latin America:
100 million kg of silver exported from Andes across 300 years - equates to $165 trillion in todays money
What did excessive trade allow?
Surplus investment in industrial revolution - key raw materials like sugar and cotton.
How mines and plantations were operated:
4 million indigenous Americans enslaved, 15 million from Africa - if paid at US minimum wage, add up to 97 trillion dollars.
Britain extraction from India:
45 trillion bought Iron, Tar, and timber.c
Britain surplus imports from India:
Somewehre to absorb output, so destroyed self-suffcient economies to create workers and consuemrs dependent on capital for necessities like food and clothes
The issue with exporting surplus capital?
Much outside of Europe own artisanal industires, not importing things they could make themselves.
How did Colonisers solve the lack of capacity to export trade?
Assymetric trade rules to destroy South’s domestic industries, thus capitve to European markets of mass-produced goods: South’s manufacturing collapsed from 77% in 1750to 13% in 1900
Mechanisms of changing global majority industry:
Britain heavy tax/criminlization of Indian textile industry whilst flooding with cheap British clothing
Raw materials extracted from colonies, finished product sold back to colony for profit.
Seixure of communal lands for cash cropping/low paid labor, monocropping.
Enslavement, like Indian sugar plantations in Caribbean or trans-atlantic slave trade.
Colonial banks fuelling wealth to Europe; locked intro trade policies benfiting imperial powers.
How Colonial economy restructuring is seen in Climate?
Loans to global majoirty, increasing sovreign debt burdens amplified by Strucutral Adjustment Programs already imposed by IMF and World Bank - instead of providing reparations
Structural Adjustment Programs
IMF and World Bank imposed economic policies that open nations to free trade, government spending, privatization.
How does Climate Finance mirror colonial relationships?
Welath extracted from Global South in raw materials and labor, dependency on Western finance with forced economic restructuring.
Example of Neoliberalising through climate finance:
Argentina $45 IMF loan at COP26 - carbon taxation, subsidy removals, increasing energy costs for public.
How the Market ensured intesnified agriculture:
Land allocated on a productivity basis ‘temporary leases’ - intensified agriculture, not satisfying needs.
How John Locke defines Enclosure?
‘A process of theft from the commons, but justified because output increased ‘contribution to greater good’ - the conversion of common lands into private property
How are new rounds of enclosure and colonization justified today?
Development or growth, anything justified so long as GDP growth increases - article of faith that growth benefits humanity.
‘Artifical Scarcity’
The illusion of scarcity allows fuelling economic growth without actual depletion of resources.
How poverty has been viewed relative to capitalism?
Poverty is an essential precondition for industrialization
How colonisers have impoverished people to fuel growth?
Pressure Indian peasants to cash crops for export, unwilling to do so, so British imposed heavy taxation for debt, leaving them no choice.
British East India company dismantling of communal agrarianism:
Privatised irrigation systems, destroyed granaries: idea welfare systems made people lazy - accumstomed to easy food and leisure, thus destroying them, thus inducing hunger increasing yields on lands.
