First is Capitalism is the primary cause of the exploitation of ocean

ecologies
Clausen and Clark 5 Rebecca Clausen and Brett Clark. University of Oregon. 2005. The Metabolic
Rift and Marine Ecology. Organization & Environment 18:4.
In the early 1800s, scientists used metabolism to describe the material ex- changes within a body. Justus von Liebig, the great
German chemist, applied the term on a wider basis, referring to metabolic processes at the cellular level of life, as well as concerning
the process of exchange for organisms as a whole. By the 1850s and 1860s, the term took on greater significance in relation to the
depletion of soil nutrients. Agricultural chemists and agronomists in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States noted how the
transfer of food and fiber from the country to the cities resulted in the loss of necessary soil nutrients such as nitrogen, phosphorus,
and potassium (Foster, 2000, pp. 157-159). Whereas traditional agriculture tended to involve the return of essential nutrients to the
soil, capitalist agriculture, which involved the division between town and country given the concentration of land ownership,
transported nutrients to city centers where they accumulated as waste. Liebig (1859) described the intensive methods of British
agriculture as a system of robbery, which was opposed to a rational agriculture. The expansion of this form of agriculture led to the
exhaustion of the soil, as it continually depleted the soil of its nutrients. With further concentration of ownership, more intensive
methods of pro- duction were used, including the application of artificial fertilizers. The attempts to solve the rift in soil nutrients
created additional rifts, as other resources were exploited to produce artificial fertilizers, and failed to resolve the primary problem
driving the exhaustion of the soil: an economic system premised on the escalating accumulation of capital. Marx found that Liebigs
analysis complemented his critique of political econ- omy. Marx (1964), quite aware of human dependence on nature, noted that

nature provides the means and material that sustain human life . There is a necessary metabolic interaction between humans and the earth (Marx, 1976, pp. 637-638). Thus, Marx employed the concept of metabolism to
refer to the complex, dy- namic interchange between human beings and nature (Foster, 2000, p. 158). Through

labor,
humans interact with nature, exchanging organic matter. Humans confront the nature-imposed
conditions and processes of the physical world, while influencing these conditions at the same time. The state of nature was, in part,
bound up with the social relations of the time (Marx, 1971, pp. 162-163). Although transformation was part of the human-nature
relationship, Marx (1991) noted that humans needed to organize their lives in a manner that allowed for a social metabolism that
followed the prescribed natural laws of life itself (pp. 949-950). But the operation of the capitalist system, in its relentless drive to
accu- mulate capital, violates these principles, as it creates irreparable rifts in the meta- bolic interaction between humans and the

The pursuit of
profit sacrificed reinvestment in the land, causing the degradation of nature
through the depletion of soil nutrients and the accumulation of waste in cit- ies. Marx
explained that under capitalist operations, humans are unable to maintain the
conditions necessary for the recycling of nutrients, because the pursuit of profit
imposes an order where the basic conditions of sustainability are seen as an obstacle to be overcome, in order for the economic system to increase its scale of
operations. As capital attempts to overcome natural barriers (including those that it cre- ates),
it continues to contribute to a metabolic rift and to create new ones . The introduction of
artificial fertilizers has contributed to the incorporation of large quantities of oil into agricultural
production, which leads to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions and the pollution of waterways (Foster & Magdoff, 2000).
earth. In agriculture, large-scale pro- duction, long-distance trade, and synthetic inputs only intensify the rift.

Con- stant inputs are required to sustain and expand capitalist production. Ecological problems remain a pressing concern,
increasing in severity as time passes. The metabolic

rift has become a powerful conceptual tool for

analyzing human interactions with nature and ecological degradation . Foster (1999, 2000)
illustrates how Marxs conception of the metabolic rift under capitalism illuminates social- natural relations and degradation in a
number of ways: (a)

the decline in soil fertil- ity as a result of disrupting the soil nutrient
cycle; (b) scientific and technological developments, under capitalist relations,
increase the exploitation of nature, inten- sifying the degradation of soil; (c)
capitalist operations lead to the accumulation of waste, which become a pollution
problem; and (d) capitals attempts to surmount environmental problems fail to
resolve the immediate metabolic rift, thus contrib- uting to further environmental
problems. We extend the theory of the metabolic rift to marine ecosystems. A metabolic rift is a rupture in the metabolic
processes of a system. Natural cycles, such as the reproduction rate of fish or the energy transfer
through trophic levels, are inter- rupted. We situate the human-marine relationship within the period of
global capi- talism, which is the primary force organizing the social metabolism with nature. By historically contextualizing this
metabolic rift, we can highlight the oceanic crisis in the making. Marine

ecosystems are experiencing the

same exploitive disconnect recognized between soil ecology and capitalist

agriculture due to aquacultures intensification of production and concentration of
wastes. Intensification and concentration of fisheries production creates a quantitative increase in the rate
of biomass depletion and aquatic pollution. However, the qualitative changes to the conditions
of the marine ecosystem resulting from aquacultures productive re- organization may present an even greater
challenge to the stability of human-ocean interactions and the resiliency of the
oceans themselves. The qualitative changes taking place extend beyond ecosystem disruption and include the interaction
between humans and the ocean. As capitalist production in the aquatic realm expands, the
alienation of humans from nature increases. Through the application of metabolic
rift analysis, we can gain a greater understanding of the dynamic relationships
involved in the oceanic crisis. To begin the analysis, a review of marine ecological processes is required.