Social Theory and the Environment

The Classical Theorists in

Sociology

Karl Marx Emile Durkheim Max Weber

• Principal architect of modern social science and father of
sociology
What can they tell us about environment – society
relations?

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 The Classical Theorists in
Sociology

➢ All three were preoccupied with 'the Great

Transformation' (Polanyi) that occurred with the
industrialization and urbanization of Europe in
the 19th century.
➢ All three of them applauded Darwin's work.

➢ All three of them analyze the contexts (eg.

structures) that shape market exchanges.

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Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist,

and revolutionary socialist
• first social scientists to focus mainly on social class
• One social element that would determine where one fit in
the social class hierarchy
• The wealthy would then control all elements of society -
including the livelihoods of the lower, working class.
• How so many people could be in poverty in a world
where there was an abundance of wealth?
• His answer was simple: capitalism.

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Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Capitalism -inherently unfair.

the workers would become poorer and poorer and
experience alienation.
Alienation is seen as the workers becoming more
distanced from, or isolated from, their work, resulting in a
feeling of powerlessness.
To replace this alienation and extreme social class
structure-capitalism had to end and be replaced by a
socialist system that would make all equal and have all
people's needs met- Socialism

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Karl Marx (1818-1883)

Marx conceived of societies largely as factories and cities

that took in massive amounts of resources and used
them to spew out a continuing stream of commodities
and massive amounts of pollution
• Factory owners engage in an insatiable drive for profits
which they earn by exploiting both workers and natural
resources
• Technological changes enhance profits

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 Karl Marx (1818-1883)

• rural areas are stripped of their natural resources and

sent to cities where they were fed into factories that
produced wealth for their owners and pollutants for entire
communities of people.

In this manner a metabolic rift developed between cites

where resources and pollutants piled up and the
countryside which was stripped of resources.

• People in capitalist societies, particularly in urban areas,

became estranged from the natural world, so the rift has
an experiential dimension.(" reflection on doing“)

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What is a metabolic rift?

"irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social

metabolism"
• theory of metabolic rift evidence of
Marx's ecological perspective.
• Capitalism disrupts these processes, making agriculture
unsustainable and creating a rift between humans and
the earth.
• The most obvious example of this growing metabolic rift
could be seen in the declines in soil fertility, sometimes
referred to as 'soil mining',

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 How would Marx heal the
metabolic rift created by
capitalism?
Marx talked about maintaining productive processes across
the generations in a 'future society of associated
producers'

he never became more specific about what these social

formations, the 'associated' part, might be.

➢ None of the 20th century socialist regimes (with the

recent, possible exception of Cuba) took the goal of
sustainability seriously.

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Cuba: Breaking corporate
power allows sustainable
development
• a low-input sustainable agriculture-large-scale transition from
conventional farming, which is heavily dependent on fossil
fuels

• urban organic farms feed and beautify Cuba’s cities,

strengthen local communities and employ hundreds of
thousands of people

• first country to replace all incandescent light globes with

energy-saving compact fluorescents and to ban the sale of
incandescent.

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Cuba: Breaking corporate
power allows sustainable
development
• pioneered the decentralisation of electricity generation by
installing thousands of diesel generators the size of
shipping containers where they are needed. This has cut
transmission losses and made the grid less vulnerable to
disruption
• Many sugar mills burn crop residues to generate
electricity for the grid, and rural schools and other social
facilities have been fitted out with solar panels.
• Bicycles have been promoted as a sustainable transport
mode and neighborhood committees play a key role in
recycling.

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Cuba: Breaking corporate
power allows sustainable
development
Cuba’s socialist revolution abolished capitalist ownership of
large-scale productive wealth and replaced the capitalist
market with central planning to meet social needs.

There is a subordinate role for market mechanisms,

cooperatives and small private businesses.

Cuba treads lightly on the Earth.

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Cuba: Breaking corporate
power allows sustainable
development
In 2006, a World Wildlife Fund study concluded

Cuba is the only country in the world with both a high UN

Human Development Index — a composite ranking based
on quality of life indices and purchasing power

and

a relatively small “ecological footprint”, a measure of the per

person use of land and resources.

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Neo-Marxists on
Environment - Society
Relations
In 1865 the British economist William Stanley Jevons first
postulated (Jevons’ Paradox) that technologies with higher
energy efficiency will, rather than decrease energy
consumption, actually increase it.

• as coal usage in producing iron decreased, the use of iron

increased.

• energy efficient steam engines had accelerated Britain’s

consumption of coal

• The cost of steam-powered coal extraction became cheaper and,

because coal was very useful, more attractive.

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Environmental Rebound
Effect
The reduction in expected gains from new technologies
that increase the efficiency of resource use, because of
behavioral or other systemic responses.
The so-called rebound effect occurs when some of the
savings from energy efficiency are cancelled out by
changes in people's behavior…..
(Eg)
• fuel-efficient cars tend to drive them more often?
• leaving energy-saving lightbulbs on more than traditional
bulbs?

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Rebound Effect

• People may choose to drive more often if a vehicle is fuel

efficient because driving is useful or pleasurable and
now more affordable- direct rebound effect

• Less money spent on fueling energy efficient vehicles

enables more money to be spent on fuel for home air
conditioning or may be on some other energy consuming
process- Indirect rebound effects

• gains in energy efficiency ultimately lead

to greater energy consumption- backfire- Jevons’
Paradox

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Neo-Marxists on
Environment - Society
Relations
The Treadmill of Production(ToP) introduced by Allan
Schnaiberg in his 1980 book, The Environment: From
Surplus to Scarcity
capitalism is an ecological destructive means of
production and that the processes of producing and
consuming goods generates ecological
disorganization
➢ capitalism must destroy the eco-system to expand and
grow

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The Treadmill of
Production(ToP)
Capitalism’s ecologically destructive tendencies are
seen in the processes of ecological withdrawals and
ecological additions.

Ecological withdrawals are defined as the resource

harms capitalism produces in the process of
extracting raw materials

(eg) chemical and technological innovations in

resource usage makes the process easier with
reduced labor input ( capital accumulation)

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The Treadmill of
Production(ToP)

Ecological additions consist of the emission of

pollutants into the ecosystem
These ecological additions also produce ecological
disorganization by changing nature and accelerating
other ecologically destructive tendencies
(e.g.) the acceleration of climate change in response to
ecological additions.
• ToP theory also draws attention to the ways in which
the state, the private sector and labor interact to
facilitate ecological disorganization
• each of these sectors has an interest in increasing
ecological disorganization for its own benefit.

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The Treadmill of
Production(ToP)

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 The Treadmill of
Production(ToP)

Identify

➢ Ecological additions
➢ Ecological withdrawals
➢ Capital accumulation

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