Mara de los Santos Introduction to Global Studies II

Global Studies, M.A Unit 4: Reaction Paper

From Reverence, to Exploitation: The Transformation of Nature under Capitalism

For thousands of years, mankind worshipped, revered, and feared nature. It was

something beyond the grasp of any man - too vast, too wild, and too mysterious to tame. Possibly

borne out of this simultaneous fear and respect, cultures from all over the world have some form

of religion involving the worship of nature. The most famous and enduring example is Shinto, a

religion originating from Japan which has deep ties to nature. The power of nature has continued

to capture the hearts of man, in one form or another - one need only look at the continued

popularity of films such as “The Day After Tomorrow”; our fascination with such films shows

that we are both afraid of nature’s capacity for destruction, and captivated by its power.

At the same time, however, we have seen how man has attempted to shape nature in the

last few centuries. The earliest attempts of this can perhaps be traced to our hunter-gatherer

ancestors who began to cultivate the land in order to meet their daily sustenance needs

(Bernstein, 2010). Humanity has come a long way since then: now, we can freely shape the land

as we please. We have developed technologies that allow us to extract resources efficiently and

farm at the highest capacity of any plot of land. In recent years, we have seen the massive

repercussions: supertyphoons flattening entire cities, wildfire consuming forests, and tsunami

claiming the lives of thousands. One need not wonder why: countries and corporations have

carelessly exploited nature’s bounty, with little regard for the consequences of such actions.

Despite such catastrophic events, corporations continue their abuse of nature’s bounty, pushing

nature towards the brink - all for the sake of production and profit. Through capitalism, mankind
has been alienated from the land we once revered and respected, ultimately transforming nature

into a commodity to be used and abused.

Prior to the advent of capitalism, the modes through which mankind interacted with

nature were much different. Bernstein (2010) names two types of societies that existed prior to

capitalist societies: 1) hunter-gatherer or subsistence economies, and 2) agrarian class societies.

In subsistence economies, societies mainly engaged in informal modes of food production which

required little sustained effort, such as swidden farming and hunting (Bernstein, 2010). It can be

said, then, that in these societies the land was seen as seen as something that is integral to

survival and life itself rather than being a source of possible wealth. As human societies

developed and populations grew, the domestication of plants and animals became important for

sustaining development (Bernstein, 2010). It is here, in the development of agrarian class

societies, that agriculture as we know it today came to be. During this time, the idea of producing

beyond the necessary amount required for sustenance and reproduction arose; this is what

Bernstein (2010) refers to as “surplus labour” (p. 21). While to rulers of the time exploited both

peasants and the land for gain, similar to the exploitation of labor under capitalism, the process

of production was not driven by the need for accumulation. Rather, as Bernstein (2010) writes,

elites mostly relied on land and taxes as their main sources of wealth, power, and glory. As for

the peasants, the purpose of production was mainly for self-sustenance and access to land. In

capitalism, however, peasants are exploited by rulers in order to increase productivity and

ultimately accumulate more. This last mode of society meant that peasants could no longer

produce simply to provide for themselves; they now had to keep up with the demands of their

rulers, who aimed to use surplus production to further increase productivity for the sake of

accumulation (Bernstein, 2010).

 This, perhaps, led to the idea of enclosures. As discussed in Polanyi’s (2001) influential

work, entitled The Great Transformation, the establishment of enclosures was a “revolution of

the rich against the poor” (p. 37). Merchants were the main actors who promoted the enclosure

movement, which aimed to privatize commons - communally managed parcels of land - in order

to improve efficiency of production. Peasants who could not keep up with the cost of rent were

ultimately squeezed out, and the land was given to whoever could conduct the most efficient

means of production. In connection to this, tenant and competitive farming developed; in this

system, innovation and efficiency were incentivized in order to increase production (Weis,

2007)., This period, as Wood (2009) writes, is a critical turning point in history which gave rise

to competition and exploitation in capitalism

This, effectively, expropriated many peasants from the land. Marx (1990) states that this

alienation of peasants from the land was essential for the development of capitalism. In a

capitalist society, the land itself became a commodity to be bought and sold in the market

(Polanyi, 2001) rather than being an important source of life that one must be connected to at all

times. It is perhaps at this juncture of history where mankind no longer saw nature as wild and

untameable; instead, land became a commodity that could be fenced off, packaged, and sold to

the highest bidder. In the pursuit of wealth, people were encouraged to expand farmland by

turning uninhabited wild areas or common land used by communities into private, arable land

(Weis, 2007).

The project of exploiting land and labor for the sake of profit was further developed

through imperialism. Weis (2007) perfectly captures this idea when he states that European

conquest turned the entire world into a “global enclosure” (p. 50). Along with new technology,

crops, and livestock, European colonizers brought capitalism to the New World. In these new
lands, the landscape was reconfigured completely - whether it was unintentionally -- through

carrying diseases which the indigenous populations were unprepared for -- or intentionally,

through warfare. In colonies all over the world, land was seized from indigenous populations in

order to farm lucrative exports such as sugar. Prime agricultural land in Africa, Latin America,

the Carribean, and Asia was transformed in order to meet European demand (Weis, 2007).

Although many of these former colonies are now independent, they remain economically and

fiscally dependent upon their former colonizers precisely due to these practices. As such, a

majority of the world’s peasant farmers can presently be found in the Global South (Weis, 2007).

It is no coincidence, too, that the world’s peasants are also the unfortunate victims of many of the

unprecedented natural disasters that mankind has experienced in the last few decades. According

to Oxfam International (2017) individuals from the world’s poorest countries are five times more

likely to experience the effects of climate change than those from the world’s richest. Alienated

from the land that once sustained them, nature has now turned into an enemy that peasants must

fear.

This, ultimately, is the transformative power of capitalism. Mankind was once connected

to the land, subsisting upon it for our daily needs and nothing more. Through capitalism,

however, the land itself became a commodity to be enclosed, sold, and bought. As a

consequence, farmers became alienated from the land, leading to an endless cycle of exploitation

of both farmer and farmland. As a consequence, we now must face the wrath of an Earth that has

long been systematically exploited and ignored. We can only hope that the effects of the

destruction we have wrought upon it are still reversible.

References

Bernstein, H. (2010). Class dynamics of agrarian change. Halifax: Fernwood Publishing.

Foltz, R. (2007). The religion of the market: Reflections on a decade of discussion. Worldviews
11, 135-154.

Marx, K. (1990) Chapter 26: The secret of primitive accumulation. In Capital: A critique
of political economy. London: Penguin Books.

Oxfam International. (2017). 5 natural disasters that beg for climate action.
Retrieved from https://www.oxfam.org/en/5-natural-disasters-beg-climate-action

Polanyi, K. (2001). The Great Transformation: the Political and Economic Origins
of Our Time. Boston, M.A.: Beacon Press.

Weis, T. (2007). The global food economy: The battle for the future of farming. NS,
Canada: Fernwood Publishing.

Wood, E. M. (2009). Peasants and the market imperative: The origins of Capitalism. In
Akram-Lodhi, H., & Kay, C. (Eds.) Peasants and Globalization: Political economy,
rural transformation, and the agrarian question (pp. 37-56). London: Routledge.