Chapter 2
The Emergence and Perpetuation of Alienation in Capitalist Contexts
A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements of the Renée Crown University Honors Program at
Syracuse University
Elizabeth Gostev
Candidate for Bachelor of Arts Degree
and Renée Crown University Honors
Spring 2020
Honors Thesis in Geography
Thesis Advisor: _______________________
Matthew Huber, Associate Professor
Thesis Reader: _______________________
Timur Hammond, Assistant Professor
Honors Director: _______________________
Dr. Danielle Smith, Director
Abstract
The argument I develop in this thesis is intended to challenge perceptions previously held by myself and many people around me about the relationship between humans and their physical surroundings. During the time I have studied at Syracuse University, I reflected on some of the characteristics of human interactions with the environment when they are situated in particular contexts, such as within capitalist societies. Therefore, what I have come to realize is that the human interpretation of and relationship with nature are critical to understanding some of the negative consequences of modern-day capitalism.
The purpose of this paper is to examine several events within the timeline of the emergence and development of capitalism and relate them to the disconnection from land and other people. I will explore several pre-existing theories on the emergence of alienation in the context of capitalism, specifically pertaining to primitive accumulation, labor, the human-nature duality, and monetization of nature. Next, I will look at two effects of alienation in a modern context: the emergence of consumerism in the United States and the complexity of global commodity chains. The last portion will focus on alternative views of nature through indigenous theory, specifically looking at the Christian and Haudenosaunee creation stories, indigenous views of nature, and Robin Kimmerer’s memoir Braiding Sweetgrass as a lesson of reciprocity.
Executive Summary
Although there is an awareness that some systems, such as capitalism, harm nature and people, many of their participants normalize or ignore these negative effects. Historically, the “use” of nature along with the perception of it have been manipulated to justify societal practices that are harmful to its existence. They prevent people from adequately participating within their respective ecosystems by confining their interaction to socially constructed frameworks. I would like to study how alienation has gradually replaced interaction with nature with socially constructed systems that did not exist for most of human existence: if humanity did not live under the conditions of capitalism, what circumstances changed to allow this transition in the first place? What ideologies are currently perpetuated to maintain participation in these systems?
I attempt to challenge trends that continue to enable these systems as well as the systems themselves, such as globalization or consumerism. These “uses” of nature have been manipulated to justify societal practices that are harmful to its existence. They prevent people from adequately participating within their respective ecosystems by confining them to mostly interacting with socially constructed institutions. As evidence to these claims, I explore several elements of global consumption patterns, specifically a theory that explains high consumption in the historical and modern context of the United States.
I begin by exploring the timeline of divorcing peasants from land. The result of this is a society that relies on indirect networks to obtain necessities, specifically the “market”. Their participation by selling labor and purchasing goods creates a further dissociation with other participants as their interactions become more limited. Because they are not gaining their subsistence direcltly from land, people become more alienated from nature itself and create a harsher divide, identifying it in various ways as the “other”, and excluding themselves from the definition. This acts as a justification for treating nature differently, justifying in some instances the exploitation of land and people.
Next, I explore how consumption patterns and damaging commodity chains exist partially as a result of alienation from land, labor, and other people, contextualized in the timeline of capitalism. Using existing knowledge, I relate identity and consumption with alienation: it is a lack of a direct connection that allows countries and their inhabitants to involve themselves in such complex networks, potentially harming people or the environment. Without stronger environmental and human connection, the importance of economic growth is prioritized while its negative consequences are easily ignored.
Lastly, I analyze indigenous views of land as they relate to interaction with the environment. Stories, hunting practices, and other interactions with nature reflect sentiments of gratitude and reciprocity. In capitalist societies, I argue that these sentiments are given less priority compared to profitability, causing exploitation of land and people. The gratitude and reciprocity fueling symbiotic relationships creates a deeper connection to land and gives reason to care for, rather than exploit, land and its resources.
Central to my argument is that capitalism is rooted in alienation and is not able to be successful without it. To this day, it is one of the critical components that perpetuates capitalism’s powerful position on a global scale.
Table of Contents
Abstract………………………………………………….……………….…………… iii
Executive Summary ………………………….……………….….………………..…. iv
Acknowledgements ………….………………………………….………..…….…….. vii
Introduction .……………………………………………………………….…….…….. 1
Chapter 1: Capitalism and Nature …………...………………………………….…… 4
Chapter 2: The Effects of Alienation …….………………………….…….…….……22
Chapter 3: Christian and Indigenous Views of Nature……………………….…...…31
Conclusions ..……………………………………………….……..…………………….41
Works Cited .……………………………………………………………………...…… 42
Acknowledgements
I am grateful for the opportunity that Syracuse University has granted me in completing this thesis. It has simultaneously been the most difficult and most rewarding endeavor of my undergraduate career.
I would like to thank Sally Roesch Wagner, the professor who showed me the magic of indigenous knowledge, through which I was able to identify a unique perspective of land that forever changed my own relationship with it. Professor Hammond, who taught me to listen and to question, pushing me to further explore my ideas and the intentions behind my work. And, Professor Huber, who guided me by helping develop my writing and giving me encouragement through his advice. It is because of his time and dedication to me from the beginning that I was able to complete this work.
Introduction
The conditions of life are shaped by people, events, and material objects. People frequently fail to consider the origin of many of the things in their possession, including even technological items, of which we may have only a vague idea of functionality. Through processes such as industrialization and globalization, there have been such astonishing technological advances, and yet, they all come from one source: nature. In this context, the word “nature” represents anything physical that is from this planet, including trees, rocks, water, even people. All material objects are made using nature, including shoes, clothes, laptops, buildings, and anything else physically constructed. This work critically explores the development of capitalist society, showing the ways in which nature has been manipulated to create profits for private actors, which may or may not overlap with the needs of a society. Although these advances have brought about many triumphs in terms of production and modernization, the history of development has had the effect of distancing humans from the landscape which has ensured their survival.
In a modern context, there seems to be a general lack of connection to items used daily, or those many depend on for survival. Instead of valuing something for its role in the world, capitalism simplifies an object by merely considering its monetary value once exploited. The pattern that this has created has fueled other processes, such as pollution, increasingly complicated global commodity chains and feeling disconnected from other members of society. This work explores the theory behind the construction of a global system which enables, and encourages, disconnection to land using existing academic literature regarding the emergence of capitalism and some of the ways that it is practiced today.
The first part of this work seeks to trace the development of modern society, specifically focusing on capitalism. The purpose of this is to identify causes of dissociation from land, when it began and the process through which it occurred, known as primitive accumulation. Next, I will focus on the development of capitalism as a worldwide phenomenon, and the way in which nature has come to be commodified, and as a result, valued for its profitability rather than its importance in a global context and its essentiality for survival. In earlier stages of capitalism, when appropriators used peasants and their land for profit, also began a process of alienation. This is exhibited in many contexts, including with labor, nature, and people. Most people no longer interact only directly with these aspects, but rather, through a barrier that serves as a connection, such as a company that hires and pays workers, a store that buys and sells products, and commodity chains that have unclear links between producers and consumers. Lastly, I will elaborate on consumption and its effects on society, with specific patterns highlighted in the context of the United States society.
To further illustrate the physical and psychological separation from physical items, I will trace a common commodity: a banana. This will show the intricate process through which bananas are obtained in the United States, highlighting the difference in food consumption in modern times as compared to subsistence directly from the land. It will also show the disconnection that exists between people creating a product and the ones consuming it, as well as demonstrate the complexity of a process to obtain a frequently used, commonly available object.
The last portion will tie in the previous ideas discussed, further exploring themes specifically related to religion and spirituality. I will analyze the language of the Bible that justifies exploitation of land in a religious context and compare it to a spiritual approach to the view of land in indigenous ideology. In Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Kimmerer, the author portrays a distinct outlook on nature and the relationship between humans and their environment by using reciprocity and gratitude as the drive behind stewardship of the earth and its resources rather than a desire to conquer or acquire material wealth.
By showing an alternative logic, I hope to encourage consciousness when participating in the capitalist system and allow recognition of the many ways in which it continues to alienate people and nature. I provide a history of alienation as an explanation for some of capitalism’s outcomes in a modern context and connect it to the dissociation experienced from other people and nature. I would like to first contextualize my argument to show how alienation was used as a tool for appropriative or exploitative purposes to show how this divide has benefitted and continues to benefit certain individuals while exploiting others. I also argue that alienation is a necessary characteristic both in the development and perpetuation of capitalism as a dominant global ideology.
Chapter 1 - Capitalism and Nature
I. Primitive Accumulation
Primitive accumulation is an intentional transition of acquiring means of subsistence directly from the land to obtaining them by interacting with socially created systems, such as the market. In this section, I explore the agricultural roots of capitalism and the emergence of a system that changed the way people lived for thousands of years.
Capitalism is currently one of the most powerful systems which shapes the way people live all around the world. From the implementation of mercantilism to the current economic system, capitalism has existed in many forms and continues to be the dominant global economic system.[1] Its development has allowed it to thrive while other factors have changed, such as development of industry, technology, and worldwide systems of communication and trade.[2] Appleby argues that it is difficult to trace capitalism to a concrete beginning. Large technological and societal transformations have all impacted the development of this global system, making it difficult to attribute its emergence to one historical event. In this paper, I do not attempt to distinguish exactly when capitalism began or where its modern form was conceived. Rather, I will explore capitalist developments to contextualize their role in alienating people from land.
A popular assumption about the origins of capitalism is that it began in cities as a natural phenomenon to organize trade and commerce.[3] However, as many historians argue, including Ellen Wood and Robert Brenner,[4] capitalism actually has its roots in agriculture, although it developed into its modern-day form in Europe around the 1600s. Going back to the roots of agriculture, or before the domestication of plants and animals, hunter-gatherer societies thrived using the land as their resource for basic necessities required for survival. The economic, political, and hierarchical systems in these societies were a lot less complex than that of a society using agriculture as their means of subsistence.[5] James Woodburn outlines the immediate-return systems that hunter-gatherer societies used as a way of explaining how they promoted equality. The characteristics have to do with both their social organization as well as the ways in which they acquire basic necessities for survival. He outlines:
1) Social groupings are flexible and constantly changing in composition.
2) Individuals have a choice of whom they associate with in residence, in the food quest, in trade and exchange, in ritual contexts.
3) People are not dependent on specific other people for access to basic requirements.
4) Relationships between people, whether relationships of kinship or other relationships, stress sharing and mutuality but do not involve long-term binding commitments and dependencies of the sort that are so familiar in delayed-return systems.[6]
One of the consequences of operating under such a system is that its members are free to choose with whom they associate, so the relationships between members may be short or long term. Because of the non-dependent nature of the relationship, there is no obligation for either member to stay in the relationship, and neither has power over the other. This encourages activities that benefit both parties equally, and diminishes the opportunity of exploitation. Moreover, the access to resources in this system is direct and immediate; there is no need for an institution to control production or ensure a certain desired outcome. The individuals involved are free to choose the extent to which they produce, and reap the benefits directly.
As Woodburn explains, this system changes with the domestication of plants and animals: the beginnings of agriculture. Agriculture, rather than gathering and hunting, is a system of delayed-return, which requires more organization of materials and labor to ensure the supply of goods over a long period of time.[7] This may imply creating more complex technologies to harvest, store, and transport materials, which requires more labor, as well as its division. The concept of relationships and time changes as well; the relationships seek to benefit in the long term rather than immediately, so the results are not seen right away. In farming, for example, the individual who tends to the land does not immediately reap the benefits. Rather, there is a process of taking care of the land and after months, or in some cases, years, seeing the results of the work, and then being able to use what it has produced. This entails creating a system to manage labor and production, and figuring out a way of distributing them among the individuals involved.[8]
Ellen Wood argues that for almost as long as agriculture has existed, there has also existed a division of classes.[9] Initially, laborers who worked the land also possessed it, until the intervention of appropriators, or those who took possession of the land through coercion.[10] Appropriators were typically landlords or states, and were able to exercise power over peasants, taking away the surplus they produced as a way of collecting rent.[11] Although the peasant is still directly working and living off the land, the peasant no longer has entire control over the goods produced, marking the time period characterized by Feudalism. Peasants, or serfs, must produce what is needed for their survival along with production that is required to pay rent to the appropriator. In this stage, the system changes to favor the appropriator instead of the peasant, who is benefitting from the surplus and the increased labor of the peasant. The peasant still has responsibility over the means of subsistence, but the rent that is now required reflects the integration of the peasant into a system more complex than simply “living off the land”. The further development of this system leads to forcing peasants off the land entirely, making them completely dependent on earning a wage rather than interacting with the land as a means of direct subsistence.
This illustrates a shift of the nature of relationship with the land; in the initial situation, where individuals working on the land are only responsible for maintaining themselves and their families, there is a sense of responsibility to the land and to the self. In order for the land to remain productive, the worker must take care of it as necessary. Because the worker benefits directly from what the land is producing, there is reason to care for the land and farm sustainably. The worker also has the option of either producing exactly what is required or producing a surplus to sell for a profit, which puts less pressure on the worker to exploit a resource from the land. Peasants do not participate in a system that relies on them to produce a surplus, rather they are relying on only the land itself to provide their subsistence. The laborers are directly producing what they need, creating a symbiotic relationship between the landowner and the land, and encouraging a deeper connection to the land.
However, the dispossession of land due to expropriation by a greater power causes disruption to this link, distancing peasants from the land on which they are working. The goal of agriculture transforms completely: instead of producing a small amount for individual needs, the worker must now succumb to the needs of the greater power because the worker is dependent on the wage rather than their own labor. Because the goal of the land appropriator is to collect a profit in the form of a surplus, the techniques used may imply more pressure on both the land and the worker. With the possibility of having to meet a certain quota, or use other means to prove productivity, the worker is made to use whatever means possible to fulfill a certain requirement. Because agency is transferred from the peasant to the appropriator, the maximization of labor is prioritized rather than a sustainable relationship to the land.
This long-term change from hunter-gatherer societies to an agricultural system that relies on surplus to collect rent shows the process of primitive accumulation, outlined in Karl Marx’s Capital: “The process, therefore, that clears the way for the capitalist system, can be none other than the process which takes away from the labourer the possession of his means of production; a process that transforms, on the one hand, the social means of subsistence and of production into capital, on the other, the immediate producers into wage labourers”.[12] The capitalist system forces this transition, taking away the power of the laborer and putting it instead in the hands of the owner of the means of production. Because the goal of the labor changes from an individual and personal benefit to acquiring a wage, there is less of an incentive for the peasant to work land in a respectful manner. When the surplus is required for peasants to remain on the land, they must work an increased amount of time without gaining an extra benefit for themselves. In the subsequent situation, workers do not need to interact with the land at all: the transition to paid labor makes work necessary to make a wage and purchase goods, rather than extracting what is needed from the land.
The increased dependence on the market over centuries created competition among farmers, incentivizing increased productivity with the introduction and growth of wage labor[13]. Therefore, the standard for the wage is determined by what is valued in the context of a capitalist system as it relates to competition in the market rather than the value of the labor of the worker. The capitalist wishes to maximize profits by providing workers with wages that would be less than the worth of their labor. Otherwise, the capitalist would not be able to profit, since the compensation of the worker would be equal to the price paid for the labor. Therefore, “he never comes to see that, if such a thing as the value of labour really existed, and he really paid this value, no capital would exist, his money would not be turned into capital”.[14] Capitalism is successful because of the devaluing of the worker’s labor, and is successful in doing so because of the power that the capitalist holds in the means of production.
With the advancement of society, the definition of “needs” also advances to encompass not only survival necessities, but all that comes along with the responsibility of maintaining a work schedule, such as proper clothing or tools. Because the places where individuals work are frequently separate from home, they require a permanent living situation, and a means of transportation, if necessary, to get to work. Instead of being able to directly benefit from labor, workers must acquire whatever is necessary through trade of some sort, whether it be bartering or through monetary exchange. In this situation, instead of workers directly receiving what they had worked for, there is another step in the process. This is because the benefits of the labor go directly to the owners of the means of production, and these very owners have control over how much to sell products back to the workers. The elongation of this process causes more opportunities for owners to take advantage of the situation, because they have control over two crucial factors: maximizing profits by undervaluing the labor of the workers, and the price of goods, which worker had initially produced.
As the system of labor exchange grows increasingly complex, there are more opportunities to take advantage of the position of the laborer. It changes the goal of working on the land: for both parties, the objective is more related to monetary gains, which can be used for survival, but in a less direct form, either in the form of a wage or profit. Because of these systematic changes, those who make a surplus are considered more successful, particularly from the perspective of the capitalist. The survival of laborers is not only dependent on the amount that is needed to sustain themselves, but on the pressures that become prioritized as a result of integration into a market system. With this change of mindset, the behavior towards the land changes as well. Both parties are surviving not directly through working the land, but their interaction with the market. Wood argues, “[Capitalism] can and must constantly accumulate, constantly search out new markets, constantly impose its imperatives on new territories and new spheres of life, on all human beings and the natural environment.”[15] This tendency of expansion eventually causes a separation from nature because of this characteristic of growth. Capitalism thrives with expansion, and does not have a set limit in its ideology. The growth of markets assumes expansion in the realm of production and consumption. The interactions of laborers, landlords and capitalists is through the market rather than through the land itself. The changed focus on the market for necessities, such as food, diverts attention and care from the land. The land no longer provides directly, rather, its resources are alienated through the complexity of the market, which acts as a barrier.
II. Alienation of Labor and Commodities
The process of production has slowly been increasing the distance between people and the goods that they wish to purchase. This distance, although in current times is very much physical, is also exhibited in a psychological manner, referring to the lack of knowledge that people have about the goods that they purchase or use, and the lack of connection present. This is known as the alienation theory, first outlined in Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, and refers to the disconnection that workers feel in various aspects of their lives, including to land and their very own labor, as a result of the capitalist system.[16] Mandel and Novack interpret alienation to mean, “if a person was tied to the land, then the land was also tied to the people”.[17] Before the adoption of capitalism, peasants had a greater connection to land and to their labor because they were consuming what they were producing. The separation of people from their land due to appropriators, as discussed in the previous section, is the reason for physical, emotional, and psychological disassociation from the land.
One of the most important characteristics of capitalism is the selling of labor, a “practice of alienation”.[18] The process in which laborers partake, including selling their labor, and then buying products, is another means of alienation because of the transactional nature of the two processes. Both the labor and the product are placed at a monetary value, which is subjectively assigned depending on various factors, including production and labor costs, but also taking into account aesthetics, prestige, branding, or other characteristics of the item that diverge from its principal use. Petrović describes the relationship between laborers and what they produce: “to the product of his labor the worker is related as to an alien object. Products of his hands constitute a separate world of objects which is alien to him, which dominates him, and which enslaves him.”[19] In the context of production, especially on a mass scale, the product dominates the process. It is not workers who are valued, rather the product of their labor; the result will be the same regardless of who produces it. The product is alien to the worker, because the worker produces for a market, a “world of objects”, with which there is no relation. The movement of the product is undefined at its moment of production; it may be purchased by anyone in an undetermined future.
As a result, the capitalist system has enabled the worker to be “alienated from his product, from his work, from other men, from his society and from himself”.[20] The process of creating something for someone else rather than for oneself, and then having to buy what was created by others, is what alienates the worker from the society. Products become alien to the worker as well, especially when taken in the context of a consumerist society. There is a general lack of knowledge of where the product came from, so there is no way for the consumer to determine whether or not the price of the product is fair.
To understand the implications of the alienation theory, it is important to begin with exploring Marx’s views on nature and human needs, which are broken down into three categories: biological, human or spiritual, and “artificial” needs. Biological needs refer to the most basic essentials for survival, which Marx believed to be food and sex. Human or spiritual needs are those that are related to emotion: they are not “necessary”, but rather essential for mental health and development. These needs include cooperation, love, creativity, and identity. These needs may vary from person to person, and be exhibited in differing quantities. “Artificial” needs is the name that Marx gave to needs that are socially produced, which include the need for fame, wealth, power, and honor. These needs are dependent on the nature of the society, and have to do with the influence that a society is able to exert over its subjects. Also included in this category are non-essential luxury commodities.[21]
With the changing of time and social standards, the definition of what is considered a “luxury commodity” also fluctuates. This creates the ability to manipulate the idea of what constitutes a luxury item, and is often used to the advantage of a capitalist society. In the 17th and 18th centuries, consumer culture expanded worldwide due to increased trading connections between Europe, Asia, and the New World.[22] The increased trade and popularization of luxuries such as sugar, tea, and tobacco created a drop in their prices. Access to the market and growing national development created new consumption patterns accessible to individuals.[23] As more people are able to afford certain items, there becomes a social pressure to purchase them, and it becomes a lot easier for advertisers, politicians, celebrities, and other famous figures to influence the purchasing patterns of society.[24] It is the subjectivity of the idea of “needs” that creates this opportunity for manufacturers. Advertising companies may speak to the artificial needs of a specific society and project them as essentials instead of superfluous items.
III. The Human-Nature Duality
Defining what constitutes “nature” simultaneously creates a category for what “nature” is not. This socially constructed dichotomy has served as a means of “othering” nature. This separation entails not only a physical, but a social and psychological distance wherein humans may not consider themselves to be a part of nature, but rather as interacting with it assuming a central role. From early Christian ideas of the separation from nature to more contemporary definitions, the fluidity of “nature” and what belongs in this category have been used to shape relationships with land and among groups of people.
Human alienation from nature presents a separation of two inherently related ideas which are chronologically and geographically fluid. The separation between humans and nature is commonly traced back to Christian origins.[25] In the last several hundred years, religious leaders have incorporated dialogue separating humans from nature, including John Calvin and Rene Descartes. In questioning life after death, they explored the “dual condition of human life both in and beyond nature”, with Descartes suggesting some humans as “masters and possessors of nature”.[26] This entails that humans think of themselves as a component present within the conditions of nature, rather than a part of nature itself. This idea was further developed and confirmed by changing socio-religious dynamics. According to Fairbanks, a cultural shift during the 19th century changed the focus of religion on God to a more individualistic perspective: as society relied less on God, it had to rely more on itself, leading to a change from a theocentric to a homocentric worldview. As this ideology changed, other relationships corresponded, among them the one between humans and nature. In this movement, “Man ceased to be a part [of nature] — which he was by the fact of his finiteness — and tended, against all the rebellious frustrations of his distorted nature, to assume an unnatural independence”.[27]
Subsequent literature confirms the spread of this idea in government and global economic and political worldview.[28] From the language used to describe nature and laws put in place to protect or conserve it, to the “othering” of nature is a driving force for its separation from humans. Words such as “wilderness”, “savage”, “chaotic”, “hostile”, “inhospitable”, and “mysterious” reflect the popular connotations attached to nature at the time [29]. There is a clear distinction between wilderness and civilization, and it is also clear where humanity belongs. The language used to describe nature paints it in a negative and threatening way, a space that is unfit for humans. Separating from nature would ensure stability and safety that simply does not exist in the “wild”. This encourages, instead of having a close connection with nature, avoidance for survival. Nature, which is critical to survival, is simultaneously an opposing force that cannot be tamed.
The view of nature in some contexts as “pristine” and beautiful further complicates its definition, providing an additional way in which humans have justified their separation from it.[30] Preservationist attitudes imply a minimal degree of human interaction to maintain nature’s “purity”. Although this follows a logic of protecting rather than exploiting nature, it nonetheless separates humans from nature, which they need to interact with to survive. The fluctuation of the definitions allows them to serve a different purpose depending on who is interacting with nature and the intent behind this interaction.
The definition of nature has, and still is, contested. It is difficult to categorize what is part of nature, and what constitutes a natural environment. Over the last centuries, various definitions have been introduced for nature, including characteristics such as an area’s size, the density of its vegetation, and the absence of humans or their activities. In the 1920s and 1930s, the United States Forest Service tried to define wilderness, using “no significant ecological disturbance from on-site human activity” as a definition for wilderness.[31] Human activity is also not clearly defined, leading to question what exactly entails ecological disturbance, and perhaps when this area might again be considered wilderness: for how long would human activity need to be absent from the area?
The separation of humans and nature is not inherently present, it has been created through economic and political processes, beginning with the idea of civilization as a space separate from nature. In pre-civilization times, humans existed in the conditions previously described as “wilderness”: they were not sedentary, and therefore “transformed their physical environment at a much lower pace than agricultural or industrial societies have”.[32] As hunting changed to agriculture, more complex technology and art was developed, and so did the scope of influence of small villages to incorporate neighboring territories. As described earlier, food surpluses and an increased population were two conditions necessary to implement delayed-return systems,[33] which led to increased organization of labor and supplies.
The transformation of the physical environment created a dichotomy, a manifestation of the presence of humans as opposed to environments from which they were absent. As the structure of civilizations further intensified, so did the human-nature dichotomy. But perhaps, as argued by David Harvey[34] and Robert Park,[35] the development of civilization, in the form of cities, is natural, as it is a process enacted by actors existing in nature. The growth of settlements to towns to cities shows a progression of hierarchy and organization created by humans, whose thoughts and actions are within the scope of nature, and thus its product. Park argues that in creating the space of the city, humanity has “remade [it]self”,[36] creating a space separate from, but still a product of, nature. With this separation, it became easier to exploit, because of the way in which it becomes the “other”. This slow transformation, present for hundreds of years in various religious, government, and academic contexts, has enabled its monetization. The separation reinforces the use of nature for personal agendas rather than recognizing that humans are a part of nature, a component of it that by separating itself takes agency in its processes and resources. The language used to describe nature portrays it as dangerous, a force that humans should keep away from, or conquer rather than interact with. In the past, this has been used as a way to discourage superfluous interaction with nature, using it only for a tangible purpose, such as resource extraction. Even in this case, the extraction of resources is allocated to certain people rather than the entire population. Corporations, governments, and others who have the skill or capacity to confront nature are trusted to interact with it, while “ordinary” citizens, those not involved in these institutions, are expected to keep themselves safe by refraining from interaction.
On the other hand, it discourages the rest of society to directly interact with nature outside of a controlled setting, such as in a National Park or even a green space in an urban area. Designated “natural” areas are used recreationally rather than for subsistence, because subsistence is purchased through the market. A wide range of human necessities (along with unnecessary material items) are brought from nature through the market system, one that inherently favors an extraction rather than interaction with nature. Through this process, nature and humanity are distanced, allowing for its perception as simply present rather than necessary.
IV. The Monetization of Nature
All items, processes, or services are thus monetized, regardless if they are necessities or luxury items. Each item is priced based on a complex system of profitability, production, and distribution costs. For example, food that was once valued simply for its ability to nourish comes to have a standard price on it, dependent on varying subjective, industrial and economic factors. This process is closely related with the loss of property, when land itself was monetized, and then grows to encompass all materials that the land produces, or that may be extracted from it. However, the monetization of nature has been a phenomenon even before the privatization of land, when bartering, and eventually currency, was popularized. The purpose of bartering is to have an exchange that benefits both parties, receiving directly a specific good. The introduction of currency, however, is more of a placeholder, and more of a symbolic means of placing value on an object: “Money has the power to flatten, abstract, and homogenize qualitatively different things”.[37] Using currency, one operates under the assumption that it will circulate, and that it can be used for a number of items, rather than relying on a barter system, where both parties must present something that the other wants.
Nature has been monetized in ways that contradict the original ideas of value based on the benefit that an item can bring. Take for example, the value of water. Water, as one of the essentials for not only humans but all forms of life, cannot be labeled with a price that reflects its essentiality. However, water has been labeled with a price, one that encompasses labor, packaging and transportation costs that come with its distribution. Processes occurring in nature have also been priced, relating a specific result of nature to the products that humans use. Those occurring due to human intervention or action, have also been priced in a similar way.
Nature entails not only physical resources, but the processes that are behind their creation, and their contribution to the maintenance of a functional ecosystem. These processes are called ecosystem services, defined by their generation of “goods and services important for human well-being”.[38] Ecosystem services are able to create connections between the different elements of the Earth, including some processes that humans are incapable of recreating such as regulating complex climate systems or controlling the flow of water on a global scale. These conditions create environments in which humans can live, prosper, and even create their own systems. It is important to distinguish the human capacity to offset natural cycles of the planet, which exceeds the impact of any other species, by far.
In 1997, ecologists and economists estimated the worth of ecosystem services to be approximately 33 trillion dollars.[39] This number was calculated with the understanding that although there is no cost to humans, they profit economically and socially from these processes. The values assigned to various components of nature reflect the economic circumstances of the time, which tend to vary, but the concept remains that without ecosystem services, humans would not be able to survive. They are in fact so important that scientists have expressed the need for world governments to create more regulations for businesses to limit harmful externalities, such as pollution, to minimize negative human impacts. The current global capitalist system however, fails to balance harmful human effects and instead only exploits ecosystem services to continually increase economic productivity, diminishing the world’s supply of finite resources.
In a scientific study, Yinon Bar-On, Rob Philips, and Ron Milo measured the biomass distribution on Earth to better understand the world’s physical composition. To measure quantitatively, humans represent 0.01% of Earth’s biomass. However, they have greatly impacted animal populations, destroyed biodiverse environments, and “profoundly reshaped the total quantity of carbon sequestered by plants”, contributing to climate change.[40] In this sense, humans are actors on a global stage, where their role is bigger than within the limits of a balanced ecosystem. This makes the rest of the earth depend on humans to be responsible with their capabilities, because they can create such an imbalance. The dichotomy here is present in showing how humans may be seen as the powerful, while many other forms of life are powerless. The human ability to have such a profound effect on nature, far exceeding that of all other life forms, entails a separation that has caused exploitation of nature, although it is not necessary for human survival. This shows the extent of the power of capitalism, which thrives by increased production and expansion, and how it has in turn physically affected nearly all parts of the planet. This creates uninhabitable areas, both to humans and other life forms that rely on the planet’s space and resources.
When involved in the context of the market, all resources, even those that are nonrenewable, are assigned a price.[41] Marion Fourcade explores the mechanisms through which people apply worth, using concrete measurements and a wide variety of data, to resources and ecosystem services. She writes, “Treading carefully around the ethical qualms of the societies they serve, modern social institutions spend considerable time and effort measuring what seems to be unmeasurable and valuing what seems to be beyond valuation in the service of enhancing their own capacities for calculation, crafting new opportunities for profit, or expanding their jurisdictional authority”.[42] In a way that is similar to commodities, the monetization of nature entails an alienation because of the way that people use it. Assigning a monetary value to an object simplifies it to serve in the specific context of the market: it is to be sold and purchased, and its use becomes a secondary attribute. The producer tries to sell nature for the highest price, seeking maximization of profit. Because of this, the benefit of survival that the buyer receives becomes secondary to the seller. Both the buyer and seller interact only with the market, so it is from the market that they survive. They do not directly need one another, they only need to interact with the market.
Chapter 2 - The Effects of Alienation
I. Consumption, Alienation and Modern Societal Effects
The need for markets to expand created an incentive to develop technology and interaction through increasingly accessible world markets. This has led to the diversification of products and their availability to consumers worldwide.[43] To avoid an overgeneralization of these effects on a global scale, I will focus on the effect that alienation has had specifically in the United States. Many social scientists have studied social consequences of fluctuating political and economic systems, specifically how they influence people to think, act, or participate within a given system. Various psychologists,[44] among them Philip Cushman, define the idea of the self as it relates to a manifestation of personality under specific circumstances, and how this self is formed from historical, political, and economic circumstances.
Cushman touches upon the complexities of identity and how the image of the “self” is ever-changing depending on societal factors. The “self” in this case, refers to the shared understanding of what it is to be human.[45] Generalized interpretations of the formation and manifestation of the “self” are explored through a historical and psychological lens, considering the economic and political contexts of the time period. The “empty self” is one of these interpretations: a way of explaining the psychology behind consumption and interpreting the motivation that institutions have to perpetuate such a psychology. Cushman theorizes that after World War II, U.S. society experienced an overall change of perception due to the absence of community, tradition, and shared meaning. These social absences are internalized “as a lack of personal conviction and worth, and [the self] embodies the absences as a chronic, undifferentiated emotional hunger. The post-World War II self thus yearns to acquire and consume as an unconscious way of compensating for what has been lost: It is empty”.[46]
Cushman credits the origin of the empty self to social and familial absences, but it can also be related to alienation from nature, and the subsequent alienation from other people. As argued by Crocker and Linden, mass production in the 1920s caused an increased need for consumption, allowed by the fluctuating definition of artificial needs[47]. Redefining consumers became crucial to uphold a system of mass consumption by establishing that they are perpetually dissatisfied, “lead[ing] individuals to a continuous quest for new products and new identities”.[48] As the market depends on growth, so does this model of consumption. Individuals are given the responsibility of maintaining market growth through their patterns of consumption. Since the growth of a market means more circulation of goods and services, individuals must work and spend more, increasing their interactions with the market, specifically material items, rather than focusing on interaction with other people and nature. The market indeed grows from increased consumption, as does alienation.
The popularization of these capitalist ideologies has caused an economic dependence on society’s consumption. At the rate with which the economy is growing, and is expected to grow, it simply would not be profitable to sell only necessities; the economy has grown ever-dependent on consumers purchasing items of no need to them: “In order for the economy to thrive, American society requires individuals who experience a strong ‘need’ for consumer products and in fact demand them.”[49] This explains why an economy based on infinite growth requires a consistent increase, or growth, of consumption. As a whole, society, made up of individuals, has a profound effect on the market. By manipulating these individuals to seek artificial needs
Cushman argues that there has been a shift from a savings economy to a debtor’s economy.[50] He explains: “The dual shift has not been a coincidence. It is a consequence of how the modern nation state must currently regulate its economy and control its populace: not through direct physical coercion, but rather through the construction of the empty self and the manipulation of its needs to consume and ingest.”[51] One of the original means of coercion for economic profit, as explored previously in the works of Ellen Wood, was to force peasants to produce for the appropriator to make an economic profit.[52] The nature of coercion has drastically shifted: it is now accepted that all must work in order to make a living and purchase indirectly from the producer through the market in order to survive. The acceptance of this idea shows the extent of disconnection from land. In the mind of the modern laborer, it is not conceivable to survive through direct means of working off the land: it is assumed and accepted that one must interact with the market in order to not only survive, but also to find happiness and meaning.
II. Commodity Chains
In current times, many consumed goods are purchased through a complex system, involving various actors from countries and transnational corporations to laborers and consumers. This fact does not change depending on the complexity of the product: products made of one basic item, such as foods, are just as involved in a complex process of production, transportation, and distribution to the consumer, as more complicated products, such as computers. The global commodity chain network has grown within the last few decades in order to minimize costs in each step of the process before consumption. The physical distance between consumers and their products is only part of what contributes to the complexity of commodity chains: varying working conditions and wages during each step of the process, from production to consumption, dictate the degree of agency that each actor has in the process. Alienation from the differing conditions of laborers contributes to the perpetuation of a system that allows some participants to benefit while others are exploited.
As Raj Patel and Jason Moore argue, complex commodity chains are accessible because they successfully “cheapen” products, using this as a “strategy, a practice, a violence that mobilizes all kinds of work—human and animal, botanical and geological—with as little compensation as possible.”[53] The effect of this is an incentive to continue these cycles: cheapness of products encourages their purchase, and the lack of information about it helps the consumer blindly purchase, without considering the effects that it may have on either other humans or the environment. The geographical distance also aids in reproducing these barriers, allowing misinformation to travel in the form of an object: the object received may bear the details of materials used to construct it, and perhaps the country that it came from. However, there is usually little evidence of a connection to humanity or nature; neither to the person who made the object nor to the materials used.
Modern food systems show the process required to obtain a basic human necessity, shaped by the “need” of market growth. The Green Revolution, by introducing new crop varieties, fertilizers, pesticides, irrigation, and other practices, offered a new means of producing food at a low cost.[54] Apart from incentivizing consumption with the low cost, the Revolution also lowered the “minimum-wage threshold”, because workers could afford this cheap food with an even lower salary.[55] Lowering wages effectively forces many to buy cheap food, causing a cycle of exploitation both of land and labor. However, the system presents itself as “fair”, because it offers food at a price that a worker can afford. However, because laborers are forced to interact with these exploitative markets, many of them unknowingly or unwillingly participating in these systems, they are desensitized to the harmful effects experienced by humans and nature involved in the production of these cheap foods.
The history of bananas and the process that allows for their global consumption illustrate one of the profound effects of alienation from nature and its human consequences, specifically as it relates to food. Bananas are a fruit native to the region of Southeast Asia. By around 600 BC to 200 AD, many different species of bananas had spread throughout the region, present in Asia and Africa.[56] Upon arriving in Africa, various types of bananas were crossbred in order to obtain a fruit with more enjoyable characteristics, such as eliminating the presence of seeds.[57] Alexander the Great brought bananas to Europe, and Spanish missionaries brought bananas to the Caribbean, beginning the worldwide spread of one of the most popular fruits in the world.[58] In the context of the United States, bananas are widely available year-round at an affordable price, and are the most popular fruit, even though their origins are far from the U.S, as well as their current sites of cultivation.[59]
The commodity chain of a banana therefore, is a complex and intricate process due to the many factors that must be taken into account: cost-effectiveness, transportation, and ripening. The grower is responsible for keeping track of how many bananas are harvested, and picking them at the correct moment: the bushels must be picked while they are still green, so they can ripen on the way to the country of consumption. Due to the size of the industry, the pay rates of the workers change as well. Instead of receiving an hourly wage, the compensation is given based on productivity to ensure efficiency. These compensations, known as “piece-rates”, frequently result in overworking, and subsequent health problems.[60]
The next step of the process involves washing, wrapping, and packaging bananas before shipment. In this stage of the process, bananas are sorted into ones that will be shipped to be sold, and those that are not aesthetically fit, which are then disposed of.[61] This is due to the strict regulations of “cosmetic” requirements, which are set forth by the receiver of the bananas on the other end. It is estimated that through this process of aesthetic sorting, about 30-40% of banana harvests are classified as “unacceptable”.[62] The bananas that are deemed acceptable to be shipped are placed in boxes that are labeled with the origin of the packaging, the identification of the product, and how and where they were packaged. These records are important to ensure that the bananas are sent to the correct ripening facilities, and then treated according to the time and location of harvest.
After being packaged, bananas are then transported to the nearest port, either by road or by rail, in refrigerated units to prevent ripening. Then, the bananas are distributed according to demand of each country, kept the entire time in the refrigeration units.[63] Depending on how far the bananas will be transported, and the frequency of product transportation, the duration of the shipping process is varied. This is important to consider when taking into account the ripeness of the bananas: they are all harvested at the same stage, but the ripening process is halted for varying amounts of time in order to ensure a specific end result in a specific location.
The ripening process of bananas is not to allow them to ripen naturally, but rather, under strictly controlled conditions. The following patent describes a process using specific gas and temperature controls to obtain the optimal ripe stage of the banana:
. In industrial banana processing, bananas are harvested green. Industrial banana ripening usually involves exposing bananas to ethylene gas in an enclosed room at locations near destination markets. In most cases, bananas are placed in “ripening rooms” to initiate the ripening process prior to final shipment to the retail market. Ripening rooms expose bananas to ethylene gas at a temperature that typically ranges between 58 and 64° F. to facilitate uniform ripening. Ripening rooms have been described in, for example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,658,607, 5,041,298, 4,845,958, 4,824,685, and 4,764,389, each of which incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. Conventional methods of banana ripening, however, provide for uniform ripening of all of the individual bananas in a hand or a cluster. This is particularly true for industrial ripening processes, in which large numbers of bananas are placed in a room and subjected to ethylene gas under similar or identical conditions[64]
This intricate process involves conditions which do not exist in nature, to create a product that is “perfect” in the eye of the consumer, to increase the chances of purchase in a system of market competition. The process is far from a natural method of ripening and harvesting, which would presumably occur at the place where the fruit is grown originally. After the ripening stage, the fruit is then distributed to wholesalers, and then distributed to smaller vendors to be sold to consumers.[65]
It is compelling to note how a fruit originating in Asia, thousands of miles from U.S. soil, has such a large impact on culture in its popularity. The widespread consumption of bananas shows the nutritional disconnection to land, and the popularized means of consuming foods coming from thousands of miles away. Instead of eating food grown on an individual scale, and working out ways to consume within climatic restrictions, the production of food is outsourced where there is a larger variety or more desirable products to satisfy the desire for a wide-range diet.
When purchasing food, there is already a separation because of the monetary exchange for a survival necessity. There is not a meaningful exchange of products, nor a reciprocal process through which one takes care of land, and the land takes care back by providing nourishment. The sheer variety of foods available in supermarkets accounts for this. The incredible array of perfectly shaped, sized, and colored fruit is captivating, yet it does not show how many miles the food traveled to get there, where the food originated, where it was grown, and who produced it.
This alienation is crucial to maintaining such systems in place. Cheap labor and cheap nature makes the market accessible to nearly all people: they may be participants of each system, either helping to exploit, or being exploited. The separation between humans and nature determines who is exploited, because it excludes certain humans from humanity. As argued by Jason Moore:
“Capitalism was built on excluding most humans from Humanity—indigenous peoples, enslaved Africans, nearly all women, and even many white-skinned men (Slavs, Jews, the Irish). From the perspective of imperial administrators, merchants, planters, and conquistadores, these humans were not Human at all. They were regarded as part of Nature, along with trees and soils and rivers—and treated accordingly”.[66]
Defining some types of humans as separate from humanity has allowed these systems to thrive. Alienating nature, then defining what “nature” entails, fluctuating with time historical circumstances, was a practice used by Columbus and other early modern capitalists to rationalize a system that could be used for profit with newly discovered land and resources.[67] As capitalism progressed and transformed, the “cheapening” of nature has been critical to its accumulation strategy, or the way in which it transforms and grows its markets,[68] relying increasingly on alienation and consumption.
Chapter 3 - Christian and Indigenous Views of Nature
As outlined earlier through a political and economic lens, capitalism’s development led to and justified practices of alienation. To incorporate a necessary ideological component, I will discuss the effects of alienation as they relate to Christianity, which have also contributed to alienating humans from land, and thereby from each other. This will be contrasted with an analysis of indigenous perceptions of land, incorporating ideologies present in various forms of academia through studying or narrating indigenous perspectives, teachings, and spirituality.
I. Creation Stories: A Contextualization of Christian and Indigenous Beliefs
In the Bible itself, a work that has been implemented in educating worshippers of the Christian faith is argued by John Barton to be a powerfully influential work, from its oral origins to its contemporary role.[69] Its teachings at the very beginning inform the way that God created the world, using elements previously explored of the human-nature duality. According to the Bible, God first created light and darkness, and waters and land, necessary for survival of species.[70] He then populated the earth with plants, animals, and “every living creature that moveth”, afterwards introducing man to have “dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth”.[71] In describing the creations of the conditions for human life and human life itself separately, the Bible uses a human-nature duality. Nature is inherently separate because of the process of its creation as a precedent, a necessity for human life. This justifies the next part, concerning the role of humanity in this newly formed space. Instead of interacting, humans are given the role to dominate all creatures and land, assigning them agency over the rest of life and physical forms. This responsibility implies superior human ability to assert control over other elements in any context, regardless of the individual characteristics of the land and what it provides, either for people or for other forms of life.
In contrast, some creation stories lack the notion of human dominion over the earth. Robin Kimmerer tells the Haudenosaunee creation story of Skywoman, beginning with her falling from a hole in Skyworld.[72] Her swift downwards movement caught the attention of several eyes that belonged to beings already on earth. A herd of geese decided to save her from landing into the water, flying up to catch her softly on their backs, carrying her gently downward. Skywoman then saw all the animals gather, discussing how to best help her survive. The turtle offered her his back to rest on, and the muskrat sacrificed his life to dive deep into the water to retrieve some mud, essential for making land on which Skywoman would be able to live. Grateful for the actions of the animals, Skywoman spread the mud on the turtle's shell and began to sing and dance, thanking the earth and the animals for their gifts. The collective actions of the animals not only allowed Skywoman to live, but create the whole earth from the turtle’s back. Before toppling from the tree, Skywoman had grabbed a piece of the Tree of Life in Skyworld, including branches of all different kinds of plants. She tended to this land and created conditions which allowed not only for her to live, but for other animals to join her in using these benefits, or gifts, of the earth.
While the creation story of the Bible shows an intentional organization by God of the earth and its components, the Haudenosaunee creation story represents an accidental situation in which each of earth’s actors play an important part in allowing human existence on earth; the geese help Skywoman land softly from her fall, the muskrat dives deep into the ocean to retrieve soil, and animals participate in the process of integrating the first human into their already existing world. This active role of nature as a context for human survival confirms nature’s agency present in indigenous beliefs. The interaction of these players illustrates their relative importance and power: Skywoman would not have been able to land on earth without the desire of nature to help her survive. Each character plays into the narrative of human survival, and then benefits from the reciprocal relationship because of the way the earth is then taken care of. With the given conditions of survival, Skywoman is able to plant and till the earth, taking care of it not only to provide for herself, but to participate in a dynamic relationship where she gives to the earth, and the earth gives back, providing not only for humanity, but for all other animals.
In the Bible, humans have dominion over the earth, a duty to “multiply” themselves and “subdue” the plentiful, simply because it is there for their survival. Humans are thus inherently alienated from land under this ideology, because the assumed relationship represents such a stark imbalance of power. The reaction of animals to Skywoman’s fall, however, shows a more balanced relationship, one where nature is faced with a choice to let humanity to survive, and does so by giving, allowing her to softly enter the realm of the earth, both in the literal and figurative sense. It is this agency that influences the idea of land as a gift; a choice made by previously present elements to allow humanity to thrive. It is essential to humanity, but does not require anything in return for it to keep existing. The Bible shows a different reason for using land. Rather than basing it on a relationship where both parties have agency, it positions humans to take land for granted, to use it simply because it is there. Since they are the dominant force, as dictated by God, the land exists solely for their survival, waiting to be subdued and conquered. It is God’s intention, so it is therefore natural that humans come to dominate. In this situation, nature is merely present, lacking desire or agency, leaving their fate in the hands of humanity. By the animals directly saving Skywoman, the Haudenosaunee creation story shows the exact opposite: the fate of humanity as a result of nature’s desire and gift.
II. Indigenous Views of Nature
Apart from differing creation stories, varying views of land, animals, and other natural elements also challenge capitalist ideologies of ownership and resources. Although some concepts remain similar to Christian ideas, their manifestation shows much different results. For example, the human-nature duality that exists in Christianity along with or within capitalist states is also present in indigenous perception of land, but it entails seeing nature as tame rather than wild, a mystery of blessings rather than a “tangled growth”. [73] This view entails somewhat of a separation, an idea that nature and its processes are not entirely known or understood. It does not portray nature as something to be conquered, but rather their source of sustenance, land which ensured their survival by providing them clothing, food, and shelter. Their direct interaction and dependence on nature developed their relationship with it out of necessity rather than on the desire to maximize profitability.[74]
Perhaps this view of nature could also be attributed to indigenous thought and ideology and their ways of integrating elements which other worldviews regard as separate. Specifically, this is evident in the way that they speak along with their philosophy and religiosity. From their view of land to traditions they partake in every day, “life was all of one piece”.[75] With such a holistic philosophy, the understanding of nature is integrated with familial values, religion, and way of life. The treatment of nature is not a separate decision, rather it is integrated with everything else that is learned of importance. Therefore, a consistent logic is applied throughout, leaving no space for the idea of treating nature in a different way. This approach allows for a more interconnected and broad vision of systems, all of which they view to be inherently related. This is why bad treatment of nature would result in an imbalance and therefore a threat to their survival; every part of their lives, because they directly depended on it, was somehow involved with nature.[76]
Even on a smaller scale, day-to-day practices and language reflect deeper ideas of gratitude and connection to nature. Navajo prayers use the word hozho, meaning “environmental beauty, the happiness one experiences by being in harmony with nature”.[77] Simply saying “beauty” or “harmony” does not reflect the feeling described in this word. The existence of the word shows the natural need for it in the language, and its use in prayer shows the consistency of appreciation of nature, even outside of a situation directly related to using natural resources. The Potawatomi, a people of the Great Plains, also have stark differences in language, comparatively to English and other European languages. Potawatomi has ways of expression which show a closer relationship to nature in terms of object identification. Words are classified into animate and inanimate verbs or nouns, and words describing each are different. What is considered animate in these situations is the most compelling - water, land, rocks, mountains, fire and a day are all considered in this category rather than the other.[78] There is recognition that these elements are living, because they play an important role in the world and have power. This classification serves as a reminder of the relationship with the world, and the way in which it also is alive, giving equal importance to beings other than humans.[79]
A culture that regards nature as animate, nature as having agency, is one that will be more conscious of its own role in the midst of a larger system. In English, even animals are reduced to be expressed as an “it”, the same word that can be used to describe an object which cannot feel at all. It is this lack of relatability that contributes to exploitation of not only animals, generalized as objects, but also others it considers to be inanimate, thereby diminishing their role and importance in the world. Water, which is so dynamic that it may present itself in various forms, in all parts of the earth, and provides vitality for all life, is considered dead; an object that is powerless when compared to those who are able to exploit it.
When interacting with nature, there is an understanding of giving back to compensate for what was taken and using resources in a sustainable way. Animals were viewed as powerful, close relatives to humans, and thus hunting was an art, “not war upon the animals, not a slaughter for food or profit, but a holy occupation”.[80] When viewing it as such, there is no incentive to hunt in an unsustainable manner. The animals, being given importance in and of themselves, not as they relate to humans, has the effect of hunters taking care of animal populations. Moreover, when hunting they took only what was needed and used every part of the animal that was hunted.[81] This goes directly against attitudes of waste experienced in a modern context, not just with animals, but with all food in general. As Tristram Stuart argues, food is currently treated as a disposable commodity in the developed world because of the disconnection that people feel towards its creation.[82] They are unaware of the harmful processes, affecting both humans and the environment, that food production entails, exerting pressure on the climate and on previously existing ecosystems.[83] The contrasting reality shows how alienation causes mistreatment of resources, resulting in not only harm to nature but humanity.
The direct connection experienced with nature is due to the way in which indigenous populations speak about nature, interact it in their daily lives, and consider its role not solely for their own benefit, but rather for the benefit of all that exists on the planet. The recognition of nature as powerful and alive makes it more relatable and intertwined with all human actions, rather than the alienation experienced as a result of various developments in capitalism.
III. Braiding Sweetgrass: Lessons Rooted in Gratitude and Reciprocity
At the root of indigenous belief and tradition is a single concept, absent from capitalist ideology: reciprocity. In her memoir, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants, Robin Wall Kimmerer describes the relationship that humans have had with the earth, including an indigenous and a more common, contemporary perspective. Her stories and knowledge are expressed as a lesson, a way to think about, interpret, and change the aspects of the relationship with nature that have caused it so much irreversible harm.
Kimmerer describes the difference in view of the land itself, comparing North American indigenous beliefs with those of the United States government: “In the settler mind, land was property, real estate, capital, or natural resources. But to our people, it was everything: identity, the connection to our ancestors, the home of our nonhuman kinfolk, our pharmacy, our library, the source of all that sustained us.”[84] This view shows an integration rather than alienation from the land and what it provides. It is not the market that directly provides basic human needs, rather they are directly gathered from the land. This is perhaps why they are able to identify themselves with and understand the land in such a nuanced way. They are not limiting the land simply to the resources it provides that can be sold, but keenly observe to understand and then use it in many different ways.
It is through systems of reciprocity that nature is able to provide not only in a situation between two of its actors, but for a group of beings that all benefit from a “web [...] of giving and taking”[85]. Kimmerer shows this by describing the process that pecan trees use as a tactic for spreading their seeds, known as mast fruiting. Pecan trees take several years to gather enough energy to produce an abundance of nuts, which squirrels use as nourishment. The intent behind a harvest only once every several years is to ensure that the tree produces enough to exceed the demand that squirrels pose for the nuts, so that the overlooked ones are able to grow into trees themselves.[86] However, in this situation, it is not only trees and squirrels that benefit. The increased squirrel population resulting from this surplus also causes fox and hawk populations to flourish, because of their increased food supply. In the subsequent years that do not experience the benefits of a harvest, the squirrel population steadily decreases, until the year comes when there is a mast fruiting again.[87] This process describes the intricacy of relationships within a complex ecosystem, showing how one species, either directly or indirectly, can affect both survival and demise. This is important to extrapolate to human-environment relations in recognizing that the use of a single resource does not only deplete the resource itself, but deprives the ecosystem of a vital component. In monetizing nature, capitalism orders qualitatively different components of the earth, attempting to assign them a relative value.[88] However if these various components are integrated in a system that requires them all to function properly, how can a true value be assigned to them? If all components are integrated and essential, it would imply that they are invaluable, impossible to truly commoditize.
An alternative to commodification is a shift in perspective, an idea that nature is providing a gift, not to be bought or sold. Instead of taking advantage of its vitality and exchanging it in a system created to make profit, Kimmerer shows that seeing the earth and its offerings as gifts establishes a closer relationship, an obligation to give something back.[89] This opportunity presents itself not through material, but through physical means of stewardship, responsibility, and consciousness as it relates to the treatment of the land. It is imperative to respect rather than exploit; to replant, rather than leave bare.
After taking care of its gifts, human responsibilities entail giving thanks to all that the earth has to offer, whether directly or indirectly related to their survival. The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, traditionally recited before the commencement of any gathering, regardless of size.[90] Giving thanks to not only food, water, the earth, and people, the Haudenosaunee thank all plants, fish, berries, medicinal herbs, trees, animals, birds, the four winds, thunder, the sun, the moon, stars, the Great Spirit, and anything that might have been unintentionally left out or forgotten.[91] The ability for people to express gratitude is regarded by the Haudenosaunee as one of their gifts, and therefore, one of their responsibilities. In remembering to give thanks, people recognize the effort on behalf of something outside of themselves, the power that created conditions under which they survive and thrive. Without these gifts, they could not exist. Giving thanks serves as a reminder for this and encourages a deeper appreciation for the land. Because people are unable to reproduce what the land does, it is crucial to recognize how in exploiting the land, humans are ultimately limiting themselves, along with restricting others. With a lack of gratitude, this is easily forgotten.
Conclusions
Alienation as a product from various global institutions, including industrialization, capitalism, and globalization, has been a driving force in affecting the way in which humans interact with people and nature in social and economic contexts. The gradual shift from small communities to global interdependent networks, gratitude to exploitation, and connection to dissociation have affected processes from human survival to the deterioration of the environment. From the process of primitive accumulation, where peasants experienced dispossession of land, thereby forced to participate in a system through which they gained subsistence. Subsequent capitalist developments created situations which further alienated people from land, tying them instead to a market system. This forced participation has normalized cycles of abuse to humans and the environment, using alienation as a principal mechanism.
Global consumption patterns and demands to meet expectations of economic growth have continuously exploited nature and justified unfair treatment against much of humanity. Through engaging with the market, both consumers and producers are alienated from the effects that their actions have on individuals around the world, especially in the context of a globalized, industrialized world.
Looking at the relatively short, destructive history of capitalism in comparison to the tens of thousands of years that indigenous peoples have lived sustainably off the land in North America provides insight on ideas that may help understand and deal with several global crises today. Learning from the past and expanding knowledge from different societies may help guide humanity to a relationship with the earth and its inhabitants that is more rooted in principles of reciprocity and gratitude, creating hope for a better future.
Bibliography
Appleby, Joyce. The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism. W.W. Norton & Company, 2011.
Barton, John. History of the Bible: The Story of the World's Most Influential Book. Penguin Publishing Group, 2019.
Bar-Yosef, Ofer. ‘The Natufian culture in the Levant, threshold to the origins of agriculture’, 1998.
Baumeister, Roy F. Identity: Cultural Change and the Struggle for Self. Oxford University Press, 1986.
Brenner, Robert. ‘The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism’, Past & Present, no. 97 (1982).
Chakraborty, Rabindra N. ‘Sharing Culture and Resource Conservation in Hunter-Gatherer Societies’, Oxford Economic Papers, 59, no. 1 (2007).
Cushman, Philip. ‘Why the Self Is Empty: Toward a Historically Situated Psychology’, American Psychologist, 45, (May 1990).
Descartes, René. Philosophical Writings of Descartes, vol. 1. Translated by John Cottingham, Robert Stroothoff, and Dugald Murdoch. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985.
Fairbanks, Henry. ‘Man's Separation from Nature: Hawthorne's Philosophy of Suffering and Death’, The Christian Scholar, vol. 42 (Mar. 1959).
Fourcade, Marion. ‘Cents and Sensibility: Economic Valuation and the Nature Of “Nature”’, American Journal of Sociology, 116, no. 6 (2011).
Hamer, Ed. “Bananas: From Plantation to Plate.” The Ecologist (2 June 2008).
Harvey, David. Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (Blackwell Publishers, 2010).
Heller, Thomas C. et al. Reconstructing Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality and the Self in Western Thought. Stanford University Press, 1986.
Henderson, Martha. ‘Revealing the Origin of Human-Nature Dualities in Christian Political Structures’, in Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, vol. 74. University of Hawai'i Press, 2012.
The Holy Bible. Vol. 1. Oxford at the University Press, 1885.
Hughes, Johnson D. North American Indian Ecology. Texas Western Press, 1996.
Kimmerer, Robin W. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants. Milkweed Editions, 2013.
Kocka, Jurgen. Capitalism: A Short History. Princeton University Press: Oxford, 2016.
Koeppel, Dan. Banana: the Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World. Penguin, 2008.
Mandel, Ernest and George Novack. The Marxist Theory of Alienation. Pathfinder Press, 1973.
Moore, Jason W. Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism. PM Press, 2016.
Marx, Karl. Capital. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1902.
Marx, Karl. Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Progress Publishers, 1982.
Mészáros, István. Marx's Theory of Alienation. Aakar Books, 2006.
Milo, Ron et al. ‘The Biomass Distribution on Earth’, (2018).
Nash, Roderick. Wilderness and the American Mind. 5th ed. Yale University, 1967.
Nielsen, Wayne H. ‘Notes on Marx's Theory of Alienation’, Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, 2, no. 1 (1968).
Osterhammel, Jürgen and Niels P. Petersson. ‘A New Millenium’, Globalization: A Short History. Princeton University Press, 2009.
Palaima, Amas (editor). ‘Ecosystem Services’, Ecology, Conservation, and Restoration of Tidal Marshes: The San Francisco Estuary, 1st edn. University of California Press, 2012.
Park, Robert E. and Ralph H. Turner, On Social Control and Collective Behavior: Selected Papers. Univ. of Chicago Press, 1967.
Patel, Raj and Jason W. Moore. A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. University of California Press, 2017.
Petrović, Gajo. “Marx's Theory of Alienation.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 23, no. 3 (1963).
Roman, Danilo. Controlling the Ripening of Bananas, US20060121167A1. Dole Food Inc., 2006.
Roush, Wade. ‘Putting a Price Tag on Nature's Bounty’, Science, 276, no. 5315 (1997), p. 1029.
Schor, Juliet B. ‘A New Economic Critique of Consumer Society’, in David A. Crocker, Ethics of Consumption: the Good Life, Justice, and Global Stewardship. Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998.
Speck, Frank G. ‘Aboriginal Conservators’, Bird Lore (Audubon Magazine) 1939.
Standing Bear, Luther. Land of the Spotted Eagle. University of Nebraska Press, 1978.
Stuart, Tristram. Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal. W.W. Norton & Company, 2009.
Trentmann, Frank. ‘Crossing Divides: Consumption and Globalization in History’. Journal of Consumer Culture (2009).
Wood, Ellen M. The Origin of Capitalism: A Longer View. London: Verso, 2002.
Woodburn, James. ‘Egalitarian Societies’, Man, vol. 17, no. 3 (1982).
-----------------------
[1] Joyce Appleby, The Relentless Revolution: a History of Capitalism (W.W. Norton & Company, 2011), pp. 3–26 (p. 7).
[2] Jürgen Kocka, Capitalism: A Short History (Princeton University Press: Oxford, 2016), pp. 95–161 (p. 54).
[3] Ellen Meiksins Wood, ‘The Agrarian Origin of Capitalism’, The Origin of Capitalism: a Longer View (London: Verso, 2002), pp. 95–121 (p. 95).
[4] Robert Brenner, ‘The Agrarian Roots of European Capitalism’, Past & Present, no. 97 (1982), pp. 16–113.
[5] James Woodburn, ‘Egalitarian Societies’, Man, vol. 17, no. 3 (1982), p. 434.
[6] Woodburn, 434.
[7] Woodburn, 433.
[8] Woodburn, 433.
[9] Ellen Meiksins Wood, ‘The Agrarian Origin of Capitalism’, The Origin of Capitalism: a Longer View (London: Verso, 2002), pp. 95–121 (p. 95).
[10] Wood, 95.
[11] Wood, 96.
[12] Karl Marx, ‘The Secret of Primitive Accumulation’, in Karl Marx, Capital (Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1902), pp. 736–9 (p. 738).
[13] Wood, ‘The Agrarian Origin of Capitalism’, 102-103.
[14] Karl Marx, ‘Chapter 19: The Transformation of the Value (and Respectively the Price) of Labour-Power Into Wages,’ in Karl Marx Capital (Swan Sonnenschein & Co., 1902), pp. 545–553 (p. 552).
[15] Ellen Meiksins Wood, The Origin of Capitalism: a Longer View (London: Verso, 2002), pp. 95–121 (p. 97).
[16] Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (Progress Publishers, 1982).
[17] Ernest Mandel and George Novack, The Marxist Theory of AMarx, Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 (Progress Publishers, 1982).
[18] Ernest Mandel and George Novack, The Marxist Theory of Alienation (Pathfinder Press, 1973), p. 20.
[19] István Mészáros, Marx's Theory of Alienation (Aakar Books, 2006), p. 35.
[20] Gajo Petrović, “Marx's Theory of Alienation.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research, 23, no. 3 (1963), pp. 419–426 (p. 421).
[21] Wayne H. Nielsen, ‘Notes on Marx's Theory of Alienation’, Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, 2, no. 1 (1968), pp. 123–129 (p. 125).
[22] Wayne H. Nielsen, ‘Notes on Marx's Theory of Alienation’, Mosaic: A Journal for the Interdisciplinary Study of Literature, 2, no. 1, 1968, pp. 123–129 (p. 124).
[23] Frank Trentmann, ‘Crossing Divides: Consumption and Globalization in History’, Journal of Consumer Culture, 2009, pp. 187–220 (p. 195).
[24] Trentman, 195.
[25] Trentman, 203–207.
[26] Henry Fairbanks, ‘Man's Separation from Nature: Hawthorne's Philosophy of Suffering and Death’, The Christian Scholar, vol. 42, Mar. 1959, pp. 51–63 ; Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind. 5th ed., (Yale University, 1967). ; Martha Henderson, ‘Revealing the Origin of Human-Nature Dualities in Christian Political Structures’, in Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers, vol. 74, (University of Hawai'i Press, 2012), pp. 15–27.
[27] Henderson, ‘Revealing the Origin of Human-Nature Dualities’, p. 18 ; René Descartes, Philosophical Writings of Descartes, John Cottingham, Robert Stroothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (trans.) vol. I. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
[28] Henry Fairbanks, ‘Man's Separation from Nature’ 51.
[29] Roderick Nash, Wilderness and the American Mind.
[30] Nash, ‘The Condition of Wilderness,’ 1–4.
[31] Nash, 4.
[32] Nash, 5.
[33] Rabindra Nath Chakraborty, ‘Sharing Culture and Resource Conservation in Hunter-Gatherer Societies’, Oxford Economic Papers, 59, no. 1 (2007), pp. 63–88 (p. 64).
[34] Ofer Bar-Yosef, ‘The Natufian culture in the Levant, threshold to the origins of agriculture’, (1998), pp. 159–177 (p. 174) ; James Woodburn, ‘Egalitarian Societies’, Man, 17, no. 3 (1982), p. 434.
[35] David Harvey, Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference (Blackwell Publishers, 2010).
[36] Robert Ezra Park and Ralph H. Turner, On Social Control and Collective Behavior: Selected Papers (Univ. of Chicago Press, 1967).
[37] Park & Turner, 3.
[38] Marion Fourcade, ‘Cents and Sensibility: Economic Valuation and the Nature Of “Nature”’, American Journal of Sociology, 116, no. 6 (2011), pp. 1721–77 (p. 1725).
[39] Arnas Palaima (ed), ‘Ecosystem Services’, Ecology, Conservation, and Restoration of Tidal Marshes: The San Francisco Estuary, 1st edn (University of California Press, 2012), pp. 207–214 (p. 207).
[40] Wade Roush, ‘Putting a Price Tag on Nature's Bounty’, Science, 276, no. 5315 (1997), p. 1029.
[41] Ron Milo et al, ‘The Biomass Distribution on Earth’, (2018).
[42] Wade Roush, ‘Putting a Price Tag on Nature's Bounty’, Science, 276, no. 5315 (1997), p. 1029.
[43] Marion Fourcade, ‘Cents and Sensibility’, 1723.
[44] Jürgen Osterhammel and Niels P. Petersson, ‘A New Millenium’, Globalization: A Short History (Princeton University Press, 2009), pp 141–149 (pp. 141–144).
[45] Roy F. Baumeister, Identity: Cultural Change and the Struggle for Self (Oxford University Press, 1986) ; Thomas C. Heller et al., Reconstructing Individualism: Autonomy, Individuality and the Self in Western Thought (Stanford University Press, 1986).
[46] Philip Cushman, ‘Why the Self Is Empty: Toward a Historically Situated Psychology’, American Psychologist, 45, (May 1990), pp. 599–611 (p. 599).
[47] Cushman, 600.
[48] Juliet B. Schor, ‘A New Economic Critique of Consumer Society’, in David A. Crocker, Ethics of Consumption: the Good Life, Justice, and Global Stewardship (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1998), pp. 131–138 (p. 65).
[49] Cushman, ‘Why the Self Is Empty’, 600.
[50] Cushman, 601.
[51] Cushman, 608.
[52] Cushman, 608.
[53] Wood, ‘The Agrarian Origin of Capitalism’, The Origin of Capitalism, p. 95.
[54] Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore, ‘Introduction’, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things: A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet (University of California Press, 2017), pp. 1–43 (p. 22).
[55] Patel and Moore, ‘Cheap Food’, p. 150.
[56] Patel and Moore, 144.
[57] Dan Koeppel, ‘The First Farm’, Banana: the Fate of the Fruit That Changed the World (Penguin, 2008), pp. 15–19 (p. 15).
[58] Koeppel, 28.
[59] Koeppel, ‘A Banana Timeline’, 244.
[60] Koeppel, ‘The World’s Most Humble Fruit, xi.
[61] Ed Hamer. “Bananas: From Plantation to Plate.” The Ecologist, 2 June 2008.
[62] Hamer.
[63] Hamer.
[64] Hamer.
[65] Danilo Roman, Controlling the Ripening of Bananas, US20060121167A1 (Dole Food Inc., 2006).
[66] Hamer, ‘Bananas: From Plantation to Plate’.
[67] Jason W. Moore, ‘The Rise of Cheap Nature’, Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism (PM Press, 2016), pp. 78–115 (p. 79).
[68] Patel and Moore, ‘Cheap Nature’, A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, 50-51.
[69] Jason W. Moore, ‘Introduction’, Anthropocene or Capitalocene? 2–3.
[70] John Barton, ‘Preface’, History of the Bible: The Story of the World's Most Influential Book (Penguin Publishing Group, 2019), pp. vi–viii.
[71] Genesis 1:4–10. The Holy Bible. Vol. 1, (Oxford at the University Press, 1885).
[72] Genesis 1:20–26. The Holy Bible. Vol. 1, (Oxford at the University Press, 1885).
[73] Robin Wall Kimmerer, ‘Skywoman Falling’, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (Milkweed Editions, 2013), pp. 3–10 (pp. 3–5).
[74] Luther Standing Bear, Land of the Spotted Eagle (University of Nebraska Press, 1978), pp. 38.
[75] Johnson Donald Hughes, ‘The Unspoiled Continent’, North American Indian Ecology (Texas Western Press, 1996), pp. 1–9 (p. 5).
[76] Hughes, 5.
[77] Hughes, 5.
[78] Hughes, ‘The Sacred Universe’, North American Indian Ecology, 13–14.
[79] Kimmerer, ‘Learning the Grammar of Animacy’, Braiding Sweetgrass, 53–55.
[80] Kimmerer, 56.
[81] Frank G. Speck, ‘Aboriginal Conservators’, Bird Lore (Audubon Magazine 1939), pp. 258–261 (p. 260).
[82] Hughes, ‘The Powerful Animals’, North American Indian Ecology, p. 34.
[83] Tristram Stuart, ‘The Effluent of Affluence’, Waste: Uncovering the Global Food Scandal (W.W. Norton & Company, 2009), pp. xv-xxii (p. xvi).
[84] Stuart, xvi.
[85] Kimmerer, ‘The Council of Pecans’, Braiding Sweetgrass, 17.
[86] Kimmerer, 20.
[87] Kimmerer, 16.
[88] Kimmerer, 16.
[89] Fourcade, ‘Cents and Sensibility: Economic Valuation and the Nature Of “Nature”’, p. 1723.
[90] Kimmerer, ‘The Gift of Strawberries’, Braiding Sweetgrass, 25.
[91] Kimmerer, ‘Allegiance to Gratitude’, Braiding Sweetgrass, 107.
[92] Kimmerer, 107–117.
................
................
In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.
To fulfill the demand for quickly locating and searching documents.
It is intelligent file search solution for home and business.
Related searches
- chapter 2 developmental psychology quizlet
- medical terminology chapter 2 terms
- physics chapter 2 practice test
- psychology chapter 2 quizlet
- medical terminology chapter 2 test
- medical terminology chapter 2 review
- chapter 2 medical terminology quiz
- medical terminology chapter 2 pdf
- psychology chapter 2 test
- lifespan development chapter 2 quiz
- chapter 2 lifespan development quizlet
- chapter 2 study guide answers