Green Capitalism In Anne Leonard's The Story Of Stuff

Instead of focusing on the individual, “ecological economics invites us to picture ourselves not as isolated individuals but as housemates” (McFague 132). This model has two goals striving for sustainability and distributive justice which will allow for the earth’s resources to be sustained for future generations. McFague feels that the ecological economic system will provide an efficient system that will suit and support the needs of the world.

The relationship between the natural environment and human exchange is one that has been an ongoing battle of overconsumption and a regulation on natural goods. Human interaction during the Industrial Revolution spanning from the nineteenth and twentieth century has several contrasting principles. In the nineteenth century, the excuse of overconsumption was for industrial economic profit. Humans believed that over-using natural resource was acceptable due to the belief that natural resources were God’s gift to man, and God would replenish the natural goods. However, the overuse of natural goods results in smog, pollution, and water contamination which has various damaging health effects. In the 20th century, humans were more than aware of the effects that over-consumption produced, but neglected the environment for their own social status and profit. Nevertheless, during the end of the 20th century, scientific evidence led to widespread awareness of the effects occurring to the environment, prompting people to make policies to change and protect the environment. This caused humans to create a relationship with the government and restrict overconsumption. Ultimately, the first Industrial Revolution during the 19th century, the overuse of technology wasn’t perceived as harmful to the environment. However, in the second Industrial Revolution during the 20th century, over-consumption had external effects that were harmful to the environment, triggering intrusion from the

We grew up in the age of transition. Our childhood previously consisting of jumping rope, going outside, and playing in playgrounds quickly changed into something more technological. We watched handwritten letters became electronic, film became digital, a huge corded phones become small computers in our pockets. Now we are becoming dependent on these new technologies.

Here once more, innovation is driving the way (images). There is no social interaction with computer based informalities. We lose the human connection with automation. From computerized voice operating systems to automated cars delivering pizzas, this anomaly is going to be society 's biggest downfall. We depend less on how to do things for ourselves and more on technology to do what is needed for basic life.

“Sustainable development is about meeting the needs of today without compromising the needs of future generations” (The Brundtland Report). Professors and intellectuals have been creating solutions, one I found interesting was an argument for creating a reserve fund for future generations through the taxation of non-renewable sources of energy put forward by professor Dieter Helm in his talk at the London School of Economics. (Helm) This method corroborates with Deborah Sik’s Payments for Environmental Services Approach (PSE) (Sik) While (PSE) and reserve fund approaches have their merits they provide incentive for monopolization and the dislocation of people that do not have property rights even if they have been using the land for generations. Deborah Sik criticizes the (PSE) system as it does not address the actual problem of unbridled growth, it merely attaches a new condition to capitalism that does nothing for the poor. Deborah Sik’s approach has merit because

Capitalism allows small minorities to profit at the expense of others. Private ownership of what are social means of livelihood allows capitalists to make decisions that pass the real costs of industry to communities, workers, future generations and other species (Engler,

Not Business As Usual is a documentary that explores the beginnings of “conscious capitalism” and its unintentional price of success. The film offers an alternative view of businesses by tracking the movement of a few entrepreneurs that aspire to include social and environmental considerations in addition to seeking profit in their businesses. A free market for goods and services, capitalism is substantial. It drives innovation, progress, and prosperity. However, should “profit” be the only metric to measure success?

During the nineteenth century the United States economy quickly shifted to an industrial goods based economy which was in many cases driven by entrepreneurial businessmen who created industrial empires and grew very wealthy. Capitalism has survived for hundreds of years due to natural resources that were inexhaustible. Today there aren’t enough resources. Capitalism must again evolve due to “more global competition, a declining economy, faster technological change, and pressure to preserve the natural environment” (Nickels, McHugh and McHugh 206).

In the past, the economic school of thought regarded the resources as unlimited and focused on more production under the light of the unlimited growth assumption. Every economic action was suggested to only consider about making more profit. While the economy and the human population are growing; more natural resources are used and more pollution is observed. Human become to deal with the results of its production such as environmental problems and resource scarcity. A debate has emerged in economics and the mainstream economics is brought into question since its unlimited growth assumption is collapsed. Ecological economists argue the neoclassical welfare economics for ignoring the environmental and ethic values by only focusing on the cost-benefit analysis. It also claims that the neoclassical economics fails to calculate the value of the environmental capital and the loss of the economic activities on the environment. This paper is going to explain the problems with the neoclassical welfare economics and the alternatives offered by the ecological economics in terms of economic growth and environment.

The environment has exposed the true impact of humans on the earth. There have been various responses to the changing environment. Some responses place blame on the developed countries for their “living large” lifestyles and their overconsumption of natural resources, but the question is then raised, without developed countries where would society be? With the help of environmental movements and monetary resources, it is possible to have developed countries while lessening the ecological effects on the environment. Joan Martinez-Alier, the author of The Environmentalism of the Poor: Its Origins and Spread, refers to this idea as “The Gospel of Eco-Efficiency.” When comparing and contrasting the differences between environmentalism of the poor and environmentalism of developed countries, it is apparent that more attention needs to be given to improving undeveloped countries ecological conditions.

This literary submission will take on a systematic, convergent approach in focusing on five separate articles regarding green consumerism. The five peer-reviewed articles which have been selected for this paper have been placed in the appendix of this submission in the order in which they appear in the bibliography.

Capitalist development is a hierarchical system based upon a small group of people benefiting from the efforts of others.The ideology of capitalist development reflects a simplistic linear model of progress and lacks a holistic approach; therefore, capitalist development fails to acknowledge the existence of important complexities of social equity and environmental sustainability. For capitalism to work, humans must seek accumulation of consumerist versions of wealth, this must be socially acceptable behavior and society must agree with this way of understanding how the world works. Ecologism considers capitalist development to promote inequity through forcing involvement in the world economy to increase their access to wealth while fostering political, military, and bureaucratic development of the nation state as a power base. The goal of ecologism is solving the problems associated with capitalist development comprised of four global interlinked crises: militarization, poverty, environmental destruction, and human repression is the focus of reorganization. Based upon communitarianism, self-reliance, social justice, and ecological balance; “endogenous development” Ecologism aims to replace competitive individualism, linear rationality, growth, efficiency, specialization, centralization, and big scale associated with post-colonial evolutionary linear

To introduce capitalism, society, and the environment, I would like to begin with the statement that humans affect nature, or the natural environment. Pollution and depletion are two ways this happens. On one side with pollution, the environment becomes contaminated by toxic items. On the other side with depletion, the environment’s natural resources are being exhausted. Even though both are negative and both are bad for the environment, not one of them is necessarily better to have. To discuss capitalism, seeking profit and private property is what capitalism strives for. This is essentially their main desire. In slightly simpler words, it seeks to collect capital, or money. Capitalism affects the environment in a negative way, but it also causes stratification. The way it does this is by exploiting workers.

To be more specific, capitalism has become a threat to the environment and people’s well being. Wilkinson and Pickett discuss how our society has become focused on material aspects and how inequality is directly related to emotional suffering. Due to more and more countries taking part in capitalism, inequality has been able to grow throughout the world.

Nowadays, as human activities have increasingly negative effects on the environment and critical resources, the ideology of being environment-friendly is widely advertised around the world. As a result, producers try to advance green capitalism to urge consumers to purchase their ostensibly environment-friendly products to help the environment. This article examines how the following image "Fight For the Last Slice" is related to green capitalism and how the producers greenwash their non-eco part.