The Current Capitalistic Society And Its Effects On The Environment

Within this chapter Bell explains the concept of ‘The Treadmill of Production’, where capitalism 's core impulse to expand production without regard to natural limits of growth set by the biosphere. This impulse makes the process of capital accumulation inherently unsustainable and anti-ecological. According to Bell and the Treadmill of Production model, developments in technology, primarily encouraged by owners of the means of production seeking to increase profits, drive the expansion of production and consumption simultaneously. This process leads to a cycle of production demanding more production, because all sectors of society (the state, organized labour, and private capital) depend on continued economic growth to solve problems, such as unemployment generated by mechanization, which are created by growth itself. As more production is required to keep up with demand so too is the increase and acceleration of ecological demands. The advanced capitalist economies are so unsustainable because production is secured into this capitalist treadmill of never-ending expansion and growth for growth 's sake.

The earths resources are finite and we are very close to meeting the earths carrying capacity. We created the era of a constant want and desire for material products which has created the concept of supply and demand; which inevitably led to corporations to go multinational, also known as transitional companies. These transitional companies are what have created sweat shops in third world countries therefore we are not only destroying our own resources to fill this supply and demand, we are also creating an idea of power and dominance over ourselves which has ultimately led to economic disparity. We should be trying to salvage our resources and share amongst ourselves of whatever we have left, not using everything until it’s gone and leaving people better off than others. This constant want and desire for materialistic items has blinded us, forgetting every time we create a phone or a laptop we are taking from the earth and what we are taking can not be replenished.

Greed is the product of this materialism. Today, greed and avarice has overtaken the society’s moral values. The damaging effects of materialism has also led to far reaching destruction in the political realm. Corrupt officials with the intend of greed for power and money has given rise to the numerous scams that has created a climate of distrust in our

In Bill McKibben’s book Deep Economy, the chapter “After Growth” contains McKibben’s assertion dealing with the challenges of economic growth. McKibben states that economic growth has done little to diminish wealth inequality, done little to help stop the detrimental effects on the planet, and done little to make us any happier.

The environment has been put in a dangerous position of not having sufficient amount of resources for current residents and the future generations that are to come. Many things such as personal needs put the environment in this position, but most of time we use these products because they are needed. Earth has become reliant on the resources, therefore we use up our resources way too fast. Our current obstacle to obtaining sustainability is we don't manage our resources, and they are used too often when there is not enough to begin with. Individually we are responsible for ourselves and the actions that are used to take care of the environment. To reach sustainability, there needs to be a limit of how much is used.

Our dilemma is that we in the developing economies cannot afford to forego economic growth although the present economic growth causes environment damage. And irreparable environmental losses limit the prospect of future economic growth. What would be the solution to our dilemma? How can we achieve higher economic growth with environmental degradation? The answer to this could be found in the notion of sustainable development that meets the needs of the present generation without compromising the ability of the future generation to meet their own needs. Today the closest we have come to sustainability orthodoxy is the "cradle to cradle" solution pioneered by Michael braungart and William McDonough .According to their philosophy, we have to remaking the ways we make things. So our products need to be made fully recyclable so that, once they are discarded, each part can be turned back into itself again. All based on three simple principles:-waste equals food is a basic concept of organic waste materials becoming food for bugs, insects and other small forms of life who can feed on it, decompose it and return it to the natural environment which we then indirectly use for food ourselves .also we have to

50 years of innovation and urbanization, we were blinded by the city lights and smokes that we do not seem to see the importance of taking good care of our environment, especially the nonrenewable sources. The consumers’ needs quickly became wants, and for the producers, wants simply mean profit, and profit is money. Money is everything to people nowadays. We would resort to everything that could provide us even the littlest amount of money, no matter what the repercussions would be, thus, the destroying of the resources. We are slowly killing the planet but we cannot see it because we are too busy trying to get things we believe we need. It is said that the earth’s weight is still the same as it was first created. Come to think of it, we do give and take with the nature, we take its resources, invent something useful that we consume, but we give it back as waste and

There are many complications caused by the recent advancement in technology. In recent years, the people of the world have experienced this technological advancement firsthand. Though, even with all the upgrading, we, as a worldwide community, aren’t using machinery to better the world. People have become too connected to technology, we need to get off it every once in awhile.

Magdoff and Foster’s book ‘What Every Environmentalist Needs to Know About Capitalism’ aims to motivate people to start critically thinking of solutions outside of capitalism by means of exploring the role of the capitalist system in causing mass environmental degradation as planetary boundaries are pushed. They seek to explain how another social, economic, and political system is essential for solving the current ecological (and economic crises). The capitalist system is driven by profit and expansion, so no matter how ‘green’ the system can try to become, the environment will not survive its constant exploitation. New technologies and zero-growth economies are not the answer to the environmental destruction, but maybe an

What pushes capitalism to desire perpetual growth? To understand what capitalism thrives off of today, Bjerg’s concepts of desire and drive must be introduced. Desire is understood as a demand and a need for an object, feeling, or emotion. This concept of desire is not a tangible object, but it is the fuel to every human’s action and thoughts. To clarify, every human being is a social animal that longs for a need that can only be met by a demand for the specific object, whether the object is food or a compassionate relationship. Desire arises in the transition between needs and demands- desire is embedded in the human thought process and is an individual characteristic that each person is ingrained with. Although, desire, in Bjerg’s discussion, is a sense of false pleasure towards an object that does not have a true reality, but is envisioned in fantasy that has the possibility of never being obtained. The application of Bjerg’s theory of desire proposes a perspective on that can further explain why dualism of power occurs within the economic system. To explain this reasoning, it is understood that capitalists desire more economic growth that is fulfilled through the use of natural resources and laborers that are under the power of capitalism. Desire, essentially, is

In today’s modern world, technology reigns. Millions of people all over the globe utilize technology for a multitude of purposes every day, whether it be at work, school, or even from the leisure of their home. If you were to ask most people in America if they could live without technology even for a day, the answer would most likely be no. Contrary to opinions that are popular with my fellow millennials, I think that society is too dependent on technology. I believe society relies on technology too much because we use the internet for simple tasks that we should be capable of doing ourselves, our dependence has resulted in laziness, and technology is rapidly replacing people in the workplace, thus resulting in less jobs.

Concept of capitalism can be difficult to understand. It is commonly identified by economist and political philosophers as a system in which the means of production are privately owned and operated in the free market in exchange for a profit (Galbraith, 1952). The economical/social system determines the structure of production, the allocation of inputs and outputs, and consumption of goods. Capitalism remains popular in America because it values freedom, much like the people in our country. This is true because it allows individuals to set their own plans and pursue their own goals; in addition, one can decide what career they would enjoy most, thus creating an incentive and reward for achieving ones ambitions. In a free market, everyone

The decline of the environment due to natural and human exertion is known as the degradation of the environment. The natural weather occurrences such as heavy rain, flooding, storms, earthquakes, volcanoes etc. are not administered under human control. These meteorological phenomenon’s wreak devastation on the environment from time to time causing the land to become unsuitable to cultivate. On this subject matter, the human population does not contain the power to stop the wrath of Mother Nature. Rather, we are forced to sit back and watch. Nevertheless, humans engage in a crucial role towards the degradation of the environment in which we live in. Unavoidably, the degradation of the environment is a rising and utmost worldwide subject. I accept that the root cause to environmental degradation is the excessive use of resources on our land utilized by the processes under capitalism. As Jensen wrote in Endgame, “The global industrial economy is the engine for massive environmental degradation and massive human and (nonhuman) impoverishment.

During the industrial boom, humans began pulling in as many resources as they could and expanding humanity to the farthest reaches of the planet. With no more room nor reasons to expand, humans have now entered a new era of stagnancy. So why, after all this time, do we keep the same policies and ideologies of development and resource grabbing as we did during industrialization? Sustainable Development, according to the International Institute of Sustainable Development’s website, is “development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs”(2015). It is a proactive method to guarantee the survival of future generations. It hasn’t quite been a worry until late, when man realized just how much power they have over the wellbeing of the planet. Global warming and the unsustainable views of achievement has led to an unseen conflict of modern day man against an unseen, yet dangerous ticking time bomb. Mankind is making large strides in developing our cities and technology , but its excessive rate of growth puts future generations at risk of extinction; therefore, changing the world community 's thought process, communication strategies and pushing education may preemptively save future generations(Semicolon).

The Cornucopians believe that human ingenuity and technological advancements will solve global resource issues. The combination of the discovery of new reserves, technological evolutions providing substitutes for presently declining resources, and improved efficiencies in resource extraction, manufacturing and other processes will continually provide solutions to emergent issues. Furthermore, as it is believed that technology will continue to evolve and provide solutions to satisfy the needs of the human species, the environment therefore imposes no real limits to growth.