Restricting environmental damage resulting from economic activities: a Polanyian analysis

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Prometheus

Volume 37, Issue 3

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Restricting environmental damage resulting from economic activities: a Polanyian analysis

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Author(s): Peter Senker

Publication date (Print): 1 September 2021

Journal: Prometheus

Publisher: Pluto Journals

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Abstract

Economic activities continue to cause considerable environmental damage. The extent of damage could be such that the environment in and around our planet will be affected, making survival difficult for human beings, for other animals, and for plants and insects. The paper reviews economic developments from the nineteenth century and how these have been influenced by orthodox economic theories. Markets are central to orthodox economics, and to policies which have been implemented recently to restrict global warming. Since the 1980s, policies based on orthodox economics and neoliberalism have been widely implemented by governments, and also by international organizations. Such policies are evaluated and found to be seriously inadequate. Studies of environmental implications of the development of two major sectors of the world economy follow. Policies which are concerned only to restrain climate change are unlikely to be adequate by themselves. Policies which take a holistic approach to considering all the important impacts of human economic activity on the environment have greater prospects of success. The paper concludes by suggesting research and analysis be undertaken urgently to assist with the design and implementation of more effective policies to reduce the damage to the environment caused by human economic activities.

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Author and article information

Contributors

Peter Senker

Journal

Journal ID (doi): 10.2307/j50022063

Journal ID (jcode): prometheus

Title: Prometheus

Publisher: Pluto Journals

ISSN: 0810-9028

ISSN: 1470-1030

Publication date (Print): 1 September 2021

Volume: 37

Issue: 3 ( doiID: 10.13169/prometheus.37.issue-3 )

Pages: 223-240

Affiliations

Science Policy Research Unit, University of Sussex, UK

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Contact: peter.senker@ 123456ntlworld.com

Article

Publisher ID: prometheus.37.3.0223

DOI: 10.13169/prometheus.37.3.0223

SO-VID: c365bfaf-31d7-4c91-8064-eb38e0f0413f

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All content is freely available without charge to users or their institutions. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission of the publisher or the author. Articles published in the journal are distributed under a http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

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ScienceOpen disciplines: Computer science,Arts,Social & Behavioral Sciences,Law,History,Economics

References

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Comments

Comment on this article

[1] Adler, P. (2015) ‘Book review essay: The environmental crisis and its capitalist roots: reading Naomi Klein with Karl Polanyi’, Administrative Science Quarterly, 60, 2, pp.N13–25.

[2] Adler, P. (2019) The 99 Percent Economy: How Democratic Socialism Can Overcome the Crises of Capitalism, Oxford University Press, New York.

[3] Blythman, J. (2015) Swallow This: Serving up the Food Industry's Darkest Secrets, Fourth Estate, London.

[4] Branford, S. (2011) Food Sovereignty: Reclaiming the Global Food System, War on Want, London.

[5] Coady, D., Parry, I., Le, N.-P. and Shang, B. (2019) Global Fossil Fuel Subsidies Remain Large: An Update Based on Country-Level Estimates, International Monetary Fund, Washington DC.

[6] Coren, M. (2018) ‘Researchers have no idea when electric cars are going to take over’, Quartz, 18 May, available from https://qz.com/1620614/electric-car-forecasts-are-all-over-the-map/ (accessed January 2020).

[7] Coren, M. (2019) ‘Automakers may have completely overestimated how many people want electric cars’, Quartz, 25 January, available from https://qz.com/1533976/automakers-may-overproduce-14-million-electric-cars-by-2030/ (accessed October 2020).

[8] Crippa, M., Solazzo, E., Guizzardi, D., Monforti-Ferrario, F., Tubiello, F.N. and Leip, A. (2021), ‘Food systems are responsible for a third of global anthropogenic GHG emissions’, Nature Food, 2, pp.198–209.

[9] Cudworth, E. (2013) ‘Climate change, industrial animal agriculture and complex inequalities: developments in the politics of food insecurity’ in Cudworth E., Senker, P. and Walker, K. (eds) Technology, Society and Inequality: New Horizons and Contested Futures, Peter Lang, New York, pp.47–60.

[10] Dawar, K., Haider, A. and Green, A. (2019) Climate Change and Trade Agreements: Friends or Foes?, Economist Intelligence Unit, London.

[11] Dennis, K. and Urry, J. (2009) After the Car, Polity, Cambridge.

[12] Eckart, J. (2017) ‘Batteries can be part of the fight against climate change – if we do these five things’, World Economic Forum, Geneva, 28 November, available at https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2017/11/battery-batteries-electric-cars-carbon-sustainable-power-energy/ (accessed July 2021).

[13] Edelman, M., Weis, T., Baviskar, A., Borras, S., Holt-Gimenez, E., Kandiyoti, D. and Wolford, W. (2014) ‘Introduction: critical perspectives on food sovereignty’, Journal of Peasant Studies, 4, 6, pp.911–31.

[14] Foley, H., Bogue, J. and Okanuse, S. (2016) ‘New conceptual framework for sustainability’, Irish Studies in International Affairs, 27, pp.145–63.

[15] Foresight (2011) The Future of Food and Farming, Government Office for Science, London.

[16] Freeman, C. and Louça, F. (2001) As Time Goes By; From the Industrial Revolutions to the Information Revolution, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

[17] George, S. (2015) Shadow Sovereigns: How Global Corporations are Seizing Power, Polity, Cambridge.

[18] Gomez, A. (2011) ‘Our struggle is for the permanence of agriculture: interview with Alberto Gomez of International Peasants’ Movement, Durban, South Africa, 21 December', available at https://viacampesina.org/en/ (accessed September 2014).

[19] Hansen, J. (2018) Climate Change in a Nutshell: The Gathering Storm, Green Energy Times, available at https://greenenergytimes.org/2019/01/15/climate-change-in-a-nutshell-the-gathering-storm/ (accessed July 2021).

[20] Harper, G., Sommerville, R., Kendrick, E., Driscoll, L, Peter Slater, P., Stolkin, R., Walton, A., Christensen, P., Heidrich, O., Lambert, S., Abbott, A., Ryder, K., Gaines, L. and Anderso, P. (2019) ‘Recycling lithium-ion batteries from electric vehicles’, Nature, 575, pp.75–86.

[21] Harvey, D. (2005) A Brief History of Neoliberalism, Oxford University Press, Oxford.

[22] Holland, M. (2020) ‘China 2019 electric vehicle market share grows to 4.7% despite tighter incentives’, CleanTechnica, 13 January 2020, available at https://cleantechnica.com/2020/01/13/china-2019-electric-vehicle-market-share-grows-to-4-7-despite-tighter-incentives/ (accessed July 2021).

[23] ICAP (2020) Emissions Trading Worldwide: Status Report, 2020, International Carbon Action Partnership, Berlin.

[24] International Peasants' Movement (2020) La Via Campesina, website available at https://viacampesina.org/en/ (accessed October 2020).

[25] Jacobs, J. (1964) The Death and Life of Great American Cities, Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK

[26] Jacobs, J. (1972) The Economy of Cities, Pelican Books, London.

[27] Jones, H. (2012) Masters of the Universe, Hayek Friedman and the Birth of Neoliberal Politics, Princeton University Press, Princeton.

[28] Katwala, A. (2018) ‘The spiraling environmental cost of our lithium battery addiction’, Wired, 5 August, available at https://www.wired.co.uk/article/lithium-batteries-environment-impact (accessed January 2020).

[29] Klein, N. (2014) This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. the Climate, Allen Lane, London.

[30] Landes, D. (1969) The Unbound Prometheus, Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present, Cambridge University Press, New York.

[31] Lawrence, F. (2008) Eat Your Heart out: Why the Food Business is Bad for the Planet and Your Health, Penguin Books, London.

[32] Lindeman, T. (2018) ‘Will Norway's electric-vehicle boom outlast its incentives?‘ Bloomberg CityLab, 27 December, available at https://www.citylab.com/environment/2018/12/norway-electric-vehicle-models-incentives-car-free-oslo/578932/ (accessed January 2020).

[33] McDonald, T. (2019) ‘China powers up electric car market’, BBC News, 11 January available at www.bbc.co.uk›news›business-46745472 (accessed January 2020).

[34] McKeon, N. (2015) Food Security Governance: Empowering Communities, Regulating Corporations, Routledge, Milton Park, Oxon, UK.

[35] McManus, M. (2012) ‘Environmental consequences of the use of batteries in low carbon systems: the impact of battery production’, Applied Energy, 93, pp.288–95.

[36] Mashishi, G. (2016) ‘A year in the lives of smallholder farmers’, World Bank, available at https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2016/02/25/a-year-in-the-lives-of-smallholder-farming-families (accessed November 2020).

[37] Morris, E. (2007) ‘From horse power to horsepower’, Access, 1, 30, available at https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6sm968t2 (accessed January 2020).

[38] Patel, R. (2007) Stuffed and Starved, Market, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System, Portobello, London.

[39] Pigou, A. (1951) Wage Statistics and Wage Policy, Stamp Memorial Lecture, Athlone Press, University of London, London.

[40] Polanyi, K. (2001 [1944]) The Great Transformation, Beacon Press, Boston.

[41] Roser, M. (2019) Future Population Growth. Our World in Data, available at https://ourworldin-data.org/future-population-growth (accessed January 2020).

[42] Routh, G. (1989) The Origin of Economic Ideas, Macmillan, London.

[43] Savage, C. (1966) An Economic History of Transport, Hutchinson, London, pp.92–7.

[44] Scalzaretto, N. (2019) ‘Will Brazil's auto industry ever stand on its own feet?‘, Brazilian Report, 29 March, available from https://brazilian.report/business/2019/03/29/brazil-auto-industry-subsidies/(accessed January 2020).

[45] Schlosser, E. (2002) Fast Food Nation: What the American Meal is Doing to the World, Penguin, London.

[46] Schumpeter, J. (1954) Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, Unwin, London.

[47] Scott, J. (1998) Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, Yale University Press, New Haven.

[48] Smith, A. (2010 [1776]) An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Dent, London.

[49] Stiglitz, J. (2001) ‘Foreword’ in Polanyi, K., The Great Transformation, Beacon Press, Boston, pp.vii–xviii.

[50] Stiglitz, J. (2012) The Price of Inequality, Allen Lane, London.

[51] Stiglitz, J. (2017) ‘The coming great transformation’, Journal of Policy Modeling, 39, pp.625–38.

[52] Stuart, D., Gunderson, R. and Petersen, B. (2019) ‘Climate change and the Polanyian counter-movement: carbon markets or degrowth?‘, New Political Economy, 24, 1, pp.89–102.

[53] Tawney, R. (1926) Religion and the Rise of Capitalism, Penguin Books, West Drayton, UK.

[54] Thompson, F. (1976) ‘Nineteenth-century horse sense’, Economic History Review, 29, 1, pp.60–81.

[55] Thorsen, D. (2010) ‘The neoliberal challenge: what is neoliberalism?‘, Contemporary Readings in Law and Social Justice, 2, 2, pp.188–214.

[56] United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (2015) Paris Agreement, available at http://unfccc.int/files/meetings/paris_nov_2015/application/pdf/paris_agreement_english_.pdf (accessed July 2021).

[57] Whitelegg, J. and Haq, G. (2003) ‘New directions in world transport and practice’ in Whitelegg, J. and Haq, G. (eds) World Transport Policy and Practice. London: Earthscan Publications, London pp.275–96.

[58] Wu, H., Alberts, G. and Hooper, J. (2019) New Markets. New Entrants. New Challenges. Battery Electric Vehicles, Deloitte, available at https://www2.deloitte.com/content/dam/Deloitte/uk/Documents/manufacturing/deloitte-uk-battery-electric-vehicles.pdf (accessed January 2020).

[59] Wu, T. (2017) The Attention Merchants: From the Daily Newspaper to Social Media, How our Time and Attention is Harvested and Sold, Atlantic Books, London.

[60] Zuboff, S. (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for the Future of the New Frontier of Power, Profile, London.