Environmental Ethics and Capitalism

Environmental Ethics and Capitalism: An Environmental and Ecological Accounting Perspective Homework Assignment

1) Mueller (2006) makes five arguments detailing the moral benefits of the market. Take one of these arguments and elaborate on ti from an environmental ethics perspective. Do you agree with his argument when you consider environmental ethical concepts we discussed in class? (Hint: think about ethical theories, the way we value things, etc.) Why or why not? If your views differ from Muller, explain why there might be a gap in your viewpoints.

I picked the fourth argument about capitalism as in my opinion this is the most important problem humanity must overcome before addressing some other problems that it faces.
The fourth argument of the positive aspect of capitalism is that it brings people together giving them interest and interest in the same common denominator – commerce. Capitalism then is to decrease the isolation of nations and make them think as one. Presumably common goal would bring people together and decrease nationalism.
“Nationalism is an infantile disease. It is the measles of mankind. “ said Albert Einstein

“Capitalism creates an awareness of [peoples] needs and wants, and to the extent that we view them as customers for our products and as producers of the goods we hope to consume” holds the argument. Of course, as the author also points out, “a wider form of association is itself a source of moral complaint by those who […] rightly view trans-cultural contact as a threat to their inherited identity, at least in its traditional form. " (Muller 2006)

It is impossible to analyze this argument completely in a page or two and therefore this paper will focus only on some assumptions and implications of this argument.

Capitalism drives commerce. Commerce means employment. It is perhaps hard in USA to experience true unemployment. This is not to say that there are jobs for everyone and it is very true that minimum wage jobs cannot support families in the long run. Nevertheless, at least theoretically, assuming the workers are lucky to have great health and no unexpected expenses, one can very easily find employment in USA. To truly know what it means not to be able to find any employment most people really have to stretch their imagination. Instead of thinking of unemployment in ranges of 4-5% and really in form of finding well-paid employment, one should imagine 50 or 60% or 80% percent unemployment in form of inability to find any work whatsoever. We can think of Palestine, many African countries and also many oil-rich Middle East countries.

Not very well publicized, there are actually quite many trades and other commercial capital ventures going on between Israel and Palestine despite the ongoing conflict. There are not enough of them for sure but those that are going on are rather successful and it matters not that one side is Jewish and the other is not. Since Israel-Palestine conflict is arguably the most important conflict to be resolved in the world to rip the biggest advantages to the world as a whole, one should pause for a minute and contemplate the role capitalism could play in such resolution.

But instead of contemplating potential role, let’s look at a historical one. Berlin wall did not collapse because of the Pope or Ronald Regan although they may have played important role in this process. Berlin wall collapsed because of people's desire for better redistribution of capital rewards resulting from sound free market based commerce. Despite numerous communistic attempts to portrait capitalism as invasive and abusive, people living in communists Poland were aware through street talks and illegal radio “Free Europe” and other contacts with the west about the prosperity that results from sound Capitalistic system. They envied it. They wanted to have the same opportunity. They wanted to have the same what German people have, even though just 40 years ago the German people (Nazis) attacked Poland during WWII.


But it is also a fact that just a few years after the Berlin Wall collapsed many of the people so enchanted by capitalism in the past are very disappointed of it today. To play a game, you must know its rules early on. Often if you join the game in the middle of the road, the results may be devastating. Lack of education is just one of the problems of societies in transition from one socio-political system to another.

But nevertheless, if one looks on two antagonistic systems, one must realize that although not perfect, although with many potential problems, capitalism in a right format is the best medicine.

Right format of capitalism is however very important. The wrong format can bring just the opposite consequences. African countries for instance are neither communistic nor socialistic and yet despite officially following the doctrine of capitalism, they cannot shake many of their overwhelming problems. Capitalism only works if it is a mature capitalism – backed by enforceable laws and people’s trust in law enforcement of contracts, etc. This is why corruption is actually greater threat to humanity than communism. Communism is based on quite noble ideas, better in theory than capitalism. But those ideas humans so far proved to be quite utopian, unattainable. Collective farming is just one of the most known examples of the failure of communism. Without incentives, good amount of greed, different preferences, overtime the system fails. It fails while having great equitable ideas in its background, ideas which gave birth to it in the first place.

In addition to enforcement of contractual laws, the right capitalism has at least arguably sensible and somewhat fair redistribution of income. This is perhaps the most important aspect of 'good' capitalism. The capitalism from the beginning of this century is very different from capitalism of today with sick days, unemployment benefits, retirement, minimum wage protection, law enforcement, worker representation through variety of institutions including the government, etc. This is why capitalism deprived of equal and fair redistribution of income is at the very least not helping animosity among different entities in some regions, and arguably, and most likely, it is increasing such animosity.

Middle East for example can be very easily seen as colonialism of some small and weak Arabian countries by exploitation of their natural resources. Such way of 'doing business' rewards only privilege class of the Middle East while the vast majority of the population is left in poverty and despair. With no prospects of improving this situation, vast majority of population sees injustice and turns its anger towards those who benefit from this injustice. Capitalism could help more than any number of bombs or imprisonments but it would require more equitable redistribution of the income from natural resources among the populations of the countries with those natural resources. Can't we see Norway and learn from it? I have never heard of anger or religious fanatics in Norway, a very oil-rich country which takes very good care of all of its citizens.

Only with just and fair capitalism we can even start to talk about environmental ethics. Capitalism is not perfect but it is the best we have so far and if implemented correctly, it can quickly heal some of the major problems. One should remember the scale of the problem with thousands or rather millions of people lacking basic food and water and living on few dollars a day. Unless there is more equitable redistribution of wealth, any talk about environmental ethics, intrinsic or inherited values, is quite meaningless as it is more or less like to worry about the color of a ribbon in some girl's hair while the girl is hungry, abused, angry and living in despair, easily affected by all the evils of the world.

In my opinion, we must accept the value of capitalism which has been established over 50 or so years and try to make it better through careful regulations and better redistribution, better education about the environment, focus on long term sustainability, better accounting that takes long term and sustainability into account.

Drastic changes as abolishment of the system may, and they will in my opinion, cause even greater damage to both humanity and environment.

In conclusion, “fair capitalism” (certainly not the one from XVIII century deprived of any regulations) can diffuses the religious antagonisms between the Jew, the Muslim, and the Christian but the “raw” one can do at best nothing to improve the antagonisms and most likely increase the antagonisms. Once antagonism is gone and nationalism is erased from the minds of most people in the world, we can start truly take a better care of environment in measurable and substantial way. Otherwise, it is just a nice talk and nicely written papers without much tangible positive outcome.