Risk and justice: Capitalist production and the environment

Capitalism, Nature, Socialism

Volumn 8, Issue 2, 1997, Pages 69-94

  Field, Rodger C ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 0002346674     PISSN: 10455752     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/10455759709358736     Document Type: Article

References (73)

1. As Engels wrote: The upper classes enjoy healthy country air and live in luxurious and comfortable dwellings which are linked to the centre of Manchester by omnibuses which run every fifteen or thirty minutes....[T]hese plutocrats can travel from their houses to their places of business, which run entirely through working-class districts, without even realizing how close they are to the misery and filth which lie on both sides of the road. Friedrich Engels, Conditions of the Working Class in England (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1968), p. 55.
2. Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales (Boston: David Godine, 1980), p. 21.
3. This is the image often used by Hazel Johnson, longtime environmental justice activist, who is the head of People for Community Recovery, an environmental organization located in one of Chicago's oldest public housing projects.
4. Marcy Darnovsky, "Stories Less Told: Histories of U.S. Environmentalism," Socialist Review, 22, 4, 1992; Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1993), pp. 47-80.
5. Marcy Darnovsky, "Stories Less Told: Histories of U.S. Environmentalism," Socialist Review, 22, 4, 1992; Robert Gottlieb, Forcing the Spring: The Transformation of the American Environmental Movement (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1993), pp. 47-80.
6. Robert Lake, "Negotiating Local Autonomy," Political Geography, 13, 5, 1994.
7. Giovanna Di Chiro, "Nature as Community: The Convergence of Environment and Social Justice," in William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1995), p. 310.
8. Gottlieb, op. cit., p. 5.
9. Bunyan Bryant, ed., Environmental Justice: Issues, Policies, and Solutions (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1995); Robert Bullard, ed., Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots (Boston: South End Press, 1993); Robert Bullard, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990).
10. Bunyan Bryant, ed., Environmental Justice: Issues, Policies, and Solutions (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1995); Robert Bullard, ed., Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots (Boston: South End Press, 1993); Robert Bullard, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990).
11. Bunyan Bryant, ed., Environmental Justice: Issues, Policies, and Solutions (Washington, DC: Island Press, 1995); Robert Bullard, ed., Confronting Environmental Racism: Voices from the Grassroots (Boston: South End Press, 1993); Robert Bullard, Dumping in Dixie: Race, Class and Environmental Quality (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1990).
12. United Church of Christ Commission for Racial Justice, Toxic Waste and Race in the United States: A National Report on the Racial and Socioeconomic Characteristics of Communities with Hazardous Waste Sites (New York: United Church of Christ, 1987).
13. Benjamin Goldman, Not Just Prosperity: Achieving Sustainability with Environmental Justice (National Wildlife Federation, December, 1993), p. 10.
14. Ibid., p. 15.
15. The EPA report, for example, specifically cites the fact that a large proportion of racial minorities reside in metropolitan areas with poor air quality and reside in physical proximity to potential pollution sources such as hazardous waste sites. (It also noted that fish consumption was greater among Native Americans and minority anglers and that minority farmworkers had greater exposure to pesticides.) U.S. EPA, Environmental Equity: Reducing Risk for All Communities, EPA 230-R-92-008 A, Vol. 2 (Washington, DC: EPA, June, 1992), pp. 7-15.
16. Idid., pp. 4-6.
17. Richard Evans, "Asthma Among Minority Children: A Growing Problem," Chest, 101, 6, 1992, pp. 368-371.
18. U-S. EPA, op. cit., pp. 8-9; Karen Florini, George Krumbhaar, Jr., and Ellen Silbergeld, Legacy of Lead: America's Continuing Epidemic of Childhood Lead Poisoning (Washington, DC: Environmental Defense Fund, March, 1990).
19. U-S. EPA, op. cit., pp. 8-9; Karen Florini, George Krumbhaar, Jr., and Ellen Silbergeld, Legacy of Lead: America's Continuing Epidemic of Childhood Lead Poisoning (Washington, DC: Environmental Defense Fund, March, 1990).
20. Jennifer Nedelsky, Private Property and the Limits of American Constitutionalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990).
21. Barry Commoner, "The Hazards of Risk Assessment," Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, 14, 2, 1989; Howard Latin, "Good Science, Bad Regulation, and Toxic Risk Assessment," Yale Journal of Regulation, 5, 1988. It should be noted that technical risk assessments are distinct from community-directed health surveys which are an important way to gain information about actual health effects (not risks) and which have been an important tool for community organizing. See Patrick Novotny, "Popular Epidemiology and the Struggle for Community Health," CNS, 5, 2, 1994.
22. Barry Commoner, "The Hazards of Risk Assessment," Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, 14, 2, 1989; Howard Latin, "Good Science, Bad Regulation, and Toxic Risk Assessment," Yale Journal of Regulation, 5, 1988. It should be noted that technical risk assessments are distinct from community-directed health surveys which are an important way to gain information about actual health effects (not risks) and which have been an important tool for community organizing. See Patrick Novotny, "Popular Epidemiology and the Struggle for Community Health," CNS, 5, 2, 1994.
23. Barry Commoner, "The Hazards of Risk Assessment," Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, 14, 2, 1989; Howard Latin, "Good Science, Bad Regulation, and Toxic Risk Assessment," Yale Journal of Regulation, 5, 1988. It should be noted that technical risk assessments are distinct from community-directed health surveys which are an important way to gain information about actual health effects (not risks) and which have been an important tool for community organizing. See Patrick Novotny, "Popular Epidemiology and the Struggle for Community Health," CNS, 5, 2, 1994.
24. Barry Commoner, "Pollution Prevention: Putting Comparative Risk Assessment in Its Place," paper presented to conference, Setting National Environmental Priorities: The EPA Risk-Based Paradigm and Its Alternatives, Annapolis, MD, Nov. 15-17, 1992.
25. Robert Lake, "Volunteers, NIMBYs, and Environmental Justice: Dilemmas of Democratic Practice," Antipode, 28, 2, April 1996.
26. Bullard, ed., 1993, op. cit., p. 11.; Richard Hofrichter, ed., Toxic Struggles: The Theory and Practice of Environmental Justice (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1993).
27. Bullard, ed., 1993, op. cit., p. 11.; Richard Hofrichter, ed., Toxic Struggles: The Theory and Practice of Environmental Justice (Philadelphia: New Society Publishers, 1993).
28. Among them are: (1) whether disproportionate siting is "really" based upon race or upon class; (2) whether, based upon the historical record, poor people and minorities "come to" a pollution source after it has been sited for non-discriminatory economic reasons (Vicki Been, "Locally Undesirable Land Uses in Minority Neighborhoods: Disproportionate Siting or Market Dynamics," Yale Law Journal, 103, 1994); and (3) whether the responsibility to address disproportionate siting arises from a showing of intentional discrimination or whether evidence of a discriminatory impact is sufficient (Laura Pulido, "A Critical Review of the Methodology of Environmental Racism Research," Antipode, 28, 2, April, 1996).
29. Among them are: (1) whether disproportionate siting is "really" based upon race or upon class; (2) whether, based upon the historical record, poor people and minorities "come to" a pollution source after it has been sited for non-discriminatory economic reasons (Vicki Been, "Locally Undesirable Land Uses in Minority Neighborhoods: Disproportionate Siting or Market Dynamics," Yale Law Journal, 103, 1994); and (3) whether the responsibility to address disproportionate siting arises from a showing of intentional discrimination or whether evidence of a discriminatory impact is sufficient (Laura Pulido, "A Critical Review of the Methodology of Environmental Racism Research," Antipode, 28, 2, April, 1996).
30. Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 1 (New York: Vintage, 1976), pp. 637-38, quoted in John Bellamy Foster, The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1994), p. 63. See also, John Bellamy Foster, "The Limits of Environmentalism Without Class: Lessons from the Ancient Forest Struggle of the Pacific Northwest," CNS, 4, 1, 1993.
31. Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 1 (New York: Vintage, 1976), pp. 637-38, quoted in John Bellamy Foster, The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1994), p. 63. See also, John Bellamy Foster, "The Limits of Environmentalism Without Class: Lessons from the Ancient Forest Struggle of the Pacific Northwest," CNS, 4, 1, 1993.
32. Karl Marx, Capital Vol. 1 (New York: Vintage, 1976), pp. 637-38, quoted in John Bellamy Foster, The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1994), p. 63. See also, John Bellamy Foster, "The Limits of Environmentalism Without Class: Lessons from the Ancient Forest Struggle of the Pacific Northwest," CNS, 4, 1, 1993.
33. James O'Connor, "Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A Theoretical Introduction," CNS, 1, 1988.
34. Mining, for example, involves removal of large amounts of overburden to uncover the desired metal. Once extracted, the metal is generally concentrated to remove impurities, leaving large quantities of "tailings" which are disposed of in and around the mining site. The concentrated ore is reduced to crude metal through a smelting process and later heated and refined again. The whole process is quintessentially dirty and produces high levels of contamination at every stage. Disturbed soil and tailings permit minerals which were once inert to be released into the environment resulting in sediment and water contamination. (Sulfuric acid which is created by exposure of disturbed sulfur in soil to rain water is a common example.) The smelting process which is generally done at or near the site of extraction produces air pollution often creating "dead zones" where no vegetation survives. Forty-eight of the 1,189 Superfund sites in the United States, including the largest which stretches across 220 kilometers of Montana, are former mineral operation sites. John Young, "Mining the Earth," in Lester Brown, ed., State of the World: 1992 (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1992).
35. There is a segment of mainstream environmentalists who believe that removing subsides and internalizing the costs of pollution is all that is necessary to address pollution problems, i.e., the market will weed out heavy polluters and provide incentives to clean industries. The clear limitations to this approach are set forth in J. Martínez-Alier, "Political Ecology, Distributional Conflicts, and Economic Incommensurability," New Left Review, 211, May/June, 1995, and Martin O'Connor, "On the Misadventures of Capitalist Nature," in Martin O'Connor, ed., Is Capitalism Sustainable: Political Economy and the Politics of Ecology (New York and London: Guilford Press, 1994).
36. There is a segment of mainstream environmentalists who believe that removing subsides and internalizing the costs of pollution is all that is necessary to address pollution problems, i.e., the market will weed out heavy polluters and provide incentives to clean industries. The clear limitations to this approach are set forth in J. Martínez-Alier, "Political Ecology, Distributional Conflicts, and Economic Incommensurability," New Left Review, 211, May/June, 1995, and Martin O'Connor, "On the Misadventures of Capitalist Nature," in Martin O'Connor, ed., Is Capitalism Sustainable: Political Economy and the Politics of Ecology (New York and London: Guilford Press, 1994).
37. Winona LaDuke, "A Society Based on Conquest Cannot Be Sustained: Native Peoples and the Environmental Crisis," in Hofrichter, ed., op. cit., pp. 98-106.
38. Al Gedicks, "Racism and Resource Colonization," CNS, 5, 1, 1994.
39. O'Connor, 1988, op. cit., p. 17.
40. David Harvey, "Urbanization in Question," paper delivered to the conference At the End of the Century: Looking Back to the Future, Library of Congress, November, 3-5, 1994, p. 12.
41. William Cronon, Nature's Metropolis: Chicago and the Great West (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1991).
42. Louis Wade, Chicago's Pride: The Stockyards, Packingtown and Environs in the Nineteenth Century (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1987).
43. Foster, 1994, op. cit., p. 53.
44. Morton Horwitz, The Transformation of American Law: 1780-1860 (Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 1977), pp. 74-78.
45. R. Dale Grinder, "The Battle for Clean Air: The Smoke Problem in Post-Civil War America," in Martin Melosi, ed., Pollution and Reform in American Cities, 1870-1930 (Austin and London: University of Texas Press, 1980), p. 91.
46. See, for example, Stuart Galishoff, "Triumph and Failure: The American Response to the Urban Water Supply Problem, 1860-1923," and Joel A. Tarr, James McCurley, and Terry F. Yosie, "The Development and Impact of Urban Wastewater Technology: Changing Concepts of Water Quality Control, 1850-1930," and other articles in Melosi, op. cit.
47. See, for example, Stuart Galishoff, "Triumph and Failure: The American Response to the Urban Water Supply Problem, 1860-1923," and Joel A. Tarr, James McCurley, and Terry F. Yosie, "The Development and Impact of Urban Wastewater Technology: Changing Concepts of Water Quality Control, 1850-1930," and other articles in Melosi, op. cit.
48. Wade, op. cit.
49. Michael Smith, City, State, and Market: The Political Economy of Urban Society (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988); Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier; The Suburbanization of the United States (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).
50. Michael Smith, City, State, and Market: The Political Economy of Urban Society (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988); Kenneth Jackson, Crabgrass Frontier; The Suburbanization of the United States (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985).
51. For an excellent account of how these forces affected one community, see Andrew Hurley, Environmental Inequalities: Class, Race, and Industrial Pollution in Gary, Indiana, 1945-1980 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995).
52. David Harvey, Conditions of Postmodernity (Oxford and Cambridge: Basil Blackwell, 1989), pp. 147-155.
53. "Fordism" has a number of characteristics, but I use the term here to refer to a method of production which mass produces goods in a factory-like setting, often involving an assembly-line type of process.
54. Sandra Postel, "Controlling Toxic Chemicals," in Lester Brown, ed., State of the World 1988 (New York and London: W.W. Norton, 1988).
55. Alan Durning, "How Much Is Enough," World Watch, 3, 6, 1990.
56. Barry Commoner, Making Peace With the Planet (New York: Pantheon, 1990), pp. 44-45.
57. Ibid., p. 83.
58. Hurley, op. cit.,
59. Charles Cray, Trash into Cash: Waste Management Inc.'s Environmental Crimes and Misdeeds (Washington, DC: Greenpeace, 1991).
60. Hurley, op. cit. p. 30-31.
61. U-S. EPA, National Biennial RCRA Hazardous Waste Report, EPA 530-R-92-027 (Washington, DC: EPA, February, 1993).
62. Robert Lake and L. Disch, "Structural Constraints and Pluralist Contradictions in Hazardous Waste Regulation," Environmental Planning, 24, 1992.
63. Kirsten Engel, "Reconsidering the National Market in Solid Waste: Trade-Offs in Equity, Efficiency, Environmental Protection and State Autonomy," North Carolina Law Review, 73, 1995, pp. 1481-1560.
64. Barry Commoner, "The Hazards of Risk Assessment," Columbia Journal of Environmental Law, 14, 2, 1989.
65. Lake, op. cit., pp. 166-167.
66. The Clean Air Act does restrict some operations if the area in which a facility is proposed has not attained the health-based standards in the Act. In Los Angeles, for example, which does not meet the ozone standards, a new facility may not be constructed unless certain reductions from other sources are available. This is an attempt to vary environmental regulation based upon the environmental conditions in the community. However, since the Clean Air Act has established these limits for only a limited number of "conventional" pollutants, this in no way restricts the construction of minor sources or other sources besides ozone producers.
67. Andrew Szasz, EcoPopulism: Toxic Waste and the Movement for Environmental Justice (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1994), pp. 17-22.
68. There is some precedent, however, for moving toward pollution prevention. The State of Massachusetts, for example, has enacted a Toxic Use Reduction Act which has served as a model for other states. Under its provisions, a company must develop a comprehensive toxic use reduction plan. Technical assistance is provided by the state, but eventually the state is empowered to establish standards which must be achieved by industrial sectors. These steps, however small, move in the direction of greater socialization of at least some aspects of the production process (Paulette Stenzel, "Toxics Use Reduction Legislation: An Important 'Next Step' After Right to Know," Utah Law Review, 1991).
69. Steven Epstein, "Democratic Science? AIDS Activism and the Contested Construction of Knowledge," Socialist Review, 21, 2, 1991.
70. There are, however, significant obstacles to rectifying the present deficiencies in the current scheme of environmental laws which can only be alluded to here. The United States political structure is extremely fluid with differing governmental functions being carried out at the local, state and federal levels. Fragmentation of government both vertically (local, state and federal) and horizontally (judicial, executive and legislative) generally works to favor capital which is well-equipped to take advantage of any and all opportunities (Charles Noble, Liberalism at Work: The Rise and Fall of OSHA [Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986]). Moreover, in a capitalist economy, the authority of the government is always constrained at some level by the threat of capital flight and loss of business confidence, as has been recognized by state theorists (Martin Carnoy, The State and Political Theory [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984]).
71. There are, however, significant obstacles to rectifying the present deficiencies in the current scheme of environmental laws which can only be alluded to here. The United States political structure is extremely fluid with differing governmental functions being carried out at the local, state and federal levels. Fragmentation of government both vertically (local, state and federal) and horizontally (judicial, executive and legislative) generally works to favor capital which is well-equipped to take advantage of any and all opportunities (Charles Noble, Liberalism at Work: The Rise and Fall of OSHA [Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1986]). Moreover, in a capitalist economy, the authority of the government is always constrained at some level by the threat of capital flight and loss of business confidence, as has been recognized by state theorists (Martin Carnoy, The State and Political Theory [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984]).
72. These perspectives, it may be noted, parallel those identified by Alford and Friedland to describe the ways in which the state acts i.e., from the pluralist perspective, which highlights a logic of democracy (parallel to the "logic of fairness"); from a managerial perspective, which highlights a logic of bureaucracy (parallel to the "logic or risk"); and from a class perspective, which highlights a logic of capitalism (which parallels the "logic of capitalist production"). See Robert Alford and Roger Friedland, Powers of Theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985).
73. Commoner, 1992, op. cit., pp. 25-26.