Environmental Conflicts in the Neoliberal Era

Neoliberalism is characterized as a 35-year long period of attack of capital against labor in an attempt to restore falling profit rates. This has come at the expense of increased inequality and uncertainty, leading to a crisis of legitimacy for the neoliberal model of capitalism. Environmental issues offer both an opportunity for accumulation and profits, by extending the reach of the market into areas that were not previously incorporated into the circuits of capital, as well as a chance to restore some of the waning legitimacy of the neoliberal model, to the extent that environmental problems occupy a central position in terms of the public\u27s awareness of the limitations of the current economic model. This talk examines two cases of changes to the organization of production in order to address environmental concerns during the neoliberal era. The first instance of a purported greening of capitalism is climate change, and especially the way that carbon credits and markets have generated profit opportunities for various segments of capital. The second case is the purported overcoming of the ramifications of industrial agriculture through support for organic farming. I trace the development of agricultural policy in support of organic farming in the European Union during the neoliberal era, and the ways in which it has assisted the centralization of agricultural capital at the expense of the small farmers which the policies claim to assist. Both cases share a blatant failure to rectify the underlying environmental problem, while at the same time they result in worsening the lives of the affected populations. Therefore, I offer a preliminary description of environmental resistance (what Joan Martinez-Alier calls environmentalism of the poor ) to simultaneously protect the environment and people\u27s livelihoods