blog task 6 - Sustainability & Capitalism

Balser defines sustainability within the text as an idea. An idea that is a response to the environmental crisis of climate change, natural resource depletion, species extinction, deforestation and a whole other range of problems. It is defined as a communal concept that we should all undertake within all spheres of our society, no matter what ocial attitudes, environmental habitats, economical, moral and political differences. However this is not the case, as at the present sustainability comes down to the individuals lifestyle choices and their own concerns for the environment.

Capitalism is a system where private companies within a country keep the profits that they gain for themselves (private accumulation). Constantly exploiting and expanding to make make the rich richer, the poor poorer and creating a greater level of social inequality. This system creates a massive social divide within the country, from one extreme to the other. Capitalism is constantly looking for new markets and to commodify them to make profit.

Not all is well when it comes to capitalism. Companies are constantly relying on resources and overaccumulating from the Earth to create new technologies and thus 'crisis of capitalism' happens. Capitalism has no limits, creating new products from a widening sphere of circulation. The sphere is directly expanding and points within it a branching out to create more points of production, whereas the Earth has a limit. Once this limit is reached there is no turning back and this is when Capitalism will cease.

In Hawken's 'Natural Capital' he interpretates the sustainability of the environmental crisis as a practical and realistic approach. He says we should work towards change and not towards fighting against the problems at hand. He lists four points that businesses need to follow in order to become environmentally responsible. Businesses should radically increase the productivity of resource use, shift to biologically inspired production with closed loops (no waste, and no toxicity), shift the business model away from the making and selling of "things" to providing the service that the "thing" delivers and reinvest in natural and human capital. This would only become realistic if capitalist states would join together in making these changes to gain sustainable achievement. Companies would make a massive loss in doing so as to move away from their comfortable and unsustainable ways and towards these changes for a better and healthier planet.

The concept of sustainability is not compatible with capitalism, as capitalism is the main force that has caused all the problems within our planet today. The greed of these corporate empires have imprinted their carbon footprint and we are already reaping the cautions. Over time this will become more clearer and people will wonder why sustainability wasn't set in place from the get go.