Spaceship Earth: Get mad about markets

As capitalism has grown and expanded in the past few centuries, it has sought new markets to privatize and sell its wares. Initially, land was a common market that became privately owned and then sold or rented to others. Labor also developed as a market, and under neoliberalism, aspects of our own individual identities have begun to be commodified and sold on the free market. Now, certain groups have suggested that in order to save the environment going forward, it too must become a market and that it can be saved through its privatization. However, the implications of this suggestion range far beyond the question of whose money is spent saving the planet, and its effectiveness at a base level is also questionable.

If the environment were to be privatized, there would emerge new markets for its various (currently) public resources. Things like clean air and fresh water would become commodities — or at least more commodified than they already are — and our natural rights to them would disappear. This is the true consequence of creating new markets. It sets up a gate where there was not one before, and allows entry only to those wealthy enough to access what was once available to all. This is exemplified by water bottling companies that take water all could use and claim it for themselves, enabling only those who can pay for the bottled water to have access. Today there are 40 million food-insecure Americans who struggle to gain access to one of the essential components of human life, and if something like clean air could be privatized, people would be pressed to choose between food or clean air. Things that are necessary for human life simply should not be treated like commodities. Until this concept can be understood, Americans and people around the world will continue to go hungry, and if a private market is created for the environment, there is no doubt the suffering of disadvantaged people would only increase.

One must also question how privatization would even help solve the environmental catastrophe we face today. Advocates for privatization, such as the Competitive Enterprise Institute, a group historically funded by climate change “skeptics” and ExxonMobil, argue that “the market is not perfect, but it is the best solution to our ecological problems.Only under a system where resources are privately held will people have the ability to accurately express their environmental values." However, when we look at other markets, it is clear that the values of consumers are more often than not replaced with what companies tell us our values are. For example, most people do not want to use a phone that is made with environmentally damaging parts or unfair labor, but alternatives simply do not exist, and the barriers to entry to create an alternative product are simply too high. Until we put the people in charge of production, we cannot trust companies to behave ethically. Any 'environmental company' with a profit motive would ultimately sell out to the highest bidder, which in today’s society means oil executives and others who they were supposed to protect the planet against. People, not privatization, are the only path to fighting climate change, and we must resist any corporation or government that commodifies the things we need to survive.