Capitalism And Ecology -II-
The consequences of the profit race
In Bhopal , in India in 1984 an explosion in a pesticide factory of the american trust Union Carbide, officially killed 6495 persons , 25000 according to the humanitarian organizations. Thousands people had been victtims of toxic gas; it was a crumbling industry with a shanty town around. The matter did not upset the indian authorities nor the capitalists from Union Carbide. But factories like Bhopal are numerous in India and elsewhere.
It has become common for capitalists from rich countries -where the anti-pollution norms are hasher like in Japan or in US- to "relocate" their polluting or harmful industries iin Southern Asia or in South America.
So the free zones from Mexico, the famous "maquiladoras" near the USA border-where more than half million people are overexploited- and also a polluters heaven: Air, water, ground pollution reach catastrophic levels.
The water pollution is particularly high in most Third World countries. In India the 2/3 of water is polluted. Most illnessesanalysed are linked with water. The Ganges is a drain because the fertilizer, insecticide factories, the tanneries, etc, pour all their waste often toxic and there is no purification station. To give an idea of the sacle of this pollution; at the place where a shoes factory BATA pour its uused water, the fish put in this water don't survive more than two days, but the record is from a Mc Dowell distillery ; the fish survive only five hours.
In spite of everything, the official theory in India, like in many international and ecologists organisms, wants that the population in general -the poor in particular- is responsible for the degradation of the environment.
The environmental problems don't spare either western countries for this reason; the profit law.
The atmospheric pollution reaches alarming levels because the industrialists don't include in their production costs the damages that they could provoke in the environment, and far less to include the installations costs that could avert or limit them; it is also because the automobile industrialists and the oil trusts have supported the ill-considered extension of the road transportation and the individual automobile traffic.
More generally the capitalist industry has a problem with its wastes ; it's at least on the whole society that it shifts this problem. We can see it with the problem of the stockpiling of nuclear waste. The free movement of nuclear or harmful waste is silenced because of the traffic between Europe, countries from the former USSR , for exemple or between the industrial countries and the Third World countries.
Environmental degradations are all the result from the irrational and irresponsible way the capitalism functions.
Environment : A market value
The bosses become environmentalists when they recognize their interests. "green" goods or eco-goods have been marketed, there are even "green" shares in the stock market.
In the USA some "polluting" rights " have been passed;compagnies can choose to equip with anti-pollution tools or to pay to get the right to emitt a certain quantity of harmful substances.
Those compagnies can sell their rights to other compagnies through brokerage compagnies; it is a real "right of pollution" market !