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Tomorrow the #DasguptaReview is published. Its approach is morally wrong, intellectually vacuous and counter-productive. It represents a catastrophic misstep in our relationship with nature: the penetration of capitalism into every corner of the world. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/may/15/price-natural-world-destruction-natural-capital
It arises from a system that cannot tell the difference between protecting the living planet and commodifying it. The colonial relationship between nations has long been mirrored by our colonial relationship with nature. This is its ultimate expression.
But watch the media report the review as if it were entirely uncontroversial.
Unfortunately, there's now a whole industry invested in this natural capital nonsense: economists, consultants, civil servants. After all, it's where the money is. So this is no longer a matter of argument, but of interest. Objections get trampled in this goldrush.
As predicted, the media is reporting the Dasgupta Review uncritically, with the help of endorsements from David Attenborough, Bob Watson etc. It's a reminder that our media and public figures stand in relation to capitalism as the Soviet press and its heroes did to communism.
What Sir Partha Dasgupta promotes is a kind of totalitarian capitalism: everything must now be commodified and brought within the system. It extends the capitalist revolution even into our relations with the living world.
We cannot defend nature through the mindset that’s destroying it. The notion that it exists to serve us and that its value consists of the instrumental benefits we can extract has proved lethal to life on Earth.
As Michael Sandel argues, market values crowd out non-market values. Markets change the meaning of the things we discuss, replacing moral obligations with commercial relationships. This corrupts and degrades our intrinsic values and empties public life of moral argument.
As research commissioned by @WWF shows, the natural capital agenda undermines people’s intrinsic motivation to defend the living world. It contributes to the alienation and disenchantment the commercial mindset fosters.
In this quote from the Dasgupta Review, we see the issue in a nutshell. As Albert Einstein (possibly) said, "We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them."
Dasgupta's approach disguises the political economy of destruction. Destruction is driven, above all, by the power of the rich. Regardless of how others value nature, those with power will destroy it, until their power is curtailed. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-020-0480-2
But far from curtailing this power, Dasgupta's natural capital agenda extends and enhances it. It is naive on many levels, but above all it is naive about power. Putting a social price on something does nothing to stop anti-social interests from exploiting it.
