Ecology, economics and all the things nice

The historical societies of the past have almost always been conscious of the fact that they had to preserve their environment and the natural resources on which their wealth depended, even if they did not always understand how to do that with great efficiency. When they accepted the irreversible destruction of certain agricultural land, for example, they did so generally because they knew that they could relocate to new land. In a general way, the collective social management of the resources which nature offered to pre-modern societies guaranteed that the long term was taken into account, obviously with more or less success.

In contrast, capitalism generalises the calculation of short-term profitability and thereby ignores the collective social costs associated with the exhaustion of the resources exploited by it. The ideology of modernity legitimises this waste with the thesis [actually a debatable hypothesis] that the progress of scientific knowledge and the technological inventions fostered by it neutralise the dangers associated with the exhaustion of natural resources in the long run.

"One will always end up inventing the means for managing without." And, in fact, during the century and a half since the industrial revolution, accelerated technological progress has recorded rhythms which were unknown before and which almost always made it possible to ignore the destruction of resources associated with the new industrial expansion.

The optimistic slogan seemed to be effective. It seemed so, we know, but it will not stay so any longer. Without turning to the systematic pessimism of certain "ecological fundamentalists" or the declared optimism of the "apostles of science," today one cannot ignore any longer the destructive effects on the scale of the entire planet of uncontrolled accumulation of capital and the short-term calculation on which it rests.

Lets discuss!

P.S - Hopefully I'll have some more time this week for active debate. If not, well, some will enjoy the discourse anyway.

P.P.S - Since I'm a newbie to these boards, Im not sure this topic is in the correct forum. Maybe it should have gone in politics?