Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Commodifying the Oceans

We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, October 23, 2015

Commodifying the Oceans

Click here to access a 55 minute interview conducted by Sasha Lilley of KPFA, a listener sponsored radio station in Berkeley, California, with environmental sociologist Stefano Longo. Longo is a co-author with Rebecca Clausen, and Brett Clark, of a recently published book entitled The Tragedy of the Commodity: Oceans, Fisheries, and Aquaculture.

The oceans are in turmoil, but unfortunately most of it is out of sight and therefore out of mind. Environmental sociologist Stefano Longo explores the multiple threats to the oceans, from overfishing to coral reef collapse to ocean acidification. He weighs in on whether the notion of the “tragedy of the commons” is sufficient to explain the roots of the crisis.

Longo challenges conventional explanations for the demise of fish populations, that this is consumer driven or caused by commonly held properties (“tragedy of the commons”), by arguing for another explanation: the capitalist system drives production in order to produce profits.