Treadmill of production
Treadmill of Production (ToP) is an economical approach for describing environmental damage and destruction in modern history due to capitalist society’s tendency to rapidly grow without considering ecological consequences. This theory was first mentioned by American sociologists Allan Schnaiberg and published in the book *The Environment: From Surplus to Scarcity* in 1980.[1]
After WWII, the economy developed, and that led to the use of more resources. In capitalistic society, factories, companies, and individuals want to maximize their profits, and so money started to be invested into new technologies and machines, which replaced human labor but demanded more materials, chemicals, and other resources. These chemical and technological innovations changed the production process by intensifying or speeding it up while requiring reduced labor input, thus accelerating capital accumulation. This expansion leads and keeps leading to environmental degradation, so there is a contradiction between capital accumulation and ecological destruction under capitalism.
Schnaiberg puts into contrast neoclassical economics’ approach, which states that production is determined by demand from consumers, and the reality of the capitalistic treadmill of production, where the needs of consumers are formed by already produced goods.
Every following investment leads to deterioration of the environment and to the disadvantaging of workers in the production. The fear of losing jobs forces people to tolerate this created environmental pollution.
In capitalistic society, more goods are produced than consumers are able to use or consume. This consumer’s surplus causes the creation of more waste.
Treadmill interests are manifest in private investments in fixed capital, in public institutions developed by the state to facilitate economic growth, and the orientation of organized (and non-organized) labor toward these investments and institutions.[2]
Buttel called this theory the most important sociological concept and theory that came from North-American environmental sociology.[3]
Environmental consequences of ToP
There are several types of ecologically destructive tendencies.
Ecological withdrawals
Ecological withdrawals are harm produced by the process of extracting raw materials. These are processed by chemically intensive methods and highly demand machines. These modern processes intensify and quicken the process of withdrawing. Labor need is very low, and thus there is a big potential for capital accumulation. This profitable business has non-economic consequences in the form of destruction of nature.
Ecological addictions
Ecological addictions are the emission of pollutants into the ecosystem. A consequence of these addictions is climate change.
Waste accumulation
Waste accumulation is due to the world’s increasing consumption of products, especially those for one-use-only. A possible solution could be recycling.
Origin of Treadmill of Production
Eco-Marxism
Marx was the first theorist who pointed out problems caused by consuming societies. Later, some environmental sociologists used his original ideas and developed conflict sociology theories of relative autonomous states applied to the environment.
Marx’s theory of “metabolic rift” describes metabolism as a relationship between people and nature. This theory is based on materialism and dialectical philosophies. He believed that people are constantly interacting with physical, material, and natural beings and that they are themselves those beings. He also believed that the natural world is a set of conditions for our existence, it has its own set of limitations in the sense of natural laws and resources, the same as humans have their own limitations. He understood that failing to recycle materials back into production would result in environmental devastation, and that is what he called the metabolic rift between humanity and the natural world (see “Utilization of the Refuse of Production” in *Capital* vol. 3).
Some sociologists intend Marxist ideas of social conflict to reflect them into environmental-social issues, and that is how “Eco-Marxism” became a term.
John Bellamy Foster transformed Marx’s ideas and ideologies into environmental destruction as we know it today. He described Marx’s metabolic rift as an estrangement between humans and nature.
Societal-environmental dialectic
Societal-environmental dialectic is a thought of Allan Schnaiberg. He indicates that economic expansion is more important than ecology. He pointed out the fact that governments will oddly eliminate the most frightening disasters in order to protect people’s health but, at the same time, not let an economic crisis happen.
Sustainable Development and the Treadmill of Production
Environmentalists consider this political-economic system unsustainable because of the destruction of nature. The problem is also seen in moving production to Third World countries in order to lower costs by lowering labor costs.
Hugh Stretton defined a mixture of social coercions and seductions traced difficult policy choices between national growth, environmental protection, and social equity in industrial societies of the European Union. In contrast, many contemporary EU proponents of sustainable development envisage attaining all three goals.
A precursor of sustainable development was Intermediate technology. This so-called appropriate technology is a movement encompassing technological choice and application that is small-scale, decentralized, labor-intensive, energy-efficient, environmentally sound, and locally autonomous.[4] Ecological modernization is an approach of re-engineering in order to create more ecological industries. This change happened, for example, in private companies that have a relation to the local environment. Problematic is "getting the prices right". Companies that decided to change their structure have to face international competitiveness, which pushes them to lower costs and thus skip ecological interference limitations.
Possible solutions are clearly political movements, which, for example, prevented the expansion of nuclear generating facilities by increasing their costs. Citizen and scientific coalitions arose due to fear of their own health, which was widened especially by catastrophic disasters.[5]
Recycling is an “environmental” approach to solid waste treatment. It is a way to "think globally and act locally". According to Allan Schnaiberg, it is an unusually neo-corporatist way of solving the Treadmill of Production.
“Getting the price right” is a key policy instrument within all environmental policies. In the case of recycling, it’s more a question about “getting the right materials”.
An advantage is that recycling is manufacturing itself, and manufacturing is business, not limitation.
Private owners may be resident in their communities of operation, rather than absentee; they may thus value their local environments, and they may have enduring relationships to their community of operations.[6] Overall, there is little evidence of universal internalization of negative externalities, through "getting the prices right" (EC 1993).
Managers have increasingly had to confront the realities of increasing transnational competitiveness, which has, in turn, pressured them to externalize as many waste processes as possible.[7]
Economic ineffectiveness
The biggest problem of the Treadmill of production is its nonprofit factor of changing the current practices; it might possibly bring a loss. It’s very inefficient to change the current business because those currently used are profitable, and a possible environmental-friendly replacement of those practices is more costly and won’t bring the company any positives, except for the status of a more environmental company. Those changes might result in higher costs and so a competitive disadvantage. Schnaiberg called it an interest in increasing ecological disorganization for its own benefit.
References
- ↑ Burkett P . (2006), Marxism and Ecological Economics: Toward a Red and Green Political Economy . Haymarket Books.
- ↑ Barnet, Richard J., and John Cavanagh. Global Dreams: Imperial Corporations and the New World Order. Simon & Schuster, 1995.
- ↑ Buttel, Frederick H. 2004. The Treadmill of Production An Appreciation, Assessment, and Agenda for Research. Organization & Environment 17, 3: 323-336.
- ↑ Hazeltine, B.; Bull, C. (1999). Appropriate Technology: Tools, Choices, and Implications. New York: Academic Press. pp. 3, 270. ISBN 0-12-335190-1 Search this book on
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- ↑ Schnaiberg, Allan (1995). Sustainable Development and the Treadmill of Production. Chicago: Northwestern University.
- ↑ Schnaiberg, Allan and Kenneth A. Gould. 1994. Environment and Society: The Enduring Conflict.. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
- ↑ Baker, Susan, editor. Politics of Sustainable Development. Routledge, 1997.
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