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processes of accumulation generate. It was these
assumptions that famously led Marx (and his
writing partner and long-term benefactor,
Friedrich Engels) to proclaim that the modern state
is nothing more '[t]han the committee responsible
for managing the common affairs of the whole
bourgeoisie' (Marx and Engels, 2004: 82) (the
bourgeoisie is a term which is popular among
Marxists and is used to describe the capitalist class
who own the land, machinery and properties that
are used in various forms of economic activity). So
a Marxist tends to see the state less as a referee when
it comes to environmental issues, and more as an
instrument of the ruling economic class (for an
excellent contemporary account of the corporate
control of government see Beder, 2002; Monbiot,
2000; Frank, 2008).
Because wealth creation in capitalist societies
is based upon the transformation of nature from
its primary forms (wood, ores, crude oil) into
tradeable commodities (furniture, aluminium foil,
petroleum), Marxists argue that states tend to do
two things: 1) actively enable the corporate control
and transformation of the natural environment
into commodities; and 2) prevent the development
and/or enforcement of rules, laws and regulations
that would hinder the corporate exploitation of
natural resources. There are numerous examples
of the state-sponsored exploitation of the environ-
ment. A much-discussed example is the historical
role of the Brazilian government in facilitating
the economic exploitation of the Amazonian rain-
forest (see Peet and Watts, 2004: 7). It is not just
that Brazilian governments in the past failed to
effectively protect Amazonia, but that through
the use of subsidies and military power, they
supported the interests of logging and ranching
corporations over and above those of indigenous
communities and the environment.
More recent so-called
neo-Marxist
accounts of
the state diverge from classical work in important
ways. Neo-Marxist state theorists, such as Jessop
(1990), argue that the state is not merely the
instrument of a capitalist class. Jessop argues that
the state cannot simply serve the interests of an
Thomas Frank and the
incompetent state
This video provides a commentary on
Thomas Frank's fascinating 2008 book
The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives
Rule. In this video Frank provides
a description of the ways in which
economic elites are not only seeking to
control the apparatus of the US state, but
actually seek to create a deliberately
incompetent state, which is unable to
govern things such as the environment
competently. Search for 'Thomas Frank -
The Wrecking Crew: How Conservatives
Rule' on YouTube.
economic elite because that elite is too diverse and
places very different demands on government. To
try to explain this perspective in environmental
terms, it is useful to consider the contemporary
debate over nuclear power in the UK. The UK
government has recently pledged to support the
expansion of the Britain nuclear power industry
in order to combat the rising prices associated
with oil and gas. But in offering its support for the
nuclear industry the UK government could, in
the long term at least, reduce the attractiveness
of investing in wind, solar and tidal energy
development. Perhaps the most important insight
of neo-Marxist work on the state, however, is the
emphasis it places on the development of political
strategies. By political strategy I am referring to the
techniques that governments use to try to find a
common ground between different economic
interests. Returning again to the case of the energy
sector, while the UK government is offering strong
support to the nuclear industry, in its 2007
Meeting
the Energy Challenge: A White Paper on Energy
,
the UK government justified its support for the
nuclear industry alongside a 'wider energy policy'
of diversification (DTI, 2007). By positioning its
support for the nuclear sector alongside a wider
