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theories represent an interesting combination of
geophysical accounts of absolute limits in resource
reserves, and economic analyses of the moderating
impacts of markets on resource supply and
production (see Hemmingsen, 2010). On these
terms it is significant that Hubbert's peak does not
represent a prediction of when we will collectively
run out of a resource, but is instead an account of
when supply will reach a maximum. After that
point, the market will be constrained in its ability
to produce more of a given resource, but that does
not mean that it cannot respond and adapt in other
ways. As we have already mentioned, for example,
as oil and gas prices rise (as we would expect them
to do following the point of peak production), it
is now becoming economically viable to explore
the exploitation of unconventional energy sources
through the controversial practices of fracking.
While oil and gas prices remained relatively low,
there remained little economic incentive to explore
such expensive methods of energy extraction. In
this context, Hubbert's curve could be seen to be
as much a prediction of when new market forces
will start to effect resource extraction and supply
as a determination of when levels of peak
production will occur (for an interesting account
of the geographies of peak oil production see
Bridge, 2010).
resources; the labour relations that are associated
with resource extraction; and the systems that
distribute resources throughout society.
Marxist approaches to the study of human-
resource relations are different to Malthusian
accounts to the extent that they suggest that you
cannot understand these relations simply by
making reference to aggregate levels of population
and resource availability (as Malthus does). For a
Marxist, human-resource relations are instead
the product of the complex processes that are
associated with modern capitalism (see Harvey,
1977). It is in this context that Marxists are critical
of both Malthusian and cornucopian perspectives
on resource use and availability. Marxists claim
that Malthusian concerns with resource shortages
fail to recognize that there is often actually more
than enough to go around. From a Marxist
perspective, incidents of resource scarcity are often
a product of the fact that the wealthy owners of a
given resource tend to overexploit them for their
own gain (perhaps by selling plentiful harvests
to overseas markets, or placing oil revenues in
overseas bank accounts). This means that local
people see little of the resource that they may
have helped to produce or extract. From this
perspective, the forms of poverty and hunger
predicted by Malthus are not the result of an
absolute
shortage of a resource, but a
relative
shortage in its availability to a local population.
Furthermore, Marxists claim that Malthusian
perspectives fail to account for the enduring forms
of poverty that are a direct result of the unequal
access and unjust distribution of resources among
a population (Harvey, 1977: 232). By arguing
that human poverty and suffering are the products
of an inevitable shortage of available resources,
Malthusians suggest that there may be very little
that can be done to change this situation. Marxists,
by contrast, claim that by changing the capitalist
systems that determine who controls and profits
most from resources, a miserable Malthusian
future can be averted.
In some ways, Marxist perspectives echo those
of cornucopians to the extent that they both claim
2.3.4 Marxism and the question of
resource distribution
A final set of perspectives on human-resource
relations is provided by a collection of work that
is collectively referred to as Marxism. This work,
as the name suggests, was inspired by the work
of the nineteenth-century thinker Karl Marx
(1818-1883) (for a colourful and engaging account
of Marx's life and work see Wheen, 1999). Marxist
studies of human-resource relations consider
resource use in relation to broader systems of
economic and political power. On these terms,
Marxists are particularly concerned with the
systems of ownership associated with resources;
who benefits most from the exploitation of
