A dialectical analysis of the earth's soil depletion

Is the depletion of the earth’s soil a consequence of the capitalist system or scientific interference? A dialectical analysis The earth’s soil is depleting with accelerating velocity, at the current rate of decline scientists have estimated that there is approximately fifty to sixty years of life remaining in the soil’s humus. Professor John Crawford contends that 40% of soil exploited for agricultural production globally is classed as either degraded or seriously degraded; this means that 70% of the topsoil, the layer required to grow plants, is absent. Due to various agricultural methods that strip the soil of carbon; reducing its nutrients and fertility, soil is being lost at between ten and forty times the rate at which it can be naturally replenished. Even the well-maintained aesthetically idyllic farming land in Europe, is vanishing at unsustainable rates (Crawford, 2012). In order to investigate who is responsible for the depletion of the earth’s soil it is necessary to understand the process dialectically. The dialectic is fundamental to understanding nature and society ‘It is not the unity of the living and active humanity with the natural, inorganic conditions of their metabolic exchange with nature, and hence their appropriation of nature, which requires explanation or is the result of a historic process, but rather the separation between these inorganic conditions of human existence and this active existence, a separation which is completely posited only in the relation of wage labour and capital’ (Marx, 1858, p. 489). . From a Marxist perspective a linear cause and effect argument would be neglectful of the multifaceted process that has culminated in the earth’s soil depletion. For Marx, dialectics as a methodology assesses how the structures of society, the actors within society and the relationship between them appear as moments in time; all interconnected and are all inseparable from nature. For the purpose of this investigation it is crucial to ascertain the processes that instigated the depletion of the earth’s soil. With the advent of industrial agriculture in the 18th and 19th centuries, and its evolution to contemporary global capitalist agriculture greater demands have been imposed on the soil. The systems of agricultural production have altered and have increasing become more reified. Due to extensive population growth and spatial configuration changes; the development of suburbs, a massive extension of agricultural practices, to feed the growing urban and suburban population, has occurred. While it is true that the global population has increased sevenfold in the last two centuries, from 1 billion in 1800 to 7.3 billion in 2015 (Worldometers, 2015), the level of commodity and food production have increased at a substantially greater rate; overproduction. Currently under the capitalist system more food is being produced than is required In contemporary society the natural aim of human productive activity to provide for the needs of humans is subordinated to the accumulation of capital. All the elements needed to produce wealth, natural materials, raw materials, instruments of production, productive skills have become objects of commerce, items which are bought and sold, commodities. , consequently, globally waste has become a spiralling contaminant and has been exacerbated by the metabolic rift. Marx maintains that capitalism needs to be in constant motion ‘It is not our intention to consider, here, the way in which the laws, immanent in capitalist production, manifest themselves in the movements of individual masses of capital, where they assert themselves as coercive laws of competition, and are brought home to the mind and consciousness of the individual capitalist as the directing motives of his operations. But this much is clear; a scientific analysis of competition is not possible, before we have a conception of the inner nature of capital, just as the apparent motions of the heavenly bodies are not intelligible to any but him, who is acquainted with their real motions, motions which are not directly perceptible by the senses’ (Marx, 1867, p. 433)., it requires new planes of production to expand; generally achieved by the movement of capital to different regions. It is therefore unsurprising that exploitative capitalist agricultural practices are occurring in developing countries, due to increased profits arising from reduced labour costs and significantly lower land values. Capitalism, solely concerned with economic profiteering ‘Capitalism is distinctive, Marx argues, in that it involves not merely the exchange of commodities, but the advancement of capital, in the form of money, with the purpose of generating profit through the purchase of commodities and their transformation into other commodities which can command a higher price, and thus yield a profit.’ (Wolff, 2011) is not concerned with the social consequences or the environmental impact it generates. Capitalist economics are concerned with the circulation of products, not as useful things made from natural materials, but only as goods to be sold on the market at a profit. It is apparent that, with such an economic mechanism governing production, no adequate account will be taken of the ecological consequences of which materials to use and which methods to employ in doing so (The Socialist Party of Great Britain, 1990, p. 14). Additionally scientific interventions, such as chemical fertilisers and mechanical irrigation, have only served to delay the effects of intensive agricultural production on the soil. Furthermore, while hitherto all research into soil depletion from the natural sciences has neglected to include how the management styles of dominant process of capitalism need to be changed. Through the cultivation of the earth’s soil the fundamental natural components are appropriated, thereby giving it a social form; enabling the manipulation of the earth for agriculture (Slater, 2014). Marx identified these social forms of earth capital as fixed For Marx fixed capital is the naturally occurring nutrients in the soil, these cannot be artificially introduced into the soil and transient Transient capital can be anything that is not fixed, such as water or the fertilisers which are scooped up by plants. Through agricultural improvements being incorporated into the soil, the cultivated earth matter Earth matter is the soil in its natural form adopts a social form which transforms earth matter into earth capital. This social form of intervention transforms the entire structure of the soil’s natural processes towards the production of an agro-ecosystem. Marx’s earth capital theory provides a framework in which to re-assess how the soil plays a crucial role in the ecological foundations of human life on earth and how capitalism consistently diminishes the sustainability of the earth’s soil (Slater, 2014). To counteract the established destructive propensity of capitalism, Marx insisted that a rational form of cultivation was required which focussed on sustainability in the fertility of the soil as an instrument of productivity through a reassessment of the associated labour conditions of production. The labour force metabolises with nature, man ‘regulates and controls the metabolism between himself [sic] and nature. He controls the materials of nature as a force of nature. He sets in motion the natural forces…in order to appropriate the materials of nature in a form adopted to his needs’ (Marx, 1867). For Marx how people interacted with nature and employed their labour ‘labour is the source of all wealth, the economists assert. It is this next to nature, which supplies it with the material that it converts into wealth. But it is also infinitely more than this. It is the primary basic condition for all human existence, and this to such an extent that, in a sense, we have to say that labour created man himself’ (Engels, 1883). was crucial in understanding socio-ecological processes. The consumption of food is essential for human survival and agriculture has provided humankind with the means to produce food. Freidmann (2000, p. 480) maintains that ‘civilisations were built on agriculture, a decisive break in human food-getting. Agriculture inaugurated a new complex of relations between humans and our habitats’. However it is the methods of production in capitalist agriculture, which has had the devastating effects on the environment, eco-systems and the earth’s soil, that must be altered. Over the past two hundred years a massive horizontal agricultural expansion has occurred and a system of mono-cultural production has been introduced. Agricultural land has become increasingly reified, uniform and grid like, Freidmann (2000, p. 494) has identified this as a ‘radical simplification’ which homogenises the ground surface. Geometric boundaries have been imposed on ecosystems in an attempt to control nature. However these boundaries have disrupted the natural cycles and flow and have neglected to consider that ‘land…is not an abstract “factor of production” but the habitat of multiple interdependent species ‘One rule of thumb is that every alien species displaces about ten native species’ (Mills, 1997, p. 276)., from human to the vast web of micro-organisms composing fertile soils’ (Freidmann, 2000, p. 497). For Marx man has the ability to manipulate but never completely dominated nature, the commodification and mono-cultural systems of agricultural are affecting the earth’s soil. The use of monoculture in agriculture can lead to disastrous consequences; the Irish famine should be utilised as an example of the possible failures of this form of production Although monoculture in the Irish case was merely one of the moments within a process that led to the famine, it was this form of production which allowed disease to be spread in the potato crop.. If an interdisciplinary approach was applied to the study of agricultural production social scientists with knowledge of ecology could warn the natural scientists of these possibilities in the future by recounting the past For Marx historical materialism is ‘the way in which men produce their means of subsistence depends first of all on the nature of the actual means they find in existence and have to reproduce. This mode of production must not be considered simply as being the reproduction of the physical existence of the individuals. Rather, it is a definite form of activity of these individuals, a definite form of expressing their life, a definite mode of life on their part. As individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.’ (Marx, 1846, p. 7) . Mass capitalist agricultural practices in developing countries have lead to deforestation, in order to free up land for commodity production. This deforestation has resulted in desertification and the depletion of the soil within many of these countries. However, Marx contends that the depletion of the soil as a result of deforestation is not a new phenomenon there is evidence spanning back to the earliest times of human civilisation, ‘exploitation and squandering of the vitality of the soil takes the place of conscious rational cultivation of the soil as eternal communal property, an inalienable condition for the existence and reproduction of a chain of successive generations of the human’ (Marx, 1894). Archaeological evidence from the Céide fields in North Mayo has established this process within the Neolithic period. When the Neolithic farmers arrived in prehistoric Ireland they were greeted by a country almost entirely covered by forest. In order to farm the land deforestation was necessary, subsequently the Céide fields were constructed ‘the very extensive sub-rectangular fields appear to have been designed for a largely pastoral economy (Byrne, et al., 2009, p. 5). Archaeologists have discovered a pan of sub-soil over the Céide Fields area which indicates the progression from arable to barren land within this period. With the removal of trees the land became open to the elements and soil erosion, as the land had become infertile the site was abandoned. Although Marx never said history repeats itself he did believe that people should engage with history in order to prevent the repetition of past mistakes ‘Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.’ (Marx, 1852, p. 1) If the natural scientist and social scientist worked cooperatively and utilised prior events to their advantage further soil erosion and depletion may be prevented. ‘Man makes his own history, but he does not make it out of the whole cloth; he does not make it out of conditions chosen by himself, but out of such as he finds close at hand.’ (Marx, 1852, p. 1). The health of the earth’s soil is vital to the production of food and the global ecosystems function. Doran (2002, p. 119) defines soil health as ‘the capacity of a living soil to function, with natural or managed ecosystem boundaries, to sustain plant and animal productivity, maintain or enhance water and air quality, and promote plant and animal health’. Capitalist agriculture has impacted on the soil’s health and thus far the scientific response to the loss of soil fertility has been to offer solution by means of biotechnology, chemical fertilisers or drainage mechanisms. While the application of these artificial measures has an immediate result in improving soil fertility, natural science needs to consider the remote consequences of these actions more attentively. These artificial chemicals damage the life-giving humus of the soil. From a Marxist perspective all soil improvements are interventions. All cultivated soil is a combination of the natural and the social ‘It ‘the labor process’ is the universal condition for the metabolic interaction between man and nature, the everlasting nature-imposed condition of human existence’ (Marx, 1867, p. 290). and the fertility of the soil is always related to how it is cultivated, cultivation is about the appropriation of nature ‘It is not the unity of living and active humanity with the natural, inorganic conditions of their metabolic exchange with nature, and hence their appropriation of nature, which requires explanation or is the result of a historic process, but rather the separation between these inorganic conditions of human existence and this active existence, a separation which is completely posited only in the relation of wage labor and capital’ (Marx, 1858, p. 489). . However, additional processes are affecting the health of the earth’s soil. The overproduction of food has increased the waste and the rapid growth of population has led to higher levels of pollution which is affecting ecosystems globally. However, it is the management of these issues that is creating the damage to the soil, water and climate, Doran (2002, p. 119) contends ‘scientist’s can make a significant contribution to sustainable land management by translating scientific knowledge and information on soil function into practical tools and approaches by which land managers can assess the sustainability of their management practices’. Furthermore the commodification of food through capitalist agricultural practices has intensified the metabolic rift ‘Irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism’ (Marx, 1894, p. 949) the metabolic rift is a rupture in the metabolic interaction between humanity and nature deriving from capitalist production and the growing division between developed and developing countries.. The metabolic rift is the manner in which nutrients are transferred from their place of original, without being replaced, to a location far from their source If it were practicable to collect, with the least loss, all the solid and fluid excrements of the inhabitants of the town, and return to each farmer the portion arising from produce originally supplied by him to the town, the productiveness of the land might be maintained almost unimpaired for ages to come, and the existing store of mineral elements in every fertile field would be amply sufficient for the wants of increasing populations. (Von Liebig, 1863, p. 261).. In contemporary society vast quantities of commodities are produced in developing countries, like the Amazon region of South America, these commodities are shipped across the world and the nutrients are not being returned but deposited into the sewerage systems of predominately developed countries. Marx regarded the metabolic rift as merely a part of the dialectical process and not the fundamental cause of soil depletion. Engels reflected on how the dialectic process could provide an understanding of nature, ‘when we consider and reflect on Nature,.....at first we see the picture of an endless entanglement of relations and reactions in which nothing remains what, where and as it was, but everything moves, changes, and comes into being and passes away, ....for everything is fluid’ (Engels & Marx, 1987, p. 21). The earth’s soil is depleting rapidly, through a dialectic investigation of a multitude of processes it is possible to conclude that while scientist have contributed to the depletion of the soil they merely represent a moment in a larger process. Although it appears that capitalistic practices are dominant process to the earth’s soil depletion, it is crucial to include the other moments, be they social, ecological, scientific or economic, which influence agricultural and commodity production. Neither the scientist nor the capitalist are the sole cause of the problem, like all dialectic conclusions all elements come together and collaborate to result in the outcome. Crucially what urgently requires addressing is how a solution can be achieved. Essentially a collaborative expedition for knowledge between social scientists and natural scientist for possible resolution must now be paramount. This is no longer an issue that can be deferred to a later date; research needs to be conducted immediately. For it is ‘only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last river has been poisoned, only after the last fish has been caught, only then will you find that money cannot be eaten’ (Cree Indian , 2015). Bearing in mind the previous quotation Marx stated that ‘even an entire society, a nation, or all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not owners of the earth. They are simply its possessors, its beneficiaries, and have to bequeath it in an improved state to succeeding generations’ (Marx, 1894, p. 911). As a society we therefore have a responsibility to the earth’s ecology by focussing on the circulation of natural materials and ensuring that these should be extracted, transformed, consumed and decomposed in such a way as not to upset the balanced functioning of the planet. Bibliography Byrne, G. et al. (2009) Archaeological Excavations in Association with the Construction of the Céide Visitor Centre(E494), Dublin: The Hertiage Council. Crawford, J. (2012) Time Magazine. World Economic Forum: What if the World's Soil runs out?. [Online] Available at: http://world.time.com/2012/12/14/what-if-the-worlds-soil-runs-out/ [Accessed 14 /05/ 2015]. Doran, J. W. 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