Profit: An Environmental History

by Mark Stoll

Profit — getting more out of something than you put into it — is the original genius of homo sapiens, who learned how to unleash the energy stored in wood, exploit the land, and refashion ecosystems. As civilization developed, we found more and more ways of extracting surplus value from the earth, often deploying brutally effective methods to discipline people to do the work needed. Historian Mark Stoll explains how capitalism supercharged this process and traces its many environmental consequences. The financial innovations of medieval Italy created trade networks that, with the European discovery of the Americas, made possible vast profits and sweeping cultural changes, to the detriment of millions of slaves and indigenous Americans; the industrial age united the world in trade and led to an energy revolution that changed lives everywhere. But when efficient production left society awash in goods, a new sort of capitalism, predicated on endless individual consumption, took its place. This story of incredible ingenuity and villainy begins in the Doge’s palace in medieval Venice and ends with Jeff Bezos aboard his own spacecraft. Mark Stoll’s revolutionary account places environmental factors at the heart of capitalism’s progress and reveals the long shadow of its terrible consequences.

Genres: Environment, Nature, History, Nonfiction

280 pages, Hardcover

Published January 24, 2023

Reviews

[Kehan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not sure I agree with all of his conclusions (capitalism is innately human? Entertainment from our phone relatively demands fewer resources?) but the first 2/3 of history and analysis is really interesting.

[STEPHEN PLETKO!! · Rating 5 out of 5]

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A BOOK THAT PLACES ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION AT THE HEART OF CAPITALISM'S PROGRESS

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"[This book] traces how...developments in technique, technology, transportation, energy, communication, and trade & finance led to modern consumer capitalism.

It presents incipient capitalism, mercantile capitalism, plantation capitalism, industrial capitalism, and consumer capitalism as stages in the long human endeavor to use resources more intensively. Each chapter explores a stage in is evolution and its environmental impacts...

[This book] is a history of capitalism that seeks to explain both how capitalism changed the natural world and how the environment shaped capitalism."

The above quote (in italics) comes from this fascinating book by Mark Stoll. He is Professor of Environmental History at Texas Tech University.

In order to understand this eye-opening book, you must know what capitalism is. One possible definition is that it is an economic system characterized by private or corporate ownership of capital goods, by investments that are determined by private decision, and by prices, production, and the distribution of goods that are determined mainly by competition in a free market. The overall objective of capitalism is profit.

Stoll explains how capitalism accelerated ways of extracting surplus value from the Earth and traces its many, many environmental consequences of doing so. This book uses a historical perspective to link profit-making in capitalism with the harm done to the environment.

Thus, using both qualitative historical sources and quantitative scientific studies, this book is a concise and interdisciplinary history of capitalism and its environmental aftershocks.

Throughout this book are peppered fifteen black and white photographs.. My favorite photo is of the first oil spill by a supertanker in 1967. It was this environmental disaster that alerted the world to the environmental price it would have to pay for consumer capitalism's unquenchable thirst for energy.

Stoll admits that this was a "monster of a book topic." In my opinion, he effectively has distilled all his research into a very readable, illuminating book.

Finally, this book reminded me of the 1969 hit song entitled "In the year 2525" by Zager and Evans where we're told that man has "taken everything this old Earth can give and he ain't put back nothing."

In conclusion, the author shows how "capitalism's story is tightly woven together with the natural world" and how capitalists "have always profited at nature's expense!!"

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(2023; list of illustrations; acknowledgments; introduction; 9 chapters; conclusion; main narrative 255 pages; notes; index)

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[T H]

The first half adds a lot of the interesting ecological detail to the story of the development of the capitalist system that one finds e.g. in Wallerstein, but the closer it gets to the contemporary period, the more cursory it feels. Never really develops any novel theory of the concept of profit or its relation to the nonhuman environment or ecological systems. Adopts a view of capitalism as existing in some form since human societies first began accumulating surpluses, which drastically limits its ability to analyze capitalism as an historically specific form, and leads to a final posture of throwing its hands up in regards to what could replace or superseded capitalism. Very fixated on Reform Protestantism as the primary source of virtue in the modern West, which I guess reflects Stoll's scholarly background. You can probably skip this one.

[Bart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Profit provides an excellent accounting of how neoliberalism helped to stall the post-war miracle of widespread economic growth, dramatically contributing to inequality in the process. But Mark Stoll also sees the economy as inescapably embedded in the natural environment, and he emphasizes the revolutionary leap forward in energy production in the second half of the 19th century. When that spike in net energy availability plateaued and began its reversal, that too contributed to the stagnation of economic growth. No mere change in political economics can fix that problem.

Full review here:
https://anoutsidechance.com/2023/02/0...

[Helder Rocha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Fala-se pouco de ambiente; falta detalhe nas descrições dos vários progressos tecnológicos e faltam números e estimativas.

[Matthias Kurth · Rating 5 out of 5]

timely book!

A tour de force of the history of capitalism and the earth with a deeper dive into recent events

Well worth the read

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I found this to be a decent introduction to the environmental toll humanity has had on the earth over the course of our existence, however I do have problems with it. The first two are interlinked: Stoll's definition of capitalism is too broad (basically equating it with trade), which leads to the book covering way to much historical ground. This book could've easily had more incisive analysis if the time span covered had been more constrained. As it is it reads like a 250 page summary with a bit of analysis. I also found his analysis to be rather frustrating. He rightly points out flaws in capitalism, but also seems to think it's an inevitable phenomenon "capitalism we have always with us" (pg 253). So what we get is what feels like a buildup to a call to action that ends up being like, I don't know what to do about it. I also found his critiques of various leftwing environmental solutions to be overly dismissive and vague, while his critique of capitalist solutions to be overly generous and forgiving. Again, there's good history here, (I found his discussion of the beliefs of particular Protestant sects role in developing modern capitalism and its interaction with the environmental to be fascinating), but I found Stoll's analysis of that history to be generally wanting.