International Affairs

Since the booming of industrial capitalism accompanied Industrial Revolution at the mid-18th century, which marked as a milestone of human history that shifting world’s productive forces, growing advanced technology and altering social development orientation. The United States as the world’s largest economy which is benefit from Industrial Revolution as well as manifesting the practical and forceful outcomes by conducting capitalism. Nevertheless, while human-being is enjoying the achievements bring by expansion of capitalism, ignoring that there are imperceptible destructions caused by it which will gradually lead to catastrophic ecological disasters and labor exploitation eventually. Some people argued that the advanced technology and global-dominant capitalism will lead us to combat the environmental crisis and get a better world, who also believed the adoption of carbon taxing and trading, renewable energy and geo-engineering relieve, even control the disasters caused by climate change. However, they overlooked capitalists only seeks  how to expand and accumulate their wealth as opposite to sustainable environment. Thousands of high smokestacks, power plants and smelters produce continuous wealth to upper classes, some surplus flow into middle classes, however, working and poor classes have to bear the fatal respiratory problems, typhoid and cancers caused by the modern society productivity. Capitalism won’t give any benefit to the environment even through they acquire a lot from ecosystem.

 The core value of capitalism which including all the conglomerates, corporations, medium and small business are to maximize their shareholder’s profit, enlarge labor’s productivity and reduce cost to a minimum level, said as “Capitalism is the production of commodities for profit (Faber, 2017)”. Companies primarily calculate the benefit they gain to the business unities rather than the cost they give rise to the environment and society when they develop their business strategic plans. Ironically, companies do know the negative externality they make to the public and how damage to the people, nonetheless, they won’t cost money to transform industrial models, change waste discharge processes and even to purchase recycled material to reused due to above methods violated their central principles which is to cost down. It is also not possible for a company to make “green” products and dispose waste “friendly” to environment on this making profit purpose, conversely, “greenwashing” has be used to make false impression to consumers to buy their products. By reason of existence of profit imperative, economic evolution is ambivalent to the preservation of ecological balance because its passive externality to the society and environment will never be eliminated.

Externality Theory indicated the third party involuntary incur the benefit and cost caused by others. Business unities inevitably generate industrial waste when they make consumption and other productive activities. The ways they discharge waste matter directly and indirectly affects other people’s normal life, even lives, as negative externalities. From the documentary “Can You Light Your Water on Fire? (Faber, 2017)”, illustrated the serious fact caused by “franking” that the water which people used everyday for washing, cooking and drinking was full of nature gas. It deeply shows that water contamination is appearing wide range of populated area in Michigan. Another pollution source is that chemical industries poured toxic waste in to lakes and rivers straightly that resulted in unbearable pollution in early years of America. Thus, deep well injection became a solution to fix the obvious pollution, regarding as a current solving method but a long-term latent danger to human health and ecosystem. Deep well injection used high-pressure pumps to force waste, including toxic and non-toxic into underground geologic formation(Hand, 2016), but due to its high-pressure drilling of well which makes rocks fracture and lead to earthquake ultimately. This truly happened in 2011, a magnitude 5.7 earthquake in Prague, Oklahoma, scientists verified that, “This largest earthquake in Oklahoma history was triggered by waste injection well because pressure builds of those wells causing rupture and setting off an earthquake.(Hand, 2016)” The earthquake not only took Prague’s residents’ lives and made them injured but also destroyed properties to a great extent. People who incur loss during this earthquake which suffered the negativity externality cased by the near industries. However, the economic transitions behind of industries did not get any hurts.