University of Wisconsin - Stevens Point
Geography 340: 
Processes of Environmental Degradation

Thirty Theses 

A thesis is a statement or proposition put forward and supported by proof or argument. The following thesis statements are intended to generate thought and discussion as we examine environmental degradation and its causes. They are purposely provocative. You may agree or disagree with them, though you should be able to offer evidence for your positions.

Thesis 1:

American culture, and Western culture in general, may be characterized as the culture of capitalism, or more specifically corporate capitalism.

Thesis 2:

The core premise of the culture of corporate capitalism is that commodity consumption is the source of well-being.

Thesis 3:

The central players in the culture of capitalism are the capitalist, the laborer, and the consumer, each operating according to rules largely orchestrated by the capitalist and enforced by the nation-state.

Thesis 4:

The culture of corporate capitalism requires perpetual growth of material consumption, and hence ever-expanding exploitation of the world's resources and peoples.

Thesis 5:

Successful operation of the culture of capitalism compels that consumers be segregated or masked from the consequences of their lifestyles on the laborer, on the environment, and on the ways of life of those whose degradation makes such consumption possible.

Thesis 6:

Profit in a capitalist culture comes largely from the capitalist's control of both the surplus value of labor and the exploitation of nature.

Thesis 7:

There is an inherent tendency of laborers to resist the discipline imposed on them by capitalists.

Thesis 8:

Operation of the capitalist system results directly in a growing concentration of wealth in fewer and fewer hands (and hence in increasing polarization of wealth in society).

Thesis 9:

As corporate capitalism has developed, the organization of capital and how it is controlled have evolved to where just a few corporations now control vast wealth.

Thesis 10:

The capitalist class exerts its growing power to direct social, political, economic, and cultural relations, in ways that will serve its class interests.

Thesis 11:

A dominant historical trend has been the growing integration of the global economy (globalization), to the extent that events in one area of the world have repercussions in others.

Thesis 12:

The role of the nation-state is being replaced by new institutions, most importantly the transnational corporation (or TNC).

Thesis 13:

Capitalists have created international organizations (e.g., the World Bank and the IMF) and pacts (e.g., WTO and NAFTA) ostensibly to aid the “development” of impoverished peoples and countries, especially through “free trade”; but these mechanisms essentially serve to accumulate more capital in the hands of the wealthy, while imposing trouble on peripheral peoples and environments.

Thesis 14:

Democracy, as a system of government, has been largely superseded by the operation of corporate capitalism; the principle of one person, one vote, has largely been replaced by a system where money holds sway.. 

Thesis 15:

In order to maintain corporate capitalism, the modern state must convince its populace that they and the capitalist class share a common destiny.

Thesis 16:

Most of the major problems faced by countries in the periphery, such as poverty, hunger, and environmental destruction, are exacerbated by population growth.

Thesis 17:

The specter of population growth is a scheme used in the culture of capitalism to shift the blame for global problems to their victims, and to obscure a greater cause, capitalism’s perpetual and uneven economic growth.

Thesis 18:

The evolution of agriculture in the culture of capitalism is characterized by the steadily increasing concentration of agricultural wealth (land and factors of production), and the growing dependency of the many on the few.

Thesis 19:

Programs of so-called "food aid" (e.g. Food for Peace or Public Law 480) are ways that the state funnels tax dollars to agribusiness, increases the influence of food aid organizations, and promotes the ruin of small, local food growers.

Thesis 20:

The fact that people are starving to death because they lack the resources to grow their food, or the money to buy it, is obscured by calling starvation "malnutrition," and treating it as a medical problem.

Thesis 21:

Consumption patterns, and even eating habits, are molded largely to fuel economic expansion and maintain the society of perpetual growth.

Thesis 22:

Every culture or age has its characteristic illnesses; for the culture of capitalism, characteristic diseases are those linked to environmental degradation, as well as to poverty and hunger on the one hand and to overconsumption on the other.

Thesis 23:

The culture of capitalism has fostered the spread of alien organisms, including infectious diseases.

Thesis 24:

The cultures of indigenous peoples are vulnerable to destruction from capitalist expansion, in part because their way of life differs greatly from that in the culture of capitalism.

Thesis 25:

Capitalism is revolutionary in the sense that to foster perpetual growth, it must constantly revolutionize the factors of production, promote ever increasing consumption, and, consequently, regularly modify patterns of social, political, economic and environmental relations.

Thesis 26:

The various forms of social protest such as workers organizations and strikes, national liberation, civil rights, feminist, militia, environmental, and fundamentalist religious movements can all be understood primarily as reactions to the expansion of the culture of capitalism.

Thesis 27:

There exists a global environmental crisis, and corporate capitalism is the major cause.

Thesis 28:

It is impossible to sustain the culture of capitalism at its present rate of consumption; the expansion of that culture to other areas of the globe will accelerate environmental collapse.

Thesis 29:

Given the nature of the culture of capitalism, it is impossible to halt the destruction of the environment. 

Thesis 30:

Since the culture of capitalism must continually destroy the environment, expand economic hardship, and create continual conflict and resistance, it must inevitably collapse (and be replaced by a socialist world government or highly localized, independent, and self-sufficient cultures).