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Working on a general theory of extractivism & enclosure right now—just made a smol outline.
Linking the Marxian theory of Imperialism & Primitive Accumulation to Enclosure to Environmental Racism to White Supremacy to Geoist theories of Rents, Austrian theory of heavy capital, Mutualist theory of the state, to Neo Ricardian theory of distribution to Ecological econ
Basically, as I have discussed often, drawing on many before me, Enclosure, Imperialism, Colonialism, Imprisonment, Militarism & Settlement are all related social & economic processes, united in controlling space, accumulating raw inputs, and making legible to the state & market
I was thinking about the Boom & Bust cycle of land settlement on the ‘frontier’, the railroads, oil pipelines, heavy capital construction in Neo Colonialism, Carceral & Military Keynesianism & the theory of heavy capital, throughput, institutional distribution & ecological cycles
Just working this out, but the ‘toy’ model—as economists call it—goes a little something like this, using the example of oil & other pipelines in the Turtle Island heartland.
The cycle begins with lagging profit rates, rent rates, political disaffection, economic crisis &/or the decline in relative market share of finance, oil, arms industry, etc. Alternatively, the motive can just be expansionist & imperial—seeking territory, control & barricades.
An oil, gas, coal, mining, logistics, transportation or nuclear firm will petition the state, or, just as often, the state or military will petition one of these groups and decide to begin the cycle of enclosure, extraction, boom, bust, collapse & repression.
Huge segments of space will be chosen—uniting land as factor, politics as territory & the social as enclosed hierarchy, is the demarcated, institutionally enclosed regimentation of space, par simpliciter. It seems banal bc it’s so quotidian & basic, but it’s important.
This regimentation is, in the Foucauldian or Frederic mode, ideological—hence the need for metrology, cartography, surveying & demography, as well as literal & physical, and social, choreographing social moves through coercive discipline & the state’s brutal biopower & violence.
During this Shale Boom, huge segments of land were and are parceled out. This land is then seized through a mixture of eminent domain, treaty, tax law, regulation, ordinance, fire sale buy outs, preferential land deals & the ‘sale’ of public lands.
In choosing this, several considerations matter:
1. Getting landowners the most money
2. Controlling the most space
3. Subsidizing political stakeholders
4. Minimizing Resistance
5. Dispossessing the poor, poc, indigenous & other colonial and capital subjects
1. Getting landowners the most money
2. Controlling the most space
3. Subsidizing political stakeholders
4. Minimizing Resistance
5. Dispossessing the poor, poc, indigenous & other colonial and capital subjects
Many tend to see 5 as a byproduct which it often is, but the fact that pipelines will often be routed through inefficient and costly routes, out of the way, but through Native land, shows that this is basically intentional in part
Because people dislike living near pipelines, mines, nuclear plants, depots & prisons, this ALWAYS requires displacement, and is always environmentally racist. The flip side of NIMBYism is environmental racism. It also requires police power & disciplinary regimentation.
