Commodity Frontiers Flashcards
What is a Frontier?
A Frontier is a space of encounter, interaction and changes
It is both, space of flows and space of places
Commodity Frontier as a zone…
beyond which further expansion is possible
Commodity Frontiers are… (3) ?
- transformative
- highly industrial
- ecologically destructive
Commodity Frontiers are a lot about…
agriculture, crop and land in general
- Extraction of oils and minerals
- Silver, Cole important
A Commodity is produced for…
Commodities are…
the exchange value, Commodities are goods/services that are sold/exchanged
If you don´t have something to exchange a commodity for…
then you can´t access it
Commodification is…
the process or practice that turns things into commodities (something made to be sold)
Capitalism is…(commodities)
the production of commodities by commodities
3 blind spots of Capitalism
3 externalities
1. reproductive work - not commodified,
2. nature - not priced
3. colonialism historical process of appropriating spaces, people…integration into the commodity system (but not priced again)
Transition debates are a set of discussions of people who consider themeselves… and therfore…
Marxist, and therefor have different views of capitalism
Central topics in transition debates are:
- What is the feudal society? What is capitalism?
- What is the role **of merchant capital **and the European expansion=
- What is the “prime mover” of change?
Slavery was … for capitalism, to…
Slavery was fundamental for capitalism to **accumulate capital for the Industrial Revolution **–> transfer of values which enabled to carry out the industrial revolution
The antoganism of capitalism and slavery consists in the fact, that…
Capitalism´s own development leads to the end of slavery
Primitive Accumulation implies, that…
that capitalism can´t be explained without colonialism and the dispossession of land
Capitalism is to be understood as a historical process…
of commodification of labour and nature by way of private property, a process driven by the intrinsic need to tap new opportunities for accumulation and thus new frontiers
Mining has…
an extreme frontier character
- precarious human inter/action in an often hostile natural environment
- often remote, inaccessible places without an easily available labour force: migration-dependency, labour mobilization, labour control
Capitalism is driven by…
the intrinsic need to process to tap new opportunities for accumulation and thus new frontiers**
What is Colonialism in the Theory of Commodity Frontiers?
An externality
The historical process of appropriating spaces, people.. and integrating them into the commodity system
Ecological effects of sugar production are…
- Land clearance
- Fuel needs for processing raw cane juice in furnances
- Timber, ships, barrels, etc. –> moving onward to ever larger islands
- consequences for wildlife
- soil erosion (deforestation) - Silitation
- Increase labour input to counter decreasing soil fertility
- climate effects of sugar production
