J o u rn a l o f W orld-System s R esea rch

V olum e 4, N u m b e r 2 (Fall 1998)

http://csf.colorado.edu/wsvstems/ivvsr.html
ISSN 1076-156X

Ecosystems and World Systems: Accumulation

as an Ecological Process,
by

A l f H om borg
H u m a n Ecology Division
Lund University

Cite: H om borg, Alf. (1998). "E cosystem s and W orld System s: A ccum ulation as an E cological Process." Journal o f
W orld-System s R esearch 4: 169 - 177.

© 1998 A lf H om borg.

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W orld-system ic processes o f capital accum ulation are inextricably interm eshed w ith ecology. Not
only do they have obvious repercussions on landscapes and ecosystem s (e.g., erosion,
deforestation), but they are also fundam entally dependent on ecological assets such as topsoil,
forests, or minerals. T he analytical disjunction o f ecology and e conom ics is a persistent feature o f
m o d em science. T h e m inority o f researchers who have seriously tried to integrate them in a
co m m o n theoretical fram ew ork (cf. M artinez-A lier 1987) have run into major, conceptual
difficulties. This p a per addresses som e o f the issues raised in an attem pt to ground the notion o f
capital accum u lation in the physical realities o f ecology and therm odynam ics (cf. H om b o rg
1992, 1998).

There are two bodies o f data that w ould need to be brought together, if we are to get a fuller
picture o f the last few centuries o f global environm ental change. On the one hand, there is the
tangible evidence from paleobotany, geology, and other natural sciences o f long-term changes in
vegetation, soil quality, and other param eters. On the other hand, there is the record o f economic
history, plotting the expansion and decline o f centers o f accum ulation founded on various regimes
o f production and trade. B o th types o f data are easily and regularly represented in the form o f
m a p s . It w ould be m ost useful i f m aps could be developed w hich highlighted the very
connections betw een econom ic history and changes in land cover. A n exam ple o f the kind o f
w ork I m ean w ould be Christiansson's (1981) study o f the im print o f 19th century caravan trade
on the vegetation and soil o f Tanzania. A nother exam ple w ould be C hew 's (1997) attempt to
outline connections betw een the dynam ic o f world system accum ulation and deforestation from
2500 B C to A D 1990.

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 M aking such connections clearer w ould be an important corrective to the illusion o f a
"disembodied" econom y w hich seems to underlie m ainstream econom ic thought. A "greening" o f
world system theory could thus serve as an empirical com plem ent to the em erging field o f
"ecological econom ics" (M artinez-A lier 1987). It w ould also provide a deeper understanding o f
the com plex relationship betw een issues o f ecological sustainability, on the one hand, and issues
relating to the global distribution o f resources, on the other. A lthough the connection between
these two threats to h u m an survival have been at the center o f attention since the U N C E D
conference in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, its fundam ental logic continues to escape us as we reiterate
the conventional rhetoric on "sustainable developm ent".

In several articles (H o m b o rg 1992, 1993, 1998, in p r e ss ), I have argued that the capacity o f
technological system s and other social institutions to sh ift resource extraction to less em pow ered
so cia l categories renders ecological and distributional issues inseparable. To restrict attention
to either type o f issues is to m iss the com plete picture. Ecological conditions are implicated in all
processes o f accum ulation, and such processes o f accum ulation in turn tend to transform
ecosystems. It w ould be im possible to understand the global polarization o f rich and poor without
reference to ecological factors (such as net energy transfer; cf. B u nker 1985), ju s t as it w ould be
im possible to understand the expansion o f unsustainable technological system s w ithout reference
to unequal, global exchange. Yet, the h egem onic doctrines o f econom ics rem ain im pervious to
both these issues, i.e. the m aterial and the m oral correlates o f capital flows, the first by ignoring
the laws o f physics (G eorgescu-R oegen 1971), the second by assum ing, as an implicit axiom , that
(non-coerced) m arket prices by definition are just and fair.

Challenging these dom inant doctrines, I w ould advocate an ecologized version o f dependency
theory, that recognizes the world market and m o d e m technology as m ore o f a zero-sum gam e than
a cornucopia. W h a t'w e have long perceived as "developm ent" is basically a m anifestation o f
capital accum ulation, and capital accum ulation has alw ays been an uneven and inequitable
process, generating an increasing polarization betw een "developed" centers and "underdeveloped"
peripheries. A gainst this background, the faith o f the B rundtland report in global econom ic
growth as a road to equity and sustainability is not very persuasive. W e need only recall
W ackem agel's (1997) observation that global equity along W estern standards o f living w ould
require three additional Earths.

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H ow do w e conceptualize the interface betw een ecosystem s and w orld system s? It is m y

conviction .that all the m ajor issues o f global survival (environm ental destruction, resource
depletion, world poverty, arm am ent) can ultim ately be traced to capital accum ulation. The
concept o f "capital", however, continues to elude stringent analysis. To m any authors (Marx
included) it has an aspect that leads us to think o f a material infrastructure o f som e kind. On the
other hand, it suggests abstract wealth, or purchasing power. This is the dim ension o f capital
em phasized, for instance, by M ax W eber. It is also the perspective that has achieved hegemon y
both in standard econom ics and in w orld system theory (cf. W allerstein 1974-1989, Braudel 1979.
Frank 1978), suggesting a disem bodied, im m aterial force m oving about the planet in pursuit o f
rew arding investment opportunities. In advocating a revival o f Aristotle's distinction betw een
oikonom ia and "chrematistics" (M artinez-A lier 1987, D aly & Cobb 1989), the proponents o f
"ecological economics" in a sense jo in forces with M arx in trying to show how the symbolic and
the m aterial interact. There are a lot o f obstacles on the way, however. M ost "ecological
econom ists" are as ignorant o f w orld system theory as M arx was o f therm odynam ics.

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 The absence o f a c o m m o n definition o f "capital" has m ade it difficult for historians to date the
origins o f "capitalism". T h e orthodox, M arxist definition (involving industrial m ac hinery and the
comm oditization o f labour) w ould date capitalism no earlier than eighteenth-century E ngland (cf.
W o lf 1982). I f the focus is shifted from industrial to m erchant capital, and to production for the
world market as the basic criterion, "capitalism" recedes backward in history. W allerstein (1974)
traces it to the sixteenth century, Braudel (1979) to the thirteenth, and finally Frank (1995)
collapses the concept entirely by identifying capital accum ulation and a w orld system as far back
as 3000 B.C.

The old debate betw een "productionists" and "c'irculationists" is resolved by recognizing
"industrial capitalism" and "m erchant capitalism" not as different historical stages, but as
strategies for accum ulation practiced by different agents in the sam e system . Industrial capitalism
could thus be viewed as the latest in a series ,of local "modes o f production" anchored in material
infrastructures o f different kinds, w hereas supra-local strategies o f m erchant capitalism have
always integrated such local production processes in larger reproductive totalities. It is the
complex interdependency o f local and supra-local strategies that tends to obscure this analytical
distinction.

Let us system atically consider the various strategies possible. W e m ay speak o f them as m odes o f
accum ulation , or sim ply w ays o f in creasing one's access to resources . The strategies can be
grouped into five m ain categories:

1. The first and sim plest category is p lu n d e r . There are good reasons to believe that it is as old
as the hum an species. To this category belongs, for instance, the practice o f bride capture, horse
raids, slave raids, and colonial wars o f conquest.

2. The second m ajor category is m erchant capitalism , or the exploitation o f cultural differences
in how goods are evaluated ("buying cheap and selling dear".) This strategy can certainly be
traced back thousands o f years, e.g. to the ancient tin-silver trade betw een A ssyria and A natolia in
the second m illenium B.C. (Yoffee 1988). M erchant capitalism does not in its e lf im ply any
form o f material (infrastructural) "capital", but historically it has generally required som e form o f
transport apparatus, e.g. ships, wagons, horses, camels, donkeys, or llamas, as w ell as a military
apparatus to protect its interests.

3. The third category is fin a n c ia l capitalism , or the servicing o f debts. D e m a n d in g interest on

credit can be traced back to ancient S u m e r in 3000 B.C. It was controversial in E u ro p e prior to its
explicit legitimization in the Reform ation. Today it is the m ajor institutional m ea n s by which
resources from the "underdeveloped" South are transferred to the affluent N orth. Financial .
capitalism does not either in its e lf im ply material capital, but tends to require a volum inous
financial bureaucracy, ju dicial apparatus and police force, both nationally and internationally.

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4. The fourth category is undercom pensation o f labour . I w ould specify "undercom pensation"
as referring to the relation betw een w hat the labourer produces and w hat he or she gets in return,
either in terms o f labour time, energy, resources, or money. V arious cultural strategies are applied,
(a) The m ost obvious form is coercion, i.e. slavery , know n at least from the tim e o f the earliest
urban civilizations and particularly essential to the economies o f ancient G reece and Rome, (b )
The m ost ancient form is undoubtedly that w hich m ay occur in conjunction with gift exchange or
barter, i.e. transactions conform ing to the principle which Karl Polanyi (1944) called

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 reciprocity . It has been sh o w n that even the direct e xchange o f simple, m anufactured items
between tribal groups can entail an asym m etric transfer o f labour time (G odelier 1969). (c) The
classic form is associated w ith the principle which Polanyi called red istribution . It has been
characteristic o f chiefdom s, states, and empires, where it is usually quite easy to show that the
grassroot producers deliver m ore tribute, taxes, etc. to the centers o f p o w e r than is returned to
them, or those centers w o u ld not survive, (d) The most subtle form is w a g e labour, which belongs
to Polanyi's third principle, the m arket . M arx showed that capitalist a c cu m ulation can be based
on the difference betw een the value o f w hat a labourer produces and the w a g e s that he or she is
paid, i.e. the difference betw een the output and the cost o f labour.

The first o f these form s (4a), like category 1, differ from all the rest in not involving som e form o f
cultural persuasion, i.e. in not requiring that the exploited party subscribes to som e particular form
o f ideology which represents the exchange as reciprocal or at least legitimate. In all the other
cases listed in this typology, there are fundam ental, cultural concepts - "price", "interest", "wage",
etc. - that have to be shared by both parties in order for the m ode o f accum ulation to operate.

5. The fifth and final category is underpaym ent f o r resources , including raw m aterials and other
forms o f energy than labour. A gain, by "underpayment" I refer to the relation betw een the
quantity o f finished goods or services that these resources can be converted into (their pro d u ctive
p o te n tia l , so to speak) and the fraction o f that quantity (or equivalent o f it) w hich is obtained in
exchange for them. T he nature o f the resources involved is geared to the technological m o d e o f
production and the kind o f m aterial infrastructure that needs to be reproduced, (a) F o r pre-
industrial, urban m anufacturing centers, m ines or specialized slave plantations, a m ajor source o f
energy are the fo o d stu ffs im ported to m aintain the labour force, (b) F o r the m aintenance o f
draught animals, caravans, or cavalry, the m ajor source o f energy is fo d d e r . (c) F o r m ost
w orkshops or industries, finally, the prim ary energy resource is fu e ls . A s m entioned, specific
kinds o f raw m aterials (e.g., ores or fibres) m ay also be required and underpaid in the process. ■

'W e could define "undercom pensation" and "underpaym ent'Las a condition in w hich the exchange
rates allow the m anufacturer to increase his relative share o f the system 's to ta l^ u r c h a s m g power,
at the expense o f the groups delivering labour power, energy or raw materials. By "purchasing
power" -I here m ean so m e th in g m ore general than m oney, viz. the sym b o lic capacity- to m ake
claim s on other p e o p le 's reso u rces . I f the total purchasing pow er was constant, it w ould not be
hard to conclude that any increase is unilateral and that the system is o bviously a zero-sum game.
However, the total p u rchasing pow eirin a system can o b v io u sly expand (e.g. by striking gold or
printing m ore m oney), w h ic h gives the illusion o f global "growth" and tends to obscure its zero-
sum properties. N evertheless, any increm ent in one party's relative share o f that pow er will
S t e r t h e exchange rates, or term s o f tradF rS uch relatiw increm entsnafe^often self-reinforcing,
since the altered terms o f tr a d e T n material goods and resources m ay increase the aggrandized
party's capacity to accum ulate an even greater share o f the purchasing pow er, and so on. In other
words, even if the system as a w h o le gives the appearance o f "grow ing", any increase in the
relative share o f total purchasing pow er will be at the long-run expense o f another party, since
it will aggravate unequal e xchange and system atically drain the latter's labour (cf. E m m anuel
1972) or other resources.

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Let us now apply these perspectives to a classic example o f accum ulation, the triangle trace
betw een Europe, W est A frica and A m erica, in order to consider how different m o d es o f
accumulation can be com bined in the sam e system. M erchants carried m anufactured goods such
as rifles and textiles from E n gland to Africa, w here they w ere exchanged for slaves. T he slaves

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 were then transported to A m erica and sold in exchange for cotton and other plantation produce.
Finally, the cotton w as brought back to England and exchanged for m anufactured goods. The
completed cycle involved several points o f accumulation, enriching m erchants, A frican chiefs,
American plantation ow ners, and British industrialists. W ith reference to the typology offered
above, w e can detect, w ithin this trading system, the occurrence o f a ll the m odes o f
accum ulation m entioned: 1. European and African slave raiders p u rsu in g their victim s, 2.
European m erchants exploiting cultural differences betw een three continents, 3. M erchants, cotton
growers, and industrialists servicing their debts to E uropean bankers, 4a. A m erican slave owners
thrashing their A frican labour, 4b. A frican chiefs bartering slaves for rifles, 4c. A frican
com m oners paying tribute to their chiefs, 4d. British textile workers collecting their wages, 5a.
sla v e o w n e rs bargaining for cheap c o m and wheat to feed their slaves, 5b. A m erican grain
merchants buying fodder for their horse-draw n transports to the eastern slave plantations, and 5c.
British industrialists haggling the price o f cotton and coal.

All in all, this com bination o f strategies within a larger, reproductive totality provided the
conditions for the Industrial Revolution. Marx' theoretical edifice on "capitalism " w as built on the
observation that the local m ode o f production in E ngland combined strategies 4d and 5c, i.e. wage
labour and m echanization. B ut rather than an historical stage, industrial capitalism should be
understood as a functional specialization within a larger field o f accum ulative strategies. Rosa
Luxem burg (1951[1913]) w as probably the first to see the full im plications o f this. Still today,
industrial capitalism is very far from the universal condition o f m ankind, but rather a privileged
activity, the existence o f w h ic h would be unthinkable without various other m odes o f transferring
surpluses o f labour and resources from peripheral sectors to centers o f accum ulation at different
spatial scales.

The debate, about w h e th e r to define "capitalism" in terms o f m erchant or industrial capital can
thus only be solved by recognizing that circulation and production are.m utually interdependent:' In
relying on fossil fuels and com bustion engines, industrialization w as certainly revolutionary, but
the growth o f a m aterial infrastructure through unequal exchange w as not an innovation o f
eighteenth century England. In order to trace such processes further back in history, as would
Wallerstein, Braudel, and Frank, w e w ould need to w iden Marx' concept o f "capital" so as to
m ake it m ore abstract and inclusive, both in its sym bolic and its material aspects. I have elsewhere
(H om borg 1998) argued that such an extended concept o f "capital" could be defined as a
recursive (positive fe e d b a c k ) relationship betw een so m e kin d o f tech n o lo g ica l infrastructure and
som e kin d o f sy m b o lic ca pacity to m ake claim s on o th er p eople's resources . Such a general
understanding o f capital accum ulation w ould be as applicable to the agricultural terraces o f the
Inca em peror in ancient P eru as to the textile factories o f eighteenth century England. W hat the
two examples have in c o m m o n is the recursivity betw een the sym bolic and the material. In both
cases, the material infrastructure is used to produce an output that is culturally transform ed (i.e.
through the m ediation o f sym bolic constructs) into m ore infrastructure. Industrial m achinery is
only the latest version o f infrastructure, w age labour only the latest version o f cultural persuasion.

M arx was too focused on labour to see that exploitation could also take the form o f draining
another society's natural resources. N o r could he see L uxem burg's (1951 [1913]) crucial deduction
that capitalism could never constitute its own, self-contained market. H e w as thus able to put his
faith, like his contem poraries, in the global, em ancipatory potential o f the industrial machine. As
the twentieth century draw s to a close, however, m ounting global inequities give us reason to
reexamine the p rom ise o f the m achine. Could the industrial infrastructures o f Europe, N orth
A m erica and Japan exist w ithout the abysmal gap betw een rich and poor? O r are they one and
the same, inextricably linked, as the m aterial and the social dim ensions o f a single, global
phenom enon?

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 Journal o f W orld-Sysiem s Research

The global gap is deepening (cf. A d a m s 1993), yet, ironically, dependency theory has been on the
wane. A m ajor p roblem for its opponents seem s to be the difficulties they are having in
visualizing "metropolis-satellite" (Frank 1966) or "core-periphery" (W allerstein 1974)
relationships and "surplus exploitation" as spatial, m aterial realities (cf. B rew er 1990:168-169).
There is often a tenuous congruity betw een the different spatial param eters that one can think of.
W here are the investm ents m ade? W here do the capitalists live? W here are their bank accounts?
W here is the infrastructure being accum ulated? W here are the products consum ed? These
difficulties can be alleviated, I believe, by thinking less in term s o f national trade statistics and
m ore in terms o f net flows o f energy and materials, irrespective o f political boundaries. Nightly
satellite images o f lum inescent technom ass in Europe, Japan and eastern N orth A m erica are
convincing evidence o f the material reality o f center-periphery relationships.

A "greening" o f w orld system theory essentially m eans supplem enting the labour-oriented,
Marxist_C£)jQ£epUDf exploitation (focused on category 4 above) w ith a resource-oriented-one—
(category 5). .M oToTanalyticaJ w o rk rem ains to be done, h o w ever (Bunker 1985, M artinez-A lier
1987, H om b o rg 1998). A n im portant step is to see that hum an econom ies rely on two types o f
resources, labour tim e and n a tu ra l sp a c e . These correspond to the two factors o f production
know n as "labour" and "land". T hey can be variously com bined and transform ed into material
infrastructure ("capital"), generally for purposes o f saving time and/or space for som ebody. This
is the essence o f h u m a n technology: the use o f tim e and space to save tim e and/or space for
som e so cia l category’ . Tecjrnology--Q-p-c.apjta-l-Lhii-S-amaunts to a w ay a L i^jiU K ilw Iin g _tempc>ra\
and spatial resources in globj L s o c i e t y / r h e time saved by nineteenth century train passengers
(relative to stagecoach) should be w eig hed-again.sPfhe tim^jpBTti7y^teghjnd~i-ailway w orkers to
m ake thes_eJxain-ri-des-po-ss-ib-l-e-^S-imilarlv, the space (land) sa v ed by m ore "efficient" (intensive)
forms o f industrial agri_cuJJui^j3-n-in-&teentli-Cgnturv England shouldr^FwngtTed~agaiiTstthe~space
elsewhere devoied4amiakingJ;h4s4c)caljmode o f production p o ssib le, e.g. cotton p lantations in
Am erica, sheep pastures in Australia, and m ines and forests in Sw eden (cf. W ilkinson 1973,
1988). M ore recently, w e could add the land devoted to provisioning industrial farmers with fossil
fuels, chemical fertilizers, pesticides, m achinery, biotechnology, etc. In becom ing interfused with
one another in "capital", m oreover, the econom ies o f time and space are rendered
indistinguishable, so that time saved can represent space lost, and vice versa. Perhaps it is in the
very nature o f advanced technology that one party's gain o f time or space is som e other party's

A m ajo r handicap in our pursuit o f a clearer understanding o f these relationships is the fact that
m ost trade statistics are in m onetary units, rather than invested labour time, energy, or hectares.
Let m e give an exam ple o f how this can lead us astray. O pponents o f E m m anuel's (1972)
argum ent that low-salary countries w ere victim s o f unequal exchange suggested that the im port
into developed countries o f produce from the developing countries was too m arginal (2.5% in
1965) to be o f any significance to the condition o f either category. E m m anuel replied, how ev-er.
that if salaries had been the sam e as in the advanced countries, the cost o f that im port w ould have,
been ten times'asTngh, or e q u iv a I e n n q J Z 5 % i ^ 199_0:208)TBrewer (ibid.) writes that o n e
can_ "doubt w hether a n y th in g llk e T h e sam e v o lu m e o f trade w ould take place at these prices,'1 but
th isT ofconrse; is p r e c ls e ly lh e p o in t. The entire rationale o f the t r a d e is the asym m etric transfer o f
labour time. Statistics in d o llars obscure the real transfers in hours o f labour. Similarly, if invested
energy (Odum & A rding 1991) or hectares (W ackem agel & R ees 1996) w ere counted instead o f
dollars, the significance o f im ports from the South w ould be recognized as m uch greater than that
suggested by m onetary measures. Still, even the dollar-based G.A.T.T. statistics reflect a
fundam ental feature o f global, center-periphery relationships: in 1984, fuels accounted for 46.8%
o f exports from "developing areas", but only 7.8% o f those from developed countries (cf.

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 Chisholm 1990:96).

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I f I have been preoccupied m ore w ith the dynam ic o f world system s than with the transformations
o f ecosystems, it is because w e are so m uch better acquainted with the latter. I need here only hint
at the connections betw een the two types o f systems. Let us return to the trans-atlantic trade and
briefly consider som e o f its ecological repercussions. Without this particular constellation o f
accum ulative strategies, England w ould not have industrialized in the eighteenth century, and the
environm ental history o f the past few centuries w ould have taken a different course (W orster
1988). T he soils o f the A m e ric an South w ould not have been cultivated in such an abusive
m anner (cf. Earle 1988). T h e A m erican w heat belt w ould not have been pushed as far into areas
vulnerable to erosion. A ustralia and A rgentine would not have been converted in such a wholesale
fashion into pasture, nor the W est Indies into sugar plantations. T h e deforestation o f India w ould
probably not have been as severe (Tucker 1988). The list can be extended indefinitely. These
global, environm ental changes are tangible imprints o f the w orld system o f capital accumulation.
The industrial infrastructure o f eighteenth century Lancashire grew not only from the sweat o f the
British prolétariat and o f A frican slaves, but from American soils, A ustralian pastures, and
Sw edish forests. V ast quantities o f h u m an tim e and natural space w ere exploited and intertwined
in the process. A fter two hundred years, such concentrations o f technom ass in Europe, N orth
A m erica and Japan are still expanding at the expense o f their peripheries and o f global life-
support systems. Capital accum ulation is a blind, self-reinforcing process. Instead o f ju st
continuing to m onitor its ecological effects, w e urgently need to grasp its fundam ental dynamics.
Recent concepts such as "political ecology" (Johnston 1994) and "environm ental justice" (Harvey
1996) recognize that such an understanding can only emerge from a consideration o f h o w
ecological issues and distributional issues are interfused.

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