The Result of Capitalism

Nizhoni Franklin

Richard Simpson

Cultural Geography

26 January 2021

The Result of Capitalism

“A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things” by Raj Patel and Jason W. Moore discusses the results of capitalism and climate change on nature. Patel and Moore use key phrases and history to discuss the harmful outcomes of capitalism.

The authors use the example of chicken bones to walk us through the seven cheap things mentioned in the title. Normally, when one thinks of chicken we don’t immediately think of the harm that the poultry industry has caused, the authors start by informing us that the chicken we know and love has changed in the last century. The chicken we know has actually been genetically modified to fit human consumption, bringing us “Cheap Nature”. Going into “Cheap Work” we find that poultry workers are not only paid very little (prison workers being paid even less) but they are also grossly mistreated, “Some employers mock their workers for reporting injury; and the denial of injury claims is common. The result for workers is a 15 percent decline in income for the ten years after injury” (page 4). Additionally, they are forced to depend on their families for income because of the pay decrease solely for being injured on a job that is so heavily relied upon. 

Patel and Moore use the history of medieval times to discuss the harm of capitalism and climate change. Medieval Europe was under the structure of lords and peasants. When the medieval warm period ended, Europe entered was is now known as the “Little Ice Age” causing soil exhaustion that could not be suppressed any longer once the climate turned for a second time. The lack of preparation and the greed of feudal lords caused starvation and the death of millions of people. 

Feudal lords wanted cash or grain, which could have been easily stored and marketed, and they overwhelmingly consumed the modest surpluses wrung from the soil, leaving precious little to reinvest in agriculture. Absent the lords’ power and demands, peasants might have shifted to cop mixes that included garden produce alongside grains, perhaps solving the food problem.

This shows that without the greed from the feudal lords as well as the need and want for money caused the starvation of much of the peasant population and could have led to better preparation for the plague about to come.