The Pricing of Everything

www.ecologicalcitizen.net LONG ARTICLE The pricing of everything This article – which is a lightly edited transcript of the 2014 Annual Lecture of the Sheffield George Political Economy Research Institute – critiques concepts such as ‘natural capital’, ‘ecosystem services’, ‘green infrastructure’, ‘asset classes’ and the ‘ecosystem market’ that have been Monbiot forged by applying the neoliberal ideology to biological conservation. About the author George is the author of the e are witnessing at this moment Thus, Mr Ridley, as he was then, was able bestselling books Out of the the death of both the theory to put some of that into practice when he Wreckage: A New politics for W and the practice of neoliberal became Chairman of Northern Rock, and an age of crisis (Verso Books, capitalism. This is the doctrine which boy did he do it! He pursued market freedom 2017), Feral: Rewilding the holds that the market can resolve almost all of the kind that he’d been advocating for so land, sea and human life (Penguin, 2014), The Age of social, economic, and political problems. It long in his columns, and you can see the Consent: A manifesto for a new results today on your bank statements. In holds that the people are best served, and world order (The New Press, their prosperity is best advanced, by the 2007, Matt Ridley had to go cap in hand to the 2004) and Captive State: The minimum of intervention and spending self-seeking flea and beg it for what became corporate takeover of Britain by the state. It holds that through people £27 billion. This was rapidly followed by (Pan Books, 2001). pursuing their own self-interest, through the first run on a British bank since 1878. the invisible hand of that market, we can The government had to guarantee all the Citation maximize the general social interest. deposits of the investors in the bank and Monbiot G (2018) The pricing To illustrate the spectacular crashing eventually it had to nationalize the bank – of everything. The Ecological and burning of that doctrine – which being the kind of parasitic self-seeking flea Citizen 2: 89–96. unfortunately survives in terms of its that it is – in order to prevent, more or less, Keywords doctrinal impacts, even if it in no way a complete collapse of the banking system. Conservation; natural resembles its formative principles – let me By comparison to Mr Ridley, the likes of capital; nature; values tell you the sad tale of a man called Matt Paul Flowers, poor old crystal Methodist, Ridley. were pretty half-hearted, and about the He was formerly a columnist on the only thing that distinguished Mr Flowers Daily Telegraph, after which he became from the rest of the banking fraternity (and I think this tells us something about was that, one, he allegedly bought his own the meritocratic claims of neoliberalism) cocaine, and, two, he singularly failed the hereditary chair of Northern Rock. to bring the entire banking system to its His father had been chair of Northern knees. Where is Mr Ridley now? We don’t Rock before him, and as a result of call him Mr Ridley anymore. He sits in the About this article that he became the chair of the former House of Lords as a Conservative peer. That This piece is a transcription building society and then bank. While is how our system works. of the 2014 Annual Lecture of the Sheffield Political he was a columnist on the Telegraph he It is not just that neoliberalism has failed Economy Research Institute, wrote the following: “The government spectacularly in that this system, which which was given by George is a self-seeking flea on the backs of the was supposed to prevent state-spending at the Octagon in Sheffield, more productive people of this world. and persuade us that we didn’t need state- UK, on 29 April of that year. Governments do not run countries, spending, has required the greatest and Transcribing was done by they parasitize them. Taxes, bailouts, most wasteful state-spending in history Patrick McEvoy, a geography Master’s student based in regulations, subsidies, interventions of to bail out the deregulated banks, which Australia. Minor edits have any kind are an unwarranted restraint on were deregulated according to neoliberal been made for flow and market freedom.” doctrine, and trashed the entire economy as house style. The Ecological Citizen Vol 2 No 1 2018 89 The pricing of everything www.ecologicalcitizen.net a result. It is also because it has singularly market’. The proponents of these ideas failed to create this great society of argue that we’re totally and monumentally innovators and entrepreneurs that we were failing to protect the environment because promised by the masters of this doctrine, people aren’t valuing it enough. They’ll by people like Friedrich Hayek, Milton create some road scheme, or supermarket Friedman and the rest. As Thomas Piketty, or motorway service station, and they see the name which is on everybody’s lips at the value of what is going to be destroyed the moment, so adeptly demonstrates in his as effectively zero, whereas they’re seeing new book, Capital in the 21st Century, what all the dollar signs associated with the has happened during this era over the past development which they want to put 30 years or so has been a great resurgence in instead. So, they argue, if we were to of patrimonial capitalism, of a rentier put a price on the natural world, and to economy where you make far more money say, actually, it’s really worth something either by owning capital or by positioning because it delivers these ecosystem services yourself as a true self-serving flea upon the to us in the form of green infrastructure back of productive people, a member of an and asset classes within an ecosystems executive class whose rewards are out of market, then perhaps we’ll be able to weigh all kilter with its performance or the value into that and persuade people, who are delivered. You make far more money in either otherwise unpersuadable, that this is really of those positions than you possibly can worth preserving. They also point out that through entrepreneurial activity. If wealth through that agenda you can raise a lot of under this system were the inevitable result money that isn’t otherwise available for the of hard work and enterprise, every woman ordinary kinds of conservation projects. in Africa would be a millionaire. These are plausible and respectable Just at this moment, this perfect moment arguments, and I think they are the road to Just at this “ of total moral and ideological collapse of the ruin, or the road to even greater ruin than moment, this neoliberal capitalist system, a large number we have at the moment. perfect moment of environmentalists have stumbled across Let me start to lay out why with an of total moral and it and say this is the answer to saving the escalating series of arguments. They are ideological collapse natural world. They devise a series of ideas, escalating in what I consider to be their theories and mechanisms that are supposed importance, starting off with the relatively of the neoliberal to do what we’ve been unable to do by other trivial and becoming more serious as we go capitalist system, means – namely, to protect the world that along. Perhaps the most trivial argument a large number of we and everything around us depends on, against the natural capital agenda, although environmentalists the living planet, from the despoliation and it is nonetheless a relatively weighty one, degradation which have done it so much is that in the great majority of cases, the have stumbled across harm over the past few decades. This is the efforts to price the natural world which lie it and say this is the pursuit of what could be called the ‘natural at the heart of the agenda are complete and answer to saving the capital agenda’: the pricing, valuation, utter gobbledygook. The reason why is that natural world.” monetization and financialization of nature they are looking at values which are non- in the name of saving it. commensurable. They are trying to compare Oh sorry, did I say nature? We don’t call apples and pears, things which cannot be it that anymore. It’s now called ‘natural directly compared, and the result of that capital’. Similarly, ecological processes is that they come out with stuff like the are called ‘ecosystem services’ because of Natural Capital Committee (NCC) did in its course they exist only to serve us. Hills, latest report. The NCC is something set up forests, rivers… I hope you don’t call them by the current UK government supposedly that anymore, those terms are terribly in pursuit of a better means of protecting outdated. They’re now called ‘green the natural environment (though with this infrastructure’. Biodiversity and habitats? government that sounds highly implausible). Not at all à la mode, my dear. We now The NCC produced a report recently which call them ‘asset classes’ in an ‘ecosystem said that if freshwater ecosystems in this 90 The Ecological Citizen Vol 2 No 1 2018 www.ecologicalcitizen.net The pricing of everything country were better protected, the aesthetic been reduced to 41. It’s complete rubbish, value addition of that protection would and surely anyone can see that. Not only be £700 million. It said that if grassland is it complete rubbish, it is unimprovable sites of special scientific interest (SSSIs) rubbish. You cannot make a silk purse out were better protected, their wildlife value of that pig’s ear.

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