Sugar and the Expansion of the Early Modern World-Economy: Commodity Frontiers, Ecological Transformation, and Industrialization Author(S): Jason W

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Sugar and the Expansion of the Early Modern World-Economy: Commodity Frontiers, Ecological Transformation, and Industrialization Author(s): Jason W. Moore Source: Review (Fernand Braudel Center), Vol. 23, No. 3 (2000), pp. 409-433 Published by: Research Foundation of SUNY for and on behalf of the Fernand Braudel Center Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40241510 . Accessed: 21/06/2014 17:08

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This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions Sugar and theExpansion of theEarly Modern World-Economy CommodityFrontiers, Ecological Transformation, and Industrialization*

JasonW. Moore

articleattempts to restoreand operationalizethe concept of the frontierfor the studyof worldcapitalist expansion and its structuraltendency towards environmental degradation. World-sys- temsanalysts have paid considerableattention to theways in which theworld-economy expands. The bulk of thiswork has been given over to the studyof long waves,the reorganizationof production units,state-formation, and otherimportant processes. The ecological dimension,though acknowledged from time to time,has been un- deremphasized.I willtrace the development and expansionof sugar cane productionand tradein orderto illustratethe centrality of en- vironmentaldynamics as a way of rethinkingthe early modern historyof capitalistexpansion. The historyof sugarproduction and tradeis well-known.Despite the existenceof a vastliterature, however, the environmentalhistory of sugar has not been given the attentionit deserves, nor has thelink between ecological transformation and the expansionarylogic of worldcapitalism. My goal is to suggestways of rethinkingearly modern capitalist expansion as a socio-ecologicalprocess. WhenI speakof frontiers, I am buildingon world-systemstudies of "incorporation"(see Hopkinset al., 1987; Wallerstein,1989: ch. 3). The term frontieris overused. It has rarelybeen employed usefullyin historicalsocial science. Nonetheless,I thinkit can be

* Special thanksto Edmund BurkeIII, WalterL. Goldfrank,and Diana Carol Moore Gildea forcomments on thisarticle in draft.

REVIEW,XXIH, 3, 2000, 409-33 409

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 410 JasonW. Moore reconceptualizedsatisfactorily within the world-systemsparadigm. The conceptof thefrontier has been employedby historical sociolo- gistsengaged in regionalstudies, but has not been theorizedade- quately.Thomas D. Hall, forinstance, defines a frontieras thearea "where. . . incorporationoccurs" (Hall, 1989: 24). In her otherwise brilliantstudy of Southern Appalachia, Dunaway ( 1996a) does much the same, treatingthe frontiersimply as a zone of incorporation. This conceptualizationdoes notdistinguish the incorporation of the Americasfrom Asia and Africa,where strong state structures im- peded fullincorporation until the nineteenthand twentiethcentu- ries.Whereas incorporation studies have focusedon fairlygeneral world-systemicprocesses and social transformationswithin particular regions,I wishto drawattention to theways in whichthe production and distributionof specificcommodities, and of primaryprod- uctsin particular,have restructured geographic space at themargins of the systemin such a wayas to requirefurther expansion. To this end, I suggestthe concept of thecommodity frontier.

COMMODITY FRONTIERS

The idea of the commodityfrontier derives from the world-sys- temsconcept of thecommodity chain, which "refers to a networkof labor and productionprocesses whose end resultis a finishedcom- modity"(Hopkins & Wallerstein,1986). Althoughthe usual ap- proachto thestudy of commodity chains is to beginwith the finished product,the task of trackingfrontier expansion requires a focuson relativelyunfinished, "raw" materials; a fullanalysis would require a subsequentbacktracking, which is outsidethe scope of thisarticle. The pointof commoditychain analysis is two-fold:1) to determine the boundariesand shiftingconfiguration of the world-economy's interdependentdivision of labor; and 2) to analyzeshifts between core, periphery,and semiperipheryover time accordingto each zone's retentionof surplus value. While state actors attempt to shape thesystem's division of labor to theiradvantage, the primary organ- izingmechanisms are commoditychains, whose operationsare by definitiontransnational. This approachpermits an end runaround traditionalconceptions of frontierexpansion, which accept the nation-stateor imperialsphere as theprimary unit of analysis rather thanthe world-economy as a whole.

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The existenceof multiple commodity frontiers in theAmericas- sugar, silver,timber, cattle, foodstuffs, cotton, tobacco, fursand deerskins,fisheries, etc.- allows us, first,to tracknot onlycapitalist expansion but also the unevennessof thatexpansion. This helps correctthe impression of manycritics of theworld-systems perspective,who rightlyargue that the transition to capitalismhas assumed radicallydifferent forms in differentplaces, but wronglycontend thatworld-systems analysis is incapableof theorizingthis diversity. Secondly,it providesa wayto linkup relativelyabstract processes suchas longwaves with relatively specific processes such as commodityproduction and labor relationsin particularplaces. The concept of the commodityfrontier, moreover, sheds lighton the waysin whichplace-specific commodity production shapes and is shapedby the socio-spatialexpansion of the law of value-ongoing primitive accumulation-under whichpeople are forcedto "sell to survive" (Moore, 1997). This approachpermits a deeperexamination of how the world-economyand local ecosystemsinteract to determinethe rateof capitalistexpansion.1 Thirdly, because commodityfrontiers, especiallysugar, required numerous capital inputs unavailable at the immediatepoint of production, the concept provides a morespecific theorizationof the simultaneousdeepening and wideningof the system'ssocial divisionof labor. In short,the commodityfrontier givesmeaning to the conceptof the "multipliereffect" in termsof spatial expansion and the global reach of the law of value. And fourthly,because the most significantcommodity frontiers were based on theexploitation of theenvironment- sugar, silver and gold mining,tobacco, grain, among others- the concept allows an explo- rationof the interrelationships between production in one place,and theexpansion of capitalist space in general.I mustadd thatcommod- ityfrontiers constitute the foundation of a broaderworld-historical category2-the frontier mode of capitalist expansion- the primary arena

1 For the relationshipbetween long waves and the advance of settlementon the frontier,see Earle 8c Cao (1993). 2 It is of course true thatthere were manyinstances of capitalistexpansion, in the New World and elsewhere,which did not hinge directlyupon commodityproduction. Certainly,religious missions, military colonization, Utopian communities, etc., cannot be chalked up to commodityproduction in a simpleway. In addition,preemptive colonization has been an importantfeature of imperialismsince the sixteenthcentury (Hall, 1989; Dunaway, 1996a). That said, the primaryimpetus for preemptivecolonization came fromthe competitionover thefruits of resourceexploitation and profitabletrade

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 412 JasonW. Moore ofwhich was theAmericas. I willtouch briefly on thislatter concept in the conclusion. The frontierhas been such a slipperycategory because it refers simultaneouslyto a certainkind of socio-spatialmovement and to a certainkind of place-thatis, the term"frontier" refers both to the "space-of-flows"as wellas to the "space-of-places."The two dimensionsof the frontier mode maybe capturedin thefollowing formula- tion. A frontieris a zone beyondwhich further expansion is possiblein a waythat is limitedprimarily by physicalgeography and the contra- dictionsof capitalismrather than the opposition of powerfulworld- empires.The frontieris a specifickind of space definedby the forwardmovement of the (capitalist)system. Further expansion is possible so long as thereremains uncommodified land, and to a lesser extent labor, "beyond" the frontier.Where the external barriersto capitalistexpansion initially outweigh the internal ones- as in Africaor Asia duringthe early modern period- we mustspeak of bordersand not frontiers. Commodityfrontiers were profoundlytransformative of land and labor because theywere oftenhighly industrial In particular, sugar productionand refining,and silvermining were among the most industrialactivities of the earlymodern world-economy (see Mintz,1985; Bakewell,1987). As theworld-systems school has long maintained,there have been numerousphases of industrialization, and qualitativelythe most importantphase is an open question (Hopkins& Wallerstein,1977; Nef, 1964). Mostdiscussions of industrialization,however, have neglectedthe role of whatI callfrontier industrialization.In the Americasduring the earlymodern period, the two mostsignificant generators of value were silverand sugar. Bothwere highly industrial by any standard of theday. Not onlydid theyrequire fairlyheavy capital inputs, but in the case of sugar a highlyrationalized labor processwas necessary.The extractiveand agriculturalcharacter of frontierindustrialization under conditions of ceaselesscapital accumulation meant that not only was ecological exhaustiona factof life in theseareas, but that ecological exhaustion was a major impetusto furthercapitalist expansion and to the system's cyclicalfluctuations. Ecological exhaustionat the point of

routes. Even religious missionswere sites of commodityproduction (Monroy, 1995; Sweet, 1991).

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SUGAR AND EARLY MODERN WORLD-ECONOMY 4 1 3 productionwas complementedby an environmentallydestructive multipliereffect which led to, interalia, deforestation,massive soil erosion,siltation, climate change, and othereffects in the case of sugar,and deforestationand thepoisoning of mountain rivers in the case of silvermining (see below, and formining, Bakewell, 1987; Dunaway,1996b). Furthermore,by emphasizing frontier industrialization as a process coterminouswith the consolidationof the capitalistworld-economy over the "long"sixteenth century (1450- 1640),I contendthat the contemporary global ecological crisis is not rootedin theso-called Industrial Revolution perse, but in thelogic of capitalitself- with or withoutSatanic Mills.

THE SUGAR FRONTIER

Few commodityfrontiers have containedsuch an expansionary and environmentallytransformative logic as sugar.The production and sale of cane sugarplayed a centralrole in the developmentof capitalismfrom the fourteenthto the nineteenthcentury. Just how significantwas thesugar complex in earlymodern capitalism? James Blaut makes the plausibleclaim thatthe economic significanceof sugarshould be placed alongsideNew World silver. "The sugarplan- tationeconomy was thesingle largest productive sector in ... [early moderncapitalism], aside fromfamily farming, and byfar the largest singlegenerator of value" (Blaut, 1993: 198; also Furtado1963: 71). The sugarfrontier was suchan intensivelytransformative historical structurebecause sugar monoculturerapidly exhausted soil fertilitythrough a processof highly unequal, and veryrapid, ecological exchange.From this perspective, the sugar frontier was thepara- digmaticcase of the "metabolicrift" that characterized the change in nature-societyrelations once the transitionto capitalismcom- menced. Withthe creationof a worldmarket and a trans-Atlantic divisionof labor in the sixteenthcentury, the localized ecological problemsof the feudalera gave wayto the globalizingproblem of the metabolicrift under capitalism,whereby the productsof the countryside(especially but not onlyin the peripheries)flowed into thecities, which were under no obligationto returnthe waste prod- uctsto thepoint of production.Nutrients were pumped out of one ecosystemin theperiphery and transferredto anotherin thecore. In essence,the land was progressivelymined, until its relativeexhaus-

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 414 JasonW. Moore tionfettered profitability, whereupon capital was forcedto seek out freshlands, the incorporation of whichinaugurated a new phase of capitalistdevelopment on a worldscale (Foster,1999; Moore, 1999). This unequal ecological exchangewould become particularly apparentwhen eighteenth century British workers consumed sugar productseven as Caribbeanslaves starved, mostly because so little real foodwas grownon manysugar islands and food importsfluctu- ated according to ecological and economic cycles(Mintz, 1985; Carrington,1987; Davis, 1973: ch. 15). Partof thetask before us, in grapplingwith the complexitiesof the sugar complex'secological transformations,is to appropriate the insights of agricultural ecology foruse withinan ecologicalworld-systems framework. An agroeco- logical historicalperspective helps bringinto focusthe "totalityof interdependentcrops, animals, humans, soils, and woodlands,"al- lowingfor a deeper understandingof the interrelationsbetween deepening marketintegration, spatial expansion,and ecological degradation(Merchant, 1989: 153, 149-97; Worster,1990). The sugarcommodity frontier illustrates the fundamentally rest- less natureof world capitalism. Consider the long-run changes in the geographyof sugar production. Capitalist sugar production developed duringthe late medievalperiod in theMediterranean- especially on Crete and Cyprus(Solow, 1987). Duringthe earlystages of Portu- guese expansionin thesecond half of thefifteenth century, the locus ofsugar production moved to theAtlantic islands, especially Madeira (Verlinden,1970). In thelate sixteenthand earlyseventeenth centuries,production shifted again, to coastalBrazil. By themiddle of the seventeenthcentury, the Caribbean, especially Barbados, became the centerof world sugar production; Cuba andJamaica became preemi- nentby the late eighteenthand earlynineteenth century. And bythe late nineteenthcentury, sugar production was trulyglobalized (Deer, 1949-50; Galloway,1989; Mintz, 1985; see Tomich,1990; 1991; 1994 foran exceptionalworld-systems account of nineteenth-century sugar productionin the Caribbean). Part of thisrestlessness can be ex- plainedby technological innovations and changesin labor supply. The primaryfactor, however, was environmentaltransformation, which oftennecessitated changes in, especially,technology. The ecological dimensionshould never be abstracted. Sugar productionwas both labor-and capital-intensive.Of special importancewas the centralrole of sugarin creatingcapitalist slavery.In contrastto wheatbut similar to cotton(Earle, 1988) sugar

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SUGAR AND EARLY MODERN WORLD-ECONOMY 415 cane requiredlabor throughoutthe year,which discouraged free labor even ifit could be obtainedcheaply, which was rarelythe case on anyfrontier. Sugar production was profoundlyindustrial, involv- ing a degree of labor process coordinationand capitalintensivity thatwas rarein theearly modern world-system (Mintz, 1985). "The sugarplantation changed colonial societies in muchthe same fash- ion thatthe factory . . . changedEnglish society" (Davis, 1973: 215). In largepart, the industrial character of sugarproduction was man- datedby the ecology of sugarcane, which requires that cutting, mill- ing,and boilingoccur within 48 hours;sugar cane desiccatesrapidly once it is cut.As a consequence,the labor processof sugarproduction was highlyrationalized and time-conscious."This time con- sciousnesswas dictatedby the nature of thesugar cane and itsproc- essingrequirements, but it permeatedall phases of plantationlife" (Mintz,1985: 51). Sugar productionrequired both skilledand un- skilledlabor, providing an earlyglimpse of thecapitalist labor process, includingsuch dynamicsas deskilling."The specializationby skilland jobs, and the divisionof labor by age, gender,and condi- tion[of labor, that is, slavery] into crews, shifts, and 'gangs,'together withthe stressupon punctualityand discipline,are featuresassoci- ated more withindustry than withagriculture- at least in the sixteenthcentury" (Mintz, 1985: 47). Sugarhas a verylong history, but for present purposes I willstart theclock on thecapitalist sugar frontier in thefifteenth century with theincorporation of the Atlantic islands into the emergent capitalist world-system.The firstmajor sugar-producingarea outside the Mediterraneanwas the island of Madeira, settledby Portuguese colonistsin the 1430's.The developmentof Madeiran sugar produc- tionforeshadowed much of thiscommodity frontier's history in the earlymodern period. Over a decade beforesettlers arrived on this uninhabitedisland, they had put ashorecows, pigs, and sheep. This practicewould be repeated in the Azores, the Cape Verdes, and muchlater Barbados. Consequently, the island's ecology was trans- formedeven beforehuman arrival.This was not alwaysto the settlers'advantage. The attemptedsettlement of nearbyPorto Santo was hamperedby the accidentalrelease of rabbitson the island in the 1420's. The rabbitsdevoured the island's ground cover, leading to windand rainerosion (Curtin, 1990: 75;Johnson, 1987: 3; Solow, 1987; Verlinden 1970). For the moment,Madeira's heavyforest coverprotected the island from a similarfate.

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Throughoutthe earlymodern period, sugar production almost alwaysfollowed a stageof agrarian development based on smallhold- ingagriculture practiced with minimal capital inputs. Most often, the firstsettlers engaged in the cultivationof wheat or other grains, oftenin combinationwith a cash crop such as tobacco,which required fewcapital inputs. In so doing,the initialsettlers prepared the social as well as environmental"ground" for sugar cultivation. We mightcall this(settler) stage of capitalistexpansion the grain surplusfrontier rather than a commodityfrontier. On the surplus frontier,settlers were not compelledto "sellto survive"by the capitalistmarket. Rather, they practiced a "subsistence-surplus"agricul- turewhose world-historical function was to organizethe human and naturalresources in preparationfor a moreintensive stage of commodityproduction (Moore, 1997). Sugar cultivationtended to be unsuccessfulin thoselocations- such as Hispaniolain the sixteenth century-which had notbeen preparedby a grain surplusfrontier (Mintz,1985; Watts,1987: 103-04). The transitionfrom a grainsur- plus frontierto the sugarcommodity frontier was a momentof on- goingprimitive accumulation. In Madeira,this occurred under the impetusof Genoese and Flemishcapital as settlerswere displaced in favorof sugar plantations,whose annual output increased from about 80 tons to over 1,000 tonsbetween 1456 and 1494 (Diffie& Winius,1977: 306-07; Schwartz,1985: 8). The transitionfrom wheat to sugarhad twomajor consequences, whichwould be repeatedmany times over the nextfew centuries. First,foodstuffs had to be imported,thereby widening and deepening the world-economy'sinterdependent division of labor. In the case of Madeira,wheat was shippedfrom the Azores; in thecase of the Caribbeanislands in the seventeenthand eighteenthcenturies, NorthAmerica and Irelandsupplied food (Davis, 1973: chs. 1, 15- 16; Carrington,1987; Sheridan,1973; Truxes,1988). Secondly,the shiftto sugar productionnecessitated a largerunit of production, itselfa keyindicator of incorporationinto the world-economy.3 The

3 "It seems clear theability to respondis a functionin partof thesize of thedecision- makingunit. A largerunit is more likelyto have an impacton itselfand itsown prospects forcapital accumulationby alteringits productiondecisions in lightof whatit believes to be alteredconditions in some market.It followsthat, for enterprises in a zone to begin to respond in thisway, they may have to become larger.The creationof such largerunits of decision makingmay occur eitherat a site of directproduction (e.g., by creatinga 'plantation')or at a siteof mercantilecollection of production"(Wallerstein, 1989: 130).

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SUGAR AND EARLY MODERN WORLD-ECONOMY 417 increasein the size of the average sugar estaterelative to thatof grainand tobaccofarms seems to havebeen a negativeenvironmen- tal factorin itself(Watts, 1987: 167). Hence, theisland's deepening incorporationin the emergentcapitalist world-system was also a momentof deepeningenvironmental degradation. Beforeany significantagriculture could begin,Madeira's heavy forestcover had to be cleared.In thetimber-starved Mediterranean world of the time,timber exports were highlylucrative (Cipolla, 1976:229-30; Ôzveren,1994). Butcommercial cutting was slow,and settlerswere starvedfor land. The forestswere burned,and the proliferationof European animals,in additionto intensiveagricul- ture, ensured that the island's "forestswould never recover" (Crosby,1986: 76). Madeira'slow rainfallmeant that irrigation works had to be built ifsugar was to be grown.Building an agroecologicalinfrastructure capable of sustaininga sugarexport sector took some time.Twenty yearselapsed betweenthe introductionof sugarcaneto the island and the commencementof sugarexports in the 1450's (Galloway, 1989: 50). The constructionof thisinfrastructure was as globalas it was transformative.Technical expertise and financingwere supplied by the Genoese, Portugalcovered protectioncosts, and African slaves(imported by the Genoese and Portuguese)performed most of thelabor. The laborrequirements were immense, exacting a high pricein humanlives. According to AlfredCrosby, "much of the land was too steep for normal practicesof cultivationand had to be terraced.Most back-breakingof all the tasks,and the mostdanger- ous, was thecreation of a vastand complicatedirrigation system to bringwater from the windyand sodden uplands to the cultivated fieldsfar below" (1986: 78; also Watson,1983: 103). Under theimpetus of an expandingworld market for sugar, the consolidationof large landholdingsthanks to Genoese financing, and sufficientlabor provided by the slave trade, Madeira became the world-economy'slargest sugar producer by the late fifteenth century (Galloway,1989: ch. 4; Schwartz,1985: 8). By the 1490's, however, theworld sugar market was glutted.Overproduction coincided with increasingsoil erosion,which lowered productivity. This allowedfor a shiftin thecenter of sugarproduction to Brazilby the second half of the sixteenthcentury (Duncan, 1972: 31; Galloway,1989: 54; Novais, 1991: 24-26; Schwartz1985: 9). The locus of production would shiftagain in thenext century to the Caribbeanislands.

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The expansion of sugar cultivationwent hand in hand with monoculturalproduction, a primeexample of capitalist agriculture's drive "towardthe radical simplificationof the naturalecological order"(Worster, 1990; also see Haila & Levins,1992: ch. 5). Such simplificationis inherentlydisruptive. Under conditions of general- ized commodityproduction and the imperativeof ceaselesscapital accumulation,monocultures are especiallyunstable owing to the competitivepressures of theworld market. Competition means that ecosystemswhich might otherwise regenerate in time are not allowed to do so. In additionto thesefactors, European agricultural practices,such as row-styleplantation agriculture and plantingsugar in trenches,exacerbated problems of soil erosiondue to windand water.Row plantingwould be supplantedby cane-holeagriculture onlyafter long experiencewith soil erosion(Sale, 1990: 165; Watts, 1987: passim,esp. 402-05). The advance of the sugarfrontier to the Americasby the mid- sixteenthcentury marked a qualitativeshift in thescale and scope of capitalistecological degradation. One of theprincipal agents of this degradationwas theplantation. In no smallpart, it was theclimate of the Americas-especially the high rainfall-that made possible this formof agriculturalenterprise. "The discoverythat sugar could be grownwell in theNew World without irrigation made American cane plantationsthe prototypeof virtuallythe whole development of the subsequentgrowth of plantations of the world" (Sauer, 1981: 49-50). The sugar market'ssteady (if discontinuous)growth, it bears repeating,was the drivingforce behind the massiveexpansion of Africanslavery, the developmentof the so-calledtriangular trade, and thegrowth of transatlantic shipping in bulkgoods. These trends were reinforcedwith the onset of sugarproduction and exportin Brazil,where the sugarcomplex was the "centralsocial institution" ofcolonial life during the seventeenth century (Lockhart & Schwartz, 1983: 204; Mintz, 1985: 43-46). By the 1650's, Brazil would be eclipsedby the Caribbeanas thecenter of worldsugar production. This was the period whensugar consumption became increasingly widespreadin theEuropean core. Bythe end of theeighteenth cen- turya wide rangeof sugarproducts became somethingof a staplein Englishworking class households(Mintz, 1985). I willdiscuss the ecological effects of thesugar complex themat- icallyrather than chronologically, in orderto conveya sense of the scope of environmentaltransformation during this period.

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First,let me summarizecrudely the basic economicpressures of the sugarcomplex. As was (and is) so oftenthe case in the modern world-system,the real moneyin sugarwas made notby planters but by merchantsand financiers(Blaut, 1993: 191-92; Braudel, 1982: 190-94, 272-78; Deerr,1949-50: II, 291; Edel, 1969). As withmost economicactivities in theperiphery, competition in thesugar sector was intense.4Planters were almost alwaysheavily indebted and membershipin the planterclass was highlyunstable (Dunn, 1973; Lockhart& Schwartz,1983: 207; Sheridan,1973). Such instability reinforcedthe alreadypowerful tendencies of capitalistplanters to overexploitland and labor, which led to decliningproductivity, whichdrove the sugarfrontier ever onwards to virginsoil, which in turnrequired fresh supplies of capitaland labor. A viciouscircle indeed! Americanplanters were yoked to an "internationaldebt peonage" reminiscentof early modern eastern Europe (Wallerstein, 1979: 41). Financiers,not planters, were the primary beneficiaries of the sugarfrontier complex. Not coincidentally,these agents of this peonage in successivehistorical epochs were based in therespective centersof worldfinance- Genoa, Amsterdam,London. How did Europeancolonists approach the New World?Richard Pares (1960: 20) sumsup theinitial approach in termsof immense waste: "The pioneerspresumed upon the inexhaustiblefertility of cattle,turtles, and birds,and upon the immeasurableresources of theforests: indeed, they seem to have gone berserkin thepresence ofso muchedible wild life and a continentcovered with firewood. In time,this waste went too far"(1960: 20). ImmanuelWallerstein has noted thatsugar, like wood, was the "continuing'growth' crop" of the early modern world-economy (1980: 161-62). The parallelis appropriate.Recall that Europe "was a civilizationliterally made of wood" (Sale, 1990: 84). European states and capitalistshad access to wood fuel resources which dwarfedtheir contemporaries in the Middle East and China (Sale, 1990: 84-85). Forestswere the lifeblood of theEuropean core,and theywere the lifebloodof the sugar complex.Not onlywas forest clearancea preconditionof sugarcultivation, but wood was neces-

4 a[C]ore zones . . . have tended,by definition, to monopolize thehigh profit monop- olies while the peripheralzones housed productionprocesses operatingwithin truly competitivemarkets and hence characterizedby trulylow-profit activities" (Hopkins & Wallerstein,1996: 4).

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 420 JasonW. Moore sary for the immense fuel needs of the boiling furnaceswhich turnedraw cane juice intosemirefined sugar. Timber was needed to constructhousing, sheds, and otherbuildings. It was needed bythe metalworkerswho made the furnaces,boilers, and tools needed to process the sugar cane. It was needed to constructhogsheads and otherlarge barrelsfor shipment. And of course,it was needed to build the shipsthat transported the sugarto market. The steadyforward march of sugarcultivation destroyed forests in areas adjacentto thecane fields,of course.Sugar also consumed distantforests. It is impossibleto knowthe extent to whichthe sugar frontierwas responsiblefor the 260 millioncords of wood which werecut in New Englandalone between1630 and 1800 (Sale, 1990: 291). While most wood was cut for fuel, sugar's share of wood productexports was substantial.North American forests were cut forshipbuilding, construction, and fuelpurposes, but these were not the onlysugar-related activities which led to deforestation.Forests were cleared to prepare the land on whichwheat was grownand livestockforaged, both of which were shipped in substantialamounts to the West Indies (Cronon, 1983: ch. 6; Merchant,1989; Silver, 1990: 117-18; Williams,1989). The linkbetween sugar and deforestationwas evidentfrom the verybeginning of sugarcultivation in the New World.On Hispan- iola, the firstefforts at sugar plantingbegan in 1505, and by the 1530's therewere 34 mills(Mintz, 1985: 33-34). By the end of the sixteenthcentury, "the exhaustion of wood supplybecame a serious problem" on the island (Sauer, 1981: 352). Barbados, originally coveredwith "dense tropical forests," was virtuallydeforested in the 30 yearsafter initial settlement in the 1630's. By the 1660's, some fifteenyears after the first sugar exports, "Barbados had less wood- land thanmost districts of England [CJolonistswere complaining of a timbershortage" (Dunn, 1973: 26-27, 67). Barbados colonists evenattempted to annexnearby St. Lucia "inorder to gainaccess to a new supplyof timber"(Silver, 1992: 117). In Antigua,"the early planterscleared the acacia and logwood foreststhat covered the interiorof the island and convertedit to cane fields"(Dunn, 1973: 34). Between 1690 and 1751, the forestswhich had once covered two-thirdsof Antigua had practicallyvanished (Watts, 1987: 434-35). St. Kitts,Nevis, and Montserratbegan to sufferfrom soil exhaustion shortlyafter the introductionof sugarmonoculture in the 1750's, althoughthe fullimpact would not be feltuntil the sugarboom of

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SUGAR AND EARLY MODERN WORLD-ECONOMY 42 1 the 1820's (Tomich, 1990: 140). In FrenchMartinique and Guade- loupe, soil exhaustion"began to showitself seriously in the 1730's" (Davis, 1973: 253-54). In Jamaica,"the most fertileland . . . was heavilyforested . . . and ittook the colonists many long years to clear and plantthese woodlands" (Dunn, 1973: 167). Earlier,on thesugar islandof Sâo Tome offthe West African coast duringthe sixteenth century,"so quicklywas theforest cut back in the expansionof the sugarindustry that by the mid-sixteenthcentury the entirelittoral . . . had been cleared of naturalcover and turnedinto cane-fields" (Garfield,1992: 82). Clearingforests for sugar cultivation often meant setting fire to the forest,which did more than kill trees. Forest clearance also meantthe virtual eradication of theanimals who livedin theforest. On St. Kitts,feral hogs (leftby earlier Spanish visitors),"native ground animals,"monkeys, and turtleswere subject to "totalre- moval"(Watts, 1987: 166). On Barbados,deforestation led to the extinctionof numerousspecies of floraand fauna,especially birds, "the scarcityof [which]. . . has continuedthrough to the present day"(Watts, 1987: 219-20). In New England,the extinction of birds resultedin a declinein thefertility of forest soils; we can assumethat similarimpacts were felt in theCaribbean (Merchant, 1989: 36). At thesame timeas theecological bases of indigenousflora and fauna were being undermined,new species were being introducedin a classicinstance of so-called"ecological imperialism" (Crosby, 1986). Today nearlytwo-thirds of Barbados'flora and faunaare notindige- nous (Watts,1987). Forestswere also destroyedin the numerousinterimperialist conflictsof the period. During the Second DutchWar (1666-67), the Frenchput to the torchthose parts of St. Kittscontrolled by the English;"at roughlythe same time,French sailors burnt the whole islandof St. Croix"(Watts, 1987). Cane fields,not to mentionsettle- ments and towns,were routinelyburned during these conflicts (Watts, 1987: 240-58, 394). The ecological impacts of warfare, thougha farcry from the literal scorched earth practices of thepres- ent day (witnessthe 1991 PersianGulf War or the 1999 U.S. airwar againstSerbia), remain largely unexplored during this perioU. Animals,especially wild hogs,were eliminatedby imperialau- thoritiesfor social and politicalreasons. Sometimes wild hogs were simplya nuisance.For example,when Barbados was firstsettled in the late 1620's, the island "was almostoverrun by" feral hogs, who

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 422 JasonW. Moore were systematicallyexterminated within a fewyears (Watts, 1987: 156). In othercases, imperialauthorities attempted to destroythe cattleand hogs on variousislands for political ends. Spanishforces "slaughteredthe herds on which[the buccaneers]preyed" on St. Domingue. "The Englishauthorities sent for buccaneers to killthe cattle[on Jamaica], in orderto destroythe resources of theSpanish resistancemovement" (Pares, 1960: 20). The fuelrequirements of thefurnaces that boiled thecane juice were immense."Any attempt at sugarproduction without a ready stockpileof forestedland would not succeed no matterhow favor- able otherenvironmental factors such as climateand soil" (Miller, 1997: 137). As earlyas thefifteenth century, sugar importers began to build refineriesin northernEurope because fuel supplieswere available nearby (Galloway, 1989: 36).5 In Brazil, firewoodwas second onlyto slavesas thelargest item in themill owner's budget, consumingby the eighteenthcentury some 12-21% of operating costs (Schwartz,1987: 93; Barros de Castro, 1977: 9). Risingfuel costsalong withsoil erosioncontributed to a largenumber of plan- tationfailures in this period,which in any eventwas a period of declineof Brazilian sugar exports (Edel, 1969:42). Duringthe seventeenthcentury, a largeBahian engenho required the full-time labor of eightslaves just to gatherfirewood. Each slave's dailyquota was approximately1,600 pounds of firewood. During the harvest season, everylarge engenho in theregion consumed some twelveto thirteen thousandpounds offirewood on a dailybasis (Schwartz,1985: 141). In termsof land requirements,one and a halfto twoacres of forest were needed to process a single acre of sugar cane. It is hardly surprisingthat there was "considerabledeforestation" in theBahian Reconcavo by the mid-seventeenthcentury (Schwartz, 1985: 302; Miller,1997). Barbadoshad so exhaustednative sources of fuel that by 1667 (sugarproduction began in earnestonly in 1643-46) planters were forcedto importcoal fromEngland. Barbadian planters were also importinglarge amountsof timberfrom British North Americafor construction purposes (Deerr, 1949-50: 1, 166; Watts,

5 Probablymore importantthan the proximityof fuel sources,as Galloway(1989) notes,was thatrefining sugar closer to marketin northernEuropean allowed merchants to avoid the risksassociated withtransport, during which much sugar arrivedin port water-damaged.The risksinvolved in refiningand marketingin Europe were consider- ablyless than those associated withcultivation and transport.

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1987: 173, 186, 206, 397-98). In Mexico duringthe sixteenthcentury,"the fuel needs of Spanishenterprises, particularly sugar . . . , seriouslyencroached upon theIndians' supply of firewood"(Frank, 1979: 33). At the same time,in a dynamicthat continuestoday, Spanishexpropriation of the mostfertile agricultural land- in part forsugar cultivation, especially around Cuernavaca- pushed indige- nous peoples ontomarginal forest soils, which were quickly depleted (Frank,1979: 33-35). Althoughplanters eventually found an alternativesource of fuel, by using bagasse(milled cane stalks)and employingthe more effi- cientJamaica trainfurnace- necessitated by the deforestationof Caribbeansugar islands- timber was alwaysthe first choice for fuel. Throughoutthe earlymodern period, however, bagasse was useless as a fuel source because the sugarmills' crushing rollers were too light,leaving the cane stalksdamp (Sauer, 1981: 352). It was only when faced withthe pressuresof environmentalexhaustion that plantersmade more "efficient"use of the naturalenvironment. Whereforests were plentiful, planters preferred wood overbagasse. Plantersin Cuba used wood as the primaryfuel source in many areas untilthe mid-nineteenth century, in northeastBrazil until the earlynineteenth century, and in Peru cane stalkswere seldom used untilthe introduction of the"Louisiana Number 1" millin theearly 1870's (Moreno Fraginals,1976: 38-39; Galloway,1989: 97-99; Knight,1972: 29-30). Moreover,not onlydid thefuel requirements ofthe sugar sector deplete forests, but wood burningitself "resulted in the transferof manyvegetative stored nutrients away from the immediateenvironment [and] into the atmosphere,"thereby crip- plingthe reproductive capacity of thelocal ecosystem(Watts, 1987: 166-67). Once the forestswere gone, soils became highlyvulnerable to erosionfrom wind and rain.The sugarcaneitself is fairlyresilient in severe weather.The soil in which it grows is not so lucky. In seventeenth-centuryBarbados,

Riversbegan to siltup and in some cases wentcompletely dry, estuarinehabitats were destroyedby siltationand estuarine animalsdisappeared; and withthe loss of thedense treecover the whole hydrology,and thusthe whole climate,of the area was slowlyaltered, at considerablecost to bothland and water species (Sale, 1990: 165).

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In Barbados,erosion from nearby cane fieldsbegan to clog Bridge- town harbor in the early 1660's, afterjust two decades of sugar cultivation(Watts, 1987: 222). By the end of the seventeenthcentury,Barbadian planters"complained endlessly of decliningcrop yields,insect and verminplagues, drought, barren soil, and rising costs"(Dunn, 1973: 203-04). By 1685,yields on manysugar estates had declinedby as muchas one-half(Watts, 1987: 397). Such exhaustion playeda keyrole in the eighteenth-centuryshift of sugarproduction fromBarbados to the larger islands of Jamaica and St. Domingue,which "had sufficientland to be able to abandon over- workedsugar plantations and replanton virginsoil" (Davis, 1973: 254; also Dunn, 1973: 205; Ponting,1991: 206). The sugarfrontier, in depletingthe soil, requiredever greater inputsof fertilizer and labor.The challengeof declining soil produc- tivitywas met,in part,by bringing in more animalsto supplyfertil- izer,which led to more deforestationfor pasturage, which resulted in yetmore soil erosion. In sixteenth-centuryBrazil, the booming sugar sector providedthe impetusto large-scalecattle ranching, wherecattle were initially used as a powersource for the sugar mills (Crosby,1972: 90; Furtado,1963: 58-66; Schwartz,1973: 167-68). In mid-seventeenth-centuryBarbados, the cost of animal fertilizer increasedto the pointwhere smallholders who did not growsugar began to raise livestocknot as a source of meat or hides,but as a source of manure(Watts, 1987: 222-23; Batie 1991: 50). The exis- tence of a large animal population-especially horses, the power sourcefor many sugar mills at thetime- provided a favorabledisease climate.In 1655-56 "a virulentepidemic almost destroyed the horse populationin Barbados"(Watts, 1987: 193).This development threw the sugar millsinto crisis,and induced a shiftto wind-power.We should note thatthe shiftto wind-powerwas possibleonly because the island had been so thoroughlydeforested (Watts, 1987: 193, 198). As soil fertilitydeclined, more labor was required-and slaves were the most costlypart of the productionprocess (Dunn, 1973: 197; Schwartz,1987: 93). Seen fromthis perspective, the ecosocial dynamicsof the sugar frontierprovide an excellentillustration of how "capitalistproduction . . . onlydevelops the techniques and the degreeof combinationof thesocial process of productionby simul- taneouslyundermining the originalsources of all wealth-the soil and the worker"(Marx, 1977: 638). When the planterpurchased

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SUGAR AND EARLY MODERN WORLD-ECONOMY 425 more slavesto compensatefor declining yields, the pressures to ex- ploitthe soil and theslaves were accordingly intensified. In Brazil,as earlyas the 1580's, "an enghenoexpected to lose between5 and 10 percentof itsslaves" (Lockhart & Schwartz,1983: 206). Duringthe eighteenthcentury, slave importsto Brazil quadrupled over the previouscentury, despite stagnating sugar production (Smith, 1991: 35). Duringthe late seventeenthcentury, slaves in Barbados were putto workcarrying soil thathad washedto thebottom of cultivated hillsidesback to the cane fields(Watts, 1987: 297). Decliningsoil fertilityalso meantthat "ratoon" crops, where the cane rootis leftin theground to producea second cane,produced diminishing yields. By the end of the eighteenthcentury in Barbados, "no planterra- tooned more thanone year Since ratooning. . . cost much less labour than plantingnew canes, we can see thatin the course of yearsthe exhaustion of the soil greatly increased the planters' labour costs"(Pares, 1960: 42). Throughoutthe West Indies the impactof soil exhaustionon labor costscould be seen: Everydecade it tookmore slaves to producethe same amount of sugarfrom the same acreage,or, where cultivation was advanced or outputincreased, it was only done at the cost of heavyadditional labour. Thus, though between 1720 and 1755 theslave population and thesugar of Antigua,St. Kitts,Nevis and Montserratboth increased by 100 per cent,this was only possible because of the rapid exploitationof the former Frenchlands on St Kitts-the output of Nevisand Montserrat remainedstagnant. Between 1710 and 1773,in Barbados,the slavepopulation rose byabout 30 per cent. . . and theoutput of sugarwent down by more than20 per cent.In none of the coloniesnamed can we suppose thatplanters were turning to othercrops- they still produced sugar, but with more difficulty (Pares, 1960: 41; forthe general relationship between capitalism, ecology,and labor, see Marx, 1977: 648-49; also see Moore, forthcoming). And finally,sugar production effected climate change. Cristobal Colon, writingin the earlysixteenth century, noted that "in the Canary,Madeira, and Azore Islands. . . since theremoval of forests thatonce coveredthose islands, they do not have so muchmist and rain as before"(quoted in Crosby,1986: 96-97). In additionto deforestation,ecologists Yrjo Haila and RichardLevins suggesttwo

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 426 Jason W. Moore processes whichmight affect climate in sugar-producingregions. Writingabout Cuba in thenineteenth century, but I thinkrelevant to the Caribbean sugar islands in the earlymodern period, they observethat The burningof sugarcane beforethe harvest put so muchash intothe Cuban atmospherethat it provoked increased rainfall just whenthis was leastdesirable because itinterfered with the transportof the cut cane to the mills [It is possible] that Cuba had a partlycontinental climate because the shallow, muddywaters along the northcoast behave like land with respectto the sunlight.Therefore erosion can contributeto theheating of theearth (Haila & Levins,1992: 153). Nor were the effectsof sugar productionlimited to the tropical areas in whichsugar was grown.In 1614,for example, Amsterdam banned the "use of coal in the [sugar] refineries"because of air pollution(Braudel, 1982: 193). In New England,forest clearance, whichresulted partly from the demandsof sugar-linkedshipbuild- ing,significantly altered the regional climate by the end of theeigh- teenthcentury. Among otherthings, deforestation contributed to the increasedfrequency of floodingand forestfires, the drying out of soilswhich made seasonalfluctuations more severe, and reduced streamflows (Merchant, 1989: 236; Cronon,1983: 122-26). Justas the sugar complexenslaved workers and degraded the land,so it enslaved(peripheral) regions by deepening their depend- encyon the core. Peripheralizationwas about unequal ecologicalex- changeas muchas itwas about surplusextraction. Marx's comment on the relationshipbetween Ireland and Englandin theeighteenth centuryapplies equallywell to the relationshipbetween Barbados and Englandin theearly modern period: "Ireland is at presentmere- lyan agriculturaldistrict of Englandwhich happens to be dividedby a widestretch of water" (1977: 860). SidneyMintz perceptively notes thatthe expansion of sugarproduction and thegrowth of slaveryin the BritishWest Indies tookplace at the same momentas England was experiencingthe formation of an industrialwage-labor proletariat (1986: 43-44; also 1978). This is preciselythe world-historical process Marx commentedupon in the firstvolume of Capital:"the veiled slaveryof thewage-labourers in Europe needed the unquali- fiedslavery of theNew Worldas itspedestal" (1977: 925).

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A world-historicalecology of thesugar complex- one thatwould studythe interconnections between deforestation and soilerosion in theNew World,air pollutioncaused bysugar-refining plants in core areas such as Amsterdam,the impactof increasedsugar consump- tionon thehealth of consumersand theformation of an industrial proletariat,the role of sugaras a sourceof cheap caloriesfor workers in core zones suchas England,the ecological degradation result- ing fromthe massiveimportation and breedingof livestockin the New World,the human ecology of slavery and workplacehealth and safety,and many other elementsof a world-systemicdialectic of ecosocial change-remains to be written.I have triedto drawout in broad strokessome of the most conspicuous dimensionsof the sugarcomplex's ecological transformations and to linkthese trans- formationswith capital's imperativeof ceaseless geographical expansion.

CONCLUSION

The sugar commodityfrontier was a vanguardsector of early moderncapitalist spatial expansion for two main reasons. First, the steadygrowth of theworld sugar market throughout the early modern period meant that existingland under cultivationwas over- exploitedand thatnew lands werealways needed, partly to replace worn-outlands, partly to expandproduction. Secondly, and in some waysmore significantly,the sugar frontierset into motiona vast complexof economic activities, from slave-trading to cattle-ranching to shipbuildingto foodstuffagriculture. Particularly important are theways in whichthe sugarfrontier called fortha complexof commodityfrontiers in theAmericas, leading simultaneously to market- wideningand market-deepening.In NorthAmerica, for instance, the Caribbeansugar complex pushed forward a timberfrontier to feed a growingshipbuilding industry and to exporttimber to the sugar islandsfor construction and otherpurposes; it fueled a cattle-ranching frontierin the southernstates; and it facilitatedthe emergence of export-orientedwheat agriculture in the Virginiaand Maryland colonies,to name but a fewexamples. The definingecological feature of capitalistagriculture is "the radical simplificationof the natural ecological order" (Worster,

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1990: 1101).6In anyone place, such radicalsimplification is unsus- tainableover the medium run of 50 to 75 years.Either overexploita- tionleads to exhaustion,or simplificationrenders crops vulnerable to disease,both leadingto fallingproductivity and profitability.As Karl Polanyi(1957) arguedsome fiftyyears ago, capital'sinner logic is to commoditythe land and labor thatprovides the foundation for continuedaccumulation, thereby undermining the human and natural foundationsof the system.Sugar illustratesthis dynamic. De- pendingon suppliesof uncommodifiedland, sugarplanters under capitalistmarket pressures were forced to commodityand as a consequence to degrade the land, thus settingthe stage for further expansion.The complexof primary product commodity frontiers in theAmericas, often originating in responseto sugarand sometimes silverwere caughtup in the same, if sometimesless conspicuous, dynamics. The conceptof the commodity frontier should be situatedwithin a broader typologyof capitalistspatial expansion.The capitalist world-economyis inherentlyexpansionary. Ceaseless spatialexpansion is theproduct of a systembased on ceaselesscapital accumulation.During the early modern period, there were two modalities of spatial expansion: one largelyredistributive and trade-based;the otheressentially transformative, based on the organizationof commodityproduction. The firstmode of spatialexpansion was thatof a "tradingpost" imperialism,which operated in Africaand Asia (Curtin,1984; Pearson,1987). The second mode of spatialexpansion I call thefrontier mode. The frontiermode ofexpansion, the primary arena ofwhich was the Americas,was distinctivebecause it was ecologicallyand sociologi- callytransformative to a degree impossibleelsewhere in theworld, even in mostof Europe. In theAmericas, capitalists and theirstate agencieshad a kindof "clean slate"advantage. The forcesthat lim- ited expansionelsewhere were not so importantin theNew World, and it was here thatsocial transformationssuch as industrialization could be seen firstin some of theirmost advanced forms.The frontiermode was not the childof capitalismbut a conditionof its birthand consolidation."The Americaswere not incorporatedinto

6 1 am aware thatWorster's invocation of "thenatural ecological order"is problem- atic. However,to plunge into thatdebate would lead us too farafield.

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SUGAR AND EARLY MODERN WORLD-ECONOMY 429 an alreadyexisting capitalist world-economy. There could not have been a capitalistworld-economy without the Americas" (Quijano & Wallerstein,1992: 549). In short,without the Americas there was no capitalism;without capitalism, there were no Americas. The case of the sugarcommodity frontier serves to clarifyand specifythe waysthat capitalist specialization, under conditionsof increasinglygeneralized commodity production and theimperative ofceaseless capital accumulation, destabilizes local ecosystems.Local ecosystemswhich might otherwise have regeneratedin timewere notallowed to do so. Destabilizationin turnled to fallingproductiv- ityand profitabilityand thencethe renewedsearch for fresh land, oftenfound outside the existingboundaries of the capitalistworld- economy. The sugarfrontier was a fundamentalmoment of the transition to capitalismduring the "long"sixteenth century. It was the classic instanceof capitalism's "metabolic rift," whereby the nutrient cycling between town and countryis progressivelydisrupted, leading to ecologicalexhaustion in thecountryside and worsening"pollution" in the cities.All complexhistorical systems to some degree have been afflictedby a metabolicrift. But it is capitalismthat has wid- ened thisrift as neverbefore, as partand parcel of the historically unprecedentedpolarization between core and periphery. As thecase of thesugar frontier suggests, the significance of the metabolicrift in the historyof the world-economy'sgeographical expansioncan hardlybe overstated.The openingof theworld-scale metabolicrift in the sixteenthcentury meant that capital could not surviveas a "closedcycle system," to borrowa phrasefrom ecology. Whereasclosed cyclesystems "continuously recycle their own nutrients,"capitalism is a "flowsystem" that is "dependent] upon an externalnutrient supply that . . . [it] cannot . . . produce" (Fischer- Kowalski& Haberl,1993: 416). Capitalism'sdependence on external resourcesrises over time, as it requiresever larger energy inputs in order to reproduce itself.As a result,the systemexperiences a geometricallyincreasing "energy density"7 that today is fast ap- proachingnatural limits, as capitalhogs an ever-largershare of the world's energyfor itself,leaving an ever-smallershare for the

7 "Energydensity means the amount of energytaken in and being transformedby the systemper calculationunit (space or organism)"(Fischer-Kowalski 8c Haberl, 1993: 416).

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 430 JasonW. Moore planet's other (nonhuman)residents (Fischer-Kowalski & Haberl, 1993: 416-17). As long as capitalismdid not encompassthe entire globe, these naturallimits could be overcomeby geographicalex- pansion and to a lesserextent by a shiftto capital-intensiveagricul- ture,although the possibilityof the latterultimately depended on the successof thelatter. From thisperspective, Rosa Luxemburg'sinsights on the indis- pensable functionof the "non-capitalistenvironment" (1970: 417) forcapital accumulation, and theformer's gradual penetration and destructionby capital and imperialstates, can be applied to the historicalrelation between capital and nature.8"The accumulation of capitalis a kindof metabolism between capitalist economy and those pre-capitalistmethods of productionwithout which it cannotgo on and which,in thislight, it corrodesand assimilates"(Luxemburg, 1970: 416, emphasisadded). The same argumentthat Luxemburg applied to noncapitalistsocial organizationscan be applied to ecosystemshitherto beyond the directreach of capital.In thisway, theimperative of capitalist spatial expansion- one ofthe few impera- tivesactually grasped by contemporariesin the earlymodern era (Hopkins& Wallerstein,1977)- can be seen to containa profoundly ecologicaldimension. Indeed, as thisstudy of the sugar frontier suggests,ecological degradation may be said to have been theprimary forcebehind the cyclical geographical expansion of theworld-econ-

8 Like Marx,Luxemburg did not facedirectly the issue of formidableecological barriersto expanded accumulation.Nevertheless, consider her observationon the impor- tance of naturalresources:

Thus, if [the advanced capitalistnations] were dependent exclusivelyon elementsof productionobtainable with such narrowlimits, its presentlevel and indeed itsdevelopment in generalwould have been impossible.From thevery beginning,the formsand laws of capitalistproduction aim to comprise the entireglobe as a store of productiveforces. Capital, impelled to appropriate productiveforces for purposes of exploitation,ransacks the whole globe, it procures its means of productionform all cornersof the earth,seizing them, ifnecessary by force, from all levelsof civilizationand fromall formsof society. The problemof the material elements of capitalist accumulation, far from being solved by the materialform of the surplusvalue thathas been produced, takes on quite a differentaspect. It becomes necessaryfor capital progressivelyto dispose ever more fullyof the whole globe, to acquire an unlimitedchoice of means of production,with regard to both qualityand quantity,so as to find productiveemployment for the surplusvalue it has realised The process of accumulation,elastic and spasmodic as it is, requiresinevitably free access to ever new areas of raw materialsin case of need, both when importsfrom old sourcesfail or whensocial demand suddenlyincreases (Luxemburg, 1970: 358).

This content downloaded from 128.226.37.5 on Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:08:43 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions SUGAR AND EARLY MODERN WORLD-ECONOMY 43 1 omyfrom the fifteenthto the nineteenthcentury, when the entire globewas finallydrawn into capital's orbit. Having reached its global limits,the implicationsfor the futureof the capitalistworld-system are onlyall too clear.

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