The Interrelated Roles the State, Corporations, Media, and Communities Play in the Continued Destruction of the Environment

From Environmental Sociology Intro 2021

For centuries throughout American history, the US nation-state has taken a tremendous toll on the environment and the multiple identities and social groups both inside and outside of the country all for the sake of profit and a capitalist ideology. As a culture and a mass of citizens within this country, we aren’t “groomed” to recognize these patterns and relationships of injustice, inequality and destruction. A society is defined by its ideologies which are intended to maintain a hierarchy of power and establish a dominance over the masses to manipulate them into doing exactly as they see fit for their own selfish motives and interests. The ideologies, roles, functions, and goals of the state, corporations, and the media is demonstrated in the following and what this means for the consumers and communities affected by these practices, policies, laws, and regulations protecting these powerful entities.

The practice of imperialism and the ideology of a capitalistic nation-state in the United States encourages and participates in a society and culture characteristic of treadmill of production, risk society, dominionism and consumerism ideals causing more political, economic, social, and environmental inequality in a globalist world. The ideology of a capitalistic nation-state promotes imperialism, settler colonialism, environmental racism, and ecological violence which excludes and harms all but those who are lucky enough to be human and share the “ideal” identities and values (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 59). The nation-state’s ideology imposes on the environment’s and people’s rights, freedom and health in order to gain more profit. Politicians, those in power, and interests groups to this day impact policymaking, laws and regulations which support their own exploitative goals at the expense of certain groups of people and the natural world. Environmental inequality is seen through the treadmill of production theory developed by Allan Schnaiberg and Kenneth Gould where this mentality encourages profit over people and environment at all costs (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 60). This advances issues of political voter suppression of minorities, the poor, the disabled, and many others, environmental racism, ecological destruction and the domination of certain peoples and the nature.

Our health is irrelevant to the main function and goal of the state in favor of big business. There has been an exponential increase in the usage of chemicals and toxic materials in industrial production and poor environmental protection laws and regulations, which negatively impacts not only the environment’s health but our own health within our bodies (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 61). There is a disproportionate affect on certain minorities and areas where people of color reside more creating what is known as environmental racism. This coincides with the theory of “risk society” proposed by Ulrich Beck, where dangerous chemical substances are increasingly used in by the state and industries and distributed into the environment and civil society though production, consumption and disposal causing a higher social and physical risk to people (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 62). Environmental justice is unimportant and not at the top of the state’s priority list as minority communities are commonly harmed by environmental racism or inequality and regularly excluded from decisions relating to the environment impacting their health on a social, political, economic, and cultural sphere (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 61). This issue is one of the consequences of the capitalist ideology where money is power on the global scale.

It is evident that only those who have access to the most wealth, resources, and political power are the ones making the decisions in a supposedly civic, equal opportunity, democratic society. These staggering statistics demonstrates how unequal and detrimental this capitalist ideology has on the communities and citizens and other developed nations where “the richest 85 people on the planet possess as much wealth as do the poorest 3.5 billion; 1 percent of the population of the United States possesses around 40 percent of the wealth in that country; 20 percent owns 80 percent of the wealth” (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 60). We exercise this idea of profit over people, and we will continue to do so as long as those who benefit off the existing system remain in power and the rest of us and the environment continues to pay. The US’ nation-state favors capitalism where this is inherently exclusionary exhibiting practices, attitudes, beliefs, and policies which prevent certain groups to have power and allow others to maintain their power (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 64). The state’s role and function is to directly prevent environmental justice and justice for all involved on a social, ecological, and political level because we as a society have a mentality where economic power relating to globalism is everything and money prevails all. Imperialism, settler colonialism, and “Manifest Destiny” proposed by President James Monroe established the ideology and paved the path of cultural, racial, and economic superiority in the US on a global level (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 66, 70).

The westward, American expansion and the pushing out of indigenous people and the invasion of them and their lands and resources was to gain power over them in violent ways. The idea of “Dominionism” introduced by David Harvey states that the idea of how people are higher than nature and supposed to dominate and use it how we wish also means that certain humans will try to control and dominate other humans. Who suffers? Almost everyone who is not male, white, rich, and in a position of power. This includes women, minority races, indigenous and native peoples, the poor, the environment, and foreign workers which means children too (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 67). The historical and continued practice of imperialism in a capitalist nation and its various consequences is ongoing today and it harms more areas of our lives than we know and only benefits few (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 72). The state’s role in shaping our interests, beliefs and values isn’t all to blame for the state of the environment and our health.

The state operates for corporate power who controls the media and their goals, values, greed and ideals reflect this while we are the masses of consumers providing exactly what they want. Giant wealthy corporations such as ExxonMobile, which is one of the largest fuel and oil entities around, are drivers of environmental destruction, extraction of resources and fossil fuels, and preventing the continuation of true, accurate climate science. They spread ideas of reasonable doubt, false claims and science, denial of science, and worsen the effects of a capitalist consumerist culture. These corporate entities use Scientific Certainty Augmentation Methods (SCAM) where they “undermine public understanding of scientific knowledge” (Supran & Oreskes, 2017 p. 15). ExxonMobil’s advertorials, both peer and non-peer reviewed and their AGW communications were misleading, uncertain and contradictory to their own science and actual climate science (Supran & Oreskes, 2017 p. 9).

Considering ExxonMobil is one of the largest transnational corporations, they have immense power on the global market. Lobbying, public policy, think tanks, echo chambers, fake studies, and the most influential, the media, are some of the methods corporations use to continue to dominate and worsen the environmental state as well as environmental racism, wealth and social inequality. The lobbyists and politicians who fight for the harmful values of ExxonMobil and their interests and are against the public’s interests and social and environmental wellbeing. Corporations such as these impact media laws, policies, and regulations that are in favor of their own goals and do so at the expense of all else for the sake of profitability. TNC’s like ExxonMobile have the ability to manipulate and control the masses through “advertising, marketing, and control of information,” which shapes culture, values, and ideals within a society (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 91). This creates desires, “needs,” traditions, and overconsumption. The spreading of disinformation in the media including giant media companies like Facebook and Google is a growing practice. “During the last three months of the 2016 presidential campaign, the 20 top fake news stories on Facebook generated more engagement, shares, likes, and comments than the 20 top stories from ‘real’ news websites (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 100). All true science is based on empiricism which corporations fail to do in their research articles where they regularly promote doubt, denial, loss of trust in science, and the falsification of science. These ideas predict the public’s perceived seriousness of the issue, the involvement with the issue, and support for climate policies and political activism. Further, systems and practices such as education, jail, rehabilitation, welfare practices and nature interaction are being influenced and dominated by corporations, who are not accountable to the public or the environment and only wish to find ways of getting the masses to align with their interests (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 94).

The state, corporate and media power boils down to the consumers and communities who behave in a way that allows this hierarchy of power to continue and feed into their ideals and the normalized expectations, values, and beliefs of a capitalistic society. Corporate interests in our agricultural industry, similar to other large industry existing in the US today are concerned with productivity, profitability, efficiency, GMOs, and new technologies for capitalism ideology and less regard for public and environmental health. In the agricultural industry, we see less concern for public health and a rise in the consumption of more pesticides, chemicals, preservatives, antibiotics and growth hormones more than ever. Harmful industrialized consumption practices have become an everyday part of this society. We have developed a wasteful lifestyle and food consumption practices with a higher standard on food items on the shelf and the disposal of a huge portion of food produced. Buying locally and buying organically is a better option but more difficult to find and obtain. We need more involvement in regulations political activism of what goes into our bodies. We need to educate ourselves with true knowledge on how to learn about what you consume and ways to improve the system using where we spend our money and support certain areas of demand. Corporations and industries as a whole need accountability, transparency and we need to know where our food comes from, what’s in/on our food, and how it makes its way to the store. The dairy, and meat industry are just a few who are totally corrupt exploiting consumer’s health, the animals being tormented and suffering and the environment’s health. We must know and understand the externalities and all other costs of the American agricultural system. We allow manufacturer’s to get around regulations and hide ingredients using twisted words and mislabeling. We need tighter laws, policies, and regulations surrounding the food we put into our bodies as well as the levels of growing and production.

There is what has been studied as a chemical body burden which is an internal chemical load that depends on where someone lives, lifestyle, age, occupation, and diet and agricultural industry is one of the main contributors to this public health issue with the practice of using chemicals and pesticides in our food (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 197). Another issue of industrialized, corporatized, vertically integrated systems is the environmental chemicals that are leached out into the environment in various ways with many stemming from the agriculture system and large farming practices like concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) which impacts nearby waterways, air quality and overall health of the humans and the environment. Capitalism is a negatively impactful ideology relating to industries and their normalized production habits where “industrial capitalism refers to an economic system built on the mass production of goods and sustained economic growth under a free market” (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 201). In our American society we have what is called the “proof of harm” model as opposed to the “proof of safety” model in European countries means that the EPA will only restrict or ban a chemical and regulate if there is convincing evidence which is extremely difficult to prove (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 201). We have this phenomenon of “food from nowhere” demonstrates that people are becoming more and more separating from the origins of their food and know less and less. We often don’t think about, question, or care where our food comes from because we have been socialized in a culture that undervalues this topic (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 214). We see a “farms to factories” pattern of a growing corporatization of food growth and labeling and the monopolization/vertical integration of power where they control all levels of production (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 215). There are less family-owned and personal food growth and an increasing amount coming from large-scale privately owned companies. “Food and agriculture are truly globalized, with the Global South largely serving as a supermarket for the people of the Global North” as seen in a globalized world and the world systems theory with rich, core countries exploiting and periphery countries and an imbalance of ecological exchange (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 214, 221). As consumers we need to make careful decisions about what we support with our consumption habits and how this impacts not only ourselves, but the environment’s health and the animals and ecosystems involved. This concept is known as precautionary consumption where we are more careful about the ingredients in our food products, how they impact us, and where they come from and being conscientious of what stores you support and shop at (Gould & Lewis, 2021 p. 206).

We need to be educated on the correct knowledge and given the skills for noticing and identifying these goals and implementation of these interests in order to gain social, economic, political, and ecological power. The true externalities are seen in the social order of society, the overall health of the public, and the declining health of the environment, wildlife, and ecosystems. We need to completely reimagine the world and change our mentalities, behavior, norms, values, beliefs, and ideals in a globalized world before disastrous social and environmental consequences become irreversible and the inequality amongst wealth distribution and labor and the difference in power becomes too great. Maybe we even need a brand new global ideology for the possibility of the construction of new healthier, equal, peaceful, happier habits for all living on this planet earth which we call home. We are one human race and we have to collectively stick together to create any sort of meaningful, global change. If we are not in this life together, we will not survive at all. Divide and conquer is the name of the game for those holding the power. Money, power, and greed has been the source of most evil in the economic global sphere for centuries, which happens to be the center of what capitalism stands for, therefore it is time to end the massive social, racial, political, economic, and environmental injustices we have been blind to for far too long.

Source:

1. Gould, Kenneth A., Lewis, Tammy L. 2020. Twenty Lessons in Environmental Sociology, 3rd Edition. Oxford University Press.