Privatizing Nature
CAPITALISM, 26 Sep 2022
William T. Hathaway – TRANSCEND Media Service
20 Sep 2022 – The financial wizards of Wall Street have devised a new way to profit from Mother Nature. They’ve created a class of stocks called Natural Asset Companies that will control the earth’s resources such as water, wildlife, forests, minerals, and farmland. The project was developed by the Intrinsic Exchange Group in partnership with the New York Stock Exchange, the Inter-American Development Bank, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the investment firm Aberdare Ventures.
According to the Intrinsic Exchange Group’ website, the purpose of these companies is the “conversion of natural assets into financial capital. … These assets make life on Earth possible and enjoyable. … They include biological systems that provide clean air, water, foods, medicines, a stable climate, human health and societal potential. … The potential of this asset class is immense. Nature’s economy is larger than our current industrial economy and we can tap this store of wealth and productivity.” They estimate the value of the “global ecosystem services market” at $125 trillion annually.
Redwoods
The Natural Asset Company will either own the land itself or will own the right to use and sell the resources of the land, including recreational access. For example, people could be charged for hiking and fishing on public land.
The USA will eventually be included, but cash-strapped countries in Latin America are being targeted first. The government of Costa Rica has already expressed interest. The Minister of Environment and Energy, Andrea Meza Murillo, stated the project “will deepen the economic analysis of giving nature its economic value.” Although this will be a windfall for their elite, it will probably be a disaster for the indigenous people who draw their sustenance from the land.
The board of governors of the New York Stock Exchange saw such potential for profit that they took the unusual step of becoming a partner in the venture themselves. According to NYSE’s Michael Blaugrund, “Our hope is that owning a Natural Asset Company is going to be a way that an increasingly broad range of investors have the ability to invest in something that’s intrinsically valuable, but, up to this point, was really excluded from the financial markets.”
Natural Asset Companies are a new way to turn public resources into private profits. They are another step towards what George W. Bush proudly touted as the “Ownership Society” in which everything becomes property. The juggernaut of capitalism is lurching closer to its endstation, where all life is commodified, reduced to money. Nature, including human beings, is being shrunken down to coins — the Bezosification, Gatesification, Muskification of the universe.
It’s time to overthrow this parasitical system that is grabbing up more and more of the world. Here’s an action plan to build something better: https://socialism.com
________________________________________
William T. Hathaway is a Special Forces combat veteran and an emeritus Fulbright professor of American Studies in Germany. His book Radical Peace: People Refusing War presents the experiences of war resisters, deserters, and peace activists who are working to change U.S. ‘warrior’ culture. His novel Lila, the Revolutionary is a fable for adults about an eight-year-old girl who sparks a world revolution for social justice. Hathaway’s novel of the climate change, Wellsprings: A Fable of Consciousness, tells of an old woman and a young man healing nature through techniques of higher consciousness. Chapters are posted HERE. His peace novel, Summer Snow, is the story of an American soldier falling in love with a Sufi Muslim and learning from her that higher consciousness is more effective than violence. Chapters are posted HERE.
Tags: Capitalism, Casino Capitalism, Catastrophe Capitalism, Corruption, Disaster Capitalism, Ecology, Elites, Environment, Finance, Greed, Inequality, Nature, Nature's Rights, Post-capitalism, Predatory Capitalism, Profits, Super rich, Wall Street, World Order
This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 26 Sep 2022.
Anticopyright: Editorials and articles originated on TMS may be freely reprinted, disseminated, translated and used as background material, provided an acknowledgement and link to the source, TMS: Privatizing Nature, is included. Thank you.
If you enjoyed this article, please donate to TMS to join the growing list of TMS Supporters.
This work is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 License.