Energy Climate and Sustainability
10a: Unequal exchange and colonial debt
work@mishavelthuis.nl
Mon 14 April 2025
Today
Capitalism
Colonialism
The larger argument
Capitalism as a collective
action problem
The unpaid debts
of colonialism
Backlash
Planning
Where were we?
Negotiation theory
9b part 1:
Systemic effects
of capitalism
Systemic effects of capitalism
Cost reduction
Exploitation of partners
Break resistance labour
Break resistance (colonial) trading partners
Exploitation of nature
Take more than a system can sustainably yield, and move on
Technology
Better, newer products.
Deskill labour
Wage war
Systemic effects of capitalism
Need for growth
Systemic effects of capitalism
State capital integration
Systemic effect of capitalism
Collective action problem
9b part 2:
Capitalism is about
avoiding competition
Commodities vs branding
Entry barriers #1:
Tariffs
By the way…
Entry barriers #2:
Economies of scale
Economies of scope
When the average cost of producing each unit decreases as a company increases its output.
When a company can produce multiple products more cheaply together than separately.
Examples
Aggresively push
for network effects
In the past
Remember
State - capital linkages
Competitive pressure
disappearing?
Feudal dynamics?
Further consolidation
in state - capital linkage
Will remaining factions
of capital fight back?
Two stories:
Backlash against systemic threat
Capitalism being capitalism
Capital lashing out against (incipient) growing awareness about the fundamental unsustainability of the system.
Capitalists trying to overcome and beat the competition. Consolidation of concentration in state - capital linkage.
Colonialism
What fueled what?
Capitalism
Colonialism
Capitalism -> colonialism
Exploitation of partners
Break resistance labour
Break resistance (colonial) trading partners
Exploitation of nature
Take more than a system can sustainably yield, and move on
Technology
Better, newer products.
Deskill labour
Wage war
Colonialism to reduce costs
Slavery to drive down labour costs to minimum
Colonialism to reduce costs
Genocide to acquire monopsonies.
Colonialism to open up markets
Neocolonialism
Decolonization …
Change without change
Benefits from
violence and poverty
Preventing escape
Settler colonialism
Confusion…
Unparallelled
genocide
"Native Americans have seen the end of their respective worlds… Just as importantly, though, Indians survived the apocalypse. This raises the further question, then, of what happens to a society that has gone through an apocalyptic event?"
Whyte, K. P., Brewer, J. P., & Johnson, J. T. (2016). Weaving Indigenous science, protocols and sustainability science. Sustainability Science, 11, 25-32.
Different paths
Contemporary
settler
colonialism
Colonial discourse
What truly acts?
Human
Nature
Man
Woman
Colonizer
Colonized
Decolonization
Guilt tripping or
correction
of past injustice?
Stopping is not enough
Connection with climate change
This changes everything…
Capitalism is a collective action problem.
We need collective action to step out of it.
This implies a deep redistribution of power.
Colonialism left us with enormous debt.
We need to make sure that violence does not pay in the long run.
This implies a deep redistribution of power.