Neoliberalism K—UMich 2013 neg 1NCs 1NC: Generic
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Link: BioDCampaigns for biodiversity are veiled capitalism and exploitation of the environment—commercialize biodiversity and essentialize native inhabitantsBamford, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Virginia 02 (Sandra, “ON BEING ‘NATURAL’ IN THE RAINFOREST MARKETPLACE”, Social Analysis 46:1, Spring 2002, Ingenta)//AS C.I. promotes a radically different vision of the world. Employing the rhetoric of a liberal, democratic ideology, they argue for an extension of “rights” to all citizens of the world. Basing their stand on the view that rainforest countries are entitled to benefit from the development and sale of their endemic species, C.I. has been active in the development of international policy as it pertains to the ownership of genetic resources (ibid.). One of its most aggressive campaigns to date has centered on the field of “bioprospecting”— the development of genetic material derived from plant and animal species (ibid.). In a pamphlet that describes their “Shaman’s Apprentice Program”— elsewhere dubbed “the hunt for genetic resources”—C.I. states that they “encourage local tribes to record their knowledge, be proud of their culture, and profit from it economically (C.I. 1997c).”8 Saving the planet, it would seem, can (and should) be a rewarding experience for everyone. While couched in its own particular brand of rhetoric, the discourse of Conservation International is fairly representative of contemporary biodiversity campaigns. Construed at one level as a redemptive act—an attempt to protect ‘uncontaminated’ zones of the non-human world as ‘pristine’ and ‘undisturbed’9 —the narratives produced by biodiversity advocates often read more like a manual on saving late twentieth century capitalist society. As Charles Zerner puts it: “Nature is analogized to a warehouse, a library, or a safe-deposit box containing fixed, valuable, and threatened commercial assets (1996: 72).” Previously ‘uncapitalized’ parts of nature—including the very genes of living species—become imminent sources of commercial value, awaiting only the power of science and technology to release their profit-making potential (cf. Escobar 1996, Lewin 1995). Critics of contem- 40 Sandra Bamford 05-Bamford 7/8/02 6:03 PM Page 40porary environmentalism have been quick to point out the contradictions inherent in this movement.10 Arturo Escobar has argued, for example, that far from challenging the basic premises of modern industrial society, campaigns to conserve biological diversity represent a deepening of capitalist interests into the Third World. In a 1996 article, Escobar notes, for example: [in contemporary discussions] … the key to the survival of the rainforest is seen as lying in the genes of the species, the usefulness of which [can] be released for [monetary gain] through genetic engineering and bio-technology in the production of commercially valuable products, such as pharmaceuticals. Capital thus develops a conservationist tendency, significantly different from its usual reckless, destructive form (1996: 47). Yet, if the rhetoric on biodiversity is fairly uniform in treating ‘nature’ as one big shopping mall, it evinces a certain amount of confusion in knowing exactly how to situate indigenous people in the dialogue. On the one hand, indigenous people appear at first glance to be assigned a favored position in the emerging rhetoric. They are given the role of ‘stewards’ in charge of preserving the last remaining vestiges of biodiversity on the planet. Yet, if this appears to place them in a position of empowerment, it is a position that is nonetheless riddled with contradictions. For as we shall see, contemporary discourse not only constructs the ‘native’ as ‘superhero’: it also has the effect of ‘essentializing,’ ‘homogenizing,’ and ultimately ‘naturalizing’ those very people upon which the survival of the planet supposedly depends. Link: OilAttempts to engage in foreign oil industries are neoliberally motivated and culminate in warLafer, political economist and is an Associate Professor at the University of Oregon's Labor Education and Research Center 04 (Gordon, “Neoliberalism by other means: the “war on terror” at home and abroad”, New Political Science 26:3, 2004, Taylor and Francis)//AS I believe that, in its broadest logic, the war must be understood as a means of advancing the neoliberal agenda of global economic transformation. Both abroad and at home, the pattern of administration behavior reflects an ambitious and aggressive drive to restructure the economy in line with neoliberal dictates. The choice of Iraq as the target of invasion and occupation was no doubt driven both by Iraq’s vast oil reserves and its potential to substitute for Saudi Arabia as the market maker in the global oil exchange. Apart from the Saudis, Iraq is the only country whose reserves are large enough that it could regulate world prices by choosing to expand or contract production at strategic points in the price cycle. This strategic value of Iraqi oil—above and beyond its straight economic value—explains why, within one month of capturing Baghdad, US overseers raised the prospect of pulling Iraq out of the OPEC consortium.3 Control of Iraqi oil offers the potential to exercise critical leverage over the economies of the Middle East, Russia, China and other oil-dependent nations. But the allure of Iraq is about more than oil. Unique among regional economies, the oil-producing nations of the Middle East constitute the one region of the world whose economies are both significantly wealthy and largely state-run. As most of Europe, the Americas, Asia and increasingly Africa have been drawn into the neoliberal regime of the IMF and WTO, the oil wealth of the Mideast has allowed these nations to evade the discipline of austerity budgets and structural adjustment plans. In the eyes of neoliberal reformers, oil wealth is not a blessing that lets governments protect citizens against the dangers of unemployment or public service cutbacks, but a curse that prevents nations from adopting more aggressive free-market policies. Thus Thomas Friedman notes that “there is simply no way to stimulate a process of economic and political reform in the Arab-Muslim world without radically reducing their revenues from oil, thereby forcing these governments to reform their economies.”4 As it is, oil revenue has insulated these governments from the strictures enforced virtually everywhere else. On the eve of the invasion, only two of the 13 oil-producing nations of the Mideast had any IMF debt whatsoever.5 Thus, public employment, state-run industries, subsidized public services, and restrictions on foreign capital—all of which have elsewhere been increasingly dismantled over the past 20 years—remain flourishing hallmarks of Mideast economies. An IMF review of the region concludes that these economies are characterized by “lagging political and institutional reforms; large and costly public sectors … [and] high trade restrictiveness,” and grades the region’s regulatory burden as significantly worse than that of Latin America, East Asia or the OECD countries.6 It is this form of economic governance that the administration aims to undo in Iraq. This is neoliberalism by other means: what could not be achieved by trade or treaty will be imposed by military force. Download 1.47 Mb. Share with your friends:
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