Hurley Ch 3 Middle Class Environmentalism ISS 310 Spring 2002 Prof Alan Rudy 3 26 02 Ch 3 Middle Class Env talism Environmental activism emerged out of the effort to protect those physical features of residential life fresh air pastoral landscapes open space that had become central components of middle class identity The emergence of a middle class environmental protection ethic flowed from the growth of a consumer oriented whitecollar contingent 47 8 Ch 3 Middle Class Env talism II Because white collar employees in contrast to independent proprietors did not fully control their work situations they channeled surplus income toward purchases and activities that improved the quality of life away from work in new suburban communities 50 NOTE What is Hurley s point here Who is the implicit comparison with Who is not in the picture Do you agree What information do you have to support it or reject it Ch 3 Middle Class Env talism IV Suburbs Env tal Safety residents demanded more aggressive action from local authorities Many early environmentalists were women who as recognized accepted and expected guardians of domestic welfare accepted primary responsibility for the maintenance of suburban communities For many environmental reform provided a viable alternative to domestic confinement 56 Remember the role of The League of Women Voters Ch 3 Middle Class Env talism V middle class women advanced their cause through civic groups and community organizations Note the centrality of women in the production of middle class political issues as well as in the reproduction of home life 57 60 Ch 3 Middle Class Env talism VI Political accommodation and democratic optimism generated a pretty useless smoke abatement law esp given industrial expansion during the subsequent period 61 64 development trumps pollution Protection of the Miller shoreline among other lake proximate areas generated a more defiant and parochial environmental politics within the middle class protect environmental amenities keep out encroaching African Americans 64 65 Ch 3 Middle Class Env talism VII Community Action to Reverse Pollution CARP and NEPA s Environmental Impact Statements democraticization in order to DEFEND MAINTAIN the Dunes unique ecological formations for recreation aesthetic appreciation and scientific study NOT USE but preservation and study Ch 3 Middle Class Env talism VIII There s more on environmentalism and wilderness nature preservation as a means of maintaining residential homogeneity along class and race lines and recreational exclusivity 7173 NOTE What do you make of Hurley s argument that middle class environmentalism assumes and accepts that changing production is off limits to environmental politics that all that can be done is the defense of environmental amenities in the name of domestic consumption and social status Ch 3 Middle Class Env talism IX Industrial resistance env talism hurts economic development rather than deterring the middle class ecoreformers led env talists to question their commitment to growth 74 For them this is safe because the onestep removed character of the middle class from production limited the effect that an economic downturn would have on the middle class Anti growth movements race and production NOTE What do you make of Hurley s description of the social roots of antigrowth and its connection to the separation of the middle class from minorities real production Conditions of Production James O Connor 1989 Natural Causes NY Guilford Press Sees three crisis tendencies Overproduction Crisis Fiscal Crisis Environmental Crises Ecological Personal Communal Conditions of Production II Overproduction crisis too much stuff too few markets common to economic cycles Fiscal crisis economic downturn business needs more public R D new efficient infrastructures and to pay fewer taxes BUT people need more support and protection and to pay lower taxes BUT the state has fewer resources what to do serve business irk people 1920s 50s 80s 90s serve people irk business 1930s 60s serve both deficit spending debt 1950s 70s Conditions of Production III Nature people and communities are not re produced like commodities Nature is made by non social means People reproduce for cultural and affectual reasons Communities are produced and maintained by people and governments Business can treat nature workers and communities as if they are disposable or depreciable as if they were commodities Conditions of Production IV Pollution exhaustion and intensive use degrade the health of nature people communities The problem for business is that depleted ecologies unhealthy people degraded communities are less productive than their rich healthy and vibrant counterparts Also depletion sickness inequality and degradation are sources of social movements that often resist business interests Conditions of Production V Since environmental labor gender etc and community based social movements generally make demands on the state for regulatory programs and enforcement the state is always a key player in the relationship between nature and business labor and business and communities and business The key is that the real conditions of life the politics of those conditions and the kinds of uses and production society generates are all key What we see in Hurley s book then is a combination of economic and industrial development struggles around politics race and civil rights in the workplace and in the community efforts of different groups to renegotiate their relationship with their environment through different appeals to the government Of further note is the different role of women in each of these movements and the way womens changing position in society changes their position in environmental and community politics