Open AccessMalthus in Smith Clothing
Author(s) -
Robert J. Fletcher
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
commodity frontiers
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2667-2448
pISSN - 2667-243X
DOI - 10.18174/cf.2021a18084
Subject(s) - treasury , blame , capitalism , biodiversity , capital (architecture) , population , clothing , politics , economics , economic history , political science , sociology , history , law , medicine , biology , archaeology , ecology , demography , psychiatry
In this op-ed, Robert Fletcher reviews The Dasgupta Review, a report commissioned by the UK Treasury Department on The Economics of Biodiversity, which was released in February 2021. Fletcher argues that rather than offering a fresh or timely analysis of biodiversity loss and how to counter it, the Review continues a long line of similar reports that leave capitalism in the background as a given, and lay blame for what ails the world at the feet of "population." Such disavowed capital-centric Malthusianism, Fletcher argues, renders the popular report a distraction from desperately needed analyses of the political economy of biodiversity loss.