Web of Socio-ecological Life and Material Embedding of Capital Accumulation

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Topic: Web of Socio-ecological Life and Material Embedding of Capital Accumulation
How have new shifts towards MTR affected “web of socio-ecological life?” How might we
also think about the lack of regulation on MTR and on coal burning and dumping (re:
coal ash) as critical to understanding “how the company will always cut corners to ensure
profitability” and What is the cost associated with this form of capital accumulation?
Answer:
The inequality in the exploitation of nature, utilitarian representation of nature and the
increasing situations of global warming resulting in the substantial change of the environment
have been the most common debate in the recent time. Reading Corbin, it has been found that
there had been an inequality in the distribution of land in Latin America where the allocation
of land rights and the mining rent were done on the basis of racial hierarchy and the slave
indenture labour. In the recent time, it has been noticed that there has been an increase in the
capital investment in such regions considering the availability of the natural resources like
minerals, fossil fuels, genes and most importantly the land itself (Zang and Vladislav). The
plant and trees are the sole measures to combat against the increasing global warming.

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However, there is a considerable increase in the violation of nature and exploitation of the
nature’s commodity.
The aim of this is to focus on the adverse effects of global and environmental changes
that are resulting in the inequalities of the socio-ecological life. The control over the
resources and the repercussion on the social positions is actually generating new inequalities
of class gender, race and ethnicity. The essay would also discuss on the shift of the mountain
top removal (MTR) affected the web of socio-ecological life and how might we also think
about the lack of regulation on MTR and on coal burning and dumping. In addition to this,
how the company will always cut corners to ensure profitability and what is the cost
associated with this form of capital accumulation will also be discussed.
The coalfields in the West Virginia have been facing a regular crisis due to its
regional political crisis. The crisis that the region is facing now that the mountain top has
been continuously removed as a process of the coal mining in conjunction of the various state
and national level policies. Surber and Scott argued that there is no doubt that the human
intervention and the integral role of the government have the transcending role in the various
environmental crises that the region is facing. According to the O’Connor’s theory of the
second contradiction of capitalism, it claims that the crisis is based on the social movement of
the capital that is gained from the rich resources of the particular area or land. The crisis is

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absolutely location based and the social disadvantages particularly highlight the coal
communities in Virginia (Boyles et al.). On the other hand, the Jason Moore’s theory of crisis
talks about the capitalism in the self-ruled ecological world. It says that the exploitation of the
resources is completely as a result of capitalist move. If there is found to be a greater
production of the particular mineral or metal, the capitalist bodies always show their
preference over the region and claim the whole land to be there.
Fitzpatrick highlighted the crisis of the coal fields in the West Virginia by taking into
account the historical contingencies of the coal industry and the various social movements
that had taken place due to various reasons. Thus, a historical research on the current
situation of the coal crises can be initiated at this point of the discussion. There has been a
restructuring of the coal industry as a result of the emergence of neo liberalism. In West
Virginia, the coal industry was dominated by the labour force and the miners were the
members and leaders of the union (Giam et al.). The imbalance of overproduction and
underproduction and at the same time, the pressure of the competition from various sides
resulted in a new ecological regime. The extraction of coal was initiated with the innovative
machineries available for the extraction purpose. This in turn destroyed the natural landscape
of the mountain automatically with the scaled up production of the extraction of the coal from
the mountain top. There have been anti mountain top removal campaign as well that focuses