Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Ecologically Unequal Exchange pp 143–165Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

The Entropy Curse

  • Chapter
  • First Online:

Abstract

The purpose of this chapter is to advance theory and empirics of the links that connect the environment with trajectories of economic development within the broader framework of ecologically unequal exchange. The chapter draws on physical science and thermodynamic principles to substantiate the central claim that it is the liquidation of resources—not resource abundance per se—that stunts economic growth in the periphery. Moreover, the structure of the world-system and ecologically unequal exchanges therein fuel the appropriation of resources that stymies development in less-developed nations. The theory and cross-national empirics presented indicate clearly that ecologically unequal exchanges and associated environmental losses in poor nations are driving unequal development. Thus, ecologically unequal exchange is a root cause of global inequality, including cross-national differences in economic development. The chapter concludes that perspectives seeking to explain patterns of underdevelopment in peripheral areas would benefit from the incorporation of an interdisciplinary perspective that includes physical (thermodynamic) principles and pays explicit attention to the unequal nature of ecological exchanges the world over. Various implications as well as directions for future research are discussed.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   129.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   169.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    For exceptions, see Dietz and Jorgenson’s (2013) edited collection on structural human ecology; see also Moore (2015) for a powerful interdisciplinary treatment of the history of capitalism and environmental history, and the implications for a framework to study humanity-in-nature.

  2. 2.

    Regression models implicitly assume zero measurement error, resulting in attenuated coefficients to the degree that error exists. SEM overcomes this limitation by associating an error term that represents random and non-random measurement error with each observed variable and assigning to endogenous latent variables a residual error term that reflects the effects of unmeasured variables in the model. As a result, path coefficients modeled in SEM are unbiased by error terms.

  3. 3.

    This time period is chosen based on the generally accepted view that “time lags of several decades” (Wackernagel et al. 2004:271) exist between the ecological changes and subsequent socioeconomic impacts. This value is derived by calculating a change score from 1971 to 2001 using the typical formula: (T2 − T1)/T1. The data are then multiplied by negative one (*−1) to ease interpretation of results such that larger values indicate greater losses.

  4. 4.

    See Jorgenson and Clark (2012) for an exemplary illustration.

  5. 5.

    Though not presented, results available upon request.

References

  • Amin, Samir. 1974. Accumulation on a World Scale. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Auty, Richard M. 2001. “The Political Economy of Resource-Driven Growth.” European Economic Review 45:839–946.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Baran, Paul A. 1957. The Political Economy of Growth. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Biel, Robert. 2006. “The Interplay between Social and Environmental Degradation in the Development of the International Political Economy.” Journal of World-Systems Research 12(1):109–147.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bollen, Kenneth. 1983. “World System Position, Dependency, and Democracy: The Cross-National Evidence.” American Sociological Review 48:468–479.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 1989. Structural Equations with Latent Variables. New York: John Wiley.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Bonds, Eric and Liam Downey. 2012. “‘Green’ Technology and Ecologically Unequal Exchange: The Environmental and Social Consequences of Ecological Modernization in the World-System.” Journal of World Systems Research 18(2):167–186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bornschier, Volker, Christopher Chase-Dunn, and Richard Rubinson. 1978. “Cross-National Evidence of the Effects of Foreign Investment and Aid on Economic Growth and Inequality: A Survey of Findings and a Reanalysis.” American Journal of Sociology 84(3):651–683.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bunker, Stephen G. 1985. Underdeveloping the Amazon: Extraction, Unequal Exchange and the Failure of the Modern State. Urbana: University of Illinois Press

    Google Scholar 

  • Burkett, Paul and John Bellamy Foster. 2006. “Metabolism, Energy, and Entropy in Marx’s Critique of Political Economy: Beyond the Podolinsky Myth.” Theory and Society 35(1):109–156.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Byrne, Barbara N. 2009. Structural Equation Modeling with AMOS. New York: Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Catton, William R. 1980. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chase-Dunn, Christopher. 1975. “The Effects of International Economic Dependence on Development and Inequality: A Cross-National Study.” American Sociological Review 40(6):720–738.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Collier, Paul and Anke Hoeffler. 2005. “Resource Rents, Governance, and Conflict.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49(4):625–633.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Crosby, Alfred W. 2004. Ecological Imperialism: The Biological Expansion of Europe, 900–1900. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Daly, Herman and John Cobb, Jr. 1989. For the Common Good: Redirecting the Economy Toward Community, the Environment, and a Sustainable Future. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • De Soysa, Indra. 2000. “The Resource Curse: Are Civil Wars Driven by Rapacity or Paucity?” Pp. 113–136 in Greed and Grievance: Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, edited by Mats Berdal and David M. Malone. Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publishers.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Diamond, Jared. 1997. Guns, Germs and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. New York: W. W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dietz, Thomas and Andrew Jorgenson, editors. 2013. Structural Human Ecology: New Essays in Risk, Energy, and Sustainability. Pullman, WA: Washington State University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Ding, Ning and Barry C. Field. 2005. “Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth.” Land Economics 81(4):496–502.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dixon, William J. and Terry Boswell. 1996. “Dependency, Disarticulation, and Denominator Effects: Another Look at Foreign Capital Penetration.” American Journal of Sociology 102(2):543–562.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Dunning, Thad. 2005. “Resource Dependence, Economic Performance, and Political Stability.” Journal of Conflict Resolution 49(4):451–482.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foster, John Bellamy. 1999. “Marx’s Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology.” American Journal of Sociology 105(2):366–405.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foster, John Bellamy, Brett Clark, and Richard York. 2010. The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foster, John Bellamy and Hannah Holleman. 2012. “Weber and the Environment: Classical Foundations for a Postexemptionalist Sociology.” American Journal of Sociology 117(6):1625–1673.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2014. “The Theory of Unequal Ecological Exchange: A Marx-Odum Dialectic.” Journal of Peasant Studies 41(2):199–233.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Frank, Andre Gunder. 1978. Dependent Accumulation and Underdevelopment. New York: Monthly Review Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2005. “Urban Location and Dissipation of Entropy.” Accessed online at http://rrojasdatabank.info/agfrank/research.html#dissipation.

  • Frankel, Jeffrey A. 2010. “The Natural Resource Curse: A Survey.” HKS Faculty Research Working Paper Series, RWP10-005, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

    Google Scholar 

  • Frey, R. Scott. 1998. “The Hazardous Waste Stream in the World-System.” Pp. 84–103 in Space and Transport in the Modern World-System, edited by Paul Ciccantell and Stephen Bunker. Westport, CT: Greenwood.

    Google Scholar 

  • Georgescu-Roegen, Nicholas. 1971. The Entropy Law and the Economic Process. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Global Footprint Network. 2010. “Ecological Footprint and Biocapacity, 2006.” Based on National Footprint Accounts 2009. Accessed online at www.footprintnetwork.org/atlas.

  • Grossmann, Henryk. 1929. The Law of Accumulation. London: Pluto Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hornborg, Alf. 2001. The Power of the Machine. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2014. “Ecological Economics, Marxism, and Technological Progress: Some Explorations of the Conceptual Foundations of Theories of Ecologically Unequal Exchange.” Ecological Economics 105:11–18.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2015. “Why Economics Needs to be Distinguished from Physics, and Why Economists Need to Talk to Physicists: A Response to Foster and Holleman.” Journal of Peasant Studies 42(1):187–192.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jorgenson, Andrew K. 2006. “Global Warming and the Neglected Greenhouse Gas: A Cross-National Study of Methane Emissions Intensity, 1995.” Social Forces 84(3):1779–1798.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jorgenson, Andrew K. and Brett Clark. 2012. “Are the Economy and the Environment Decoupling? A Comparative International Study, 1960–2005.” American Journal of Sociology 118(1):1–44.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Jorgenson, Andrew K. and James Rice. 2007. “Uneven Ecological Exchange and Consumption-Based Environmental Impacts: A Cross-National Investigation.” Pp. 273–288 in Rethinking Environmental History: World-System History and Global Environmental Change, edited by Alf Hornborg, J. R. McNeill, and Joan Martinez-Alier. Lanham, MD: Altamira Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Karl, Terry L. 1997. The Paradox of Plenty: Oil Booms and Petro-States. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2004. “Oil-led Development: Social, Political, and Economic Consequences.” Pp. 661–672 in Encyclopedia of Energy, edited by Cutler J. Cleveland. New York: Elsevier.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  • Kentor, Jeffrey. 2001. “The Long Term Effects of Globalization on Income Inequality, Population Growth and Economic Development.” Social Problems 48(4):435–455.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lawrence, Kirk S. 2009. “The Thermodynamics of Unequal Exchange Energy Use, CO2 Emissions, and GDP in the World-System, 1975–2005.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 50(3–4):335–359.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, Jianguo, Thomas Dietz, Stephen R. Carpenter, Marina Alberti, Carl Folke, Emilio Moran, Alice N. Pell et al. 2007. “Complexity of Coupled Human and Natural Systems.” Science 317(5844):1513–1516.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Liu, Jianguo, Vanessa Hull, Mateus Batistella, Ruth DeFries, Thomas Dietz, Feng Fu, Thomas W. Hertel, et al. 2013. “Framing Sustainability in a Telecoupled World.” Ecology and Society 18(2):26.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Marx, Karl. 1867/1977. Capital, Volume 1. New York: Vintage.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKinney, Laura A. 2012. “Entropic Disorder: New Frontiers in Environmental Sociology.” Sociological Perspectives 55(2):295–317.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2014. “Foreign Direct Investment, Development, and Overshoot.” Social Science Research 47:121–133.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McKinney, Laura and Kelly Austin. 2015. “Ecological Losses are Infecting Women: An Analysis of Female HIV Prevalence and Life Expectancy in Less-Developed Countries.” Social Problems 62(4):529–549.

    Google Scholar 

  • McNeill, John Robert. 2001. Something New Under the Sun: An Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World. New York: W. W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moore, Jason W. 2000. “Environmental Crises and the Metabolic Rift in World-Historical Perspective.” Organization & Environment 13(2):123–158.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2015. Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. Brooklyn, NY: Verso Books.

    Google Scholar 

  • Polterovich, Victor, Vladimir Popov, and Alexander Tonis. 2007. “Resource Abundance, Political Corruption, and Instability of Democracy.” Working Paper No. 2007/73, New Economic School, Moscow, Russian Federation.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prebisch, Raul. 1950. The Economic Development of Latin America and Its Principal Problems. New York: United Nations.

    Google Scholar 

  • Prigogine, Ilya. 1967. Introduction to Thermodynamics of Irreversible Processes. New York: Interscience Publishers.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rajan, Sudhir Chella. 2011. “Poor Little Rich Countries: Another Look at the ‘Resource Curse’.” Environmental Politics 20(5):617–632.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rees, William E. 2004. “The Eco-Footprint of Agriculture: A Far-from-(Thermodynamic)-Equilibrium Interpretation.” Pp. 87–110 in NABC Report 16 Agricultural Biotechnology: Finding Common International Goals, edited by Allan Eaglesham, Alan George Wildeman, and Ralph W. F. Hardy. Ithaca, NY: National Agricultural Biotechnology Council.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rice, James. 2007. “Ecological Unequal Exchange: Consumption, Equity, and Unsustainable Structural Relationships within the Global Economy.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 48(1):43–72.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Robinson, James A., Ragnar Torvik, and Thierry Verdier. 2006. “Political Foundations of the Resource Curse.” Journal of Development Economics 79(2):447–468.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ross, Michael L. 1999. “The Political Economy of the Resource Curse.” World Politics 51(2):297–322.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2001. “Does Oil Hinder Democracy?” World Politics 53(3):325–361.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Rosser, Andrew. 2006. “The Political Economy of the Resource Curse: A Literature Survey.” Working Paper 268. Brighton, UK: Institute of Development Studies.

    Google Scholar 

  • Saad-Filho, Alfredo and John Weeks. 2013. “Curses, Diseases and Other Resource Confusions.” Third World Quarterly 34(1):1–21.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Sachs, Jeffrey D. and Andrew M. Warner. 1995. “Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth.” Working Paper No. 5398. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Research.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2001. “The Curse of Natural Resources.” European Economic Review 45(4–6):827–838.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Schultz, Jessica and Richard York. 2011. “Recognizing Overshoot: Succession of an Ecological Framework.” Human Ecology Review 18(2):139–146.

    Google Scholar 

  • Shandra, John M., Christopher Leckband, and Bruce London. 2009a. “Forest Exports and Ecologically Unequal Exchange: A Cross-National Analysis of Deforestation.” Organization & Environment 22:293–310.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shandra, John M., Christopher Leckband, Laura McKinney, and Bruce London. 2009b. “Ecologically Unequal Exchange, World Polity, and Biodiversity Loss: A Cross-National Analysis.” International Journal of Comparative Sociology 50:285–310.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Shircliff, Eric J. and John M. Shandra. 2011. “Non-Governmental Organizations, Democracy, and HIV Prevalence: A Cross-National Analysis.” Sociological Inquiry 81(2):143–173.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Singer, Hans W. 1950. “The Distribution of Gains Between Investing and Borrowing Countries.” The American Economic Review XL:473–485.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stiglitz, Joseph E. 2007. Making Globalization Work. New York: W. W. Norton.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stijns, Jean-Philippe C. 2005. “Natural Resource Abundance and Economic Growth Revisited.” Resources Policy 30:107–130.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). 2014. “Foreign Direct Investment Statistics.” Data for various years accessed online at unctad.org.

  • Wackernagel, Mathis, Chad Monfreda, Niels B. Schulz, Karl-Heinz Erb, Helmut Haberl, and Fridolin Krausmann. 2004. “Calculating National and Global Ecological Footprint Time-Series: Resolving Conceptual Challenges.” Land Use Policy 21(3):271–278.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wallerstein, Immanuel. 1974. The Modern World-System I: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century. New York: Academic Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • ———. 2004. World-Systems Analysis. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • World Bank. 2013. World Development Indicators. Data for various years accessed online at worldbank.org.

  • Wright, Gavin and Jesse Czelusta. 2004. “Why Economies Slow: The Myth of the Resource Curse.” Challenge 47(2):6–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • York, Richard, Eugene A. Rosa, and Thomas Dietz. 2003. “Footprints on the Earth: The Environmental Consequences of Modernity.” American Sociological Review 68(2):279–300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Laura McKinney

Authors
  1. Laura McKinney
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Laura McKinney .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN, USA

    R. Scott Frey , Paul K. Gellert  & Harry F. Dahms ,  & 

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2019 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this chapter

McKinney, L. (2019). The Entropy Curse. In: Frey, R.S., Gellert, P.K., Dahms, H.F. (eds) Ecologically Unequal Exchange. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89740-0_6

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-89740-0_6

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-89739-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-89740-0

  • eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation