Review of The Tragedy of the Commodity: Oceans, Fisheries, and Aquaculture

Abstract

In 1978, William Catton and Riley Dunlap published their groundbreaking piece, “Environmental Sociology: A New Paradigm”, outlining the “new environmental paradigm”, which urged sociologists to be mindful of ecological constraints when conducting analyses on issues such as stratification and social justice. In the proceeding decades, the work of Allan Schnaiberg (1980) and John Bellamy Foster (1999, 2000) would expand on this point, bringing to light how deeply ingrained the destructive relationship between human society and nature truly is. Since then, a slew of environmental sociological analyses have operated under the framework set forth by Catton, Dunlap, Schnaiberg, and Foster, demonstrating the specific fundamental features of capitalist societies that perpetuate environmental degradation. The book The Tragedy of the Commodity: Oceans, Fisheries, and Aquaculture, written by Stefano Longo, Rebecca Clausen, and Brett Clark, takes the next logical step in the vein of environmental sociological inquiry, bringing to light not only an underexplored area of environmental sociology (marine ecosystems), but the pitfalls of specific attempts within capitalist economies to correct the ecological contradictions they bring out. In doing so, the authors write a new but intriguingly familiar book that combines interdisciplinary research, comparative historical analysis, and critical Marxism in a unique and fascinating way. (First paragraph of review).