capitalism – American Disasters

May 1, 2014December 16, 2020

Trajectory Matters

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After reading William Cronon’s “A Place for Stories: Nature, History, and Narrative” from 1992, I found it to be one of the best pieces of work we have read all semester regardless of topic or interest in subject. Even though it is 22 years old now, Cronon’s work is brilliant and a must read for all historians, whether studying environmental history or not. Some of the insight and struggles Cronon alerts to in his narrative to answer the overarching question of “where did these stories come from,” are vital to historical scholarship work in general and certainly hit home with our projects and the stage we are in currently. When I first began to read it I thought it was going to be very dense and theoretical, however; once I really got into it, Cronon, in my opinion, came off as brilliant and well-crafted in his analysis.

Cronon essentially simplifies the argument to explain how our construction of narrative deeply matters. He describes how we take a group of events or facts and then construct them in different ways to make new meanings of the past, yet in doing so we choose our own narrative by deciding what events or facts we use and also the ones we leave out. Interestingly, it ends up creating a sort of narrative arc where the story has its ups and downs but usually ends up in two categories; either a progressive story or a declensionist one. In my brief two years as a history major, I haven’t necessarily thought of historical narrative this way but it makes sense and Cronon does a very good job and detailing how it happens. To expand on his thesis explaining these two end results, Cronon uses the comparison between Paul Bonnifield’s and Donald Worster’s works on the Dust Bowl. Both studied essentially the same works, used the same sources, had the same framework but concluded to completely different things: natural vs. human disaster in the Dust Bowl; human triumph vs. human failure. That’s the cool thing about history; you can view the exact same thing as someone else but come up with a totally different analysis. In this case, Cronon advocates the progressive route or the declensionist one. The two authors ended up with completely different stories of the Great Plains where one described human triumph and courage while the other described human failure and the faults of capitalism. This simply point by Cronon was pieced together brightly and made for a thesis that really stuck.

Along with that, Cronon made another point that I thought was important; the narrative trajectory matters. He talks about the influence of the beginning, middle and end of a narrative and how the stop and start points completely shape the narrative and the meaning it creates. For example, if you stop a story in 1950 rather than 2000, the story takes on a different narrative and tells a different story. It was interesting how he clarified that with the trajectory of your story, you ultimately shape the narrative and the result of your work. Similarly, Sherwood mentions that the diversity of this narrative is what makes it history and what leads it into the future. Like Cronon, he explains that limiting the narrative instead of diversifying it hurts history and storytelling. Overall, a must read scholarship for historians.

April 30, 2014December 16, 2020

What Would Thoreau Do?

I agree with Price when he wrote that Koppe’s review is lacking. “His indictment of boosterism and expansionary economics fails to connect policy with environmental consequences.” However, it’s also important to remember the state of the environmental movement at the time of the Dust Bowl. At this point in time we have national parks, the writings of Thoreau’s, and the beginnings of the Sierra Club – but not much policy. And so I again agree with Price when he wrote, “Over irrigation of water sources and overuse of soils certainly can have dangerous environmental impacts, but Koppes fails to identify any policy of wrongdoing.” Koppes casts the farmers in a negative light – though legally they had not done anything “wrong”.

Koppes writes, “Conservation as a cultural reform had come to be accepted only where and insofar as it had helped the plains culture reach its traditional expansionary aims.” So in that sense, although the foundations of environmentalism have been set, environmentalism is only valued to the point that it meets short-term economic efficiency and growth. Farmers were still thinking in the short term. Exploit the land now for a quick profit with heavy machinery, fossil fuels, and chemicals- but at a point at which you fail to incorporate ecological economics and place value on ecosystem services, you’ve got a lot of long-term consequences. But according to Koppes, “for the individual farmer, devoted to profit maximization in the present, the system is not irrational.” Koppes attempts to tie the Dust Bowl Tragedy to economic systems; capitalism, labor exploits, industry. But does not adequately address policy or culture.

But while I think that Koppe’s argument is somewhat lacking, I think his message is clear: there will likely be consequences when we exploit the land. He writes that the Dust Bowl is where “social forces and natural conditions converge”. And I believe this review serves as an important reminder that our actions can have potentially devastating consequences. Fortunately, our environmental policy has developed tremendously since the Dust Bowl, but we still have ways to go. And our culture as a driving force for conservation could still use some work too.

April 29, 2014December 16, 2020

Dust Bowl: Issues of the Gilded Age…Still Today?

During the Great Depression, a devastating event occurred that included social, economic and natural forces to create a catastrophe known as the Dust Bowl. In Clayton Koppes’ evaluation of the two novels by Paul Bonnifield and Donald Worster and their discussion of the Dust Bowl during the 1930s, his bias is clear when he assesses the novels as a play on the trend of the Gilded Age’s capitalism.

Prices’ observation of Dusty Volumes review on the detailed books relating to the Dust Bowl is strong in evaluating how Koppes uses this review as a platform to voice his own argument. Worster described the Dust Bowl as “primarily the work of man, not nature” (536), and Koppes uses this as an underlying theme for his overall argument and to also defend Worster’s three beliefs of capitalist agriculture.

I found it interesting how Koppes includes the notion of the goal for the individual farmer to achieve profit maximization then, and even still today. The reliance on government cleanup has placed confidence in farmers that sustainability of the land will continue as long as technology proceeds to advance. Here is another parallel from the Gilded Age to today, the ongoing theme of trust in technology. In Paul Bonnifield’s argument (contrasting that of Worster) he claims, “He stresses that natural forces, not plowing, caused the Dust Bowl, although he concedes the farming practices made it worse. The problems could be solved, however, by technology technique, and (especially) larger farm size” (538). It is apparent here that Koppes’ displeased with Bonnifield’s book when he says that the book has a possibility of provoking debate with Worster’s argument, however fails under the pretense that the presentation is unsophisticated. Even in the video documentary, The Plow That Broke the Plains, proves the reliance on technology for economic benefits, and how that can ultimately lead to a disaster such as the Dust Bowl.

In the video and through photography, imagery played a large role into how historians were able to perceive the events of the Dust Bowl. With powerful images of farms, families and destruction people all around the nation reacted to the disaster and gave a plea for the government’s assistance. Relating to the plea of government intervention, Worster also brings up the distrust of the government and the policies within the New Deal and its theme of “normalcy”, however, Koppes finds that an expansion on reflected the needs of capitalism in crisis would make his argument even more effective.

Again, I concur with Price’s examination of Koppes’ argument on his views of Plains capitalism. The blunt nature by which Koppes presents his information, by blatantly disagreeing with Bonnifield’s views Koppes goes so far as to call it underdeveloped, even without rightfully proving support for his claim. As I have addressed quite a few topics including capitalism, technology and government intervention…the Dust Bowl is yet another example of the epitome of the Gilded Age disaster. Koppes’ infers in his support for Worster that these issues are apparent and dangerous still today, are there any examples or possible areas in the US today where this is evident?

March 26, 2014December 16, 2020

The economic discourse around seismic enlightenment

The fireman’s commission, on the thirtieth anniversary of the temblor, published a report assessing the structural progress made since the 1906 earthquake. “The lessons of 1906 were speedily forgotten. Public apathy, an aversion to admitting that earthquakes occur in California, and the desire of building construction speculators to build for profit, combined gradually to prevail over the counsel of engineers” (115). The 1906 earthquake left at least 3,000 dead – but did little in the way of encouraging structural change. It was only after experiencing more earthquakes in the 20s and the 30s that Californians began to accept their precarious geography. It was only then understood that “Economic development depended on open recognition of earthquake risk.”

In this course we have talked extensively about who shapes the perception and narratives of disaster. And in the case of the 1906 “fire”, Steinberg argues that business elites and politicians fueled by their economic interests shaped the discourse. At the time of the temblor, San Francisco was developing into a banking hub and already led the West in trade and manufacturing. As a result, the economic elite cried “fire” rather than “earthquake” – seemingly positing the disaster as nothing more than a freak accident. Business leaders assumed indifference to the damages of the earthquake calamites in order to ensure continued investment in the city. However, Steinberg was quick to point out that the earthquake did in fact cause tremendous damage, pointing to the fact that the quake damaged 95% of the chimneys in San Francisco. Steinberg reports that in all, the jolt was responsible for 20% of the damage. (However, Steinberg does a good job of explaining the difficulties of classifying the fire and the quake as two separate occurrences.) Yet at the time, the quake was understood as “a little shake in the earth’s crust. . .constitu[ing] no real source of danger.”

This reminds me of some of the responses to Galveston Hurricane. Leaders of the city initially resisted the idea of constructing a sea wall. For although Progressive prudence encouraged its construction, building the massive wall meant that the city had to recognize that it was in a dangerous location.

Steinberg concludes his argument talking the modern implications to this disaster surrounding social justice. The 1989 jolt encouraged improvements in earthquake resistant construction – but these advancements have not yet reached the more marginalized citizens. Jean concludes her post with an important question, “has the legislation constructed in the wake of disaster been beneficial to all classes in society (outside of economic benefits)?” For while it is true that there is “no safe place”, Steinberg argues that real estate cartel continues to quell the seismic enlightenment in favor of profit. “The idea of no inconveniencing someone – but allowing them to be killed, well, things seem to be upside down.”

March 25, 2014December 16, 2020

How Capitalism Can Shape Disaster Narratives

Blog Post 8 (for Thursday, 3/27)

In his article “Smoke and Mirrors,” Ted Steinberg describes a struggle between “those seeking to capitalize on the disaster’s entertainment value against California’s business class” (104). The former hoped to capitalize on peoples’ fascination with disaster by distributing reports, images and videos. One of the videos we watched in class on Tuesday was a dramatic recreation of the San Francisco fire, meant for consumers’ viewing across the country, for example. The latter hoped to preserve San Francisco’s reputation as a center of economic activity, worthy of investment. To that end, they sought to deemphasize the destructive capability of earthquakes in the Bay Area, and emphasize the many opportunities it offered in rebuilding. For example, John Marsh wrote in his blog post: “Rozario quotes a writer for the Times who noted that San Francisco’s natural advantages (its location as a hub of trade for the entire west coast) ensured its recovery.”

During the 19^th century we often think of capitalism as driving towards a single, specific goal— perhaps Machiavellian utilitarianism, or just ruthless efficiency? I’m not really sure how to sum it up. But in most narratives, capitalism seems uniformly against something, whether it be workers’ rights, environmental preservation, or something else. In the Johnstown Flood, for example, the poorly maintained dam was symbolic of the lack of concern that capitalists had for their workers, and their disinterest in quality, so long as the job got done. Interestingly enough, the struggle that Steinberg describes demonstrates capitalism at odds with itself— both groups had money on their minds, but their means of acquiring it conflicted. It is apparent that there wasn’t a single way to capitalize on the destruction in San Francisco.

I’m not quite convinced of Steinberg’s argument— or “conspiracy theory”— that the San Francisco earthquake and fire has been memorialized incorrectly because of some scheming businessmen. But this article has merit because it demonstrates how disaster narratives during the 19^th century were shaped by the push and pull of economic forces. With two distinct groups struggling to warp the San Francisco earthquake and fire into vastly different stories makes this phenomenon particularly clear.

January 25, 2014December 16, 2020

The perverse and often baffling economics of disasters

As someone who has completed an economics minor, I can tell you little about the economy or economics or finance or international trade with much confidence. I can, however, say with complete confidence that economics is an odd discipline. It’s hyper-rationality embraces only empirical judgments of the economy while simultaneously validating people’s subjective values as determinant of welfare. In Kevin Rozario’s “What Comes Down Must Go Up: Why Disasters Have Been Good for American Capitalism,” we catch a glimpse of the strangeness of economics, and indeed of capitalism itself.

Rozario seeks to show how disasters, but especially the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, had positive economic impacts, among other effects. He makes the case that with a disaster, the destruction of existing capital draws in funds from elsewhere to rebuild an even more productive environment. Though this may be true, anyone can easily tell that a disaster is not good news in the broadest sense. Resources exist and can be destroyed; that loss does not disappear once the city is rebuilt. At the very least, readers can acknowledge that, economics aside, a disaster represents the loss of natural resources, and the person-hours that were put into the construction and development of that capital. Moreover, it often results in the loss of human life.

Most interestingly, Rozario draws parallels between disasters and capitalism. Both are destructive: disasters raze buildings and destroy the capital within, while capitalism encourages the constant renewal of technologies and spaces to better produce the newest and most effective widgets. He points out, as examples, the ability of Bostonians to widen their streets after one fire, or more prominently, the efforts of progressives to improve San Francisco’s urban space in the aftermath of the earthquake and related fire.

In examining the opportunity offered by a disaster to sculpt the urban landscape, we see that the desires of those sculptors was inherently opposed to the capitalist ethos: Haussmann and the progressives of San Francisco wanted to make permanent changes to the city, for a variety of purposes. They wanted to create cities which withstood the test of time and served to benefit the city (and the owning class). Yet, the vision of cityscape which endures the test of time stands in direct opposition to capitalism, which desires the continual renewal of technology, business, commerce, and therefore urban spaces.

It is also telling that the so-called progressives of San Francisco cared as little about the effect of their plans on the working class as did Haussmann, though at least they did not blast away their housing with cannon. Indeed, throughout his article, Rozario makes it clear that the poor suffered, even as the economy, the city, and the business class benefitted in the aftermath of the ravages of disasters.

I enjoyed CT’s analysis of the art on the spoons at the State of Emergency exhibit, and I think that he is apt in his analysis of the spoon and its role in the artwork: as a domestic item, it seems particularly at home depicting a tornado, perhaps because so much of the destruction of tornados, as CT points out, happens in the midwest, away from major bodies of water. Such areas tend to be less urban, and often symbolize the domestic of American society.