{"title":"The problem of property in industrial fisheries","authors":"Liam Campling, Elizabeth Havice","doi":"10.1080/03066150.2014.894909","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Fisheries systems are widely considered to be ‘in crisis’ in both economic and ecological terms, a considerable concern given their global significance to food security, international trade and employment. The most common explanation for the crisis suggests that it is caused by weak and illiberal property regimes. It follows that correcting the crisis involves the creation of private property rights that will restore equilibrium between the profitable, productive function of fishing firms and fish stocks in order to maximize ‘rent’. In this approach, coastal states are seen as passive, weak, failed and/or corrupted observers and facilitators of the fisheries crisis, unless they institute private property relations. This paper offers an alternative analysis by using the perspective of historical materialism to re-examine longstanding debates over the problem of property and its relation to ground-rent in industrial fisheries. It identifies coastal states as modern landed property, enabling an exploration of the existence of and struggles over surplus value, and drawing attention to the role of the state and the significance of the environmental conditions of production in understanding political-ecological conditions in fisheries. As on land, property in the sea is a site of social struggle and will always remain so under capitalism, no matter which juridical interest holds the property rights.","PeriodicalId":48271,"journal":{"name":"Journal of Peasant Studies","volume":"41 1","pages":"707 - 727"},"PeriodicalIF":4.4000,"publicationDate":"2014-09-03","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/03066150.2014.894909","citationCount":"73","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Journal of Peasant Studies","FirstCategoryId":"90","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1080/03066150.2014.894909","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"ANTHROPOLOGY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 73
Abstract
Fisheries systems are widely considered to be ‘in crisis’ in both economic and ecological terms, a considerable concern given their global significance to food security, international trade and employment. The most common explanation for the crisis suggests that it is caused by weak and illiberal property regimes. It follows that correcting the crisis involves the creation of private property rights that will restore equilibrium between the profitable, productive function of fishing firms and fish stocks in order to maximize ‘rent’. In this approach, coastal states are seen as passive, weak, failed and/or corrupted observers and facilitators of the fisheries crisis, unless they institute private property relations. This paper offers an alternative analysis by using the perspective of historical materialism to re-examine longstanding debates over the problem of property and its relation to ground-rent in industrial fisheries. It identifies coastal states as modern landed property, enabling an exploration of the existence of and struggles over surplus value, and drawing attention to the role of the state and the significance of the environmental conditions of production in understanding political-ecological conditions in fisheries. As on land, property in the sea is a site of social struggle and will always remain so under capitalism, no matter which juridical interest holds the property rights.
期刊介绍:
A leading journal in the field of rural politics and development, The Journal of Peasant Studies (JPS) provokes and promotes critical thinking about social structures, institutions, actors and processes of change in and in relation to the rural world. It fosters inquiry into how agrarian power relations between classes and other social groups are created, understood, contested and transformed. JPS pays special attention to questions of ‘agency’ of marginalized groups in agrarian societies, particularly their autonomy and capacity to interpret – and change – their conditions.