Stages of Capitalist Development and Maximum Marine Plastic Pollution

Marine plastic pollution (MPP) has become ubiquitous in the oceans and is damaging human health, ecosystems, and economies which has resulted in a mandate for a new binding plastics treaty. What would an effective treaty look like? What explains this relatively new global crisis? This review article argues that the work of Karl Polanyi and stage theory can put the MPP problem into context and illuminate requirements of an effective treaty. Polanyi argued that if market society did not restrain the capitalist use of land (nature), labor, and money it would destroy itself and MPP will only be solved if these social and environmental protections restrain capital. Stage theory looks at the evolving expressions of capitalism in distinct historical periods to provide context for the global economy and implies a structural remedy for the plastics in the ocean. In particular, the post-War Fordist stage introducing mass production and the following post-Fordist neoliberal period witnessed progressively thinned restraints on capital and the global plastic flow is a function of these changes over time resulting in continuously increasing MPP.