Interrogating the Treadmill of Production

Abstract

This article is structured to answer a number of questions that have been raised over the years about the origin, structure, and application of the treadmill of production theory. The following questions are addressed: What was the theoretical structure of the treadmill of production? Why does the theory focus on production rather than consumption? Was the treadmill a dialectical or a linear change theory? How has the treadmill theory changed under the growing globalization of production since 1980? Has the treadmill been evaluated empirically? What forces have limited the diffusion of the treadmill in environmental sociology? Is the treadmill more/still useful today for ecological analyses? For social analyses?

Sustainability and Environmental Sociology: Putting the Economy in its Place and Moving Toward an Integrative Socio-Ecology

“…The constant pursuit of profit and expansion has "direct implications for natural resource extraction", pollution generation, and overall environmental conditions [89]. Treadmill theorists explain that each expansion in the production process to sustain economic operations on a larger, more intensive scale generates higher natural resource demand, often at rates that exceed ecosystem regenerative capacity and that contribute to an increased disorganization in nature [67,[88][89][90][91][92].…”

“…Treadmill theorists explain that each expansion in the production process to sustain economic operations on a larger, more intensive scale generates higher natural resource demand, often at rates that exceed ecosystem regenerative capacity and that contribute to an increased disorganization in nature [67,[88][89][90][91][92]. Moreover, they contend that energy-intensive materials, such as plastics and chemicals, which are incorporated into manufacturing, generate widespread waste and pollution that producers externalize [91][92][93][94].…”

Investigating the Benefits of Participatory Action Research for Environmental Education

“…Indifference often arises when they are taught environmental problems from a scientific 'objective' perspective (Jensen, 2002;Robottom & Sauvé, 2003), and students feel that nothing can be done to resolve issues or that they lack the skills and abilities needed to spur change. Moreover, individual behavioral change stressed in EE (such as NAAEE's recommendation to buy green products) does not address the structural causes of environmental harms such as increasing consumption under capitalism (Maniates, 2001;Gould et al, 2004). Lacking an institutional analysis EE does not encourage people to collectively demand policy changes that prevent environmental destruction and engender sustainability.…”

Environmentally Blind Discourses on Coal Extraction and the Idealization of the Miner in Spain

“…stricter environmental legislation) or by the scarcity of raw materials. Gould et al (2004) explained that capital was being invested to further develop the mechanization of production processes, promoting new technologies that would replace labor, reduce costs, and increase profits. At the same time, these new technological developments required additional inputs (energy or chemicals) to replace earlier, more labor-intensive processes.…”

“…Side effects of the treadmill of production in the social domain also include job blackmailing, proliferation of precarious work, and worker displacement (Gould et al 2004), which, perversely, can be supported by the workers themselves. Discarded workers have also assimilated the idea that these technological changes were a requirement for both social development and increasing or maintaining their material standards of living.…”