A Critical Conversation on Climate Change ... - Green Choices

lessons unlearned 133‘Little’ People and ‘Big’ ResourcesWould giving everyone in the world equalrights on paper to the use of the earth’scarbon dump make an egalitarian marketpossible? Would everyone have the power,the resources and the information to benefit?The question is similar to that ofwhether giving forest peoples paper rightsto the biodiversity in their territories willensure that they benefit from a biodiver sitymarket. Yale University anthropologist andforester Michael Dove offers the followingwords of caution.‘[W]henever a resource at the peripheryacquires value to the centre, the centre assumescontrol of it (e.g., by restricting localexploitation, granting exclusive licenses tocorporate concessionaires, and establishingrestrictive trade associations). The patternis aptly expressed by a peasant homily fromKalimantan, which states that whenever a‘little’ man chances upon a ‘big’ fortune,he finds only trouble. He is in trouble becausehis political resources are not commensuratewith his new-found economicresources. He does not have the power toprotect and exploit great wealth and so,inevitably, it is taken from him…the implication[of the proposal to extend a globalsystem of rights to a new commod ity]is that the global system that proposes toextend these rights, and the indigenouscommunities that are the intended beneficiaries,are structurally similar membersof the same, integrated system. I suggest,rather, that the global system and these indigenouscommunities are structurally dissimilarmembers of a more loosely articulatedsystem… inattention to this distinctionis a function of a paradoxical tendencyamong scholars and planners to insist thatsystems are either all-embracing…or unconnected(e.g., indigenous communities).The concept of a differentiated system,with relations obtaining among dissimilarmembers, is relatively undeveloped inthe international science and developmentcommunity.’ 246The trade in human organs also suggestsdifficulties with the idea that any equaldistribution of tradeable property rightswill automatically have egalitarian consequences.No one in the global organ markethas ever been allocated any propertyrights over anyone else’s organs. Everyonehas an equal right to sell their own organs.Yet it is the poor who wind up selling theirkidneys in today’s organ-trading schemes,not the rich. ‘Free choice’ on paper is notthe same as ‘free choice’ in the actuallyexistingmarket.That’s what we often hear from government officials and their economicadvisers, and we’ll continue to evaluate that claim as we goalong. But in the meantime, it’s important to note that most realworldtrading advocates are willing to forget about ‘maximising efficiency’if they think that’ll help get big business’s acquiescence inclimate action.