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= Capitalocene =

Cheapening
Cheapening is a logic of degradation that is theorized to lie at the core of capitalist world-ecology. Capitalist strategies to treat vulnerable groups as lesser-than-human in an effort to accumulate capital contribute to the concept of cheapening by operating through various dimensions of inequality. As a system of domination over nature, capitalism relies on structures of race, class, and gender to generate wealth and organize the socio-ecological web of life.

Seven Cheap Things
Jason W. Moore and Raj Patel. In their book A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things, the authors outline seven categories that have been "cheapened" by capitalism: Nature, Work, Care, Food, Energy, Money, and Lives. Capitalist conquests perform by offering temporary, inadequate solutions to considerable issues within and among each of these categories which, in turn, magnifies the ongoing crises of those structures. Moore and Patel holistically analyze these conceptual divisions and expand on how the manipulation of power, capital, and nature has both shaped and will continue to shape the existence of humanity.

Nature
Cheap nature relies on the foundation of humanity's domination over the rest of the natural world. By strategically cheapening the realities of the majority of life on Earth, capitalist powers have created a process through which profits are considered more valuable than the people, health, and environment that serve economic growth. Moore and Patel demonstrate the idea of cheap nature by explaining the historical relationship between humans and chickens. Over the course of time, humans have modified and genetically engineered chickens to produce more breast meat while simultaneously de-valuing the economic cost of chicken production, the lived realities of chickens themselves, and the relationship between humans and other natural lifeforms. This is a symbolic example of humanity's connection, or lack of, to the rest of nature. Similarly, if humanity finds that a given resource is more or less profitable than another, the deteriorated relationship that exists between humans and life itself allows us to overproduce or discard such resources accordingly. This ideology that nature is disposable has led us into what some scholars have identified as the sixth mass extinction of life on Earth.

Work
Labor is required to serve capitalist interests. Faster, more efficient production rates allow for rapid profit generation regardless of how work is conducted. As a result, capitalism has prospered from cheap work. Utilization of prison labor is one example of the exploitation of workers for financial gain. Incarcerated individuals are cheaply or freely employed to provide services that would otherwise demand legal wages. Additionally, cheap work involves the dehumanization of individuals such that their personal injuries are overlooked and ignored. The issue of cheap work has also been closely tied to modern slavery, forced labor, and forced marriage.

Care
Cheap care can be described as "the domestic work mostly performed for nothing, and mostly by women, that is rarely factored into the cost of labor." Informal caregiving is absolutely necessary to sustain workers and fuel capitalism. Thus, cheap care frequently exists as a consequence of cheap work. Ignorance towards personal injury within the realm of cheap work and a lack of affordable, accessible health care results in the need for communal infrastructure that can provide free support for those physically and/or emotionally harmed while working in the field. From a gendered perspective, women are disproportionately affected by this pattern and expected to play the caregiver role as a function of capitalist society. Capitalism has contributed to this dichotomy between men and women, the understanding of what constitutes "real" work, and the societal roles of gender and biological sex.

Food
Cheap food is crucial to maintain workers and caregivers under capitalism. Because employees are paid very little for their labor, and caregivers are offered little to nothing, food must be cheap to be affordable. Over the past few decades, processed food has gotten increasingly cheaper while fresh produce, fruits and vegetables, have become increasingly more expensive. Food price inflation is importantly related to distribution, power, and capital, which oftentimes results in widespread hunger and oppression. Moreover, with recent examination and science, it is known that lower crop yields as a result of climate change are one reason for these price fluctuations.

Energy
Another significant factor behind cheap food is cheap energy. Cheap energy is utilized for both plant and animal agriculture and is heavily reliant on the use of fossil fuels. Fossil fuel dependence has exacerbated our global carbon footprint, increasing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

Money
Cheap money allows capitalism to access fossil fuels at a relatively cheap economic cost. Loans and concessional loans from the United States government to the oil industry has allowed us to extract and distribute fossil fuels, intensifying the scope of cheap energy. Beyond the category of cheap energy, cheap money allows the U.S. Small Business Administration to offer loans to franchises that serve the community, and serve capitalism.

Lives
Cheap lives is the final category of cheapening offered by Moore and Patel. Cheap lives functions as a result of capitalist ideologies that separate society and nature. Capitalism has historically identified people of color, women, indigenous groups, and other marginalized communities as "external beings", or outside of society. Relating back to the idea of cheap nature, there is ultimately a conclusion by those in power that these groups, along with the rest of life on Earth, is disposable. Correspondingly, already vulnerable members of society fall victim to capitalist structures that promote racism, sexism, classism, and other forms of discrimination.