Privatizing conditions of production: Trade agreements as neoliberal environmental governance

James McCarthy, Pennsylvania State University

Abstract

In this chapter and in the original, more detailed version in Geoforum, I argue that recent multilateral trade agreements, particularly the sweeping new protections they provide for investors, are redefining property rights and reshaping environmental governance in ways that are central to the neoliberalization of environmental governance. My central argument is that in addition to furthering the centuries-long process of the enclosure of nature under capitalism, the neoliberal agenda of NAFTA (the North American Free Trade Agreement) and similar trade agreements also involves something new: the privitization, or primitive accumulation, of conditions of production.