The Role of Climate and the Environment in the Rise of Capitalist Thought During the Enlightenment Era

Starting in the fourteenth century, the world began a climatic transition into an era that became known as the Little Ice Age. This climatic shift lasted several centuries, until the middle of the nineteenth century, wrecking havoc and despair among crops, economies, politics and civilizations. With their climate being in a constant flux, Western Europeans became inured to an ever changing environment that was characterized by wild shifts in weather patterns that caused sporadic dearths of food and resources. During the latter part of this phenomenon, a group of influential writers began to emerge espousing a new economic system that promoted the accumulation of as much food, resources and money each individual could possibly acquire by himself. This era these writers wrote in was known as the Enlightenment era and the new economic system they espoused with such favor was known as capitalism.;What role did climate and one's environment have in the rise of this new economic system known as capitalism? I plan to look at the role climate played in shaping the environment these writers lived in which helped shape their philosophical viewpoints on how members of a society should strive for resources and food. During this time frame, the effects of the Little Ice Age had become ingrained in the everyday lives of people living in Western Europe, especially Britain. Food shortages and lack of resources, although devastating at the beginning, became accepted as a part of the human plight through life during the latter part of this era. With people being accustomed to this way of living these writers were creating a system that they felt fit the environment that surrounded them. This new system, capitalism, would take all resources in these societies and place it in a market where each individual could accumulate as much as possible. Thus, instead of battling each other physically for limited resources, which Hobbes says makes man's life nasty, brutish and short; each individual of a society would strive for these resources in a non violent means.;To show how climate shaped the environments around these writers, I will look at problems created by climate in pre capitalist Western Europe and the way these societies eventually overcame these burdens. These problems will consist of a limitation in land to exploit, constant interruptions in crop production causing scarcities and limitations in technology that kept the ceiling for crop and resource production low. This will show how man fighting man over land, resources and technology that improved these conditions became a common part of life in these environments. Thus, in creating capitalism, these writers were creating a system where man would still subdue man over food and resources, which were an accustomed part of these societies, but would use the accumulation of money instead of physical violence to achieve this. Food and resources, in this system, would be placed in a market where the more money a person obtained the more of these resources he could consume. This would lead to man constantly questing to obtain more money to obtain more resources in case a scarcity of any kind arose. While this study will not show that climate and the environment was the exact cause of the rise of capitalist thought during this era, it will show that it was a component that shaped the environments that influenced these writers.