The Treadmill of Production and the Treadmill of Law: Propositions for Analyzing Law, Ecological Disorganization and Crime

Treadmill of production (ToP) arguments have significant implications for the study of environmental crime. A current limitation of those arguments involves their application to environmental law and its enforcement. We argue that a treadmill of law (ToL) shapes and maintains production through lawmaking and enforcement practices, issues that have yet to receive significant attention in the ToP literature. To illustrate the connection between the ToL and ToP and to facilitate political economic analysis of this connection, we make and discuss three propositions. In particular, we suggest that the ToL will (1) oppose the enhancement of environmental regulation through acts of state corporate crime, if necessary; (2) fail to enforce criminal laws in ways that would alter production practices; and (3) define intense opposition to ToP interests and actors as criminal.