The Market, Marx and Sustainability in a Fishery

A management system of individual transferable quotas was introduced in the Tasmanian commercial rock lobster fishery in 1998. The market for quota units has since become increasingly capitalised. Fishers without substantial wealth find it difficult to participate in this market. Instead, investors purchase quota units. Consequently, fishery managers are somewhat disillusioned with the hidden hand of the market and are seeking a different way to conceptualise what is happening in the fishery. Marx's writings on the hidden abode of production suggest one such way. I bring Marx's work together with quota management and the views of participants as an alternative way of framing these changes in the fishery.