Capitalism and the ecological crisis
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Transcript of Capitalism and the ecological crisis
CAPITALISM AND THE ECOLOGICAL CRISISTeppo Eskelinen
The Left condition
Political life, theoretical marginalisation
Lack of vocabulary: from nouns to adjectives -> liberalism with a flavour (fair trade, human development, social rights). ”Social dimension”, ”public”
Ecological concerns have been forced to be framed on liberal vocabulary (green growth, left vs green etc)
Recurrent crises of capitalism are also turning points for liberal theory, also for its capacity to address ecological problems
Ecological crisisA simultaneous shortage of: resources, sinks, certainty
From problems to crisis: Often discussed merely as temporary shortage of particular resources or a shortage of a particular sink (such as climate absorbtive capacity)
Coupled with financial crisis as a general crisis of contemporary capitalism
”Peak everything”, crisis of accumulation
Limits impossible to impose within capitalism
Any attempt on decreasing production will lead to a social crisis given the current system
Addressing the ecological crisis
Consumer awareness and other economic incentive changes
”Immaterial turn”
Degrowth
Ecological investment strategy
Consumer awareness
Neoclassical strategy of locating the essence of the economic system in the act of consumption
Well-being theory, here also theory of responsibility
Neoclassical economics: marginalist logic (consumption and production), conservatism, continuity, lack of system analysis
Immaterial turn
Ever more “green economy”: services, culture etc (the creative class etc)
The "immaterial turn" can result in being only an expansion of capitalist relations and relocation of production, not “greening” of the economy
What the immaterial turn consists of: exploitation of flexible labour in the service industries, international tax avoidance, patents on life-saving medicines, biopiracy, closing down systems of co-operation such as free software or science in general
Degrowth
Strategy of decreasing / stable GDP
Why care about the GDP so much? The growth is not a process, its an outcome (by-product of accumulation)
Says nothing about the productive relations, for example financial capitalism is a degrowth strategy, just a very bad one
Ecological investments
The state undertakes investments in new energy production and distribution, transport infrastructure etc
Can affect the capital-labour relations in a variety of ways, also positive ways in full employment
Necessary rebound effect on accumulation regime: premised on increasing consumption
Leaves capitalist relations intact
Neoclassical economics
A specific understanding of “well-being”.
Addressing ecological concerns by marginalist economics… (equilibrium, continuity vs conflict, revolutions)
Conservatism: the main point in continuity, especially in modern financial economics
Equilibrium: ontology of classical cosmology
Any ecological problem is interpreted as pricing problem, externality to be priced…
Marxism
Two key Marxist analytical ideas:
The form of the society derives from its form of reproducing its social and productive relations
The form of the society derives from its “underlying revolution”
Ecological society: how can a society maintain its reproducing ecological relations longer, what kind of revolution would be the revolution of sustainability?
Expansion of capital (1)
Rosa Luxemburg: capitalist expansion = colony, demand
For whom are new products made for? Why imperialism prevails?
Not ”map colouring”, but economic imperatives
This new imperative is not raw materials, but demand
Have to force the ”natural economy” to demand (or the correct currency, also loans)
Capital needs politics, and can always move ahead from area of exploitation to another
Expansion of capital (2)
The key difference to Marx: capitalism is not a closed system, but needs non-capitalist terrains
Capitalism is not similar everywhere
Capitalist dominance vs capitalist self-destruction
Constant struggle between capitalist and non-capitalist forms
Not growth of efficiency, but growth of capitalist dominance
The green economy (1)No shift, but a new area of exploitation (quite like energy sources)
An analysis of growth: ”normal accumulation” vs crisis when new areas are needed in which to detach the producer and tools of production (comp. Scientific revolutions)
Also creation of demand: new social necessities (”radical monopoly”)
New areas of exploitation not only geographic, but also cultural etc
As in all capitalist expansion, government power is needed (commodification, patents)
The green economy (2)
At the same time as capitalism expands to new terrains, it cannot live without its ecological basis (resources, dumping)
Planetary ecology is the limit from which capitalism cannot escape: necessarily destroys its own conditions of reproduction
”The cancer stage of capitalism”
Strategies (1)
Struggle at the borderlines of capitalism
Commons, co-operatives, alternative economic systems, open software…
To what extent the ecological, cultural and temporal terrains are analogous to colonies in Luxemburg's time?
Ever more significance of struggle: capitalism can create its own terrains of exploitation
Strategies (2)
Re-inventing an economy of use-value
No commodification, abundance vs scarcity
Eco-efficiency redefined
Strategies (3)
Using the self-fulfulling logic of contemporary capitalism
In financial capitalism, value is restored fundamentally not in money, but in collective psychological beliefs (Keynes’ beauty contest generalised)
For example, value of oil
Strategies (4)
Using government power to gain ever more control
Can or cannot work in green transition, but limits must be imposed
Combining profitability and ecological concerns might be a dead-end
Would implicate gradual socialisation of the banking system