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Desierto Liquído – Liquid Desert
January 19, 2017
Decolonizing academic publication
January 26, 2017

Ecology after capitalism

Published by Diego Andreucci on January 24, 2017

Source: ecosocialisthorizons.com

A series of upcoming posts on ENTITLEBlog seeks to foster emerging debates around egalitarian futures beyond accumulation and growth.

Source: ecosocialisthorizons.com

Source: ecosocialisthorizons.com

In an intervention republished on this blog in October 2015, the political ecologist Giorgos Kallis provided important arguments for an emerging dialogue between degrowth and eco-socialism. Commenting on a recent piece by John Bellamy Foster, and challenging what he saw as common assumptions on the (eco-Marxist) left, Kallis made two polemical claims.

First, while capitalism is compelled to grow by its internal dynamics, there is no intrinsic ‘law’ that makes capitalism incompatible with a steady or declining economy. Second, and perhaps most significantly, overcoming capitalism is no guarantee that a more sustainable socio-ecological configuration will come about.

In other words, Kallis argued (contra Foster) that socialism is not a sufficient condition for recomposing the ‘metabolic rift’ and rebalancing socio-ecological relations. Planning to ‘live with enough’ is something that the left needs to assume as a goal, rather than treat as an automatic result of the socialisation of production.

Kallis’s arguments, like many of the provocations coming from degrowth sympathisers, move at times from problematic assumptions and betray what could be read as a somewhat superficial understanding of political economy and the state.

Nevertheless, they are worth taking seriously, not only because the degrowth movement is fast expanding in academic as well as activist circles but also because, as in this case, the points raised are often valid and can stimulate important reflection, debate and convergence in the anti-capitalist left.

With the purpose of fostering these debates, we have invited a series of responses to Kallis’s arguments from political ecologists and red-green intellectuals. These responses will be collected in a virtual symposium, forthcoming in Capitalism Nature Socialism.

Starting from next week, a selection will be published on this blog as a series, by the title Ecology after Capitalism. The series will run through 28 February, with a piece published every Tuesday.

Each of the invited contributors comments on Kallis’s arguments from a different perspective.

Eleanor Finley draws on Murray Bookchin’s anarchist-inspired social ecology to provide a critique of the ‘scarcity’ and ‘limits’ narrative which informs the degrowth approach.

From a Marxist feminist perspective, Stefania Barca reflects on the absence of labour and political subjectivity in degrowth theorisation, and insists instead on the importance of de-alienation and of developing an ‘ecological class consciousness’.

In a two-part piece, agrarian studies scholar Leandro Vergara-Camus offers a critique of Kallis’s reasoning via a close reading of Marx’s texts. He argues that the focus should shift away from the a-historical category of ‘growth’ and towards the specificity of capital accumulation and the institutions that make it possible.

Lastly, in a piece in Spanish, political ecologist Eduardo Gudynas discusses the contribution of Latin American critiques of development, and how they inform a (constructive) critique of both eco-socialism and degrowth.

We hope that by publishing this series we will stimulate debate in political ecology on anti-capitalist thought and action in the context of the current global ecological crisis.

As we aim for this to be an open dialogue and debate, we invite readers to send us short responses (max. 1000 words) for publication at entitleblog@gmail.com.

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Diego Andreucci
Diego Andreucci

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Source: ecosocialisthorizons.com

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Valor, crecimiento y desarrollo: lecciones desde America del Sur para una nueva ecopolitica


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February 21, 2017

Capitalism, democracy, and the degrowth horizon (Part II)


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February 14, 2017

Capitalism, democracy, and the degrowth horizon (Part I)


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10 Comments

  1. The labor(s) of degrowth | ENTITLE blog – a collaborative writing project on Political Ecology says:
    January 31, 2017 at 2:05 pm

    […] the first post of the Ecology after capitalism series, Stefania Barca argues that degrowth has potential to facilitate the discussion and practice of an […]

    Reply
  2. Beyond the Limits of Nature: A social-ecological view of growth and degrowth | ENTITLE blog – a collaborative writing project on Political Ecology says:
    February 7, 2017 at 2:00 pm

    […] this second article of the series “Ecology after capitalism“, Finley revisits the concept of growth from the libertarian socialist perspective of social […]

    Reply
  3. Beyond the Limits of Nature: A social-ecological view of growth and degrowth | Institute for Social Ecology says:
    February 9, 2017 at 8:22 pm

    […] Beyond the Limits of Nature: A social-ecological view of growth and degrowth. Part of the series Ecology after capitalism, it draws on Bookchin’s work to interrogate the limits of the degrowth perspective and contrasts […]

    Reply
  4. Capitalism, democracy, and the degrowth horizon (Part I) | ENTITLE blog – a collaborative writing project on Political Ecology says:
    February 14, 2017 at 2:05 pm

    […] the third post of the Ecology after capitalism series, divided in Part I and Part II, Leandro Vergara-Camus argues that the root causes of the […]

    Reply
  5. Capitalism, democracy, and the degrowth horizon (Part II) | ENTITLE blog – a collaborative writing project on Political Ecology says:
    February 21, 2017 at 2:02 pm

    […] the Part II of the third post of the Ecology after capitalism series, Leandro Vergara-Camus attempts to show that Marxism is useful for the degrowth movement […]

    Reply
  6. Valor, crecimiento y desarrollo: lecciones desde America del Sur para una nueva ecopolitica | ENTITLE blog – a collaborative writing project on Political Ecology says:
    February 28, 2017 at 2:01 pm

    […] el cuarto y ultimo post de la serie Ecology after capitalism, Eduardo Gudynas escribe sobre las propuestas del Buen Vivir desde America del Sur. Estas no sólo […]

    Reply
  7. Valor, crecimiento y desarrollo: lecciones desde America del Sur para una nueva ecopolitica – ALDHEA says:
    March 2, 2017 at 3:17 pm

    […] adminaldhea 0 Por Eduardo Gudynas* En el cuarto y ultimo post de la serie Ecology after capitalism, Eduardo Gudynas escribe sobre las propuestas del Buen Vivir desde America del Sur. Estas no sólo […]

    Reply
  8. Going for “the simpler way” | ENTITLE blog – a collaborative writing project on Political Ecology says:
    March 7, 2017 at 2:03 pm

    […] his contribution to the series Ecology after capitalism, Ted Trainer argues that ecosocialism is not the answer and calls for the left and degrowthers to […]

    Reply
  9. We Need to Talk about Robots – ENTITLE blog – a collaborative writing project on Political Ecology says:
    July 17, 2018 at 2:00 pm

    […] another way, in a just, democratic and sustainable ecosocialist future, will robots milk cows or will all production be on tiny family operations where humans toil at […]

    Reply
  10. need go says:
    November 28, 2019 at 3:06 pm

    We are dreaming about a sustainable ecosocialist future, but we are not sure that it is easy to achieve it! We probably must pass all obstacles to find out how it looks like to live in such a society.

    Reply

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