June 17, 2021

Transforming capitalism? The role of the commons and direct democracy in struggles against water privatisation in Europe.

By Andreas Bieler In his new book “Fighting for Water: Resisting Privatization in Europe” Andreas Bieler analyses the struggles against water privatization in Europe since the early 1990s. In this post for the series “Reimagining, remembering, and reclaiming water: From extractivism to commoning” he explores to what extent these struggles point towards a potential future beyond capitalism.
February 7, 2019

Reflections on Authoritarian Populism: Democracy, Technology and Ecological Destruction

By Alexander Dunlap. Using anarchist critique to unearth the ‘roots’ of authoritarian populism can offer a productive gateway for understanding the origins and continuation of socio-ecological and economic crises.
January 12, 2019

Assembling a Movement for Real Democracy in Every Community – launch statement from Symbiosis

by Symbiosis Collective We live in daunting times. Even as decisive, radical action to halt ecological devastation is needed more than ever before, the world’s ruling classes plow ahead, enriching themselves at the expense of people and planet and preparing their fortresses to hold back the coming tides. Our calls to action are infused with the fierce urgency of now like never before. It is ordinary people who face devastation in the ecological crisis, and it is ordinary people who do not hold the reins […]
October 23, 2018

Bolsonaro Calls for Carnage and Environmental Holocaust in Brazil

by Felipe Milanez Brazil’s extremist candidate in the upcoming presidential elections feeds hate, promises to arm murderers, and plots a massive land grab in the Amazon ― one that would amount to genocide and ecocide.
October 17, 2018

Defend democracy in Brazil

Brazilian academics and activists have lunched a manifesto to say no to Jair Bolsonaro
June 21, 2018

The political ecology of Cornelius Castoriadis

Ecology was of great interest for Castoriadis, one of the great philosophers of the 20th century. In his later writings, Castoriadis incorporated ecology into his political project of autonomy, based on direct democracy. For Castoriadis ecology is political because it raises the fundamental question of our purpose in this world and of limiting ourselves in relation to one another and the world we have come to inhabit.
February 21, 2017

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

By Leandro Vergara-Camus* In 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 because of its understanding of what the specificity of capitalism is in comparison to other types of societies. In order to build a post-capitalist society, he calls for challenging private ownership of the means of production, de-commodifying and democratising the access to and management of natural resources, challenging the separation of the economic from the political, […]
February 14, 2017

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

By Leandro Vergara-Camus* In 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 socially and ecologically destructive character of capitalism is not to be found in growth, but in capitalist accumulation. He suggests that growth can be greened in a post-capitalist society if the institutions and dynamics that force capitalist accumulation and competition are abolished and full democracy is established.
December 22, 2016

Protecting nature in an unequal world

By Prakash Kashwan* Democracies can do better than to give into the mirage of “Wilsonian Enclosures”, which envision half of the planet or more in nature reserves. The excessive focus on such areas detracts attention from developing alternative conservation strategies.
August 18, 2016

‘Green’ development and democracy? Hydropower in Northeast India

Hydropower projects, disguised and depoliticized as green and sustainable, are being imposed as a development solution across the Himalayas. The dam conflicts presented here illustrate how civil society groups have become political actors, rising up against assaults on democracy.*