L4 - eco-socialism Flashcards
take aways last class + intro
environmentalism + ecologis are open ended don’t entail a specific set of political commitments
- they are given political menaing through ideas we attribute to them
rewatch when you’ve seen the other class
intro: eco-socialism, Frasier (critical theorists) pushes us to expand our perspective how politics and the env intersects:
- think in terms not just of politics and the environment, but also in terms of the society (environment, polity and social are interwoven)
- interrogate how politics-society-env nexus is related to the economy
unpacking Frasier
multiplicity of env politics
env politics or “eco-politics” currently takes many different forms
(they are politically open-ended, don’t stipulate political commitments, they are given political meaning through practice/discourse)
- e.g. youth activists, degrowthers, indigenous communities pitted against corporate extractors, environmental feminists, green New Dealers, eco-nationalists, etc,
each form as different diagnosis-prescription about what’s causing env degradation and what would be needed to correct it
- so it illustrates eco-politics is all over the place: it is a large, confused, contested terrain with multiple perspectives how env and politics are connected (many perspectives are in opposition of each other)
this moment of political confusion is also one of possibility
- nothing is settled (eco politics is fractured) = opportunity for coalition building and mobilization = counter-hegemonic bloc that is trans-environmental and anti-capitalist
Fraser’s eco-socialism
an eco-politics that is:
TRANS-ENVIRONMENTAL
- env crises linked to social and political crises
- env issues bound to non-env issues (the distinction itself is really blurry for Frasier)
- (trans-eco-politics)
ANTI-CAPITALIST
(to be able to link the env and non-env)
- capitalism is a common driver behind env, social and political crises
- a fundamental contradiction within capitalism means it creates crises in all three domains
- therefore, shared rejection of capitalism could be unifying
COUNTER-HEGEMONIC
- in a world organized by capital, an anti-capital position is definitionally counter-hegemonic
- world is organized by capital -> environmentalism against capitalism is per definition counter-hegemonic
Fraser - anticipated confusion clarified
“Capitalism non-accidentally creates environmental crises” ≠ “Only capitalism creates environmental crises”
- other non-capitalist societies also can destroy the environment, but this is incidental rather than structural
Non-capitalist societies can, but are not structurally compelled, to generate environmental harm
By contrast, capitalism can’t help but generate environmental harm because of a contradiction baked into its structure
- it is inevitable
For eco-socialists, unlike for green Keynesians, capitalism cannot be made adequately greener
- both see capitalism as a problem/cause
- but only eco-socialists say no solution within capitalism is possible
capitalism =
system of eco production and exchange predicated on growth and accumulation
- accumulation regime
also (Fraser): it is more than that
= system for organizing the relationship between
a) economic production and exchange
b) their supporting, “non-economic” conditions and materials
- that make it possible
(so the relationship between the econ and the non-econ that make the econ function)
capitalism: contradiction
capitalism organizes the relationship between economy and non-economy in a contradictory and self-undermining way
capitalism divorces economy (value creating) from non-economy (not value creating)
- separates/segregates the econ from the non-econ
therefore, capitalism invites economy to free ride on non-economic resources
- value only in econ proper -> encourages participants to snatch up non-econ resources without regard health/replenishment of those resources
- corrodes and degrades non-econ resources on which econ-production depends
quote-ish: capitalism saws on the legs/branch it sits on
capitalism is self-undermining
capitalism: “economic” vs “non-economic”
(visual-ish representation)
economic = activity understood to create value
non-economic = inputs understood not to have value
-> free-riding and depletion
- (environment, society, politics)
capitalism: 3 “non-economic” contradictions
- capitalism needs:
- env as a tap for inputs and sink for waste
- society for carework of human labor and carework of human cooperation (social reproduction, carework necessary to maintain work force)
- politics for security and legal production of private property and policies that enable accumulation
- but by designating each as “non-economic”, capitalism encourages economy to free ride on and corrode:
- env resources
- social resources (sees no econ-value it -> encourages people to free ride on carework, to deplete without taking into account effects)
= capitalism leads to social crises - political resources: no econ value in politics -> depletion and erosion of the state: eco actors incentivized to avoid the state
- this means capitalism simultaneously needs and thrashes:
- environment -> env crises (i.e. capital’s environmental or ecological contradiction)
- society -> social crises (i.e. capital’s social contradiction)
- politics -> political crises (i.e. capital’s political contradiction)
= eats away at the political resources it needs to flourish
(env needed for tap and sink BUT it segregates the env from the econ: sees it as free/cheap stuff that is self-rejuvenating and doesn’t have value on itself -> to grow capital, incentivized to grab up so much as possible regardless of env impact) = capitalism needs and trashes the env -> ecological crises
Fraser on capitalism and contradiction
(video)
ecological contradiction at heart of capitalist society in how it establishes between economy and nature
- the contradiction is structural -> we can’t tackle it without changing the structure = anti-capitalist
also other contradictions that influence nature and the structure around it:
social reproductive conditions necessary for economic production: carework performed by families and communities is necessary for system of social provisioning (sustaining human beings that constitute the work force + forging social bonds that enable cooperation), capitalism way of organizing it is contradictory
- splitting production of from reproduction: treating the first alone as locus of value ->
- licensing econ to free-ride on society to appropriate care work without replenishment = jeopardize central condition for own possibility
= deeply entangled with nature/ ecological contradiction: bc it is deeply concerned with manners of life and death (e.g. care for children, sick and dying)
- everyone depends on carework for social connection and physical connection
- it aims to sustain beings that are both social and natural = it constitutes the distinction, it is entwined with ecological production
= capitalism separates economy from care and nature, but also sets in motion extensive interactions among them
“we can’t adequately understand capitalism’s ecological contradiction unless we think the latter together with its ecological contradiction”
political contradiction: splits the political from the economic and incentivizes eco actors to hollow out public power, failure to invest in public infrastructure (austerity)
“non-economic” interconnected
env, society and polity are interconnected
- carework connects the habitat and community: both are related to life and death + carework sustains society is attented to physical wellbeing of bodies and social wellbeing of people
-> crisis in one domain likely to mean crisis in others
- ecological crises often also social crises and vice versa
- if it undermines/destabilizes the social, it also does the ecological and vice versa
this analytical complexity is an opportunity for solidarity and coalition building (i.e. those concerned about seemingly different crises actually have a shared enemy: capitalism)
e.g. env crises are often also political crises bc states manage the boundary between env and economy, making env decisions also political decisions
env, polity and society all overlap, in the middle (connected to all of them is race) = shared fault-line that can be the basis of solidary construction, shared commitment
- capitalist contradictions intersect, by freeriding on non-econ bases to their near-destruction, it behaves irrationally (sustainability) and unjustly (free rides on non-econ)
non-econ interconnected: diagram
environment, polity and society all overlap, with in the middle race (another form of injustice)
capitalism expropriates the labour and wealth of whole populations along the color line
- historially: slavery and colonialism
- today: postcolonial neo-imperialism
capitalism expropriates natural resources and human communities (that have historically been on receiving end of colonization and slavery)
capitalism’s tendency to undermine own social, political and natural resources is also racialized
so crises are often racialized, built-in tendency to create racially othered populations for expropriation
analytical complexity creates political opportunity: opportunity for bloc-building: all should be committed to all (racial justice, environmentalism etc.)
eco-socialism vs single-issue environmentalism
interconnection of “non-economic” domains, and their racialization, challenges a single issue environmentalism:
AS STRATEGY (shallower critique): single-issue environmentalism bypasses opportunity for coalition-building
AS IDEOLOGY (deeper critique): single-issue environmentalism accepts capitalism’s separation of economy and environment
= it replicates a false distinction between eco activity and the stuff behind it, it signals environmentalism as singular issue, but it actually isn’t
- politics isn’t the econ, society isn’t the econ, env isn’t the econ
capital’s contradiction in history
history of capitalism demonstrates systematic creation of interconnected environmental, social and political crises
when crises come to a head (boiling point), one “accumulation regime” wil be replaced by another (NB Fraser tracks four such “accumulation regimes”)
- when you free ride to hard on non-econ input, you get tripartite crises, in a way that it becomes unsustainable
but each new period will eventually create new env, social and political crises of its own
bc it too will segregate econ from non-econ, generating env, social and political free-riding
the history of capitalism is a cyclical (yet contextually specific) pattern of:
accumulation regime -> crisis -> new accumulation regime -> new crisis -> etc.
- diff accumulation regimes have different ways of generating energy, extracting resources and getting rid of waste
- so diff ways of encouraging capital growth and handling non-econ resources
- Fraser: each segregates the econ from the supposedly non-economic
- so they are different, but each historical period splits of the econ from nature’s society/polity
-> dooms each to eventual crisis
Fraser is agnostic about whether climate change will put an end to this pattern
- we could be in a situation where no successor regime can emerge: maybe if things get bad enough, the cyclical pattern will come to an end
- BUT we can’t make any real prediction: capitalism has track record of replacing systems, making it diff to know if climate change will end the cyclical pattern or not
key terms eco-socialists use to analyze capitalisms env-historical progression
metabolic rift
= disruption of society’s ability to generate energy needed to sustain and regenerate itself
- eco-socialists see capitalism as especially vulnerable to metabolic rifts bc of how it relates to its “non-economic” bases
- (metabolism: how organisms use inputs to produce energy to survive)
- when it is difficult to turn enough inputs into enough energy to sustain and regenerate themselves
ecological imperialism
= taking resources from capital’s periphery to compensate for metabolic rift at capital’s core
- eco-socialists see this as capitalism’s standard “fix” to metabolic rifts
- unsustainable growth at capitalism’s center or core is propped up and sustained via material pillaging and degradation at capitalism’s periphery
- can be within a single polity BUT also between/across multiple states
- unsustainable growth center made possible by degrading the marginal/peripheral areas
Fraser’s liberal-colonial regime
C19-C20 transition to coal
characterized by metabolic rift in Global North
mass agriculture shipped from countryside to cities to feed newly concentrated factory laborers
- very profitable but taxing for environment
declining soil fertility: food produced and consumed in one place returns nutrients to the soil, but food produced and consumed in diff places doesn’t (nutrients don’t go back into the soil -> over time the soil becomes less fertile/productive)
newly industrialized Global North experiences soil-nutrient crisis threatening food supplies
- turn of industrial capital in the Global North created a metabolic rift in that society
industrial capital creates a metabolic rift within capitalist society
-> extraction nutrient-rich fertilizers in South America via forced labour of racially othered people
Guano
C19 must-have natural resource
(miracle fertilizer to solve depletion)
Guano = fertilizer traditionally used by indigenous peoples of South America
(bird poop)
as industrial agriculture depletes, soil fertility in the Global North, interest in Global South guano deposits grows
Peru: key guano exporter to Global North: guano revenue makes up large part of state revenue by late 1800s
- dry climate -> massive deposits high quality guano on various islands along Peruvean coast
- Peru willing to capitalize on huge demand bc had huge war debt to Britain: exporting guano as way to pay it
- became Peru’s primary export
Guano trade profitable but environmentally taxing
- unique geography and aesthetic of guano islands erased by extraction
- guano producing birds driven away and slaughtered
- metabolic rift in North creates env destruction in South
Guano and labor
Guano not only env destructive, but also socially destructive: large production requires large work force -> exploitation of labor
early C19 Peruvian labor shortages leads to immigration law subsidizing import of contract laborers
European merchants import Chinese laborers through coercion and deception under horrific transport conditions (meager rations, high mortality rates)
Chinese laborers employed on plantations, railroads, and in the guano business under slave-like conditions (guano mining thought to be the worst)
- guano mining the worst: harsh labor conditions: manually digging into mounts of poop with minimal tools (picks and shovels) + transporting it to ships + if they weren’t fast enough there was physical punishment
- de jure no slaves, but de facto they were (lack of necessities, high mortality, not allowed to leave etc.)
compensating for metabolic rift in the Global North via ecological imperialism leads to inhumane, racialized exploitation of labor (i.e. social crisis) in the Global South
- landscape was altered + Chinese labor was exploited
nitrates
= another must-have natural resource (liberal colonial period)
Nitrates = a second fix for capital’s depletion of soil fertility in the Global North
found in Peru and Bolivia, nitrates start to rival guano as the export fertilizer of choice
Peru monopolizes nitrates (state monopoly), expropriates private investors, many of whom are foreign (esp British)
- in exchange they got certificates of payment
- move angered investors + were further displeased/outraged when Bolivia raised taxes -> war
Bolivia raises taxes on nitrate exports
Monopolization and taxation anger foreign investors
War on the Pacific, AKA the Nitrate War 1879-1883
the Nitrate War
1879-1883
Chile backed by Britain vs Peru and Bolivia
Chile (victorious) claims all nitrate zones held by Peru and Bolivia
British investors also win big
- buy up nitrate certificates issued by Peru during monopolization
- after the War, Chile recognizes these certificates as proof of ownership
- meaning British stake in South American nitrates balloons on the heels of war (after war really profitable for the British)
Nitrate War seen at the time as “case of British-instigated, Chilean-executed aggression” motivated by the quest for fertilizer
Metabolic rift in Global North creates not just environmental and social crises, but here also political crisis in the form of war
eco-socialism - take aways
ecological imperialism allows the Global North to overburden its own env by taking from environments in the Global South
capital’s contradictory relation to the env is sustained by ecological imperialism
e.g. soil nutrient crisis in North displaced via environmental, social and political crises in South
problem according to this lens is not singular: not just collective action problem, not just CO2 problem, it is really big -> might lead to despair BUT:
Fraser: hope for trans-environmental bloc organized around rejection of capitalism, for her the only adequate prescription for environmental harm
questions
why can’t we make capitalism more env friendly - wouldn’t it be smart to stop the contradictions so that capitalism doesn’t undermine itself?
- capitalism works by turning things into commodities, but somethings can only be commodified so much
- > drawing on eco theory of Pelani: some things resists commodification (before they stop being themselves sources of production): land, labor, nature and money = they seize to be functional if they are commodified to much
- there are boundaries to complete commodification
doesn’t provide alternative/solution, it just provides a powerful critique = already difficult
