Lecture 5: eco-socialism

Question 1

What two key shifts does eco-socialism challenge us to make in understanding environmental politics?

Answer 1

Think beyond just politics and environment—include society in the analysis.

Explore how politics, society, and environment are connected to the economy.

Question 2

Why is environmental politics considered a “multiplicity”?

Answer 2

Environmentalism is politically open-ended—no single ideology

Eco-politics is a contested and fragmented field

Includes diverse groups like youth activists, degrowthers, indigenous resistance, eco-feminists, green New Dealers, eco-nationalists, etc.

Question 3

What does Fraser say about the current fragmentation of environmental politics?

Answer 3

While it reflects confusion and contestation, it also opens space for coalition-building

This fragmentation creates a moment of possibility for uniting struggles

Question 4

According to Fraser, how should we understand environmental degradation?

Answer 4

Not as a stand-alone issue

Must be seen in connection to political and social crises

Linked via capitalism as a common structural cause

Question 4

What does Fraser mean by trans-environmental eco-politics?

Answer 4

Links environmental problems to non-environmental social and political struggles

Advocates for seeing crises as interconnected rather than isolated

Question 5

Why is Fraser’s eco-socialist position anti-capitalist?

Answer 5

Capitalism is the root of multiple overlapping crises

Environmental, social, and political degradation share capitalism as a common driver

Rejecting capitalism can unite fragmented movements

Question 6

What does it mean for eco-socialism to be counter-hegemonic?

Answer 6

It challenges the dominant capitalist order

An anti-capitalist stance is inherently against the ruling norms of a capitalist society

Question 7

❗ Misunderstanding:
“Capitalism creates environmental crises” = “Only capitalism does”

Answer 7

Clarification:

Other systems can degrade the environment (e.g. feudalism, socialism, empires).

But capitalism is structurally compelled to degrade the environment due to its core contradiction.

In non-capitalist systems, environmental harm is contingent, not necessary.

Question 8

🔁 What is Capitalism (beyond economy)?

Answer 8

Not just a mode of economic production and exchange based on growth and accumulation.

Also a system that organizes the relationship between:
a) Economy (value-creating)
b) Non-economy (conditions it relies on but doesn’t value)

Question 9

⚠️ The Contradiction:

Answer 9

Capitalism separates economy from non-economy
→ Economy = what matters, has “value”
→ Non-economy (nature, society, care work, politics) = seen as valueless

Result: Capitalism free rides on the non-economic realm

Question 10

🪓 Self-Undermining Logic:

Answer 10

Capitalism exploits non-economic inputs (like the environment) without accounting for their renewal

But it depends on those inputs to survive

So capitalism destroys the very things it needs—a fatal contradiction

Question 11

1. Ecological Contradiction

Answer 11

Capitalism needs the environment as:

A tap: source of raw materials/inputs

A sink: space to dump waste

But it:

Treats nature as free, infinitely replenishing, and valueless

Segregates nature from the economic realm where value is officially created

Incentivizes resource extraction at lowest cost, with no regard for sustainability

➡️ Result:

Capitalism both needs and trashes nature

Leads to ecological crises like climate change, pollution, and biodiversity loss

Question 12

2. Social Contradiction

Answer 12

Capitalism needs society for:

Carework of laborers (raising, feeding, healing, teaching)

Human cooperation for social functioning and economic exchange

But it:
Sees no economic value in carework (done mostly by women, often unpaid)

Treats carework as a free resource, available for appropriation without renewal

Excludes social reproduction from the economy

Result:
Leads to social crises: burnout, inequality, care deficits, breakdown of families and communities

Capitalism corrodes the social fabric it needs to survive

Question 13

3. Political Contradiction

Answer 13

Capitalism needs politics for:

Security (policing, military)

Legal property rights and enforcement

Policies that facilitate accumulation (e.g., infrastructure, subsidies)

But it:
Denies politics has economic value

Incentivizes actors to evade regulation, undermine state power, and privatize public goods

Sees the state as an external cost, to be minimized or captured

➡️ Result:
Weakens the state’s capacity to regulate, tax, or respond to crises

Leads to political crises: populism, state dysfunction, democratic erosion

Question 14

What three non-economic domains does capitalism depend on but also deplete?

Answer 14

The environment, society (social reproduction), and politics.

Question 15

How does capitalism relate to the environment?

Answer 15

It uses nature as a tap (resources) and sink (waste), treats it as free and self-replenishing, but degrades it—leading to ecological crisis.

Question 16

What is social reproduction, and how does capitalism exploit it?

Answer 16

Carework that sustains labor and social bonds. Capitalism relies on it but treats it as free, causing social crisis.

Question 17

How does capitalism depend on politics?

Answer 17

For security, legal property protection, and pro-growth policies—yet it undermines these supports by evading taxes, regulation, and public accountability.

Question 18

What is the contradiction in capitalism’s relationship to its non-economic foundations?

Answer 18

It simultaneously needs and trashes them, leading to ecological, social, and political crises.

Question 19

How is racialized expropriation linked to capitalism’s crises?

Answer 19

Capitalism historically and currently expropriates wealth and labor from racially othered populations, often alongside environmental destruction.

Question 20

What are examples of racialized expropriation in capitalism?

Answer 20

Slavery, colonialism, and modern neo-imperialist practices that dispossess global South communities of land and labor.

Question 21

What is the significance of the intersection between ecology, society, and politics in Fraser’s view?

Answer 21

It reveals compounded injustices that are also racialized, showing the need for integrated political responses

Question 22

What opportunity does Fraser see in capitalism’s contradictions?

Answer 22

A chance to build a counter-hegemonic, eco-socialist bloc uniting environmental, racial, and social justice movements.

Question 23

Why does Fraser critique single-issue environmentalism?

Answer 23

It treats environmental issues in isolation, missing their links to social, political, and racial injustices.

Question 24

What deeper ideological problem does Fraser see in single-issue environmentalism?

Answer 24

It replicates capitalism’s false separation of economy from environment, accepting the idea that nature is “non-economic.”

Question 25

Why do all accumulation regimes eventually fail, according to Fraser?

Answer 25

Because they all separate the economy from environment, society, and politics—leading to systemic depletion and crisis.

Question 25

What strategic opportunity does single-issue environmentalism miss?

Answer 25

The chance to build coalitions across environmental, social, and racial justice struggles.

Question 25

What does Fraser argue is the historical pattern of capitalism?

Answer 25

A cycle of accumulation regimes creating crises, followed by new regimes that create new crises.

Question 26

Is Fraser optimistic about climate change ending the cycle of capitalist crises?

Answer 26

No—she’s agnostic. Climate change may or may not break the pattern of regime-crisis-replacement.

Question 26

What is a “metabolic rift”?

Answer 26

A disruption in a society’s ability to regenerate and sustain itself due to how it exploits natural and social energy.

Question 26

Why is capitalism prone to metabolic rifts?

Answer 26

Because it treats its non-economic foundations (like nature and carework) as limitless and free, leading to overuse and breakdown.

Question 26

What is “ecological imperialism” in Fraser’s eco-socialist framework?

Answer 26

The practice of extracting resources from peripheral areas to sustain unsustainable capitalist centers.

Question 26

How are metabolic rifts and ecological imperialism connected?

Answer 26

Capitalism compensates for internal breakdowns (metabolic rifts) by pillaging resources from global margins—this is ecological imperialism.

Question 27

What does Fraser argue eco-socialists should focus on instead of single-issue environmentalism?

Answer 27

Building a trans-environmental, anti-capitalist, and counter-hegemonic political bloc that unites multiple justice struggles.

Question 28

What environmental problem did mass urbanization and industrial agriculture in the Global North cause?

Answer 28

Soil nutrient depletion from disconnecting food production and consumption.

Question 29

What characterizes Fraser’s “liberal-colonial period” in capitalism?

Answer 29

The transition to coal and resulting metabolic rift in the Global North.

Question 29

How was the North’s soil crisis “solved” according to Fraser?

Answer 29

Through ecological imperialism: extracting guano (fertilizer) from South America using exploited labor.

Question 30

What was the environmental cost of guano extraction?

Answer 30

Destruction of unique island ecosystems and displacement/slaughter of guano-producing birds.

Question 30

What is guano, and why was it important in the 19th century?

Answer 30

Bird droppings used as powerful fertilizer; became essential for fixing nutrient-depleted soils in the North.

Question 31

How did Peru meet labor demands for guano extraction?

Answer 31

By importing Chinese laborers under coercive, brutal conditions resembling slavery.

Question 32

Why is guano labor described as “de facto slavery”?

Answer 32

Laborers were unpaid or underpaid, trapped on islands, worked in horrific conditions, and faced physical punishment.

Question 33

What does Fraser illustrate through the guano case?

Answer 33

Capitalism’s creation of linked social and environmental crises: rift in North, exploitation in South.

Question 34

What replaced guano as a key fertilizer in the late 1800s?

Answer 34

Nitrates from Peru and Bolivia.

Question 35

What triggered the Nitrate War (War of the Pacific, 1879–1883)?

Answer 35

Peru and Bolivia's attempts to control nitrate exports angered foreign investors, especially British-backed Chile, leading to war over nitrate-rich lands.

Question 36

What were the outcomes of the Nitrate War for Chile and British investors?

Answer 36

Chile seized nitrate territories; British investors gained ownership through recognized Peruvian certificates, massively profiting from the conflict.

Question 37

Define “ecological imperialism” in Fraser’s framework.

Answer 37

The Global North solving its ecological problems by exploiting environments and labor in the Global South.

Question 38

What does eco-socialism say about the North’s environmental overuse?

Answer 38

It’s sustained by displacing harm to the South via ecological imperialism.

Question 39

What is Fraser’s hope for addressing these crises?

Answer 39

A trans-environmental bloc rejecting capitalism as the only adequate response to environmental harm.