Capitalism In The Web Of Life : Ecology And The Accumulation Of Capital

318 Pages·2016·2.37 MB·English

by  Moore

Capitalism in the Web of Life
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Jason W. Moore is an environmental historian and political
economist in the Department of Sociology at Binghamton
University and coordinator of the World-Ecology Research
Network.
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Capitalism in the Web of Life
Ecology and the Accumulation
of Capital
Jason W. Moore
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First published by Verso 2015
© Jason W. Moore
All rights reserved
The moral rights of the author have been asserted
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Verso
UK: 6 Meard Street, London W1F 0EG
US: 20 Jay Street, Suite 1010, Brooklyn, NY 11201
www.versobooks.com
Verso is the imprint of New Left Books
ISBN-13: 978-1-78168-902-8 (PB)
ISBN-13: 978-1-78168-901-1 (HC)
eISBN-13: 978-1-78168-904-2 (US)
eISBN-13: 978-1-78168-903-5 (UK)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moore, Jason W.
Capitalism in the web of life : ecology and the accumulation of capital / Jason W. Moore. — 1st Edition.
pages cm
ISBN 978-1-78168-902-8 (paperback) — ISBN 978-1-78168-901-1 (hardcover) — ISBN 978-1-78168-
904-2 (ebook : US) — ISBN 978-1-78168-904-2 (ebook : UK)
1. Economic development—Environmental aspects. 2. Economic policy—Environmental aspects. 3.
Environmental policy. I. Title.
HD75.6.M66 2015
333.7—dc23
2015013430
5
Typeset in Minion Pro by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh, Scotland
Printed in the US by Maple Press
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For Malcolm,
Who inspired this book.
And for his generation,
may they may find the inspiration they need to see
themselves and the world as One,
and to change it accordingly.
And for Diana,
Who made it all possible.
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CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
INTRODUCTION: The Double Internality: History as if Nature Matters
PART I: FROM DUALISM TO DIALECTICS: CAPITALISM AS WORLD-ECOLOGY
1. From Object to Oikeios: Environment-Making in the Capitalist World-Ecology
2. Value in the Web of Life
3. Towards a Singular Metabolism: From Dualism to Dialectics in the Capitalist
World-Ecology
PART II: HISTORICAL CAPITALISM, HISTORICAL NATURE
4. The Tendency of the Ecological Surplus to Fall
5. The Capitalization of Nature, or, The Limits of Historical Nature
6. World-Ecological Revolutions: From Revolution to Regime
PART III: HISTORICAL NATURE AND THE ORIGINS OF CAPITAL
7. Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: On the Nature and Origins of Our Ecological
Crisis
8. Abstract Social Nature and the Limits to Capital
PART IV: THE RISE AND DEMISE OF CHEAP NATURE
9. Cheap Labor?: Time, Capital, and the Reproduction of Human Nature
10. The Long Green Revolution: The Life and Times of Cheap Food in the Long
Twentieth Century
CONCLUSION: The End of Cheap Nature?
INDEX
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Acknowledgments
This book is an invitation. It is offered as an opening to conversation, and an incitement
to serious debate, over humanity’s place in nature, and how our thinking about this place
in nature shapes our view of history, our analysis of the present crisis, and the politics of
liberation for all life.
Capitalism in the Web of Life is, perhaps more than most, the product of an
extended and sustained global conversation. There are many fingerprints on this book.
Some are more obvious than others. Observations and reflections from a great many
colleagues—many encountered through gracious invitations to give talks at universities
in North America, Europe, and China—have made their way into the book. Audiences
forced me to think in new ways; even when we have not agreed, their questions and
critiques sharpened this book’s clarity in unexpected, and deeply appreciated, ways. So
too the extraordinary contributions of the intellectual fields on which I build:
environmental and economic history, world history and world-systems analysis, political
ecology and critical human geography, Marxist feminism, global political economy, agro-
food and critical development studies, and many, many more. It is with great respect
and admiration for a half-century of radical scholarship that I have sought to build out
and synthesize the dialectical implications of these fields (and not just these) for the study
of humanity-in-nature.
Capitalism in the Web of Life reflects two decades of reflection and study at the
nexus of two great concerns: the history of capitalism and environmental history. It has
been a long, productive, exciting, and often tumultuous, journey. This book’s ideas were
formulated on both coasts of North America, on both sides of the Atlantic, at eight
universities. Diana C. Gildea, my wife, best friend, and co-conspirator, has been with
me for all of it. You would not be reading these words—or any of those that follow—
without Diana’s affirmation that world-ecology, and this book in particular, was a
project worth pursuing, and her insistence that the project be pursued with intellectual
creativity and rigor.
This journey towards a “unified” theory of historical capitalism and historical nature
first took shape out of conversations with John Bellamy Foster two decades ago.
Although many of this book’s formulations are at odds with John’s arguments today, my
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debt to him as a teacher and colleague is incalculable. From Edumund (Terry) Burke III
and Giovanni Arrighi, I learned the strange arts of world history. Terry saved me from
taking theory as a substitute for history; Giovanni helped me to see that world history is
indispensable to our analysis of the present crisis. Richard Walker—known affectionately
as DW to his friends—finally convinced me that geography matters. (I mean:
Geography. Really. Matters.) And, equally, that the “endless accumulation” could not
simply be invoked; a theory of capital accumulation had to be central to thinking
capitalism’s world histories. More than that, DW’s rare combination of rigorous
scholarship, elemental kindness, and academic good sense has contributed mightily not
only to the book’s intellectual clarity, but to the conditions under which the book was
written. Henry Bernstein encouraged me to do the book with Verso, and his sustained
critique—and encouragement—allowed me to sharpen my arguments well beyond what I
thought possible.
Numerous colleagues read and commented upon various incarnations of my
argument in this book. I am especially grateful to Sharae Deckard, Michael Niblett,
Stephen Shapiro, and their wonderful colleagues in the “Warwick diaspora” of world
literary studies. They have been a constant source of inspiration and encouragement. In
addition to those already mentioned, thanks also to Benjamin D. Brewer, Holly Jean
Buck, Jay Bolthouse, Alvin Camba, Christopher Cox, MacKenzie K.L. Moore, Phil
McMichael, Mindi Schneider, and Christian Parenti, for comments on these arguments
in draft.
I am deeply thankful for an extended family of scholars who have been a party to,
though not always in agreement with, the world-ecology argument: Haroon Akram-
Losdhi, Elmar Altvater, Farshad Araghi, Marco Armiero, Árni Daníel Júlíusson, Stefania
Barca, Jun Borras, Neil Brenner, Sandy Brown, Bram Büscher, Liam Campling, Jennifer
Casolo, Eric Clark, Carol Crumley, Barbara Epstein, Samuel Day Fassbinder, Paul
Gellert, Kyle Gibson, Pernille Gooch, Alf Hornborg, Erik Jönsson, Shiloh Krupar, Ashok
Kumbamu, Rebecca Lave, Richard E. Lee, Larry Lohmann, Birgit Mahnkopf, Andreas
Malm, Jessica C. Marx, Daniel Münster, Carl Nordlund, Denis O’Hearn, Kerstin Oloff,
Beverly J. Silver, Eric Vanhaute, Michael Watts, Tony Weis, Anna Zalik, and
(especially!) Harriet Friedmann, Immanuel Wallerstein, and Dale Tomich. Xiurong Zhao
and Gennaro Avallone, both brilliant scholars in their own right, deserve special thanks
for book-length translations of my essays, forcing me along the way to clarify fuzzy
arguments and murky formulations. (Now that’s commitment!) My graduate students in
the Department of Sociology at Binghamton University also deserve credit:
Kushariyaningsih (Wiwit) Boediono, Alvin Camba, Joshua Eichen, Benjamin Marley,
Cory Martin, Roberto J. Ortiz, Andy Pragacz, Shehryar Qazi, and Manuel Francisco
Varo. Finally, my thanks to Binghamton University and the Department of Sociology,
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