Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital

333 Pages·2015·2.43 MB·English

by  Jason W. Moore

Capitalism in the Web of Life
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.
Capitalism in the Web of Life
Ecology and the Accumulation
of Capital
Jason W. Moore
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
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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
Typeset in Minion Pro by Hewer Text UK Ltd, Edinburgh, Scotland Printed in the US by Maple Press
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.
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
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 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, which under William G. Martin’s
chairmanship offered exceptionally favorable conditions for completing this
book. (Thanks, Bill!)
Very special thanks also to my editor, Sebastian Budgen, who put up with all
sorts of delays, and who supported this project from the beginning.
Finally, my great thanks to Mike and Mary Anne Hofmann, for raising me in
a home where ideas mattered; to Barbara Rose, for being the world’s coolest
mother-in-law; to Marge Thomas, whose friendship and wisdom sustained this
book to completion; and to my father, John W. Moore, who did not live to see
this book but I’m sure has been charting its progress all along, and would be
very pleased indeed to see a little philosophy mixed in with hard-headed political
economy.
Above all, Capitalism in the Web of Life has always been my son Malcolm’s
book, even before his arrival in 2010. I am not certain which—if any—of this
book’s formulations will stand the test of time. I am certain that it is a
contribution to the kind of thinking, and the kinds of conversations, necessary if
we are to rebuild a world that is not only habitable but just. I dedicate this book
to Malcolm and to his generation—and to young people of every age across the
world—for their willingness to see the web of life in its mosaic of connectivity
and creativity. It is in a new vision and with a new generation, that humanity’s
extraordinary capacity for creativity and cooperation will find new life, and the
rest of the planet with it.
Vestal, New York
December 2014