Green Capitalism and beyond.
Prospects of socio-ecological transformation
Ulrich Brand --- 20 March 2014 --- --- CBS, Copenhagen
Morten Ougaard gave us three questions
1) Is environmental sustainability compatible
with economic and social sustainability?
2) Is green capitalism possible?
If so, what will it take to achieve it?
3) What kind of transformation is required to make
society environmentally sustainable?
Is environmental sustainability compatible
with economic and social sustainability?
• What do we mean by sustainability?
– To maintain biophysical conditions of life
– To promote a good life for all members of (world) society; i.e. justice,
democracy, economic well-being
– To produce and distribute „required“ goods and services productively,
under stable conditions, with good work conditions; not only for market but
also non-market production / exchange / consumption
• Long-lasting debate how to achieve … innovation, reduction, role of
governance, social values, pioneers of change, producers, consumers etc.
Just some thoughts
• Peter Newell: „elephant in the room“ … capitalism
• In principle reconciliation not possible:
economic = capitalist sustainability means capital
accumulation / growth and growing use of resources and sinks;
systematic limits to ecological modernisation
• Good living today: imperial mode of living; Fordist experience
• My proposal: to think envtl sustainability as part of social,
economic and cultural developments … theoretical consideration
political ecology
• nature is not external to society but its materiality constituted by
society: societal nature relations
• nature has its materiality which we can detect (i.e. through
science, experiences)
• what are the historically specific and locally uneven forms of the
appropriation of nature (resources, waste, sinks)?
• crucial is then: forms of production, mobility, food, living – this
is linked to interests, power and domination, to grammar of capital
accumulation
• the forms of societal nature relations are contested  energy
and food production
• in this sense: ecological crisis is a socio-economic, cultural and
political crisis of unintended effects of the fossilist-capitalistimperial mode of development
Answer to first question posed by Morten:
Is environmental sustainability compatible with economic and social sustainability?
but we need to reflect what we are talking about:
• Environment is crisis-driven societal nature relations
• Social sustainability need to shape imperial mode of living
• Economic sustainability – what kind of economy? Sustainable
growth and capital accumulation as motor?
I link 2nd and 3rd question
2) Is green capitalism possible?
If so, what will it take to achieve it?
Yes, it might be in countries like Austria, Denmark, Germany on the
way to it - however, depends on the very concept „Green capitalism“
a) as a term which indicates a more or less successful socioeconomic and political dealing with the ecological crisis (1990s –
„ecological modernisation“ / sustainable development; today: Green Economy)
b) my usage: not a normative one but an analysis how societies under
dominance of capitalist mode of production shape partially their
societal nature relations, i.e. energy production and use, mobility, food system,
housing and clothing
• how integrated into capitalist logics of production and living?
• selectively, against background of grammar of profits,
externalising, ob uneben and combined development
Beginning of debate about „Green Capitalism“
• struggles / search processes to overcome multiple crisis
• ecological crisis and issues will be part of it
• What kind of strategies? How can projects evolve?
Strategies / versions of Green Capitalism
1. strategies of neoliberal competitiveness, austerity (Global Europe,
Lisbon; US)
2. (new) neomarcantilist develomentalism: state capitalism; „oil
socialism“, heavily world market oriented (China, Latin America)
3. growing militarization: Columbia, Amazon, Russia
4. Green New Deal, Green Economy; globalist-social democratic strategy:
5. Progressive social-ecological transformation; Left-wing NGOs, social
movements, progressive govts in Lat America, different experiences; critical
debates like those on degrowth, vivir bien, ecological debt
Green Economy / Green Growth
• different approaches: more Keynesian (NEF, Greens), more liberal (UNEP)
• crucial idea is that „state“ should create adequate framework for
„markets“ – more economic policy
• emphasis on „green“ capital, efficiency and innovation
• new spheres of capital accumulation
 important project – imaginary
Tend to overlook
• danger to convert to capitalist modernisation project of some
countries at expese of others
• predominance of competition, competitiveness and geopolitics:
natural resources are part of world market competition (e.g.
„fracking“ in U.S.)
• commodification of nature strong and problematic
3) What kind of transformation is required to make
society environmentally sustainable?
• to start with: modern societies are characterised by transformations /
transitions … smaller ones  accomodation; more comprehensive
ones, crisis-driven
“The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of
production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of
society. …. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social
conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all
earlier ones.”
• it is not about „yes / no“ of transformation but about the logic of
transformation
• transformation / transition debate about intentional change of the
logic in light of experiences, normativity … but also ontologies
going beyond Green Economy:
social-ecological transformation
• new models of well-being; attractive mode of production and living:
chance of the actual crisis, degrowth debate
• enhancement of sufficency to go beyond focus of efficiency
• key: different energetic and resource basis; energy decentral
• critical to profit-driven market (GE / GND trusts in it)
• strong elements of planning (of use of resources)
• democratic process, learning, incl. forms of production
– participation of people in planning, in protection
– conversion of industries not on backs of wage-earners
– who decides today over development path? – against authoritarian
ways
If strategies of social-ecological transformation remain weak
best we can get: progressive version of capitalism
better than business-as-usual but not far reaching and probably not stopping
ecological crisis
• As passive revolution (A-Gramsci) through „eco-capitalist
power bloc“
• „Economic viability“ at level of capital circuits (accumulation
regime) and its embededdnes (mode of regulation)
• stability of imperial mode of living
• In parts, „green corporatism“ (role of trade unions)
• Project „becomes state“ and is secured to state policies and
structures
thank you for your attention!
•
take a copy of „Beautiful Green World“ – Critique of Green Economy
•
„Socioecological Transformations“, special issue of Austrian Journal of
Development Studies 28(3), Ed. Ulrich Brand, Birgit Daiber, 2012 … also
experiences from Latin America --- 30 DKK