Ecosocialism Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

This study deals with the tensions and contradictions between resource governance, welfare policies, and the constitutionally recognized rights of nature and the indigenous peoples in Bolivia and Ecuador. We have identified a certain reductionism in current debates on these issues and propose a more systematic analytical focus on class and the class-ethnicity duality, as expressed in historical and contemporary indigenous struggles, and also confirmed via our ethnographic material. Drawing on the double bind as expressed in Joseph Heller´s Catch-22 wherein the protagonists face situations in which they do not have any choice to achieve a net gain, this article centres on how national governments have to choose between the protections of rights – in this case ethnic and environmental rights-and welfare provision financed by extractive revenues. From the perspective of ecologically concerned indigenous actors, the Catch-22 is articulated in the choice or compromise between universal welfarism on the one hand, and ethno-environmental concerns on the other hand. The article draws primarily on ecosocialist arguments and on indigenous-culturalist perspectives on Good Life (Sumak Kawsay or Vivir Bien). A central finding is the existence of awareness among involved actors-oppositional movements and government authorities-that the Catch-22 quandary and joint class-ethnic concerns are unavoidable ingredients in their discourses, struggles, and understandings of Good Life.

- by and +1
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- Class, Indigenous Movements, Bolivia, Ecuador
- by Michele Nobile
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- Marxism, Political Ecology, Marxism and Ecology, Social-Ecological Systems

Wall – a radical in my view in his integration of scholarship and Green political and movement activism in the UK – has written a book for other radicals – here I would humbly include myself in this category give my own academic-activist profile – a 'rule book for radicals' based on the ideas of a less than radical thinker (and non-activist) Elinor Ostrom. But then she, and neither Derek nor myself, have a Noble Prize in economics… and in many respects there is no contradiction in drawing radical implications and strategies from someone who themselves is not so inclined. This is the conundrum Wall covers in this admirably short, well-written and sharply observed book. As he puts it, his task is to " make her work accessible and to show those on the left, especially the ecosocialist left, can make productive use of her diverse and provocative thinking " (13).

- by John Barry
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- Commons, Sustainable Development, Environmental Sustainability, Radical Democracy

I consider it a breakthrough of sorts. Last September a group of the leading members of the Canadian ecological and social justice movements, including Naomi Klein and David Suzuki, published The Leap Manifesto: A Call for a Canada Based on Caring for the Earth and One Another, which I characterized as “a welcome initiative towards a collective discussion for social change necessary to address the root causes of social and planetary crisis.” Then last May E. O. Wilson published Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life (2016), his last volume in a trilogy, in which he breaks ranks with the conservation movement’s piecemeal and reactive approach by proclaiming and defending the ambitious goal based on the best available science that the only viable way to save biodiversity on which human life depends is to set aside at least half of the planet’s land and oceans as protected areas for wildlife. On August 15, Bill McKibben, co-founder of 350.org and the acknowledged public face of the climate justice movement, published a major policy essay, “A World at War”, in the New Republic in which he outlines an action program for transition to a post-carbon economy by 2050. Four days later, on August 19, The Climate Mobilization (TCM), released an incomplete draft of its Victory Plan, which goes much further in scale and scope than McKibben’s essay. As activist who has been arguing for the need for a broad discussion in the climate justice movement leading to adoption of an action program to use for education, organization and mobilization of largest possible sections of the public (Nayeri, 2015, 2016) I see these as important steps forward. The TCM’s example of proposing a draft action program for discussion and critique by its membership and the public must be commended. What follows is my own critical assessment of these recent important steps. While I focus my remarks on climate change and McKibben’s and TCM’s proposals, the reader will note that they are addressing the planetary crisis and all its manifestation that are in fact part and parcel of humanity’s socioeconomic and cultural crisis. No ecological/environmental crisis exists that is not a manifestation of Our Way of Life.

- by Kamran Nayeri
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- Climate Change, Anthropocentrism, Écosocialisme, Climate Justice

Resenha de John Bellamy Foster, The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2020).
* * *
John Bellamy Foster, The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2020) review.

- by Felipe Cotrim
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- Marxism, Friedrich Engels, Marxismo, William Morris
- by Christian Stache
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- Joel Kovel, Ecosocialism, Ecological Marxism, James O'Connor

This paper aims at reviewing the content of Buen vivir as an emergent discourse within the “gravitational field” of sustainable development: its genesis, its foundations and its singularity. First, we consider the criticisms to the development discourse and to its direct descendant: sustainable development. Next, we review the position of Latin America in the global discursive field of sustainable development and the situation of Buen vivir facing the debates therein. Drawing on the traditional repository of the aboriginal cultures of the continent, this new discourse has been theorized in the academic sphere and translated into normative principles that have permeated the political sphere, which is especially visible in the cases of Ecuador and Bolivia. In this article we refer to “Buen vivir” as the contemporary reelaboration of the quechua concept Sumak Kawsay, and other similar concepts from other indigenous nations. It includes both the idea of interdependence between society and its natural environment, as well as a conception of the universal as plural. Lastly, beyond its implications for environmental debate, Buen vivir also involves an imperative for the redefinition of relations between the citizenry, the state and the market.

Nel contesto delle crisi climatiche ed ecologiche in atto gli attori dotati di maggiore potenziale trasformativo sono i nuovi movimenti sociali. Mentre in passato è stato il movimento operaio e il sindacato a frenare lo sfruttamento del lavoro, ora il depauperamento delle risorse naturali trova davanti a sé vari movimenti ambientalisti, i quali possono costituire anch’essi una “barriera sociale” per lo sviluppo capitalistico.
Si genera nel tempo una lotta articolata in due fasi distinte tra il capitale e i nuovi movimenti sociali. La prima fase è costituita dalla lotta per proteggere le condizioni di produzione dallo sfruttamento capitalistico. La seconda fase è costituita dalla lotta contro «i programmi e le politiche del capitale e dello stato, per ristrutturare le condizioni della produzione».

- by Michael Arfken
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- Marxism, Environmental Psychology, Ecopsychology, Ecofeminism
- by Fred Magdoff
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- Social-Ecological Systems, Ecological Economics, Ecological Design, Capitalism

2014 paper for Green House. Presents a range of arguments as to why it is intrinsic to capitalist economies that they need to grow over the long term. Sketches in relief some potential features that might need to characterise a genuinely... more

- by Richard Douglas
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- Economic Growth, Capitalism, Rosa Luxemburg, Financialization

A far-ranging review of a new book for young readers on how to get involved in and build a real movement, here & now, to transform awareness and take local action hands- and hearts-on as active agents in confronting climate change: a transformation eco-agenda: Naomi Klein, HOW TO CHANGE EVERYTHING. The Young Human’s Guide to Protecting the Planet and Each Other. With Rebecca Stefoff. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers. Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division 2021. Written by Canadian-born, US social activist and public intellectual Naomi Klein, it is meant for young readers still in school, esp. tweens and teens (and their teachers). It is loaded with information and stimuli to take practical action to stem climate change, and also to change various aspects of our grossly unequal society and economy.

- by Bill Templer
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- Green Economics, Environmental Education, Alternative Education, Climate Change

In this essay, I will examine the epic from a new perspective informed by my own argument that the transition to farming from foraging that began about 10,000 years ago required alienation from nature marked by the rise of an anthropocentric worldview (human-centeredness) basic to farming, which relies on domestication of plants and animals, and domination and control of nature. The transition to anthropocentrism marked a world-historic change because our forager ancestors held a variety of ecocentric worldviews for the past 290,000 years.

- by Kamran Nayeri
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- Écosocialisme, Theories of Socialism, Ecosocialism, Nature and Culture
- by Justin McBrien
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- Climate Change, Environmental Studies, Necropolitics, Mass extinctions

Por ocasião da publicação da obra no Brasil, pela Boitempo Editorial, decidi finalmente fazer o que já devia ter feito e ler o livro, sabendo que a tradução brasileira dispararia debates entre nós. O que encontrei foi um esforço monumental de pesquisa que realiza, agora sim, a ambição de Foster. Em minha avaliação, Saito é capaz de demonstrar com rigor, apoio textual e biográfico, que o percurso de investigação e elaboração teórica de Marx esteve, por boa parte de sua vida, norteado por uma clareza de que a destrutibilidade ecológica do sistema capitalista deveria também integrar sua crítica a esta sociedade.

- by John Barry
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- Marxist Economics, Marxism and Ecology, Social Justice, Deep Ecology

These essays are intended to uncover the interrelations be-
tween the rationality of capitalist production and the irrationality of
capitalist exchange, how they developed, and how they are expressed in contemporary society.

- by Richard E Greenblatt
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- Political Economy, Ecosocialism
- by Sabrina Fernandes
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- Climate Change, Environmental Sustainability, Green New Deal, Ecosocialism
- by Patrick S. O'Donnell
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- Marxism, Political Ecology, Anarchism, Socialism

En la presente Tesina, me sitúo en el marco teórico-conceptual de las corrientes de Pensamiento Ambiental Crítico (PAC), tomando herramientas interpretativas de la historia ambiental y la economía ecológica. Partiendo de allí, aplico sus herramientas generales para adentrarme en el esquema de permanente transferencia hacia el exterior del excedente producido en el territorio nacional, con su consecuente impacto sobre los recursos naturales. En este caso, me circunscribo a la provincia de Mendoza para centrar el abordaje en la principal actividad agroindustrial de este territorio: la vitivinicultura, a partir de la reestructuración productiva que verifica desde los ‟90; y en su recurso natural más importante: el agua.
En primera instancia, realizo un estudio histórico en clave ambiental de los procesos de apropiación y uso de los recursos naturales en el continente latinoamericano y Argentina, según los distintos modelos productivos dominantes en cada etapa. Ello me permite enmarcar el caso de la provincia de Mendoza, que abordo a continuación de lo anterior, reconstruyendo las particularidades de este territorio, en el que tomo como eje del relato a la actividad vitivinícola. Evalúo el proceso que lleva al modelo de vitivinicultura tradicional a instalarse como modelo productivo dominante durante el periodo secular que va desde fines del siglo XIX hasta fines del XX. Finalmente, analizo los cambios en la matriz productiva desde la década del ‟90 en adelante, considerando cómo afecta el nuevo modelo vitivinícola a la economía provincial y a la apropiación y manejo del agua.
Con este trabajo espero evidenciar la necesidad de nuevos criterios de manejo estatal del agua en Mendoza, en vista de los cambios ambientales que se encuentran en marcha y que nos imponen una administración cada vez más ecoeficiente del recurso.

- by Kaan Kangal
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- Marxism, Ecology, Ecosocialism

Disciplina ofertada no segundo semestre letivo de 2020, na Faculdade de Economia da UFF.

- by Eduardo Sá Barreto
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- Climate Change, Marxism, Ecology, Marxism (Political Science)

Dipesh Chakrabarty has drawn criticism from leftist thinkers for his insistence that humanity as a whole is responsible for climate change, and thus that humanity as a whole has a shared responsibility to confront it. While it has been repeatedly pointed out that this highly abstract universalism covers over massive and analytically crucial disparities in responsibility for and vulnerability to climate change, few critics have closely examined Chakrabarty’s pivot from a staunchly anti-universalist stance to this strong universalist humanism. I argue that reconstructing and critiquing the intellectual-historical arc that led Chakrabarty to this surprising shift can help to soften antagonisms between Marxism and postcolonial thought thatcurrently stand in the way of an adequate understanding of the climate problem.

- by Dan Boscov-Ellen
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- Marxism, Postcolonial Theory, Anthropocene, World-Ecology

This article takes stock of the project of ecological democracy, a project that has been central to debates in Environmental Values since the late 1990s. Whilst we can identify quite distinct articulations of eco-democratic thinking emerging out of the fields of green political theory, postcolonial/feminist political ecology and science studies/radical geography, it is argued that these discussions have reached something of an impasse of late following the rise of climate scepticism, authoritarian populisms and technocratic eco-modernisms. Resurgent eco-authoritarian impulses and the hankering for a 'green leviathan', a climate Lenin or a 'dictatorship of the sustainment' to resolve our climate crisis make it more important than ever to affirm the need for just, rapid and democratic post-carbon transitions. The article goes on to outline how emerging discussions in radical design studies focused on redirective practice in conjunction with a revived eco-socialist focus on labour-focused political ecologies might open up different possibilities for a materialist re-grounding of ecodemocratic discussions. It is suggested that a political ecology of design embedded in

- by Damian White
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- Sociology, Environmental Sociology, Geography, Political Philosophy

"This is an extremely well-conceived and executed book. The preponderance of radical theory today has moved very far from traditional concerns with class and exploitation, rooted in an interest-based framework. Instead, it has embraced concepts like marginality, exclusion, otherness, etc. This collection joins a small but significant stream of work, published over the past decade, that is pushing back against this faux radicalism." Vivek Chibber

- by Elena Louisa Lange
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- Social Movements, Marxism, Race and Racism, Identity politics
- by Christian Stache
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- Social Ecology, Nature, Society, Ecosocialism
- by Andony Melathopoulos and +1
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- Climate Change, Marxism, Political Ecology, Walter Benjamin

O artigo é um comentário crítico ao texto de John Bellamy Foster publicado no número mais recente da Revista da SEP. Procuro apontar as virtudes, as insuficiências e as mistificações do texto. As reflexões trazidas por Foster permitem abordar questões sensíveis que vão além do pensamento do autor e interessam ao pensamento ecológico marxista de maneira geral.

- by Damian White and +1
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- Environmental Sociology, Geography, Environmental Geography, Environmental Science
- by Damian White
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- Sociology, Environmental Sociology, Geography, Environmental Geography

In this article, I take issue with (eco-)socialists who embrace an ecological critique of growth under capitalism, but remain supportive or agnostic of the prospects for socialist growth. First, I argue that economic growth is ecologically unsustainable—whether it is capitalist or socialist does not make a difference. Second, I claim that economic growth rests to a large extent on exploitation. While it is logically possible to have non-exploitative socialist growth, in practice it is unlikely. Third, socialist policies are likely to have a negative effect
on growth. A transition to socialism is a transition beyond growth.

- by Giorgos Kallis
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- Political Ecology, Ecological Economics, DeGrowth, Ecosocialism

This paper aims to conceptualize the theory and bases of Ecosocialism which is a wave of ecological thought and action based on fundamental gains of Marxism. I am convinced that ecological issues mean great challenges for a renewal of Marxist thought in the 21st century, especially in Eastern Europe. Ecosocialism could be a new agenda for Left in this region. Ecosocialist thinking has deep historical roots and traditions. In the first section I will elaborate the main pillars and theoretical backgrounds of Ecosocialism. I put an emphasize on the comparison and distinction of Ecosocialism and Anarchism. After that I will analyse the ecological foundation of Marx and the direction of Ecosocialism, especially the Ecological Marxism. In the second part of this draft paper the environmental and climate justice have been investigated in Eastern European perspectives. The two main issues which have been emphasized is the climate injustices in Roma population and energy or fuel poverty. In the third part I conceptualize a potential ecosocialist turn in Eastern Europe under the nationalist-populist Right-wing era. I am convinced that the ecosocialist turn requires the reconciliation some of the Marxist and post-Marxist traditions: Ecosocialism, Left-populism, the reinventing Rosa Luxemburg theories on imperialist nature of capitalism. I am really convinced that Ecosocialists must know that the workers and their organizations are an indispensable force for any radical transformation of the system.

- by Antal Attila
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- Eastern European Studies, Social Justice, Populism, Justice

The rise of the Anthropocene has created confusion in environmental politics, a field traditionally hopeful that a return to some socionatural stability was both possible and desirable. Paradoxically, while life in a warmer planet promises to be as dynamic as it is unstable, ecopolitical discussions of our post-Holocene future has become stuck. This chapter will explore this paradox, arguing for a political imaginary that goes beyond the simple dichotomy between a technocratic " good Anthropocene " and an " apocalyptic Anthropocene ". Political space should be opened up to other kinds of imaginaries. To such end, this chapter will pose three main arguments. First, the need to provincialize and pluralize the field of possible post-Holocene scenarios in order to avoid both conformity and despair. I will argue ecological modernities are plural. Second, that spaces emerging between critical design and the critical social sciences are, despite their limitations, an interesting place to look at in search for new ideas and scenarios. Finally, it will be argued that modes of critical design futuring need to more carefully attend to the labor point of view, so that a just transition to a post-Holocene future expands its range and appeal. This conversation will also show the ineradicable hybridity of the worlds we are going to make and the complexity of the transition. After all, a just transition is not simply about energy transition: it has to address much broader political matters and will require the deployment of new sources of political energy.

- by Damian White
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- Sociology, Environmental Sociology, Geography, Anthropology

John Bellamy Foster and his colleagues have recently argued that the project of ecosocialism should be understood in terms of a “prefigurative” and “first stage” of red-green thinkers whose insights have largely been transcended by their own work on the metabolic rift. Rift scholars have further argued that “second-stage” ecosocialists should push back against “idealist” deviations occurring amongst historical materialists concerned with the production of nature, socionatures and “hybridity,” as well as more or less all engagements with literatures on eco-technological transitions, industrial ecology and the like, which are implicated in supporting “green capitalism.” This paper critically evaluates these claims. In each case, it is argued, rift scholarship is narrowing the possibilities for interdisciplinary engagement and for thinking in dynamic and reconstructive terms about red-green futures. It is our sense that an ecosocialist vision of just transitions has to be conceptualized as a diverse, dynamic, iterative and always incomplete affair. Anthropocene ecosocialisms are inevitably going to involve co-producing, making and remaking hybrid social ecologies on an irreducibly restless, turbulent and warming planet. We argue that what follows from this is the necessity to both critique and recuperate the better insights of hybrid political ecology and ecological modernities.

- by Damian White
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- Sociology, Environmental Sociology, Political Sociology, Political Economy

Jason W. Moore’s Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital (2015) offers a new perspective on capitalism and its current systemic crisis by developing an ecologically centered theory of capital accumulation. This essay first presents a concise account of Moore’s theory. (see, endnote 1) Then, I turn my attention to Moore’s methodology which he believes is “revitalizing” and “reworking” Marx’s and Engels’ historical materialism. In section 2 and 3, I examine this claim and find it wanting. In fact as I will show Moore's methodology and theory are entirely different from those of Marx and Engels. The fact that Moore’s methodology and theory are different from Marx does not mean that they are “wrong” or lack explanatory power. In section 4, I examine the inner logic of Moore’s methodology and theory and find them incoherent on their own basis. In Section 5, I outline a way forward that shares Moore’s concern with situating humanity in nature and shares with Ecological Marxism of Foster and others their focus on the concepts of metabolic rift and alienation from nature.

- by Kamran Nayeri
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- Social-Ecological Systems, History of Capitalism, Capitalism, Écosocialisme

Les 1er et 2 décembre 2012, le Parti de Gauche organisait à Paris des "Assises pour l'écosocialisme". En vue des Assises, un projet de Manifeste en 18 thèses a été rédigé. Faisant preuve d’ouverture, les organisateurs ont eu la bonne idée de soumettre ce texte à un large débat public. Ils ont appelé les organisations et les personnes intéressées, en France et ailleurs, à réagir par des amendements ou des contributions.
Le texte qui suit est une réponse à cette invitation. Afin d’être le plus précis et nuancé possible, on a choisi de procéder systématiquement. Le texte de chacune des thèses proposées par le Parti de Gauche est reproduit intégralement avant d’être commenté. Cette méthode a l’inconvénient d’une certaine lourdeur - car plusieurs thèses se recoupent, mais elle présente l’avantage d’indiquer clairement les points sensibles, de mettre en lumière certaines contradictions du texte. La version utilisée est celle qui a été adoptée par le congrès du PG en mars 2013.

- by Daniel Tanuro
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- Marxism and Ecology, Political Science, Environmental Politics, Ecosocialism

Bunker, Foster, and Moore all address the unjust manner in which dominant actors in the capitalist world-system simultaneously exploit labor and nonhuman or biophysical nature while undermining sustainability. In the context of recent, largely one-sided criticism of Moore by Foster, this chapter highlights fundamental agreements regarding ecologically unequal exchange across all three of these sociologists. Then, it unpacks distinctions regarding capitalism as causing degradation; nature’s ontology; epistemology and dialectical analysis; and possible futures that might overturn the current unsustainable situation. The conclusion reiterates the importance of Bunker’s foundational work, peripheral vantage point, dialectical view of socio-nature, and realistic future vision, partly based in his posthumously published The Snake with Golden Braids.

- by Paul Gellert
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- DEVELOPMENT AND UNDERDEVELOPMENT, Socionatures, World-Ecology, Ecosocialism
- by Sutapa Chattopadhyay and +2
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- Social Movements, Political Ecology, Capitalism, Feminism