Entire Volume 17 issue 1 - Journal of World-Systems Research ...

ECOLOGY, CAPITAL AND THE NATURE OF OUR TIMES 138
with new and ruthless initiatives to appropriate extra-human nature (resources), which entail new
and ruthless initiatives to exploit human nature (labor power). Historically, this establishes new
conditions for a revival of profitability in the productive circuit, a material expansion in Arrighi’s
language. This was true for the “Age of the Genoese” in the century after 1557 (Moore 2010a,
2010b), and it has been true for the neoliberal era. The instructive contrast with the Age of the
Genoese and its successors is the non-appearance of a productivity revolution in the neoliberal era
(Balakrishnan 2009; Moore 2010c).
The signal crisis of neoliberalism, punctuated by the near-meltdown of North Atlantic
finance in 2008 and rippling outwards still (as the Eurozone periphery’s financial woes in 2010
indicated), speaks to the ongoing resurgence of underproductionist tendencies. Overproduction
retains the crown from the time being, although for how long is uncertain. The ongoing transition
in favor of underproduction is suggested by three major developments (Moore 2010c, 2011b):
1) The arrival of peak appropriation. The capitalization of nature has reached a
longue durée tipping point, signaling the irreversible contraction of opportunities to
appropriate nature’s free gifts, especially in energy, metals, and water;
2) The rise of the superweed. Capital’s reworking of biophysical natures through
new forms genetic-chemical manipulation is producing a cascading series of
unpredictable biological responses (superweeds) in the most capitalized zones of
world agriculture;
3) The financialization of nature-as-oikeios. The rules of reproduction for
biophysical and human natures are increasingly determined by the financial rather
than productive circuit of capital. This favors the interlinked phenomena of high
commodity prices and the progressive stagnation of labor productivity, especially
in world agriculture.
This prospect for seeing capitalism as “world-ecology” is one of many possibilities for
navigating the transition from a red-green synthesis in social theory to red-green narratives of
historical capitalism and its crises. If this argument merits any traction, we can thank Giovanni
Arrighi for opening our eyes to the dialectics of time and space in actually existing capitalism,
and in the possible futures we make.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Very special thanks to my friends and colleagues for discussions on the issues explored in this
essay. Benjamin D. Brewer, Diana C. Gildea, Holly Jean Buck, and MacKenzie Moore delivered
incisive and comprehensive critiques on successive drafts of this argument; Henry Bernstein,
Brenda Baletti, Brett Clark, Jennifer Casolo, Harriet Friedmann, Diana C. Gildea, John Gulick,
Andrew Gunnoe, Pernille Gooch, Erik Jönsson, Shiloh R. Krupar, Rebecca Lave, Andreas Malm,
Jessica C. Marx, Phil McMichael, Bruno Portillo, Cheryl Sjöström, Dale Tomich, Djahane
Salehabadi, Laurel Mei Turbin, Richard A. Walker, Eron Witzel, Richard York, Anna Zalik, and
an anonymous reviewer all offered comments and discussion that improved this essay.