How do we understand and analyze this? What concepts and frameworks help us see what is happening?
See the pedagogy document for what this lens does across all themes.
The central question of this lens is whether the ecological crisis is a problem of humanity in general or of a particular way of organizing the economy. The concepts it builds answer the second way: the metabolic rift between society and nature, cheap nature and the Capitalocene, the shared logic that exploits women, land, and the Global South, and ecological debt. Around them sits the argument that will run through the whole theme: can capitalism be green, and can it survive without endless growth?
Anchor questions
- Is the climate crisis a problem of humanity in general, or of a particular way of organizing the economy?
- What is the “metabolic rift” between society and nature, and who theorized it?
- Can capitalism be green? Can it survive without endless growth?
- What is “cheap nature,” and how has capitalism depended on treating the earth as free?
- Is the answer more technology and growth, or less, or different? What does each side argue?
Materials
Free unless marked otherwise. Foster’s short chapter and Löwy’s essay are the best on-ramps; the fuller books are named in the notes.
Capitalism and nature: the metabolic rift and cheap nature
- John Bellamy Foster (b. 1953), with Brett Clark and Stefano Longo, Marx and the Metabolic Rift (handbook chapter). A compact statement of the idea that capitalism opens an irreparable rupture in the exchange of matter between society and the rest of nature. Foster’s Marx’s Ecology (2000) is the fuller treatment. Free PDF: johnbellamyfoster.org
- Jason W. Moore (b. 1971), introduction to Capitalism in the Web of Life (2015). Lays out “cheap nature” and the Capitalocene, arguing that capitalism is a way of organizing nature that survives by appropriating unpaid work from land, energy, food, and bodies. Free PDF: jasonwmoore.com
Ecofeminism and social ecology
- Maria Mies (1931 to 2023) and Vandana Shiva (b. 1952), Ecofeminism (1993). Ties the exploitation of women, subsistence economies, and nature to a single logic of patriarchal capitalism, and argues for a subsistence perspective against endless growth. A bridge to Gender, Reproduction, and the Household. No borrowable copy exists, and no free companion either: Shiva is recorded constantly but on seed sovereignty rather than this argument, and Mies is barely recorded in English. Paywalled: bloomsbury.com, and see the note on access for how to get it.
- Murray Bookchin (1921 to 2006), The Ecology of Freedom (1982). The central statement of social ecology, arguing that the drive to dominate nature grows out of the domination of human by human, so ecological crisis is at root a problem of hierarchy. A bridge to Anarchism, Mutual Aid, and Prefiguration. Free: theanarchistlibrary.org
Ecosocialism, degrowth, and ecological debt
- Michael Löwy (b. 1938), Why Ecosocialism (2018). A clear essay defining ecosocialism against both productivist socialism and market environmentalism, and explaining why capitalist growth cannot be made ecological. Free PDF: greattransition.org
- Kohei Saito (b. 1987), Degrowth needs to learn from communism (interview, 2023). A short entry into his argument that the late Marx moved toward an ecological, anti-growth communism, developed at length in Marx in the Anthropocene and Slow Down. Free: greeneuropeanjournal.eu
- Jason Hickel (b. 1982), Atmospheric Colonisation and Ecological Imperialism in the World System (2025). Frames climate breakdown as the appropriation of a shared atmosphere by the Global North, quantifies the resulting ecological debt, and grounds a theory of climate justice. A bridge to Imperialism and the Global System. Free: thetricontinental.org
Films, lectures, and audio
- “Why Capitalism Can’t Handle Climate Change” (Second Thought, 2021). Roughly 12 minutes, about 269,000 views. Argues the crisis is structural to capital rather than a matter of individual behavior. A strong theoretical opener. youtube.com/watch?v=H787Dj4oMWU
- “Who Is Responsible For Climate Change?” (Kurzgesagt, 2020). Roughly 11 minutes, about 11.5 million views. A slick mainstream data explainer on per-capita, annual, and historical emissions. Best used as a shared reference the group then critiques for what it leaves out, above all class and capital. youtube.com/watch?v=ipVxxxqwBQw
- “A healthy economy should be designed to thrive, not grow” (Kate Raworth, TED, 2018). Roughly 16 minutes, about 860,000 views. The core doughnut economics talk on meeting human needs within planetary limits, a liberal-reformist framing the group can push toward the sharper positions in the liberatory lens. youtube.com/watch?v=Rhcrbcg8HBw
A note on method
The concepts here are tools, not dogma, and the traditions disagree. Metabolic rift theory, world-ecology, ecofeminism, and social ecology argue about where the crisis is rooted and what counts as nature. Let those disagreements sharpen the room’s thinking. The aim is a shared vocabulary, metabolic rift, cheap nature, ecological debt, that lets the group see the crisis as made by a system rather than by humanity as such.
Further reading
For resources behind a paywall, see the note on access.
- Exploring Economics, Political Ecology, Degrowth and the Green New Deal (syllabus). A syllabus that runs the degrowth and Green New Deal positions against each other rather than picking one, which is exactly how this theme stages the argument. Pluralist-economics in framing. Free: exploring-economics.org
- Liberation School (PSL), Marxism, capitalism, and nature-society relations. A study guide on the Marxist account of the nature-society relation, useful alongside the metabolic rift readings. Marxist-Leninist (PSL) in framing and skeptical of degrowth; label the standpoint and let it argue with Hickel. Free: liberationschool.org
Status
First pass, and it may be a while before there is a second. Contributions welcome, especially ecological economics, Indigenous and Global South ecological theory, and critical work on climate science and technology.