Green Capitalism – A New Regime of Accumulation?

Topic

Keynote: Brett Christophers (Uppsala University, Sweden), Thea Riofrancos (Providence College, Rhode Island, USA)

There seems to be no easy way of reconciling capitalism and the Earth system. While some see capitalism as the root cause of today’s environmental crisis, economists still maintain that it is precisely the pursuit of private profit that will ultimately bring about the common ecological good: with the right incentive structures, capitalism could overcome the historical link between growth and the overuse of resources and sinks. With properly designed markets, pricing, subsidies, and taxes, capitalism could deliver a greened economy more efficiently and cheaply than any alternative economic systems. Against this, critics argue that capitalism systematically undermines its own ecological conditions of production, and that any serious, long-term engagement with ecological problems would require more social control of basic infrastructures and more direct, use-value-based planning of production.

Within the Marxist tradition, the relation between environmental degradation and capitalism has been conceptualized as an ecological contradiction: the imperative to accumulate capital stands in contradiction to the need to reproduce the social and ecological conditions of this accumulation. Prefiguring the idea of an eco-contradiction, Marx already assumed that “the entire spirit of capitalist production, which is oriented towards the most immediate monetary profit – stands in contradiction to agriculture, which has to concern itself with the whole gamut of permanent conditions of life required by the chain of human generations” In James O’Connor’s pioneering work, the ecological ‘second’ contradiction refers to capitalism’s inner tendency to generate crises through the degradation and destruction of ecosystems. As capital accumulation relies on natural conditions that it does not replenish, it faces a gradually declining quality of the environment or higher cost of maintaining it. According to O’Connor––and scholars building on him like Jason W. Moore––capitalism has reached a stage where this leads to a crisis of underproduction that ultimately threatens the continuation of accumulation. Other scholars share the diagnosis that capitalism undermines its ecological conditions of reproduction, but doubt that this contradiction pushes towards its resolution: the ‘metabolic rift’ can cause immense suffering without necessarily posing an existential threat to capitalism. This would mean opening up the scope beyond a narrow ‘capital-centric’ analysis. And ecofeminist theories can remind us that the ecological contradiction is not new––capitalism has always depended on and at the same time undermined the social and natural conditions of its reproduction. Marxist ecofeminism highlights the role of representations of nature and femininity––based on a dual process of feminization of nature and naturalization of women––and of relations of (re)production in the environmental crisis. Drawing on Rosa Luxemburg, the subsistence framework has accounted for the contradictory relationship between the capitalist mode of production and non-capitalist environments. While these controversies in ecological Marxism are located at a high level of abstraction, the actual dynamic processing of ecological contradictions in practice remains comparatively under-addressed. What is necessary today is not simply re-defining the nature of this contradiction (with reference to Marx, for instance) but in seeing how it unfolds in real time, how it interacts with other capitalist contradictions and crisis tendencies and how it shapes today’s political economy and conflicts, irrespective of where it finally leads and if its resolvable.

While the theoretical debate on the ecological contradiction rages on, traces of green capitalism arguably already exist. Policies of ecological modernization such as the IRA or the Green Deal have become a central part of economic policy: governments around the world have created markets for environmental goods and provided incentives for ESG investment. Conversely, there is strong capital interest in various ‘green’ markets and ‘clean’ technologies such as solar and wind power, hydrogen or grid services. For some, these attempts have already failed on their own terms, as neither emissions trading nor ‘green’ investment has delivered substantial change in recent decades. After a brief period of enthusiasm, even the financial class now seems to have lost faith in ESG ratings to channel money into greening the economy. Others argue that despite the shortcomings of some of these policies, there has been significant change in recent years: net-zero pledges by major corporations, the imminent peak of Chinese carbon emissions, and a new geopolitical competition for green technology value chains suggest that a decarbonised economy may emerge not only from democratic socialist planning, but also from the business as usual of a new green type of the mixed economy.

The conference aims to bridge the previously stated gap in ecological Marxism, that the theoretical controversies do not necessary reflect today’s real world developments. We thus aim to facilitate a dialogue between theoretical debates in ecological Marxism and concrete inquiries of green capitalism. The first part of this conference explores conceptual questions relating to the ecological contradictions of capitalism. It asks, among other things, what is the status and what are the main theoretical and methodological challenges for ecological Marxism today? How has the research on Marx and ecology contributed to Marxist ecology? Is there an ecological proletariat? Is critical theory, historical materialism, or eco-socialism up to analytic task? More specifically:

·      Nature and/or Capital: What is the form of the conflict between capital and nature today, and how is it unfolding at a variety of temporal scales and geographical locations?

·      Within/Beyond Limits: How should limits be thought in relation to capital’s inner drive to push beyond them?

·      Resolution/Destruction: What would it mean for capitalism to really ‘undermine’ itself or resolve its own contradiction? For whom would it be undermined or resolved?

Building on these conceptual questions, the second part of this conference will investigate green capitalism as an emergent phenomenon and as an accumulation regime in the making. Beyond theoretically deducing an ‘ecological contradiction’ of the capitalist mode of production, our goal here is to analyze actually existing forms of green capitalism, regardless of whether they are actually compatible with ecological sustainability. Anticipating the contemporary debate, O’Connor outlined a scenario in which “the destruction of the environment” would “lead to vast new industries designed to restore it.” The hypothesis of green capitalism is that the various efforts to ecologically modernize society have become a source of profit generation and capital accumulation––the counter thesis argues that those will necessarily run into problems of profitability. How can the paradox be understood that green capitalism is expected to fail in theory, while it has been taking shape in reality, in differing forms, to various extents and under different policy labels over the last decades? We are particularly interested in contributions which analyze the empirical phenomenon of green capitalism––its scope, character, and form––in light of one of the following dimensions:

·      Moment of transition: How does a green capitalism develop from the existing social and material relations? How is the phasing out of non-sustainable economic action and possible capital devaluation (‘stranded assets’) managed? How is the risk and insecurity inherent in a moment of transition managed? How are robust expectations, profitability and market stability ensured?

·      Role of the state: How are green markets established and what are the demands on state capacity? What are the conflicts of interest between different economic sectors, fractions of capital and the state? Is ecological Marxism suited to analyze not only the destruction of ecosystems, but also the complex articulations between state intervention, fiscal policies, investment dynamics, green restructuring and new sites of class conflict? In what sense does the capitalist state act as an “interface between capital and nature” (O’Connor)?

·      Green capitalism and capitalist contradictions: How does green capitalism profit from contradictions, and how does it intensify other––spatial, social, or natural––contradictions? Are we witnessing the emergence of a new regime of accumulation, with new institutions, technologies, or modes of regulation––and new capitalist fractions? Or is green capitalism not an autonomous regime, but a mere moment of a finance- and technology-led economy?

We hope the conference can shed light on the challenges of ecological Marxism today and on the paradoxical phenomenon of green capitalism.

Program

Green Capitalism – A New Regime of Accumulation?

November 29–30, 2024

HU Grimm Zentrum Auditorium, Geschwister-Scholl-Straße 1-3, Berlin

Friday, November 29, 2024

09:00 Doors Open

9:15-9:30 Welcome and Introduction by the Organizers 

Cannelle Gignoux and Daniela Russ

09:30-11:00 Critical Perspective on Eco-Marxism I: Limits, Rifts, Metabolism

Bernardo Barzana (Northwestern/Potsdam): The Limits of Natural Limits: On the Normative Foundations of the Metabolic Rift

Killian Favier (Dublin): Materialist Hubris in Eco-Marxism.

Manuela Santamaría-Moncada (IfS Goethe-Universität/Universidad de Antioquia): Metabolism, Metabolic Shifts, and Nature-Society Dialectic: An Adornian
Perspective on Environmental Sociology

Chair: Cannelle Gignoux (CMB Berlin/University Paris 8)

11:00-11:30 Break

11:30-13:00 Critical Perspective on Eco-Marxism II: Nature, Labor, Capital

Rose Troll (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt): Reproductive Labor as Mediator

Miriam Boyer (HU Berlin): A Critical Assessment of the ‘Real Subsumption of  Nature’ Argument

Jan Overwijk (IfS Goethe-Universität): Refusing Externalities: The Eccentricity of Labor-Power

Burç Köstem (University of Southern California): Techniques of Limitation: Communism, Transition and Eco-technical Struggles

Chair: Gauthier Delozière (CMB Berlin/Sciences Po Paris)

13:00-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:30 Towards a Theory of Green Capitalism 

David Karas (CEU Democracy Institute): A Regulationist Perspective on Varieties of Green Capitalisms

Jan Gilles/Johannes Hollenhorst (LSE): Canning Capitalism: How Net-Zero Technologies extend the Past into the Future

Alyssa Battistoni (Barnard): Political Dimensions of Green Capitalism 

Chair: Hans Rackwitz (IfS Frankfurt)

15:30-15:45 Break

15:45-17:15 Conceptualizing the Green State

Nina Schlosser (Berlin School of Economics and Law/University of Vienna): The Green State as a Radical Revolutionist? Contradictions, Conflicts, and Continuities in the Chilean Lithium Sector

Elias König (Twente): Green Capitalism as Post-Carbon Technocracy: Three Theses

Philip Köncke (Erfurt): State Capitalism Goes Green: On The (Geo-)Political Economy of China’s Rise in Renewable Energy

Chair: Marius Bickhardt (CMB Berlin/Sciences Po Paris)

17:15-17:45 Break

17:45-19:00 Keynote:  Green Extractivism: A New Regime of Appropriation?  

                                          Thea Riofrancos (Providence)

     Chair: Jacob Blumenfeld (Centre for Social Critique, HU)

Saturday, November 30, 2024

09:00- Doors Open

9:15-9:30: Welcome and Introduction by the Organizers 

Hans Rackwitz and Marius Bickhardt

09:30-11:00 The Political Economy of Carbon

Florian Skelton (Zurich): From Rent to Profit: The Expanding Commodity Frontier of Carbon

Marko Mann (Geneva): Carbon Capture and Storage: The Cost and Coordination Motives Behind State Involvement. 

Kiri Santer (Bern): Market-based Governance in the Carbon Era

Johannes Fehrle (HU Berlin): Carbon Offsetting as a Green Capitalist Business Venture

Chair: Daniela Russ (Leipzig)

11:00-11:30 Break

11:30-13:00 Labor Struggles in the Green Transition

Luke Neal (Sheffield): Labour, Materials and the Circular Economy: Ecological Contradictions of the North Sea Wind Industry

Jasper Finkeldey (Halle): Heavy Industries and Green Capitalism: A Love-Hate Relationship

Lili Vanko (CEU): Under a Green Guise: A New Wave of Restructuring and Accumulation in Lusatia

Rocio Hiraldo Lopez-Alonso (Sevilla): Spain’s “transition” as a class process

Chair: Stephan Humbert (Göttingen)

11:30-13:00 Industrial Decarbonization and the State (Unter den Linden 6: 2249A)

John Szabó (CERS/DIW Berlin): Electricity and Hydrogen: Different Democratising Potential in Green Capitalism?

Stephan Stuckmann (MPIfG): Negotiating Industrial Decarbonization – State-Industry Relations and the Role of Sectoral Production Structures

Lasse Thiele (Konzeptwerk Neue Ökonomie): “Green” capitalism’s geopolitical turn: Hydrogen

Chair: Rabea Berfelde (Center for Social Critique, HU)

13:00-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:30 (Post)Extractivist Regimes

Lela Rekhviashviki (Leibniz Institute for Regional Geography): Green Capitalism in the Periphery: The Making of a Green Extractivist Regime

Youssef Al Bouchi (UBC): Green Extractivism and illusions of sustainable development, Lithium in Bolivia

Alie Hermanutz (York University): Externalizing Fossil Capitalist Liabilities in Alberta’s Hydrocarbon Economies

Chair: Thea Riofrancos (Providence)

14:00-15:30 Green State Regulations and Ideologies (Unter den Linden 6: 2249A)

Guy Crawford (UCL/Warwick): Capital Accumulation and Environmental Compensation: The State as Socio-Natural Relation

Victoria Myznikova (LMU Munich): Paint it Green: Russian ‘Political Capitalists’ in the Race for Lithium

Julian Germann (Sussex), Lucia Barcena (TNI) [Mads Barbesgaard, Lund]: Green Ambitions, Structural Realities: Capital, the State, and the EU’s Critical Raw Materials Strategy

Isabel Oakes (Oxford): Idyllischer Gartenzwergkapitalismus: A Distinct Ordoliberal Environmental Framework?

Chair: Stephan Stuckmann (MPIfG)

15:30-16:00 Break

16:00-17:30 Finance for Green Capital 

Vicky Kluzik (Goethe University Frankfurt): Nature after Economics: The Anatomy of Biosolutionism, or: How to Make Nature Investable

Edoardo Esposto (Sapienza Università di Roma) [Tiziana Nupieri, Guilia Salaris]: Sustainable Financial Development? The Role of Finance in Shaping the Green Accumulation Regime.

Max Willems (MPIfG): Transition Treaties: Project Finance and the New Green De-risking Infrastructures.

Jens Christiansen (Lund): State-as-market, market-as-governor: How the financialization of nature embeds public finance within market-based environmental governance.

Chair: Hans Rackwitz (IfS Frankfurt)

17:30-17:45 Break

17:45-19:00 Keynote:  Market Failure: Climate Crisis, Green Energy and the  Limits of  Capitalism

Brett Christophers (Uppsala)

Chair: Daniela Russ (Leipzig)

Organisers

The conference is organized by Marius Bickhardt (Sciences Po Paris/CMB Berlin), Jacob Blumenfeld (Universität Oldenburg/Center for Social Critique, HU Berlin), Gauthier Delozière (Sciences Po Paris/CMB Berlin), Cannelle Gignoux (Université Paris 8/CMB Berlin), Hans Rackwitz (Universität Jena/Leipzig), Daniela Russ (Universität Leipzig) with funding from Centre Marc Bloch, the Centre for Social Critique at Humboldt University Berlin, and the Global and European Studies Institute at the University of Leipzig.

Keynote speakers

Brett Christophers is professor of human geography at Uppsala University’s Institute for Housing and Urban Research. He is the author of The Price is Wrong: Why Capitalism Won’t Save the Planet (Verso, 2024); Our Lives in Their Portfolios: Why Asset Managers Own the World (Verso, 2023); Rentier Capitalism: Who Owns the Economy, and Who Pays for It (Verso, 2020); The New Enclosure: The Appropriation of Public Land in Neoliberal Britain (Verso, 2018).