| 1. |
- Moore, Jason W., 1971-
(author)
-
Environmental crises and the metabolic rift in world-historical perspective
- 2000
-
In: Organization & environment. - 1086-0266 .- 1552-7417. ; 13:2, s. 123-157
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- This article proposes a new theoretical framework to study the dialectic of capital and nature over the longue durée of world capitalism. The author proposes that today’s global ecological crisis has its roots in the transition to capitalism during the long sixteenth century. The emergence of capitalism marked not only a decisive shift in the arenas of politics, economy, and society, but a fundamental reorganization of world ecology, characterized by a “metabolic rift,” a progressively deepening rupture in the nutrient cycling between the country and the city. Building upon the historical political economy of Marx, Foster, Arrighi, and Wallerstein, the author proposes a new research agenda organized around the concept of systemic cycles of agro-ecological transformation. This agenda aims at discerning the ways in which capitalism’s relationship to nature developed discontinuously over time as recurrent ecological crises have formed a decisive moment of world capitalist crisis, forcing successive waves of restructuring over long historical time.
|
|
| 2. |
- Moore, Jason W., 1971-
(author)
-
Nature and the transition from feudalism to capitalism
- 2003
-
In: Review: A Journal of the Fernand Braudel Center. - 0147-9032. ; 26:2, s. 97-172
-
Journal article (peer-reviewed)abstract
- An epochal transformation of nature-society relations was inscribed in the transition from feudalism to capitalism. This article advances three central propositions. First, the origins of today’s global ecological crisis are found in the emergence of the capitalist world-economy in the “long” sixteenth century - not in industrialization, population growth, or market expansion, as the conventional wisdom would have it. Secondly, the crisis of feudalism was a general crisis not only of medieval Europe’s political economy, but in equal measure an expression of feudalism’s underlying ecological contradictions. Thirdly, the rise of capitalism effected a radical recomposition of world ecology. As early as the sixteenth century, we can see how the emergent logic of capital, which at once implies endless expansion and seeks to flatten socio-ecological diversity, undermined the possibilities for a sustainable relation between nature and society. Capitalism thus differed radically from feudalism and all other precapitalist formations. Where earlier ecological crises had been local, capitalism globalized them. From this standpoint, the origins of capitalism may shed light on today’s ecological crises.
|
|
