A Social Ecology of Capital

by Eric Pineault

An original theory of contemporary capitalist growth and its socio-ecological contradictions 'A timely and urgent analysis which seeks to comprehend our ecological plight through an elucidation of monopoly capital' - Gareth Dale, Reader in Political Economy, Brunel University Capital is pushing into motion ever larger global material flows. In doing so it has come to depend on massive expenditures of energy, putting to work fossil fuels and the machines they animate to transform the world, accumulate power and grow the economy. The ecological relations and crises of today's societies are driven by the processes of extraction of the elements that come together as a throughput of material and energy flows controlled by capital and shaped by its imperative of valorization. In A Social Ecology of Capital , Éric Pineault proposes an original model of the fossil social metabolism that has sustained the growth of advanced capitalism in the last century. Drawing on ecological economics and critical political economy, the book analyses how the social structures of accumulation, production, consumption and waste determine and regulate the material flow and the accumulation of material artifacts. Showing how social relations shape the ecology of capital, the book highlights the contradictions humanity now faces.

Genres: Nonfiction, Sociology, Ecology, Theory

176 pages, Paperback

Published February 20, 2023

Reviews

[Minh Nguyen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not an easy read! But it’s really worth it! The concept of throughput in the way Pineault thinks ecological economics allows us to go beyond the very neoclassical ideas of inputs and outputs that make it so difficult to think ecological economics with lucidity. Pineault works with the idea that our economy is actually a zero sum equation and that makes everything do much easier to think through. So take your time reading this book, because it’s quite worth it!

[Sarah Ensor · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm editing this three weeks later having thought more about it but I struggled with this book and hope someone else will read and comment on it. It made some interesting points about social ecology being a way to understand how capitalism extracts raw materials and makes things with energy and human labour.

The most important aspect, I think, is it's analysis of the full extent of emmisions and other ecological damage done by extraction of resources, production and transport of products under capitalism. There are useful stats and equations, especially in the current talk about reaching net zero where energy companies make false claims that fossil fuels can be sustainable and nuclear power doesn't create emmisions. But the dense, highly academic, abstruse language made every page more difficult than it needed to be.

Ian Angus in Climate and Capitalism asked, “Why does capitalism need constant growth, and how does that intensify the socio-ecological contradictions of modern society? And described this as an, "ambitious attempt at synthesis between ecological Marxism and feminist ecological economics, Éric Pineault critiques contemporary capitalist growth as both a biophysical and accumulation process.”

I don’t understand what “feminist ecological economics'' is, and whether it is necessarily anti-capitalist and if so, what else is it that makes it feminist and how is that useful to understand how capitalism uses energy and creates massive waste and ecological destruction. Looking forward to other readers reviews.