reading eco socialism

1) How does Fraser define capitalism?

• drives global warming non-accidentally, by virtue of its very structure

• ecological devastation is not unique to capitalism.

• pre capitalist societies: accidental damage due to ignorance

• post capitalist society: non nature friendly ideology and structially embedded

2) Fraser argues that there’s a basic ecological contradiction at the heart of capitalism. What is this contradiction? Why, according to her, is it problematic?

• capitalism needs nature, for growth, however it extracts and deplets it without sustaining it

• fides.

• What is required, in addition, is deep-structural transformation.

• capitalist societies are primed to generate recurrent environmental crises throughout their history

3) How, for Fraser, is capitalism’s ecological contradiction related to other contradictions? How else is capitalism self-undermining?

dynamics are inextricably entwined with other, ‘non-environmental’ crisis tendencies and cannot be resolved in isolation from them.

• ecological contradiction

  • the systems econ is dependent on nature , both as a tap to production inputs and sink for disposing its waste

  • capital is a relation to nature and extractive

  • dependence (on nature), division (ontologically), disavowal (the ecological reproduction costs it generates) and destabilization (o disrupt the entire jerry-rigged edifice of capitalist society.)

  • also this divides class power (wealthy capitalists)

• social-reproductive contradiction

  • Capitalism relies on unpaid or underpaid care work (often done by women, in households or communities) to reproduce labor power — but it undervalues and exploits this work, leaving the social fabric frayed and weakened.

    • It needs care to produce workers, but refuses to support it sustainably.

• Political Contradiction

  • capitalist economy necessarily relies on a host of political supports

    • Capitalism needs stable governance, legal systems, and public infrastructure to function — but it undermines political authority by privatizing power, hollowing out democracy, and fueling inequality and mistrust.

    • usually states, which supply the legal and military framework which enables capital to expropriate natural wealth gratis or on the cheap.

      • It leans on the state, but discredits and weakens it at the same time.

• Economic Contradiction (classic Marx)

  • Capitalism's drive for profit leads to overproduction, underconsumption, boom-and-bust cycles, and inequality — all of which destabilize its own markets.

• The political implications are conceptually simple if practically challenging: an eco-politics capable of saving the planet must be anti-capitalist and trans-environmental.

• capitalism’s ecological contradiction may not be ‘merely’ developmental.

• trans env: You can’t fight for the environment without fighting for justice.

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