Green capitalism, climate change and the technological fix: A more-than-human assessment

Abstract

Green capitalism is an approach that attempts to use free-market mechanisms to mitigate anthropogenic climate change. Its advocates argue that the market supplies the best means to innovate technological solutions that can compete with existing polluting practices. Using a relational, post-anthropocentric and materialist ontology, this article analyses the micropolitics underpinning the capitalist market economy in terms of production and market assemblages and the affective forces within them. This novel approach reveals previously overlooked more-than-human affects within these capitalist assemblages. These affects generate the unintended and inevitable consequences of a capitalist economic framework: growth, waste and inequalities. Based on this micropolitical assessment, the article uses the example of the electric car to conclude that green capitalism is inadequate to address the climate crisis, and offers an alternative approach.

The More-Than-Human Life of Capitalism: Assemblages, Affects and the Neoliberal Black Hole

“…The revelation that it is the relational capacities of commodities that have generated both the 'black hole' of capitalism and some of the most egregious consequences of capitalist production and markets suggests solutions that diverge from both these futures, of relevance not only for social theory, but also for workers, entrepreneurs, politicians, economists and activists. The inexorable growth, waste and social inequalities that threaten not only human economic survival, but also environmental catastrophe (Fox 2022b) can be addressed-though not via the unrealistic proposition of an imminent global socialist revolution to entirely dismantle capitalist social relations, nor by the delusional efforts by neoliberal politicians and policy wonks to pursue actions that only deepen the black hole.…”

“…The paramount exception to this has been the collaborative work of Deleuze andGuattari (1984, 1988), in which an analysis of the dynamics of capitalism is central. This DeleuzoGuattarian perspective on capitalism has been assessed and variously developed by subsequent new materialist scholars including DeLanda (2006DeLanda ( , 2016, Hardt and Negri (2000), Holland (2014), Lazzarato (2014), Roffe (2016) and the present author (Fox 2022a(Fox , 2022b.…”

“…The analysis of capitalism undertaken in this paper suggests that the neoliberal strategy is not only misguided, but is actually accelerating the gradual impoverishment of both workers and enterprises, as previously unacknowledged non-human supply and demand affects operate beyond human intentionality within capitalism assemblages. Neoliberalisation and globalisation trends within contemporary capitalism are wreaking havoc, not only by impoverishing more and more workers in both global North and South in low-paid and precarious employment and a cost-of-living crisis, but also by degrading the environment through waste and by locking nations into the relentless pursuit of economic growth (Fox 2022b). Some suggestions for countering both the actions and the consequences of these affects are outlined in the concluding section.…”

Revitalising Higher Education: Insights from Te Puna Aurei LearnFest 2022

“…A degrowth logic (Hickel 2020;Maier 2023) or proposals for a circular economy (Lacy, Long & Spindler 2020), or a green capitalism (Fox 2022), are blasphemy in the currently dominant economic-political worldview.…”

Culture, Denial, Recycling, Tree-Hugging: Many registers learning the seriousness of climate change

“…A more critical interpretation is that centuries of colonial extraction globally has transmogrified into a market fundamentalist ideology that today deifies the lust for profit and growth over anything else. A degrowth logic (Hickel 2020;Maier 2023) or proposals for a circular economy (Lacy, Long & Spindler 2020), or a green capitalism (Fox 2022), are blasphemy in the currently dominant economic-political worldview.…”