Socialist Register 2007: Coming to Terms with Nature

Since 1964, The Socialist Register has brought together leading writers on the left to investigate aspects of a common theme. Coming to Terms with Nature: Socialist Register 2007 examines whether capitalism can come to terms with today’s ecological challenges and whether socialist thought has developed sufficiently to help us do so. Topics include: the ecological contradictions of capitalist accumulation and the growing social conflicts they create; the relationship between imperialism, markets, oil politics, and renewable energy; the significance of the impasse over the Kyoto protocol; and how technology can overcome the “limits to growth” and yet preserve the biosphere.

These essays also analyze how deeply consumerism affects working class politics and the shortcomings of Green parties and “green commerce.” In addition, they address the need to redefine standards of living chiefly in the countries of the North, in order to allow for the global redistribution of wealth and income necessary for development in the South. They also call for eco-socialist strategies that can marry democracy with the planning needed to come to terms with nature.

The international roster of contributors includes Mike Davis and Neil Smith (USA), Enrique Leff (Mexico), Joan Martinez-Alier (Spain), Elmar Altvater (Germany), and Michael Löwy (France).

Contents

Preface

• Neil Smith, Nature as Accumulation Strategy
• Enrique Leff, The Ecological Contradictions of Capitalism
• Neil Smith, Accumulation and Nature
• Mike Davis, Historical Materialism and Climate History
• Elmar Altvater, The Social and Natural Environment of Fossil Capitalism
• Barbara Harriss-White and Elinor Harriss, Unsustainable Capitalism: the Politics of Renewable Energy in the UK
• Jamie Peck, Neoliberal Hurricane: Who Framed New Orleans?
• Phillip McMichael, Feeding the World: Agriculture, Development and Ecology
• Henry Bernstein and Philip Woodhouse, Africa: Eco-Populist Utopias and (Micro-) Capitalist Realities
• Minqi Li and Dale Wen, China: Hyper-Development and Environmental Crisis
• Guillermo Castro, The Environmental Crisis in Latin America
• Brenda Longfellow, Weather Report: Images from the Climate Crisis
• Heather Rogers, Garbage Capitalism’s Green Commerce
• Eric Swyngedouw, Water, Money, and Power
• Achim Brunnengraber, The Political Economy of the Kyoto Protocol
• Joan Martinez-Alier, Social Metabolism and Environmental Conflicts
• Costas Panayatokis, Working More, Selling More, Consuming More: Capitalism’s “Third Contradiction”
• Hidayat G. Greenfield, Working Class Movements and Environmentalism
• Frieder Otto Wolf, Party Building for Eco-Socialists: Lessons from the Failed Project of the German Greens
• Greg Albo, The Limits of Eco-Socialism: Scale, Strategy, Socialism
• Michael Löwy, Eco-Socialism and Democratic Planning

Leo Panitch is professor of political science at York University in Toronto. Colin Leys was for many years professor of political science at Queen’s University in Canada.