Imperialism in the Anthropocene

Abstract

Today there can be no doubt about the main force behind our ongoing planetary emergency: the exponential growth of the capitalist world economy, particularly in the decades since the mid–twentieth century. The mere critique of capitalism as an abstract economic system, however, is insufficient in addressing today's environmental problems. Rather, it is necessary also to examine the structure of accumulation on a world scale, coupled with the division of the world into competing nation-states. Our planetary problems cannot realistically be addressed without tackling the imperialist world system, or globalized capitalism, organized on the basis of classes and nation-states, and divided into center and periphery. Today, this necessarily raises the question of imperialism in the Anthropocene.

The territories of governance : unpacking the ontologies and geophilosophies of fixed to flexible ocean management, and beyond

“…Nonetheless, neocolonialism in contemporary modes of marine governance is a very real concern [79]. It is not restricted to territorializing (and re-territorializing) modes of ocean governance but also the 'new', 'novel' modes outlined.…”

Challenges and complexities of decolonizing internationalization in a time of global crises

“…are ultimately linked (although not exclusively attributable) to higher levels of consumption and carbon usage by wealthier nations (FOSTER;HOLLEMAN;CLARK, 2019). Similarly, while the declining promise of social mobility has resulted in arrested prosperity in wealthier nations, for instance, children being worse off than their parents, in poorer countries the result is more intense, potentially resulting in a loss of peoples' jobs/livelihoods altogether.…”

The World-System and the Earth System

“…Their voluminous exegeses of Marx's texts (Burkett [1999] 2014; Foster 2000) notwithstanding, Foster and Burkett have failed to demonstrate that Marx's insights on the material metabolism of human organisms and societies were of fundamental relevance for his analysis of capital. 9 In several publications, Foster and his colleagues have convincingly shown that the disastrous trajectory of the Anthropocene is the result of exploitative global resource flows geared to profit incentives generated by capitalism (Foster and Clark 2004;Clark and York 2005;Foster 2008;Foster et al 2010;Clark and Foster 2012;Foster et al 2019). Their identification of asymmetric global flows 10 of resources such as soil nutrients, foodstuffs, energy, embodied labor, embodied land, 11 metal ores, and ocean resources from peripheral to core sectors of the world-systemand the inverse flows of waste including greenhouse gas emissions from core to peripheryusefully establishes the biophysical aspect of world-systems.…”

“…To claim that use-values are underpaid is to imply that they have an objective economic value that exceeds their exchange-values and can be expressed in terms of money. 10 Foster aptly refers to these flows as imperialism (Foster and Clark 2004;Foster 2008;Foster et al 2019). He defines "ecological imperialism" as "use-value transfers" through the extraction of resources -"without equivalent or reciprocity"from poor countries (Foster et al 2019:72), but does not suggest how resource extraction could possibly be reciprocated.…”