ABSTRACTS  PROKLA 156
Ökologie in der Krise (September 2009)

Kristina Dietz, Markus Wissen: Marxism and „natural limits“. A critical discussion of eco-Marxist approaches to the ecological crisis. In the face of climate change and peak oil, a concept of “natural limits” to societal development seems to be necessary for an appro-priate understanding of the ecological crisis. Eco-Marxist approaches, like the ones of James O’Connor, Elmar Altvater and Ted Benton, have significantly contributed to develop such a concept. Particularly, they have contributed to dissolving respective discussions from their Malthusian roots and to defining natural limits as related to the capitalist mode of production. However, the eco-Marxist focus on the structural contradictions of capitalism affects its abil-ity to understand the variety of societal relationships with nature which is possible within capi-talism, and thus the modes through which the ecological contradictions of capitalism may be regulated. Furthermore, it neglects the various forms of the production of nature which do not necessary lead to natural limits but are nevertheless an issue of socio-ecological power and domination. In order to grasp the ecological crisis in a more comprehensive manner the eco-Marxist view thus has to be complemented by other approaches like critical political ecology and the concept of societal relationships with nature.

Erik Swyngedouw: Trouble with Nature: “Ecology as the New Opium for the Masses”. In The notion of "nature" constitutes an empty signifier, which is colonized and filled with meaning by scientists, experts and policy-makers, and through a variety of techno-administrative procedures. This is a gesture par excellence of de-politicization, of placing "nature" outside the field of public dispute, contestation, and disagreement. In order to find a democratic and socially inclusive response to the current "environmental crisis", we need to abandon the concept of "nature". Instead, we need to re-conceputalize "nature" as a socio-environmental process, and reclaim democratic public spaces, which allow us to discuss the conditions for more egalitarian socio-ecological arrangements.

Christine Bauhardt: Resource Politics and Gender Equity – Questions of local and global governance. Resource politics means the access to resources, the use of resources and the governance of resources. The current debate on climate change contributes to the ongoing social and economic injustice within gender relations. The article asks for non-hegemonic approaches to resource politics striving for gender equity and suggests a feminist understand-ing of sustainable livelihood as an adequate concept.

Achim Brunnengräber: Carbon Trading as a Non-Solution to Climate Change. Climate change is a profound crisis of society and of the capitalist mode of production. Nevertheless, hegemonic forms of the regulation of the crisis emerge which correspond to neoliberal politi-cal concepts. Primarily economic and ‘flexible’ instruments, such as Emission Trading (ET), the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) and Joint Implementation (JI) are to counteract the trend. In climate policy these mechanisms are the result of diplomatic negotiations, tech-nical-control optimism and a political-economic strategy which follows a ‘win-win’ logic. The mechanisms are constructed in a ‘flexible’ form, so that within the framework of a skil-ful CO2 bookkeeping balance-sheet the reductions appear to take place, when in absolute terms no reduction at all has in fact occurred.

Lutz Mez, Mycle Schneider: A Nuclear Power Renaissance? Maybe not. The interna-tional nuclear lobby is constantly talking about a nuclear renaissance. But nuclear power is rather in the dusk than in the dawn. Missing industrial capacities, skyrocketing costs for raw materials and new nuclear power plants, the dramatic skilled worker/manager shortage and a sceptical financial sector are the main problems of nuclear industry. And nuclear technology as saviour against global warming is no good either.

Oliver Pye: Biofuel Bankruptcy: European Climate Policy, Palm Oil and Capitalist Social Relations of Nature in Southeast Asia. This article sketches the European and Southeast Asian interest groups behind the biofuel agenda and discusses its social and ecological rami-fications in the context of the palm oil boom in Indonesia. Although biofuels are a key plank in the green modernisation of capitalism, this article argues that they require the imposition of capitalist social relations of nature and thus deepen the ongoing multiple (economic, social, climate and biodiversity) crisis. The article ends with a discussion of the emerging transna-tional campaign alliances in opposition to the palm oil – biofuel – agenda.

Frieder Otto Wolf, Pia Paust-Lassen, Gerd Peter: For an Integration of a Politics of Production with Political Ecology. Taking its starting points from the difficulties of a politics of production inherent in the very structure of capitalist accumulation as a ‘private affair’ this texts looks at the lessons to be drawn from the social-democratic experience of a politics for the ‘humanization of the working life’ as it has been implemented in the 1970s and 1980s in Germany. Based on looking back beyond the ‘epochal rupture’ which has taken place since then, it elaborates the kind of experience the German trade unions have been making in the framework of this reform programme. On this basis, it criticizes prevailing attitudes of simply concluding the unfeasibility of political projects from their ‘reformist’ mould and ar-gues that the present situation of transition still remains open for a politics of reform, although possibly of a more transitory nature, leaving open future deeper transformations – under the double condition of respecting the contingencies of historical agency, especially with regard to empowering strategies, and of developing a new kind of politics based on a broad alliance concerning the ‘quality of work’ in a comprehensive understanding, not just wage work, with a focus on empowerment, while at the same time addressing the challenges of ecological and feminist issues.

Ulrich Brand: Glimmering and Technocratic. Green New Deal as magic bullet in the cri-sis of neoliberal-imperial capitalism? A discussion about a Green New Deal (GND) refers to the ongoing and uneven crisis with its financial and economic, environmental and climate related as well as food related dimensions. However, the author criticises the suggestive power of the project and its optimistic assumptions concerning political control, technology and modernisation and its neglect of actual dynamics of capitalist development and crisis as well as the deeply inscribed imperial mode of living. With this, GND is an important project of eco-modernist capitalist forces in the Green and ecologically sensitive social-democratic field. They promote the project in the ongoing “postneoliberal” contestations how to redyna-mise capitalism. Therefore, it needs to be analysed carefully from a critical-emancipatory perspective. The arrogant tone of some protagonists of the GND debate, i.e. that there is no leftist alternative beyond their project, should be rejected. Emancipatory socio-ecological perspectives must be decisively more critical towards domination, institutions and modernisa-tion.

Ellen David Friedman: US and Chinese Trade Unions at a Changing Moment in the Global Neoliberal Economy. The pattern of systematic labor degradation created by the global regime of neoliberalism has brought crisis to labor movements in both the U.S. and China. As predatory capital has advanced - supported for nearly 30 years to accumulate profit in a largely unregulated environment (China) or deregulating environment (US and EU) - the formal labor movement has responded weakly. But, quite unexpectedly, it can be argued trends within Chinese society are emerging that could counter the hegemony of foot-loose capital… while, by comparison, US workers are ever more unprotected and powerless. Chinese labor law, for example, is being systematically strengthened, and wage packets and social security benefits are rising (as compared, notably, to those of western industrial economies). This article will briefly examine the nature of both the US and Chinese labor movements during defining periods of the 1950s-70s, the 80s-90s and the current decade, drawing many -- frequently unrecognized -- parallels.

Zu den AutorInnen

Christine Bauhardt hat an der Humboldt Universität Berlin eine Professur für Gender und Globalisierug

Ulrich Brand lehrt Politikwissenschaft mit Schwerpunkt Internationale Politik an der Universität Wien

Achim Brunnengräber ist Politikwissenschaftler an der FU Berlin

Kristina Dietz arbeitet am Lateinamerika-Institut der FU Berlin

Ellen David Friedman war 30 Jahre lang „Organizerin“ für US-amerikanische Gewerkschaften und unterrichtet momentan an der School of Government der Sun Yat-Sen Universität in Guangzhou in China

Lutz Mez lehrt Politikwissenschaft an der FU Berlin

Pia Paust-Lassen ist Ingenieurin für Technischen Umweltschutz und wissen-schaftliche Mitatbeiterin im Europäischen Forschungsnetzwerk „Sustainabili-ty Politics“

Gerd Peter war Mitarbeiter des Projektträgers Humanisierung der Arbeit, er koordiniert den Arbeitsbereich "Arbeit und Gesundheit" der Sozialforschungsstelle Dortmund

Oliver Pye arbeitet an der Universität Bonn zu sozialen Bewegungen und gesellschaftlichen Naturverhältnissen in Südostasien

Mycle Schneider ist energiepolitischer Berater und Autor in Paris

Erik Swyngedouw lehrt Geographie an der Universität Manchester

Markus Wissen ist Politikwissenschaftler an der Universität Wien

Frieder Otto Wolf lehrt Philosophie an der FU Berlin