In my last three labs, I have been discussing the implications of the Capitalocene and its effect on the environment. These came following labs we conducted on the Anthropocene. Daniel Hartley warns of the use of the very word Anthropocene and its political sentiments which create an “implicit philosophy of history” by employing terms such as “the human enterprise,” (Hartley, 2015). He believes that the term Anthropocene unnaturally unites individuals into a compelling force when in reality, “To speak of the ‘human enterprise’ is to make of humanity an abstract corporation.” (Hartley, 2015). He emphasizes that the supporters of the Anthropocene project a “technological bias” by “dating the Anthropocene to the Industrial Revolution” and its presupposition of a kind of “technological determinism,” (Hartley, 2015).
In a previous post, I defined and described the implications of the Anthropocene as well as various individual’s arguments for it. The approach of the Capitalocene is similar in its regard of a new Epoch caused in some way by humanity’s advancement and impact on the Earth, but differs in its approach through viewing the changes of the geologic time scale as rooted in capital instead of in the effects of the Anthropos. In opposition to the term, Jason Moore suggests we are instead in the age of the “Capitalocene, the historical era shaped by relations privileging the endless accumulation of capital,” (Moore, 2014). He argues that other approaches, such as the Anthropocene, often base their perspective on a “a historical method premised on dualism (“society plus nature”),” “despite a widespread philosophical agreement that humans are a part of nature,” (Moore, 2014). In his argument, he defines his own understanding of capitalism as “ a civilization that is co-produced by humans and the rest of nature,” (Moore, 2014). He believes that the “ history of capitalism cannot be explained” by simplified understandings “of nature-society interactions,” (Moore, 2014). Because the advancements of the 18th C. and industrial revolution were “co-produced by human and extra-human natures (in which the latter are also directly constitutive of so-called “society”)... this perspective views capitalism as, at once, producer and product of the web of life,” (Moore, 2014). Essentially, Moore argues for the inclusion of individual and societal interactions with nature as drivers of the Capitalocene. He also states that “the crucial question [of the Capitalocene,] turns on the historical connections between wage-work and its necessary conditions of expanded reproduction;” He then goes on to include “unpaid work” as necessary aspect of this approach that is often overlooked in other generalizations, (Moore, 2014). Through the labs we conduct in ENVS 220, we approach questions such as whether the Anthropocene or Capitalocene are valid approaches to Environmentalism. In our recent labs, we have been running statistical tests to determine whether income group affects various measures of environmental performance and perspective. However, we are unable to draw absolute significant conclusions from the results due to a need for further research. In total, Hartley argues that Moore’s notion of the Capitalocene is a “middle way between humanist and post-human thought,” in which the argument relies on the formation of capitalism, instead of on human consumption and advancement. Whether either of these terms captures the entirety of the current conditions of the environment and of society is still a highly debated subject, however, each perspective offers a thoughtful and interesting approach to viewing the relationship of nature and the compelling forces that have driven geologists to consider a new epoch of the geologic time-scale. Hartley, Daniel. "Against the Anthropocene." Salvage. 2015. Accessed October 21, 2018. https://files.zotero.net/1859191684/against-the-anthropocene.html. Moore, Jason W. “The Capitalocene,” 2014. http://www.jasonwmoore.com/uploads/The_Capitalocene__Part_I__June_2014.pdf. Moore, Jason W. “The Capitalocene,” 2014. https://files.zotero.net/8304882371/The_Capitalocene___Part_II__June_2014.pdf
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