Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital

Integrating both social and historical factors, this radical analysis of the development of capitalism reveals the ever-deepening relationship between capital and ecology

Finance. Climate. Food. Work. How are the crises of the twenty-first century connected? In Capitalism in the Web of Life, Jason W. Moore argues that the sources of today’s global turbulence have a common cause: capitalism as a way of organizing nature, including human nature. Drawing on environmentalist, feminist, and Marxist thought, Moore offers a groundbreaking new synthesis: capitalism as a ＂world-ecology＂ of wealth, power, and nature. Capitalism’s greatest strength--and the source of its problems--is its capacity to create Cheap Natures: labor, food, energy, and raw materials. That capacity is now in question.

Rethinking capitalism through the pulsing and renewing dialectic of humanity-in-nature, Moore takes readers on a journey from the rise of capitalism to the modern mosaic of crisis. Capitalism in the Web of Life shows how the critique of capitalism-in-nature--rather than capitalism and nature--is key to understanding our predicament, and to pursuing the politics of liberation in the century ahead.

Jason W. Moore is Assistant Professor, Department of Sociology, Binghamton University, and Coordinator of the World-Ecology Research Network. He writes frequently on the history of capitalism in Europe, Latin America, and the United States, from the long sixteenth century to the neoliberal era. His research has been recognized with many international awards.