Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World

Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World

Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World

Against the Crisis: Economy and Ecology in a Burning World

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Overview

Capitalism produces crises and crises reproduce capitalism. We need an ecosocialist way out.

Crisis is a buzzword, but does it actually mean? Many argue that multiple crises coexist, but how are they actually related? If crises are defining our time, why isn’t there a proper socialist crisis policy?

This book analyses economic and ecological crises, partly to understand the crisis itself, but, even more, to understand capitalism. Crises are not exceptions to an otherwise functioning capitalism, but integral parts of the system. Still, socialists often cling to the hope that crises are ’opportunities’, and resort to Keynesianism as soon as they need concrete policies. In contrast, this book shows how capitalism produces crises and how crises reproduce capitalism.

There are crucial similarities between the crises: rooted in capitalism and having similar class characters. But there are also differences. Economic crises are solved through creative destruction, and the ruling class will ensure that these crises are resolved at any cost. But neither the mechanisms of the system nor the ruling class will save us from the climate catastrophe; only we ourselves can do that.

The tendency for crises to reproduce capitalism is, fortunately, not an iron law. Our historical mission in the face of the climate crisis is to create a historical exception to this rule. It is time for ecosocialism against crisis.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781804293805
Publisher: Verso Books
Publication date: 11/26/2024
Pages: 288
Product dimensions: 9.20(w) x 6.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ståle Holgersen is a Senior Lecturer in Human Geography at Örebro University, Sweden. He is a member of two research collectives: the Zetkin Collective (ecosocialist group working on political ecologies of the far right) published White Skin, Black Fuel on Verso in 2021 and Fundament (a housing research collective) published Kris i Bostadsfrågan on Daidalos in 2023. This is his first monograph in English.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction: Crises Are Not Opportunities – They Are the Enemy

1 When the Economy Is Not Healthy...
Economic Crisis
A Century of Crises: In Theory and Reality
Solving a Crisis/Crisis as Solution
2 An Infected Wound
Ecological Crisis
Anthropocene: Th e Crisis of Man?
Not Solving the Climate Crisis
3 Rooted in Capitalism
Five Levels of Abstraction
To Shake and to Stabilise
4 The Class Character of Crises
Losing, Winning and Causing Crises
Crises Are Caused by One Class, but Another
Must Pay the Price
No One Is Punished, but Murder It Remains
5 Creating Crises in Its Image
6 Our Crisis Is Now
The Useless Decade
The Corona Crisis as Social Paroxysm
The Crisis of Neoliberalism, or: Thoughts on How the Crisis Reproduces Capitalism Th is Time
Epilogue: Optimism at the Edge of a Cliff
Ten Thoughts on Socialist Crisis Policy

Index
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