Capitalism today is caught in a seemingly endless crisis, with economic stagnation
and upheaval circling the globe.1 But
while the world has been fixated on the economic problem, global environmental
conditions have been rapidly worsening, confronting humanity with its ultimate crisis: one of long-term
survival. The common source of both of these crises resides in the process of
capital accumulation. Likewise the common solution is to be sought in a “revolutionary
reconstitution of society at large,” going beyond the regime of capital.2
It is still possible for humanity to avert what economist Robert
Heilbroner once called “ecological Armageddon.”3 The
means for the creation of a just and sustainable world currently exist, and are
to be found lying hidden in the growing gap between what could be achieved with
the resources already available to us, and what the prevailing social order
allows us to accomplish. It is this latent potential for a quite different
human metabolism with nature that offers the master-key to a workable
ecological exit strategy.
http://www.zcommunications.org/the-planetary-emergency-by-john-bellamy-foster
