set against the long durée of capitalist development, is a very short space of time
indeed.
Given the abundant problems and apparent limits of the ability of the existing
economic system to adequately oversee a ‘green transformation’, the contours of
what such a transformation might look like are unclear. While we can observe
‘moves’ in a Polanyian sense, it is harder to discern a ‘double-movement’ at work.
8
Despite a level of common buy-in to the language of transition and transformation,
it is evidently a contested and deeply politicized terrain. Discourses of green growth
naturally seek to reduce transformation to technological innovation and hype about
the possibilities of a new round of ‘greener’ accumulation (Wanner, 2014). As well
as critiques of the inherent impossibility of a truly ‘green capitalism’, given the
tendency to deplete the very resource base upon which the economy depends to
reproduce its own conditions of existence (what has been called the second
contradiction of capitalism) (O’Connor, 1998), green growth narratives downplay
the politics of the transformation. Indeed, one reading of the current situation would
interpret much of the current discourse about win–win opportunities for growth
that is ‘green’ as precisely an attempt to depoliticize critique and attention to the
limits of growth and its destructive environmental effects (Brand, 2012a; Wanner,
2014). There is an intense debate unfolding about whether technological trans -
formation and market innovation are enough to produce the radical shifts that are
acknowledged to be needed, or whether in the proper sense of transition (in its
political rather than sociotechnical meaning) a change of order is required and will
inevitably result from a reordering of production and finance, for example. The
political struggle is, on the part of the incumbent historical bloc, to render climate
change and associated nexus challenges as entirely manageable within a globalized capitalist political economy, albeit one in which nature is properly priced and
the animal spirits of capitalists suitably shepherded, and on the part of critics to
suggest that a growth-oriented market-driven economy is structurally incapable of
addressing these challenges, and that the idea of a green transformation within
capitalism essentially amounts to a contradiction in terms. In other words, a great
deal of political work goes into establishing the boundaries around the terrain of
what is up for discussion and by whom.
An account such as this might rightly be accused of privileging macro
transformations by only focusing on episodes of major restructuring and reordering
of the economy because of its attempt to link contemporary calls for a ‘green
industrial revolution’ to relevant historical examples. It is certainly the case that
this discussion has downplayed the role of smaller scale, bottom-up, inadvertent
or disorganized transformations – in values and norms, behaviours, and sites of
resistance – which might challenge prevailing structures and orthodoxies. By
engaging with existing power structures and alignments of interests and incentives,
other sites of potential transformation are inevitably obscured or neglected.
However, it is the case that the terms of transition are currently being set by and
for a set of existing regime and landscape actors whose power to enable and frustrate
particular types of green transformation needs to be understood and challenged.
Green transformations in capitalism 83
indeed.
Given the abundant problems and apparent limits of the ability of the existing
economic system to adequately oversee a ‘green transformation’, the contours of
what such a transformation might look like are unclear. While we can observe
‘moves’ in a Polanyian sense, it is harder to discern a ‘double-movement’ at work.
8
Despite a level of common buy-in to the language of transition and transformation,
it is evidently a contested and deeply politicized terrain. Discourses of green growth
naturally seek to reduce transformation to technological innovation and hype about
the possibilities of a new round of ‘greener’ accumulation (Wanner, 2014). As well
as critiques of the inherent impossibility of a truly ‘green capitalism’, given the
tendency to deplete the very resource base upon which the economy depends to
reproduce its own conditions of existence (what has been called the second
contradiction of capitalism) (O’Connor, 1998), green growth narratives downplay
the politics of the transformation. Indeed, one reading of the current situation would
interpret much of the current discourse about win–win opportunities for growth
that is ‘green’ as precisely an attempt to depoliticize critique and attention to the
limits of growth and its destructive environmental effects (Brand, 2012a; Wanner,
2014). There is an intense debate unfolding about whether technological trans -
formation and market innovation are enough to produce the radical shifts that are
acknowledged to be needed, or whether in the proper sense of transition (in its
political rather than sociotechnical meaning) a change of order is required and will
inevitably result from a reordering of production and finance, for example. The
political struggle is, on the part of the incumbent historical bloc, to render climate
change and associated nexus challenges as entirely manageable within a globalized capitalist political economy, albeit one in which nature is properly priced and
the animal spirits of capitalists suitably shepherded, and on the part of critics to
suggest that a growth-oriented market-driven economy is structurally incapable of
addressing these challenges, and that the idea of a green transformation within
capitalism essentially amounts to a contradiction in terms. In other words, a great
deal of political work goes into establishing the boundaries around the terrain of
what is up for discussion and by whom.
An account such as this might rightly be accused of privileging macro
transformations by only focusing on episodes of major restructuring and reordering
of the economy because of its attempt to link contemporary calls for a ‘green
industrial revolution’ to relevant historical examples. It is certainly the case that
this discussion has downplayed the role of smaller scale, bottom-up, inadvertent
or disorganized transformations – in values and norms, behaviours, and sites of
resistance – which might challenge prevailing structures and orthodoxies. By
engaging with existing power structures and alignments of interests and incentives,
other sites of potential transformation are inevitably obscured or neglected.
However, it is the case that the terms of transition are currently being set by and
for a set of existing regime and landscape actors whose power to enable and frustrate
particular types of green transformation needs to be understood and challenged.
Green transformations in capitalism 83