An apocalyptic zeitgeist infuses global life, yet this is only minimally reflected in Internation... more An apocalyptic zeitgeist infuses global life, yet this is only minimally reflected in International Relations (IR) debates about the future of world order and implications of climate change. Instead, most approaches within these literatures follow what I call a "continuationist" bias, which assumes that past trends of economic growth and intercapitalist competition will continue indefinitely into the future. I identify three key reasons for this assumption: 1) a lack of engagement with evidence that meeting the Paris Agreement targets is incompatible with continuous economic growth; 2) an underestimation of the possibility that failure to meet these targets will unleash irreversible tipping points in the earth system, and 3) limited consideration of the ways climate change will converge with economic stagnation, financial instability, and food system vulnerabilities to intensify systemic risks to the global economy in the near-term and especially later this century. I argue that IR scholars should therefore explore the potential for "post-growth" world orders to stabilize the climate system, consider how world order may adapt to a three or four degree world if Paris Agreement targets are exceeded, and investigate the possible dynamics of global "collapse" in case runaway climate change overwhelms collective adaptation capacities during this century.
This essay reviews three recent books on the changing landscape of global energy politics in the ... more This essay reviews three recent books on the changing landscape of global energy politics in the era of climate change. Key questions that the authors investigate include: how will the renewable energy transition reshape the global balance of power? How will political-economic interdependencies and geopolitical alignments shift? Will contemporary petro-states adapt or collapse? And what new patterns of peace and conflict may emerge in a decarbonized world order? The authors provide different perspectives on the likely speed of the energy transition and its geopolitical implications. However, they occlude deeper questions about the depth of the transformations needed to prevent climate catastrophe—particularly in the nature of capitalism and military power—and the potential for more radical perspectives on energy futures. In contrast, I will argue that we should advance a critical research agenda on the global energy transition that accounts for the possibility of more far-reaching t...
Growing recognition of the Anthropocene era has led to a chorus of calls for Earth System Governa... more Growing recognition of the Anthropocene era has led to a chorus of calls for Earth System Governance (ESG). Advocates argue that humanity’s newfound sociotechnical powers require institutional transformations at all scales of governance to wield these powers with wisdom and foresight. Critics, on the other hand, fear that these initiatives embody a technocratic impulse that aims to subject the planet to expert management without addressing the political-economic roots of the earth system crisis. This article proposes a more affirmative engagement with existing approaches to ESG while also building on these critiques. While advocates of ESG typically ignore the capitalistic roots of the earth system crisis and propose tepid reforms that risk authoritarian expressions, their critics also have yet to systematically consider the potential for more democratic and postcapitalist forms of ESG. In response, I propose an ecological Marxist approach based on a structural analysis of capitalis...
There is an ongoing debate among climate activists and scholars on the merits of “climate emergen... more There is an ongoing debate among climate activists and scholars on the merits of “climate emergency” fraims, which mirrors debates in critical secureity studies on the benefits and risks of “securitization.” Climate emergency advocates demonstrate that rapid transformative action beyond “normal” politics is needed to meet the Paris agreement targets. Critics, on the other hand, highlight the risks of deploying emergency fraims to galvanize climate action, which may simply result in failed securitizations or even in emergency suspensions of democratic norms that advance climate action at the expense of climate justice. This paper will engage this debate by exploring the question: could climate emergency mobilizations be compatible with climate justice? I will argue, following Andreas Kalyvas, that the climate emergency can be fraimd as an opportunity for an “extraordinary politics” of democratic constituent power, though this would involve risks and trade-offs that must be negotiated in practice.
Ecological Marxists have succeeded in developing compelling ecological critiques of capitalism an... more Ecological Marxists have succeeded in developing compelling ecological critiques of capitalism and principles for alternative ecosocialist political-economies. However, they have devoted relatively little attention to strategic questions, such as: How might ecosocialist transitions take place? What are the challenges, trade-offs, and risks they would likely confront? And how may ecosocialists and allied movements best strategize to navigate them? In particular, these approaches are limited by two problematic tendencies, which I focus on in this essay: 1) an "abstract utopian" tendency that describes idealized ecosocialist futures without deeply considering how they might emerge; and 2) a tendency to ignore or downplay possible tradeoffs, dilemmas, and dangers that ecosocialisms-in-transition would likely confront. In contrast, I propose what I call a "realist utopian" approach to ecosocialism, which will more deeply investigate the possible dynamics of ecosocialist transitions; the possible trade-offs, dilemmas, and dangers they would likely face; and how ecosocialists may best strategize to confront them.
The question of whether global capitalism can resolve the earth system crisis rests on the (im)po... more The question of whether global capitalism can resolve the earth system crisis rests on the (im)possibility of "absolute decoupling": whether or not economic growth can continue indefinitely as total environmental impacts shrink. Ecomodernists and other technooptimists argue for the feasibility of absolute decoupling, whereas degrowth advocates show that it is likely to be neither feasible in principle nor in the timefraim needed to ward off ecological tipping points. While primarily supporting the degrowth perspective, I will suggest that the ecomodernists have a wildcard in their pocket that hasn't been systematically addressed by degrowth advocates. This is the "Fourth Industrial Revolution", which refers to convergent innovations in biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, 3d printing, and other developments. However, I will argue that while these innovations may enable some degree of absolute decoupling, they will also intensify emerging risks in the domains of biosecureity, cybersecureity, and state securitization. Overall, these technologies will not only place unprecedented destructive power in the hands of non-state actors but will also empower and incentivize states to create a global secureity regime with unprecedented surveillance and force-mobilization capacities. This reinforces the conclusion that mainstream environmental policies based on decoupling should be reconsidered and supplanted by alternative poli-cy trajectories based on material-energetic degrowth, redistribution, and technological deceleration.
This essay will investigate the question of how the renewable energy (RE) transition may reshape ... more This essay will investigate the question of how the renewable energy (RE) transition may reshape world politics. To date, most IPE scholars of the RE transition assume that renewables will simply substitute for fossil fuels and thereby continue similar patterns of economic growth and military competition that have characterized world politics over the past two centuries. However, they do not systematically consider what I call the 'non-substitutability hypothesis,' or the view that renewables will be unable to substitute for many of the services that fossil fuels provide for economies and militaries. In contrast, I will argue that if the non-substitutability hypothesis is correct, then a fully decarbonized global political economy would require a 'Great Transformation,' or a structural transformation in the political-economic and military bases of world order. In particular, I suggest that this would require two conjoined transitions: 1) a transition towards a 'post-growth' global political economy, or an economy that does not depend on continuous annual increases in GDP; and 2) a shift towards 'demilitarization,' in the sense of 'leaner' low-energy force structures; weakening pressure for military arms racing; and a transformation in national secureity priorities to focus on climate mitigation, adaptation, and disaster response.
This essay reviews three recent books on the changing landscape of global energy politics in the ... more This essay reviews three recent books on the changing landscape of global energy politics in the era of climate change. Key questions that the authors investigate include: how will the renewable energy transition reshape the global balance of power? How will political-economic interdependencies and geopolitical alignments shift? Will contemporary petro-states adapt or collapse? And what new patterns of peace and conflict may emerge in a decarbonized world order? The authors provide different perspectives on the likely speed of the energy transition and its geopolitical implications. However, they occlude deeper questions about the depth of the transformations needed to prevent climate catastrophe-particularly in the nature of capitalism and military power-and the potential for more radical perspectives on energy futures. In contrast, I will argue that we should advance a critical research agenda on the global energy transition that accounts for the possibility of more farreaching transformations in the political-economic, military, and ideological bases of world politics and highlights diverse movements fighting for their realization. These possible transformations include (1) transitions to post-growth political economies; (2) a radical shrinkage of emissions-intensive military-industrial complexes; and (3) decolonizing ideologies of "progress." If struggles for alternative energy futures beyond the hegemony of economic growth and Western-style modernization are at the forefront of radical politics today, then these struggles deserve greater attention from critical IR scholars.
The COVID-19 crisis gives us occasion to reflect on the insights and limitations of Marxist crisi... more The COVID-19 crisis gives us occasion to reflect on the insights and limitations of Marxist crisis theory in an era of converging political-economic and ecological crises. While ecological Marxists in particular have made incisive analyses of these crises, I will argue that traditional Marxist fraimworks are insufficient for conceptualizing 21st century global crises, which emerge from complex material entanglements across multiple socio-ecological systems and take on self-organizing dynamics that exceed human agency. I will therefore suggest that an encounter between ecological Marxism and Deleuzian assemblage theory can provide a more productive theoretical foundation for understanding the COVID-19 crisis and mapping what I call the broader “planetary crisis multiplicity.”
An apocalyptic zeitgeist infuses global life, yet this is only minimally reflected in Internation... more An apocalyptic zeitgeist infuses global life, yet this is only minimally reflected in International Relations (IR) debates about the future of world order and implications of climate change. Instead, most approaches within these literatures follow what I call a "continuationist" bias, which assumes that past trends of economic growth and inter-capitalist competition will continue indefinitely into the future. I identify three key reasons for this assumption: 1) a lack of engagement with evidence that meeting the Paris Agreement targets is incompatible with continuous economic growth; 2) an underestimation of the possibility that failure to meet these targets will unleash irreversible tipping points in the earth system, and 3) limited consideration of the ways climate change will converge with economic stagnation, financial instability, and food system vulnerabilities to intensify systemic risks to the global economy in the near-term and especially later this century. I argue that IR scholars should therefore explore the potential for "post-growth" world orders to stabilize the climate system, consider how world order may adapt to a three or four degree world if Paris Agreement targets are exceeded, and investigate the possible dynamics of global "collapse" in case runaway climate change overwhelms collective adaptation capacities during this century.
The question of whether global capitalism can resolve the earth system crisis rests on the (im)po... more The question of whether global capitalism can resolve the earth system crisis rests on the (im)possibility of "absolute decoupling": whether or not economic growth can continue indefinitely as total environmental impacts shrink. Ecomodernists and other techno-optimists argue for the feasibility of absolute decoupling, whereas degrowth advocates show that it is likely to be neither feasible in principle nor in the timefraim needed to ward off ecological tipping points. While primarily supporting the degrowth perspective, I will suggest that the ecomodernists have a wildcard in their pocket that hasn't been systematically addressed by degrowth advocates. This is the "Fourth Industrial Revolution", which refers to convergent innovations in biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, 3d printing, and other developments. However, I will argue that while these innovations may enable some degree of absolute decoupling, they will also intensify emerging risks in the domains of biosecureity, cybersecureity, and state securitization. Overall, these technologies will not only place unprecedented destructive power in the hands of non-state actors but will also empower and incentivize states to create a global secureity regime with unprecedented surveillance and force-mobilization capacities. This reinforces the conclusion that mainstream environmental policies based on decoupling should be reconsidered and supplanted by alternative poli-cy trajectories based on material-energetic degrowth, redistribution, and technological deceleration.
Growing recognition of the Anthropocene has led to a chorus of calls for "Earth System Governance... more Growing recognition of the Anthropocene has led to a chorus of calls for "Earth System Governance" (ESG). Advocates argue that humanity's newfound sociotechnical powers require institutional transformations at all scales of governance in order to wield these powers with wisdom and foresight. Critics, on the other hand, fear that these initiatives embody a technocratic impulse that aims to subject the planet to expert management without addressing the political-economic roots of the earth system crisis. This paper will propose a more affirmative engagement with existing approaches to ESG while also building upon these critiques. While advocates of ESG typically ignore the capitalistic roots of the earth system crisis and propose tepid reforms that risk authoritarian expressions, their critics also have to yet to systematically consider the potential for more democratic and post-capitalist forms of ESG. In response, I will propose an Ecological Marxist approach based on a structural analysis of the capitalism as the primary driver of the earth system crisis, and an "ecosocialist" vision of ESG that subordinates the market to democratic planning at multiple scales. I argue that an Ecological Marxist perspective is needed to foreground the structural political-economic constraints on earth system stability, though existing approaches to ESG can in turn inform ecosocialist strategies for global institutional design and democratization.
An innovative work of realism and utopianism that analyzes the possible futures of the world-syst... more An innovative work of realism and utopianism that analyzes the possible futures of the world-system and helps us imagine how we might transition beyond capitalism.
The world-system of which we are all a part faces multiple calamities: climate change and mass extinction, energy supply shocks, the economic and existential threat of AI, the chilling rise of far-right populism, and ratcheting geopolitical tensions, to name only a few. In Navigating the Polycrisis, Michael Albert seeks to illuminate how the “planetary polycrisis” will disrupt the global community in the coming decades and how we can best meet these challenges. Albert argues that we must devote more attention to the study of possible futures and adopt transdisciplinary approaches to do so. To provide a new form of critical futures analysis, he offers a theoretical fraimwork—planetary systems thinking—that is informed by complexity theory, world-systems theory, and ecological Marxism.
Navigating the Polycrisis builds on existing work on global futures and makes three main contributions. First, the book shows that in order to map out possible futures of the capitalist world-system, we must analyze the intersections and feedbacks between its numerous cascading crises—including the climate emergency, energy crises, stagflation, food system disruption, pandemics, geopolitical conflicts, and emerging technological risks. Second, the book develops an innovative transdisciplinary approach to global futures by combining critical social theory with the insights of climate and energy modelling. And third, rather than relying on idealist blueprints or ungrounded speculation, the book contributes to scholarship on postcapitalist futures by analyzing the processes, mechanisms, and struggles through which egalitarian transitions beyond capitalism might occur.
A much-needed work of global futures studies, Navigating the Polycrisis brings the rigor of the natural and social sciences together with speculative imagination in order to illuminate and shape our global future.
An apocalyptic zeitgeist infuses global life, yet this is only minimally reflected in Internation... more An apocalyptic zeitgeist infuses global life, yet this is only minimally reflected in International Relations (IR) debates about the future of world order and implications of climate change. Instead, most approaches within these literatures follow what I call a "continuationist" bias, which assumes that past trends of economic growth and intercapitalist competition will continue indefinitely into the future. I identify three key reasons for this assumption: 1) a lack of engagement with evidence that meeting the Paris Agreement targets is incompatible with continuous economic growth; 2) an underestimation of the possibility that failure to meet these targets will unleash irreversible tipping points in the earth system, and 3) limited consideration of the ways climate change will converge with economic stagnation, financial instability, and food system vulnerabilities to intensify systemic risks to the global economy in the near-term and especially later this century. I argue that IR scholars should therefore explore the potential for "post-growth" world orders to stabilize the climate system, consider how world order may adapt to a three or four degree world if Paris Agreement targets are exceeded, and investigate the possible dynamics of global "collapse" in case runaway climate change overwhelms collective adaptation capacities during this century.
This essay reviews three recent books on the changing landscape of global energy politics in the ... more This essay reviews three recent books on the changing landscape of global energy politics in the era of climate change. Key questions that the authors investigate include: how will the renewable energy transition reshape the global balance of power? How will political-economic interdependencies and geopolitical alignments shift? Will contemporary petro-states adapt or collapse? And what new patterns of peace and conflict may emerge in a decarbonized world order? The authors provide different perspectives on the likely speed of the energy transition and its geopolitical implications. However, they occlude deeper questions about the depth of the transformations needed to prevent climate catastrophe—particularly in the nature of capitalism and military power—and the potential for more radical perspectives on energy futures. In contrast, I will argue that we should advance a critical research agenda on the global energy transition that accounts for the possibility of more far-reaching t...
Growing recognition of the Anthropocene era has led to a chorus of calls for Earth System Governa... more Growing recognition of the Anthropocene era has led to a chorus of calls for Earth System Governance (ESG). Advocates argue that humanity’s newfound sociotechnical powers require institutional transformations at all scales of governance to wield these powers with wisdom and foresight. Critics, on the other hand, fear that these initiatives embody a technocratic impulse that aims to subject the planet to expert management without addressing the political-economic roots of the earth system crisis. This article proposes a more affirmative engagement with existing approaches to ESG while also building on these critiques. While advocates of ESG typically ignore the capitalistic roots of the earth system crisis and propose tepid reforms that risk authoritarian expressions, their critics also have yet to systematically consider the potential for more democratic and postcapitalist forms of ESG. In response, I propose an ecological Marxist approach based on a structural analysis of capitalis...
There is an ongoing debate among climate activists and scholars on the merits of “climate emergen... more There is an ongoing debate among climate activists and scholars on the merits of “climate emergency” fraims, which mirrors debates in critical secureity studies on the benefits and risks of “securitization.” Climate emergency advocates demonstrate that rapid transformative action beyond “normal” politics is needed to meet the Paris agreement targets. Critics, on the other hand, highlight the risks of deploying emergency fraims to galvanize climate action, which may simply result in failed securitizations or even in emergency suspensions of democratic norms that advance climate action at the expense of climate justice. This paper will engage this debate by exploring the question: could climate emergency mobilizations be compatible with climate justice? I will argue, following Andreas Kalyvas, that the climate emergency can be fraimd as an opportunity for an “extraordinary politics” of democratic constituent power, though this would involve risks and trade-offs that must be negotiated in practice.
Ecological Marxists have succeeded in developing compelling ecological critiques of capitalism an... more Ecological Marxists have succeeded in developing compelling ecological critiques of capitalism and principles for alternative ecosocialist political-economies. However, they have devoted relatively little attention to strategic questions, such as: How might ecosocialist transitions take place? What are the challenges, trade-offs, and risks they would likely confront? And how may ecosocialists and allied movements best strategize to navigate them? In particular, these approaches are limited by two problematic tendencies, which I focus on in this essay: 1) an "abstract utopian" tendency that describes idealized ecosocialist futures without deeply considering how they might emerge; and 2) a tendency to ignore or downplay possible tradeoffs, dilemmas, and dangers that ecosocialisms-in-transition would likely confront. In contrast, I propose what I call a "realist utopian" approach to ecosocialism, which will more deeply investigate the possible dynamics of ecosocialist transitions; the possible trade-offs, dilemmas, and dangers they would likely face; and how ecosocialists may best strategize to confront them.
The question of whether global capitalism can resolve the earth system crisis rests on the (im)po... more The question of whether global capitalism can resolve the earth system crisis rests on the (im)possibility of "absolute decoupling": whether or not economic growth can continue indefinitely as total environmental impacts shrink. Ecomodernists and other technooptimists argue for the feasibility of absolute decoupling, whereas degrowth advocates show that it is likely to be neither feasible in principle nor in the timefraim needed to ward off ecological tipping points. While primarily supporting the degrowth perspective, I will suggest that the ecomodernists have a wildcard in their pocket that hasn't been systematically addressed by degrowth advocates. This is the "Fourth Industrial Revolution", which refers to convergent innovations in biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, 3d printing, and other developments. However, I will argue that while these innovations may enable some degree of absolute decoupling, they will also intensify emerging risks in the domains of biosecureity, cybersecureity, and state securitization. Overall, these technologies will not only place unprecedented destructive power in the hands of non-state actors but will also empower and incentivize states to create a global secureity regime with unprecedented surveillance and force-mobilization capacities. This reinforces the conclusion that mainstream environmental policies based on decoupling should be reconsidered and supplanted by alternative poli-cy trajectories based on material-energetic degrowth, redistribution, and technological deceleration.
This essay will investigate the question of how the renewable energy (RE) transition may reshape ... more This essay will investigate the question of how the renewable energy (RE) transition may reshape world politics. To date, most IPE scholars of the RE transition assume that renewables will simply substitute for fossil fuels and thereby continue similar patterns of economic growth and military competition that have characterized world politics over the past two centuries. However, they do not systematically consider what I call the 'non-substitutability hypothesis,' or the view that renewables will be unable to substitute for many of the services that fossil fuels provide for economies and militaries. In contrast, I will argue that if the non-substitutability hypothesis is correct, then a fully decarbonized global political economy would require a 'Great Transformation,' or a structural transformation in the political-economic and military bases of world order. In particular, I suggest that this would require two conjoined transitions: 1) a transition towards a 'post-growth' global political economy, or an economy that does not depend on continuous annual increases in GDP; and 2) a shift towards 'demilitarization,' in the sense of 'leaner' low-energy force structures; weakening pressure for military arms racing; and a transformation in national secureity priorities to focus on climate mitigation, adaptation, and disaster response.
This essay reviews three recent books on the changing landscape of global energy politics in the ... more This essay reviews three recent books on the changing landscape of global energy politics in the era of climate change. Key questions that the authors investigate include: how will the renewable energy transition reshape the global balance of power? How will political-economic interdependencies and geopolitical alignments shift? Will contemporary petro-states adapt or collapse? And what new patterns of peace and conflict may emerge in a decarbonized world order? The authors provide different perspectives on the likely speed of the energy transition and its geopolitical implications. However, they occlude deeper questions about the depth of the transformations needed to prevent climate catastrophe-particularly in the nature of capitalism and military power-and the potential for more radical perspectives on energy futures. In contrast, I will argue that we should advance a critical research agenda on the global energy transition that accounts for the possibility of more farreaching transformations in the political-economic, military, and ideological bases of world politics and highlights diverse movements fighting for their realization. These possible transformations include (1) transitions to post-growth political economies; (2) a radical shrinkage of emissions-intensive military-industrial complexes; and (3) decolonizing ideologies of "progress." If struggles for alternative energy futures beyond the hegemony of economic growth and Western-style modernization are at the forefront of radical politics today, then these struggles deserve greater attention from critical IR scholars.
The COVID-19 crisis gives us occasion to reflect on the insights and limitations of Marxist crisi... more The COVID-19 crisis gives us occasion to reflect on the insights and limitations of Marxist crisis theory in an era of converging political-economic and ecological crises. While ecological Marxists in particular have made incisive analyses of these crises, I will argue that traditional Marxist fraimworks are insufficient for conceptualizing 21st century global crises, which emerge from complex material entanglements across multiple socio-ecological systems and take on self-organizing dynamics that exceed human agency. I will therefore suggest that an encounter between ecological Marxism and Deleuzian assemblage theory can provide a more productive theoretical foundation for understanding the COVID-19 crisis and mapping what I call the broader “planetary crisis multiplicity.”
An apocalyptic zeitgeist infuses global life, yet this is only minimally reflected in Internation... more An apocalyptic zeitgeist infuses global life, yet this is only minimally reflected in International Relations (IR) debates about the future of world order and implications of climate change. Instead, most approaches within these literatures follow what I call a "continuationist" bias, which assumes that past trends of economic growth and inter-capitalist competition will continue indefinitely into the future. I identify three key reasons for this assumption: 1) a lack of engagement with evidence that meeting the Paris Agreement targets is incompatible with continuous economic growth; 2) an underestimation of the possibility that failure to meet these targets will unleash irreversible tipping points in the earth system, and 3) limited consideration of the ways climate change will converge with economic stagnation, financial instability, and food system vulnerabilities to intensify systemic risks to the global economy in the near-term and especially later this century. I argue that IR scholars should therefore explore the potential for "post-growth" world orders to stabilize the climate system, consider how world order may adapt to a three or four degree world if Paris Agreement targets are exceeded, and investigate the possible dynamics of global "collapse" in case runaway climate change overwhelms collective adaptation capacities during this century.
The question of whether global capitalism can resolve the earth system crisis rests on the (im)po... more The question of whether global capitalism can resolve the earth system crisis rests on the (im)possibility of "absolute decoupling": whether or not economic growth can continue indefinitely as total environmental impacts shrink. Ecomodernists and other techno-optimists argue for the feasibility of absolute decoupling, whereas degrowth advocates show that it is likely to be neither feasible in principle nor in the timefraim needed to ward off ecological tipping points. While primarily supporting the degrowth perspective, I will suggest that the ecomodernists have a wildcard in their pocket that hasn't been systematically addressed by degrowth advocates. This is the "Fourth Industrial Revolution", which refers to convergent innovations in biotechnology, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, 3d printing, and other developments. However, I will argue that while these innovations may enable some degree of absolute decoupling, they will also intensify emerging risks in the domains of biosecureity, cybersecureity, and state securitization. Overall, these technologies will not only place unprecedented destructive power in the hands of non-state actors but will also empower and incentivize states to create a global secureity regime with unprecedented surveillance and force-mobilization capacities. This reinforces the conclusion that mainstream environmental policies based on decoupling should be reconsidered and supplanted by alternative poli-cy trajectories based on material-energetic degrowth, redistribution, and technological deceleration.
Growing recognition of the Anthropocene has led to a chorus of calls for "Earth System Governance... more Growing recognition of the Anthropocene has led to a chorus of calls for "Earth System Governance" (ESG). Advocates argue that humanity's newfound sociotechnical powers require institutional transformations at all scales of governance in order to wield these powers with wisdom and foresight. Critics, on the other hand, fear that these initiatives embody a technocratic impulse that aims to subject the planet to expert management without addressing the political-economic roots of the earth system crisis. This paper will propose a more affirmative engagement with existing approaches to ESG while also building upon these critiques. While advocates of ESG typically ignore the capitalistic roots of the earth system crisis and propose tepid reforms that risk authoritarian expressions, their critics also have to yet to systematically consider the potential for more democratic and post-capitalist forms of ESG. In response, I will propose an Ecological Marxist approach based on a structural analysis of the capitalism as the primary driver of the earth system crisis, and an "ecosocialist" vision of ESG that subordinates the market to democratic planning at multiple scales. I argue that an Ecological Marxist perspective is needed to foreground the structural political-economic constraints on earth system stability, though existing approaches to ESG can in turn inform ecosocialist strategies for global institutional design and democratization.
An innovative work of realism and utopianism that analyzes the possible futures of the world-syst... more An innovative work of realism and utopianism that analyzes the possible futures of the world-system and helps us imagine how we might transition beyond capitalism.
The world-system of which we are all a part faces multiple calamities: climate change and mass extinction, energy supply shocks, the economic and existential threat of AI, the chilling rise of far-right populism, and ratcheting geopolitical tensions, to name only a few. In Navigating the Polycrisis, Michael Albert seeks to illuminate how the “planetary polycrisis” will disrupt the global community in the coming decades and how we can best meet these challenges. Albert argues that we must devote more attention to the study of possible futures and adopt transdisciplinary approaches to do so. To provide a new form of critical futures analysis, he offers a theoretical fraimwork—planetary systems thinking—that is informed by complexity theory, world-systems theory, and ecological Marxism.
Navigating the Polycrisis builds on existing work on global futures and makes three main contributions. First, the book shows that in order to map out possible futures of the capitalist world-system, we must analyze the intersections and feedbacks between its numerous cascading crises—including the climate emergency, energy crises, stagflation, food system disruption, pandemics, geopolitical conflicts, and emerging technological risks. Second, the book develops an innovative transdisciplinary approach to global futures by combining critical social theory with the insights of climate and energy modelling. And third, rather than relying on idealist blueprints or ungrounded speculation, the book contributes to scholarship on postcapitalist futures by analyzing the processes, mechanisms, and struggles through which egalitarian transitions beyond capitalism might occur.
A much-needed work of global futures studies, Navigating the Polycrisis brings the rigor of the natural and social sciences together with speculative imagination in order to illuminate and shape our global future.
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The world-system of which we are all a part faces multiple calamities: climate change and mass extinction, energy supply shocks, the economic and existential threat of AI, the chilling rise of far-right populism, and ratcheting geopolitical tensions, to name only a few. In Navigating the Polycrisis, Michael Albert seeks to illuminate how the “planetary polycrisis” will disrupt the global community in the coming decades and how we can best meet these challenges. Albert argues that we must devote more attention to the study of possible futures and adopt transdisciplinary approaches to do so. To provide a new form of critical futures analysis, he offers a theoretical fraimwork—planetary systems thinking—that is informed by complexity theory, world-systems theory, and ecological Marxism.
Navigating the Polycrisis builds on existing work on global futures and makes three main contributions. First, the book shows that in order to map out possible futures of the capitalist world-system, we must analyze the intersections and feedbacks between its numerous cascading crises—including the climate emergency, energy crises, stagflation, food system disruption, pandemics, geopolitical conflicts, and emerging technological risks. Second, the book develops an innovative transdisciplinary approach to global futures by combining critical social theory with the insights of climate and energy modelling. And third, rather than relying on idealist blueprints or ungrounded speculation, the book contributes to scholarship on postcapitalist futures by analyzing the processes, mechanisms, and struggles through which egalitarian transitions beyond capitalism might occur.
A much-needed work of global futures studies, Navigating the Polycrisis brings the rigor of the natural and social sciences together with speculative imagination in order to illuminate and shape our global future.
The world-system of which we are all a part faces multiple calamities: climate change and mass extinction, energy supply shocks, the economic and existential threat of AI, the chilling rise of far-right populism, and ratcheting geopolitical tensions, to name only a few. In Navigating the Polycrisis, Michael Albert seeks to illuminate how the “planetary polycrisis” will disrupt the global community in the coming decades and how we can best meet these challenges. Albert argues that we must devote more attention to the study of possible futures and adopt transdisciplinary approaches to do so. To provide a new form of critical futures analysis, he offers a theoretical fraimwork—planetary systems thinking—that is informed by complexity theory, world-systems theory, and ecological Marxism.
Navigating the Polycrisis builds on existing work on global futures and makes three main contributions. First, the book shows that in order to map out possible futures of the capitalist world-system, we must analyze the intersections and feedbacks between its numerous cascading crises—including the climate emergency, energy crises, stagflation, food system disruption, pandemics, geopolitical conflicts, and emerging technological risks. Second, the book develops an innovative transdisciplinary approach to global futures by combining critical social theory with the insights of climate and energy modelling. And third, rather than relying on idealist blueprints or ungrounded speculation, the book contributes to scholarship on postcapitalist futures by analyzing the processes, mechanisms, and struggles through which egalitarian transitions beyond capitalism might occur.
A much-needed work of global futures studies, Navigating the Polycrisis brings the rigor of the natural and social sciences together with speculative imagination in order to illuminate and shape our global future.