Green Economy, Green Capitalism and the Imperial Mode of Living: Limits to a Prominent Strategy, Contours of a Possible New Capitalist Formation

Abstract

Since some years, the strategy of a Green Economy as a current form of ecological modernization was proposed. The paper highlights the core issues of the concept and its structural constraints. Several constraints of a far-reaching realization of a Green Economy are presented, and one constraint is highlighted, i.e., the imperial mode of (production and) living. The latter gives emphasis to the continuous and largely unquestioned access to products produced by cheap labor and under environmentally problematic conditions. This mode of living, the paper argues, is also attractive among the upper and middle classed in countries with emerging economies like China. Moreover, it compares it with the concept of sustainable development which emerged some 15 years ago. Like sustainable development, proposals for a Green Economy might become “a tranquilizing dispositive” in order to silence doubt and criticisms. However, it is argued that, despite the improbability of realizing the ambitious objectives, the Green Economy strategy might contribute to further capitalist development. Environmental issues might be integrated into the mode of production and living. However, given capitalist and imperial structures and dynamics, this will occur in highly selective and partial ways. The author calls this emerging constellation and possible new mode of development in some countries or regions of the world Green Capitalism.