Labour Law and the ‘Capitalocene’: Law, Work and Nature in the Ecological Long Durée

Abstract

The concept of the ‘Capitalocene’ draws attention to the origins of the climate crisis in capitalist dynamics, and specifically to the need for natural resources to be reproduced for less than their true cost if firms are to remain profitable. This insight suggests that the environmental crisis, manifested by extreme climate events, and the crisis in labour law, manifested by wage suppression and rising inequality, have the same root cause. Bringing production and reproduction back into balance will require changes of a structural kind to the global economy, and a rethinking of the law-nature nexus. Labour Law, Extreme Climate Events, Human-Induced Climate Change, Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Rising Inequality, Law-Nature Nexus