• DOI:10.1177/1086026603259091
• Corpus ID: 145169737

Capitalism as World-Ecology

@article{Moore2003CapitalismAW,
  title={Capitalism as World-Ecology},
  author={Jason W. Moore},
  journal={Organization \& Environment},
  year={2003},
  volume={16},
  pages={514 - 517}
}

• Jason W. Moore
• Published 1 December 2003
• Art
• Organization & Environment

This essay considers the relevance of Fernand Braudel’s world-historical studies for the theory and practice of environmental history. Arguing against the conventional viewthat Braudel regarded the environment as a backdrop, the essay points to his sophisticated layering of time, space, and nature in which society and ecology actively shape each other. Braudel’s greatest historical-geographical insight is the idea that world-economies are not simply social constructions but also ecological projects. In this fashion, Braudel implicitly suggests the concept “world-ecology.” Although never spelled out in precisely these terms, the idea that ecogeographical processes permeate the ever-shifting relations of region, state, and world-economy runs like red thread through Braudel’s corpus. Braudel understood nature in terms of transitory but identifiable socio-ecological moments that shape and are shaped by a world-ecological whole. Unfortunately, Braudel’s underconceptualized approach prevented him fromidentifying with greater specificity capitalism’s world-ecological contradictions. To build effectively upon Braudel’s ecohistorical insights, we might turn to Marx and Engels’ ecological critique of capitalism.