Can Green Capitalism Build a Sustainable Society?

Abstract

Marxists and radical environmentalists have argued that the never ending drive for expanded accumulation and production is the fundamental reason that capitalism can never solve the environmental crisis, and in effect can only make the crisis more severe. Promoters of green capitalism also focus on the growth cycle of capitalism, but argue that new environmental technologies can out compete and be more profitable than the destructive means of production now in use. Both arguments overlook the effects of economic crisis as another element in our confrontation with environmental calamities, and yet, crisis plays an important role in the improbability of capitalism building a sustainable society.

Keywords:

• alternative energy
• fossil fuels
• global warming
• green capitalism

Notes on Contributor

Jerry Harris is Professor of history at DeVry University, Chicago. He is a founding member and organizational secretary of the Global Studies Association of North America and a founding member and on the international executive committee of the Network for the Critical Studies of Global Capitalism. He specializes in transnational capitalist class theory and political economy. He is author of The Dialectics of Globalization: Economic and Political Conflict in a Transnational World (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2008).

Notes

See “Sinovel to Put 351 Workers on Leave amid Slump in Turbine Sales,” Bloomberg, November 15, 2012, www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-11-15/sinovel-to-put-351-workers-on-leave-amid-slump-in-turbine-sales.html.

See http://investors.sunpowercorp.com/index.cfm.