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.
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Notes
I do not deny the fact that geopolitical rivalry might lead in some cases to technological innovation. But the overall trend goes into another direction.
Camila Moreno from Brazil insisted in our talks and discussions in China that a greening of capitalism is on the top of the agenda of powerful economic and political actors and that it already takes place (cf. Moreno 2013).
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Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the Beijing office of Rosa Luxemburg Foundation and here especially Lutz Pohle and Sun Wei, my hosts at the mentioned universities as well as Prof. Huan Qingzhi from Peking University who invited me to China and introduced me many of his most interesting colleagues. Camila Moreno from Brazil commented critically and complemented my talks by referring to recent dynamics in Latin America, its connections with China and the manifold alternative experiences, especially those who go beyond the orientation at “development” and the long and still existing colonial history. Last but not least, many thanks go to Etienne Schneider for research assistance.
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This article is based on lectures I held at Peking University, Zhongnan University (Wuhan) and Fudan University (Shanghai) in April 2015.
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Brand, U. Green Economy, Green Capitalism and the Imperial Mode of Living: Limits to a Prominent Strategy, Contours of a Possible New Capitalist Formation. Fudan J. Hum. Soc. Sci. 9, 107–121 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-015-0095-6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40647-015-0095-6