Affluence and Freedom

In this pathbreaking book, Pierre Charbonnier opens up a new intellectual terrain: an environmental history of political ideas. His aim is not to locate the seeds of ecological thought in the history of political ideas as others have done, but rather to show that all political ideas, whether or not they endorse ecological ideals, are informed by a certain conception of our relationship to the Earth and to our environment. The fundamental political categories of modernity were founded on the idea that we could improve on nature, that we could exert a decisive victory over its excesses and claim unlimited access to earthly resources. In this way, modern thinkers imagined a political society of free individuals, equal and prosperous, alongside the development of industry geared towards progress and liberated from the Earth s shackles. Yet this pact between democracy and growth has now been called into question by climate change and the environmental crisis. It is therefore our duty today to rethink political emancipation, bearing in mind that this can no longer draw on the prospect of infinite growth promised by industrial capitalism. Ecology must draw on the power harnessed by nineteenth-century socialism to respond to the massive impact of industrialization, but it must also rethink the imperative to offer protection to society by taking account of the solidarity of social groups and their conditions in a world transformed by climate change. This timely and original work of social and political theory will be of interest to a wide readership in politics, sociology, environmental studies and the social sciences and humanities generally.

In this pathbreaking book, Pierre Charbonnier opens up a new intellectual terrain: an environmental history of political ideas. His aim is not to locate the seeds of ecological thought in the history of political ideas as others have done, but rather to show that all political ideas, whether or not they endorse ecological ideals, are informed by a certain conception of our relationship to the Earth and to our environment.The fundamental political categories of modernity were founded on the idea that we could improve on nature, that we could exert a decisive victory over its excesses and claim unlimited access to earthly resources. In this way, modern thinkers imagined a political society of free individuals, equal and prosperous, alongside the development of industry geared towards progress and liberated from the Earth's shackles. Yet this pact between democracy and growth has now been called into question by climate change and the environmental crisis. It is therefore our duty today to rethink political emancipation, bearing in mind that this can no longer draw on the prospect of infinite growth promised by industrial capitalism. Ecology must draw on the power harnessed by nineteenth-century socialism to respond to the massive impact of industrialization, but it must also rethink the imperative to offer protection to society by taking account of the solidarity of social groups and their conditions in a world transformed by climate change.This timely and original work of social and political theory will be of interest to a wide readership in politics, sociology, environmental studies and the social sciences and humanities generally.

AcknowledgementsForewordIntroductionChapter One. The critique of ecological reasonThe fabric of libertyThe other history. Ecology and the labour questionSubsisting, dwelling, knowingAutonomy and abundanceChapter Two. Sovereignty and property. Political philosophy and the landThe political affordances of the landGrotius: Empire and possessionLocke: the improving citizenChapter Three. Grain and the market. The order of commerce and the organic economy in the eighteenth centuryThe good use of the landThe agrarian kingdom of the PhysiocratsThe liberal pact: Adam SmithTwo types of growthFichte: the ubiquity of the modernsChapter Four. The new ecological regimeFrom one liberalism to anotherThe paradoxes of autonomy: GuizotThe paradoxes of abundance: JevonsColonial extractionsExtraction-autonomy: TocquevilleChapter Five. Industrial democracy. From Proudhon to DurkheimRevolutions and industryProperty and labourProudhon as critic of the liberal pactThe fraternal idiomDurkheim: 'carbon sociology'The political affordances of coalChapter Six. The technocratic hypothesis. Saint-Simon and VeblenMaterial flows and market arrangementsThe technological normativity of the modernsLaying bare the productive schemaVeblen and the cult of efficiencyThe engineer and propertyChapter Seven. Nature in a market societyMarx as a thinker of autonomyPutting the forest to good useTechnology and agronomyConquering the globeKarl Polanyi: protecting society, protecting natureDisembeddingSocialism, liberalism, conservatismChapter Eight. The great acceleration and the eclipse of natureFreedom from wantEmancipation and acceleration: Herbert MarcuseOil and atomic power: invisible energiesChapter Nine. Risks and limits: the end of certaintiesAlarms and controversiesThe critique of development and political naturalismRisk and the reinvention of autonomyThe impasse: between collapse and resilienceChapter Ten. The end of the modern exception and political ecologySymmetrizationsAuthority and compositionUnder naturalism lies productionUnequal ecological exchangeProvincializing critiqueA new conceptual cartographyChanging expectations of justiceAutonomy without abundanceTowards a new critical subjectChapter Eleven. The self-protection of the Earth.Changing expectations of justiceAutonomy without abundanceTowards a new critical subjectConclusion. Reinventing libertyNotesBibliographyIndex