How to Understand Nature From a Marxist Perspective
Nobody today denies that capitalism exploits nature. The disagreement is over why. Political theorist Alyssa Battistoni spoke to Jacobin about capitalism’s complex relationship to what economists once called nature’s “free gifts.”
Socialists have often viewed concepts like nature and natural as too vague and ideological to be meaningfully deployed. But as the political theorist Alyssa Battistoni explains, they are indispensable if we want to understand how capitalism functions. (Jean-Francois Monier / AFP via Getty Images)
The rise of capitalism as an economic and social system has also coincided with its rapid transformation of nature. Wage labor and investment in the hope of return has dammed rivers, bored through mountains, flattened landscapes, and even transformed the relationships between parents and children, and between men and women.
In her recent book, Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature, political theorist Alyssa Battistoni sets out to explain how and why capitalism transforms and relates to nature. Jacobin spoke to Battistoni about capitalism’s role in shaping the relationship between the economy and social relations, and how Marxists ought to understand the way capitalism relates to ecology and the domestic sphere.
Hugo de Camps Mora
Many people tend to think of capitalism as a system that seeks to commodify everything. However, in your book, you draw on the notion of a “free gift,” which you describe as something that capital prefers not to commodify or subject to market logic. What do you mean by this?
Alyssa Battistoni
Sorry, but this article is available to active subscribers only. Please log in or become a subscriber.