Social and Environmental Dilemmas in Capitalism.

Social and Environmental Dilemmas in Capitalism.

Are critical approaches to capitalism useful for today’s sustainability challenges? For long, I wasn’t entirely convinced. Worried about the perceived gap between armchair theory and the risks of disconnected academic posturing, on the one hand, and the wickedness, specifics and complexity of sustainability challenges, on the other, led me to keep a certain distance. I opted for speaking and working from within, rather than what I saw as remaining critical from the outside. This position, however, no longer holds.

In fact, there is today, on the contrary, a growing urgency for bringing critical approaches into the mainstream concepts of sustainable development ever more present and part of state, corporate and civil society vocabularies. The global community is failing miserably in solving contemporary sustainability challenges despite the growing volumes, toolboxes and education programs tailored to solve them.

Not only the global pandemics, but equally and, perhaps even more, so the deepening challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and global contamination demonstrate the clear need for different thinking, forms of action and cooperation. While there is no doubt that much sustainability innovation is taking place, it is equally true that many initiatives repeatedly fail to address the very structural drivers leading to social inequalities and environmental degradation in the first place. The same may, of course, be argued about critical theory. Where then does it leave us? For one, there is a need to bring in analytical concepts and tools that go beyond and challenge omnipresent

sustainability language and tools tinkering. Secondly, there is need interrogate capitalism critically at multiple levels head-on not from the heights of abstract theory, but rather in terms of how they enable us to explore contemporary practices of financialization, new forms of accumulation and their socio-environmental implications. Thirdly, in consequence, there is a need to abandon win-win language and become far more articulate about trade-offs involved.

The following essays are written by students, who joined the class on social and environmental dilemmas in capitalism in late 2021. Written during the global COVID 19 pandemic, their essays demonstrate the potency of critical thinking about green economies, social inclusivity and wider transformation. Ranging from the global hunt for lithium and water to the digital and material infrastructures, the essays showcase the diversity of challenges with the critical perspective so essential for shaping the building blocks for actual paradigm change.

I am grateful for the financial support from the The Master’s program in Innovation, Human Development and Sustainability allowing this collective writing project to come into being. Particular thanks to Mallory Xinyu Zhan, Gautham Varada Narayan and Jan Van Mol of AddictLab for helping out with preparing the publication.

Peter Bille Larsen, Senior lecturer, University of Geneva.

This SDGZINE issue is a special edition authored by the students of the class Social and Environmental Dilemmas in Capitalism, led by Professor Peter.B.Larsen, University of Geneva.

editorial team Peter Bille Larsen Mallory Xinyu Zhan Gautham Varada Narayan

SDGZINE.ORG is an initiative from the ADDICTLAB ACADEMY and partners contributing to the sustainable development goals of the United Nations.