A Theoretical Reflection on the Relationship between Nature and Capitalism

A Theoretical Reflection on the Relationship between Nature and Capitalism

João Valente Aguiar, Nádia Bastos

The purpose of this article is to recognize the articulation between the natural and contemporary global social sphere, in generic terms, the capitalist mode of production. Based on an analysis of the mechanisms of appropriation of nature by the social engendering of the accumulation of capital, it seeks to identify some of the forms of the contemporary commodification of nature. These commodified expressions of nature are connected to the dynamics of the structural crisis of capitalism. In methodological terms, it emphasizes a perspective of totality in the approach to the object of study, without reducing the empiric substrate to a homogenized entity. Therefore, the interactive process between nature and capitalism finds support in a set of mutual influences, of unequaled mediations of causality and contradictions.

2012

Mercadorização, capitalismo, ecología, natureza

10.1590/S1414-49802012000100010

Revista Katálysis

Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina

Social pathology. Social and public welfare. Criminology