BOOK REVIEW ‘Anthropocene or Capitalocene?’ misses the point

The authors of this book have very little to say about the Anthropocene, the crisis of the Earth System, or the new global epoch, and most of what they do say is misleading or wrong.

I submitted my review of Anthropocene or Capitalocene?” to International Socialist Review in July, but publication was unavoidably delayed until now. These are some thoughts I had after I submitted my manuscript. There’s a link to my review at the end.

Introduction to a critique

If I wrote a book called Quantum Theory or Capitalum Theory?, you would expect me to propose a new explanation for the behavior of sub-atomic particles. You wouldn’t be impressed if I ignored protons and energy levels and explained, “Capitalum Theory isn’t about physics, it’s a critique of Max Planck’s poetry.”

That may sound far-fetched, but it is exactly Jason W. Moore’s approach in Anthropocene or Capitalocene? The book’s title would lead you to expect a radical critique of Anthropocene science, but you’d be wrong. The authors of this collection have very little to say about the Anthropocene, the crisis of the Earth System, or the new global epoch — and most of what they do say is misleading or wrong.

Most people who think the Anthropocene should be called Capitalocene are not challenging the science — they simply want to focus attention on capitalism’s responsibility for the crisis in the Earth System that scientists have identified. Moore’s approach is completely different. Although he uses the wordsAnthropocene and Capitalocene, he has invented definitions that have nothing to do with their actual meaning.

When a writer for Viewpoint Magazine asked him about the Anthropocene, Moore replied that there are “two uses of the term.”

“One is the Anthropocene as a cultural conversation, the kind of conversation with friends over dinner or at the water cooler. In this sense the Anthropocene has the virtue of posing an important question: how do humans fit within the web of life? But the Anthropocene cannot answer that question, because the very terms of the concept are dualistic …

“The Anthropocene argument in its dominant form, on the other hand, is an absurd historical model. It says more or less that everything starts in England in 1800 with steam engines and coal.”[1]

The interviewer should have challenged him. What about the crisis of the Earth System? The birth of a new and dangerous epoch in Earth history? The violation of critical planetary boundaries? The unprecedented disruption of our planet’s life-support systems with potentially catastrophic results? What about climate chaos, mass extinctions, acidified oceans, poisoned rivers, rising seas and more?

Moore’s definitions omit everything that actually matters about the Anthropocene. He should have been asked, what about the science?

But the important questions weren’t asked, and Moore got away with reducing the most important scientific development of our time to water cooler chat and steam engines.

In a recent Facebook discussion, he wrote:

“Capitalocene is not an argument about geological history — it’s a frontal assault on the impoverished historical thinking of the Anthropocene as historical narrative.”[2]

Think about that. Moore proposes Capitalocene as an alternative to Anthropocene, a new stage of geological history reflecting qualitative changes in the Earth System in our time. If you don’t begin with that fact, you aren’t discussing the Anthropocene. If Capitalocene is “not an argument about geological history,” then it as is irrelevant to the Anthropocene as poetry criticism in a book about quantum physics.

Moore’s supposed critique of the Anthropocene is a textbook example of the logical fallacy called ignoratio elenchi or irrelevant refutation. More informally, it’s calledmissing the point — and that’s what this book does.

This is a brief introduction to the critique I titled “Comparing Apples to Bicycles and Knocking Down Straw People.” The editors of International Socialist Review shortened that to “Knocking Down Straw Figures.” Read my review here.

Jeffrey Davies, author of The Birth of the Anthropocene, independently came to similar conclusions about Anthropocene or Capitalocene? in his blog, Made Ground.Read his review here.

Notes

[1]Jason W. Moore and Kamil Ahsan, “Capitalism in the Web of Life: an Interview with Jason W. Moore.”  Viewpoint Magazine, September 28, 2015.

[2] Anthony Galluzzo Facebook page, August 30, 2016. https://www.facebook.com/galluzzoanthony?fref=ts