Climate change, global population and the capitalist axiomatic: making sense of Malthus
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: This paper critiques the neo-Malthusian proposition that drastic global population reduction is essential to counteract the current climate emergency. It applies a new materialist, rhizomatic and more-than-human ontology of capitalism based Deleuze and Guattari’s analysis of the ‘capitalist axiomatic’: the free flows of commodities, capital and labour characteristic of capitalist production. Three sections address these rhizomatic flows, considering ‘extractive capitalism’, economic growth, and population growth through this DeleuzoGuattarian lens. The paper concludes, contra Malthus, that while growth in the global human population is placing strain on the environmental capacity to support it, it is the complex, rhizomatic interactions within the capitalist axiomatic that are producing anthropogenic climate change. Remedies short of a wholesale global shift from a capitalist economy are proposed to address this global crisis.
Source: Globalizations
Author: Nick J. Fox
Institution: University of Huddersfield
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Climate action
Open Access status: hybrid
OpenAlex ID: W4404318698