Abstract
This chapter critically reviews André Gorz’s thinking, in particular his labour-based political ecology, to argue that it belongs within environmental labour studies as a cutting-edge field of inquiry. Based on Gorz’s theoretical toolkit, it discusses the historical transformation of the link between capitalist development, natural environment and working-class struggles. In particular, the chapter focuses on Gorz’s analysis of the ecological crisis as a crisis of capitalist reproduction, whose implications are relevant for a critical understanding of the post-Fordist mode of accumulation. To grasp the ecological dimension of contemporary valorisation—that is, to analyse how physical limits to growth are turned from obstacles to drivers of accumulation—the conclusion connects Gorz’s insights with recent debates on biocapitalism, drawing especially on Melinda Cooper’s contributions.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
The distinction between theoretical inquiry and journalistic investigation is relevant. The author’s name (born in Austria, in 1923, under the name Gerhart Hirsch) was modified to Gérard Horst in 1930, following his father’s conversion to Catholicism, most probably due to profound antisemitism + in the country. Later in life, the author used the pseudonym André Gorz for theoretical works and Michel Bosquet for journalistic works. It is not by chance that Ecology as Freedom was the first book to be ‘authored’ by both. The text (1971/1978)—which was read during the conference—is included in the French and Italian editions of Ecology as Politics but not translated into English.
- 3.
The text (1971/1978)—which was read during the conference—is included in the French and Italian editions of Ecology as Politics but not translated into English.
- 4.
The conference was extremely well-attended—1250 attendees—and featured renowned political figures such as West German Minister Erhard Eppler and Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme.
- 5.
This aspect is compellingly discussed—although with no reference to Gorz—by Flemming and Reuter (2020).
- 6.
As Dominique Méda (2017) aptly points out, Gorz advances a key distinction between work as an anthropological category concerning the nature-society metabolism and labour-employment as a specifically modern form of heteronomous activity. Heteronomy here is due to three factors: the capitalist framework of society (centrality of private property); the wage-form (subalternity of workers); and the fragmentation of the productive process operated by the division of labour (standardisation of tasks and replaceability of workers). According to Méda, Gorz’s emphasis is decidedly on the third element. We agree with her when it comes to his thinking and publications during the 1980s and 1990s, whereas we believe a strong connection amongst all the elements characterise the politico-ecological phase and the later part of his work (especially 2005–2007).
- 7.
Again, there are notable exceptions, especially Bloch (1954/1986).
- 8.
- 9.
Contemporary patenting is not a novelty in the history of capitalism. However, its role evolved, becoming a central commodity under the economy of techno-science. Thus, it represents a veritable paradigm that took hold in the second half of the twentieth century, particularly in the 1960–1970s period (Echeverría 2005). Many authors read this process according to the framework of bio-cognitive capitalism (Birch 2017). In this context, and compared to the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, both legislation and biotechnologies developed in line with the potentialities offered by new gene-sequencing techniques. An important turning point, in the 1980s, was the shift from patenting involving the inanimate world to patenting targeted at living products, subsequently portrayed as human-made inventions.
- 10.
By the same token, the peculiar relationship between debt and speculation that underlies financial capitalism is also mirrored in the speculative character that innovation takes on in the context of knowledge economies and the biotech sector with the proliferation of high-risk start-up companies.
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Leonardi, E., Benegiamo, M. (2021). André Gorz’s Labour-Based Political Ecology and Its Legacy for the Twenty-First Century. In: Räthzel, N., Stevis, D., Uzzell, D. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Environmental Labour Studies. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-71909-8_31
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