Metabolic Politics

In order to understand the ecological crisis, we need to understand the world of work. Because it is through labour, according to Karl Marx, that societies’ metabolic relationship with nature is carried out. As such, argues sociologist Simon Schaupp, labour politics is also climate politics – or as the title of this book suggests, »metabolic politics«. And nature itself plays an active role in these metabolic relationships: the more intensely human societies exploit nature, the more dramatic are the reciprocal effects of nature on the world of work.

Schaupp illustrates just how productive this perspective is by way of a series of historical case studies, demonstrating that, for example, we can understand neither the rise nor the fall of the plantation as an economic form without acknowledging the influence of the mosquito. Or that the establishment of trade unions was made possible in part by the power workers attained as a result of the material properties of coal. And that the assembly line was largely introduced because in early meatpacking factories, decaying animal carcasses were piling up because of strikes. If we want to at least slow down the process of global warming, Schaupp argues, we also need to transform the world of work: we need to move beyond the logic of an ever-expanding exploitation of nature, and instead take nature's autonomy seriously.

»There are analyses of our utterly fragmented present that leave you a different person to the one you were at the outset. And with that, dear readers, welcome to Simon Schaupp’s Metabolic Politics ...« Lennart Laberenz, DIE ZEIT

»Metabolic Politics – Work, Nature and the Future of the Planet … is a major theoretical achievement.« Daniel Binswanger, Republik

»In Metabolitic Politics … [Schaupp] produces a convincing attempt to weave together the politics of production and labour with environmental politics. … In historical analyses that are as meticulous as they are fascinating, he teases out the ways in which the organisational forms of nature, labour, and production influence each other.« Titus Blome, Süddeutsche Zeitung

»Reads like a gripping novel.« Nina Scholz, Deutschlandfunk Kultur

»Indispensable.« Leon Switala, Portal für Politikwissenschaft

»Metabolic Politics brings together all the important approaches to the contemporary debate on environmental policy, and is full of fascinating information. … A worthwhile read for anybody who wants to gain a new perspective on the connections between economy and ecology.« Matthias Becker, Deutschlandfunk Andruck