The bottom line: capital’s production of social inequalities and environmental degradation

Sustainability is a contested concept that has been at the center of discussions of natural and social scientists for decades. Mainstream conceptualizations, predicated upon the “three-legged stool” and “triple bottom line model,” argue that questions of economic, social, and environmental sustainability are of equal importance. However, in actuality, the “economic” leg of the stool is given primacy in these analyses. These mainstream conceptions take for granted that economic means the capitalist system, failing to assess how its growth dynamics undermine sustainability. Capitalism, as a historically distinct political-economic system, depends on expropriation and exploitation, creating social inequalities and environmental degradation increasingly on a global scale. Critical sustainability confronts the logic of capital, directly challenging this very system in an effort to create substantive equality, meet human needs, and protect the conditions of life.