Diagnosis: Landnahme, pincer crisis, Anthropocene

The capitalist dynamic rests on a paradox. Capitalism must expand to survive. However, in its continuous Landnahmen (appropriation) of a non-capitalist other, it undermines the conditions for its own functioning. True, capitalist societies develop self-stabilisation mechanisms to ward off collapse, but these becoming increasingly complex and cost-intensive. This is why it is becoming increasingly difficult to find profitable investment opportunities for private capital, especially in the old capitalist centres. Because of this, capitalist exploitation and domination have extended beyond wage labour to encompass the entire ensemble of human activities and increasingly the work of nature too. Today, this contradictory dynamic has led to an epochal economic-ecological pincer crisis. Economic growth has gone from being a means of pacifying social conflicts to a driving force of ecological and social crisis. If economic growth remains weak, social hardship increases, if it gathers pace, major ecological risks accumulate.