Jason W. Moore on Socialism in the Web of Life
Future Histories International
Renewal of Social Movements in Challenging Times
This chapter explores the resurgence of social movements as a source of hope and joy amidst rising totalitarianism. It highlights the awakening of the working class and the enduring spirit of the peace movement, emphasizing the importance of creating a new, inclusive consciousness in response to societal challenges.
Jason W. Moore discusses the problematic history of the nature-society divide, his alternative world-ecology approach and the challenges of building socialism.
Shownotes
Jason’s personal website:
Jason at Binghamtom University:
https://www.binghamton.edu/sociology/faculty/profile.html?id=jwmoore
The World-Ecology Research Collective:
https://worldecologynetwork.wordpress.com/
https://www.researchgate.net/lab/World-Ecology-Research-Collective-Jason-W-Moore
Moore, J. W., & Patel, R. (2020). A History of the World in Seven Cheap Things. A Guide to Capitalism, Nature, and the Future of the Planet. Verso.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/817-a-history-of-the-world-in-seven-cheap-things
Moore, J. W. (2015). Capitalism in the Web of Life. Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. Verso.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/74-capitalism-in-the-web-of-life
for an overview of different approaches to conceptualizing society/capitalism and nature:
https://www.historicalmaterialism.org/ecology-marxism-andreas-malm/
on Andreas Malm:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andreas_Malm
Malm, A. (2018). The Progress of this Storm. Nature and Society in a Warming World. Verso.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/574-the-progress-of-this-storm
Malm, A. (2016). Fossil Capital. The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming. Verso.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/135-fossil-capital
Federici, S. (2004). Caliban and the Witch. Autonomedia.
https://files.libcom.org/files/Caliban%20and%20the%20Witch.pdf
on Ernst Haeckel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Haeckel
see also the chapter on Haeckel and the German Monist League in:
Gasman, D. (2017). The scientific Origins of National Socialism. Routledge.
on Actor-Network Theory:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Actor%E2%80%93network_theory
on Bruno Latour:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruno_Latour
on John Bellamy Foster:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bellamy_Foster
Bellamy, J. F. (2000) Marx’s Ecology. Materialism and Nature. Monthly Review Press.
https://ia904504.us.archive.org/9/items/526394/John%20Bellamy%20Foster.%20Marx%27s%20Ecology..pdf
on Kohei Saito:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kohei_Saito
on Pietro Verri:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pietro_Verri
Marx, K. (1976). Capital. A Critique of Political Economy. Volume One. Penguin.
https://www.surplusvalue.org.au/Marxism/Capital%20-%20Vol.%201%20Penguin.pdf
Marx’s Theses on Feuerbach:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/theses.htm
Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/preface.htm
Marx’s and Engel’s German Ideology:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/
Marx’s Capital Vol. 3.:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/
Marx’s On The Jewish Question:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/
on Alfred Sohn-Rethel:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Sohn-Rethel
Machado, C. & Miguel, N. (2013). The Money of the Mind and the God of Commodities. The real abstraction according to Sohn-Rethel.
https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/48961/1/MPRA_paper_48961.pdf
on Donna Haraway:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donna_Haraway
on the “Special Period” in Cuba:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Period
on James Lovelock:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock
Lovelock, J. (1979). Gaia. A New Look at Life on Earth. Oxford University Press.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/gaia-9780198784883?cc=de&lang=en&#
on “Social metabolism”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_metabolism
on Raymond Williams:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Williams
Smele, J. D. (2016). The ‘Russian’ Civil Wars, 1916-1926. Ten Years that Shook the World. Hurst.
https://www.hurstpublishers.com/book/the-russian-civil-wars-1916-1926/
Engel-Di Mauro, S. (2021). Socialist States and the Environment. Lessons for Eco-Socialist Futures. Pluto Press.
https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745340418/socialist-states-and-the-environment/
Amin, S. (1990). Delinking. Towards a Polycentric World. Zed Books.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/delinking-9780862328030/
on material and energy flow accounting:
see the chapter on that topic in:
Bartelmus, P. (2008). Quantitative Eco-nomics. How sustainable are our economies. Springer.
https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-1-4020-6966-6
Zeug, W. (2025). INDEP talk with Walther Zeug: Democratic Economic Planning through Cybernetics & Holistic Accounting.
https://youtu.be/I4_8_lDfwEw?si=J-kdRzjIehZqPgs0
Kula, W. (2016). Measures and Men. Princeton University Press.
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691639079/measures-and-men
Echterhölter, A. M. (2019). Quantification as Conflict. Witold Kula’s Political Metrology and Its Reception in the West . Historyka : studia metodologiczne, 49, 117-141 . Article 9.
https://journals.pan.pl/Content/114031/PDF/7%20ECHTERH%C3%96LTER.pdf
on Max Weber:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Weber
on Double-entry bookkeeping:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-entry_bookkeeping
on “proletarian science”:
Moore, J.W. (2025). Nature and other dangerous words: Marx, method and the proletarian standpoint in the web of life. Dialectical Anthropology. 49, 149–167.
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10624-025-09775-x
on Ecosystem services:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem_service
on the “Ecological footprint” concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_footprint
on Thomas Müntzer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_M%C3%BCntzer
on the Royal Botanic Gardens/Kew Gardens:
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Botanic_Gardens_(Kew)
on the Stakhanovite movement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stakhanovite_movement
on Cybernetics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics
on Earth systems science:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth_system_science
Selcer, P. (2018). The Postwar Origins of the Global Environment. How the United Nations Built Spaceship Earth. Columbia University Press.
https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-postwar-origins-of-the-global-environment/9780231166485/
Medina, E. (2014). Cybernetic Revolutionaries. Technology and Politics in Allende’s Chile. MIT Press.
https://uberty.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/Eden_Medina_Cybernetic_Revolutionaries.pdf
on Cybernetics in the Soviet Union:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybernetics_in_the_Soviet_Union
on the Transitional demand:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transitional_demand
see also:
Trotsky’s The Transitional Program:
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/tp/
on the Green New Deal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Green_New_Deal
on the European Green Deal:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Green_Deal
on Geoengineering:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoengineering
on Johan Rockström:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johan_Rockstr%C3%B6m
on Planetary boundaries:
https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html
Klein, N. (2015). This Changes Everything. Capitalism vs. the Climate. Penguin.
https://thischangeseverything.org/book/
Kushi, S., & Toft, M. D. (2022). Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A New Dataset on US Military Interventions, 1776–2019. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 67(4), 752-779.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/00220027221117546
on Allen Dulles:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles
on Reinhard Gehlen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinhard_Gehlen
Talbot, D. (2016). The Devil’s Chessboard. Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government. Harper Collins.
https://www.harpercollins.com/products/the-devils-chessboard-david-talbot?variant=32207669559330
on the concept of the Deep State:
Scott, P. D. (1996). Deep Politics and the Death of JFK. University of California Press.
https://www.ucpress.edu/books/deep-politics-and-the-death-of-jfk/paper
Scott, P. D. (2017). The American Deep State. Big Money, Big Oil, and the Struggle for U.S. Democracy. Rowman & Littlefield.
https://archive.org/details/americandeepstat0000scot/page/n5/mode/2up
Good, A. (2022). American Exception. Empire and the Deep State. Skyhorse Publishing.
https://www.skyhorsepublishing.com/9781510769144/american-exception/
on the origin of the concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_state_in_Turkey
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susurluk_car_crash
recently released files relating to the assassination of JFK on the website of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA):
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/release-2025
on the current state of knowledge on the Nord Stream Pipeline Explosion:
on the Nord Stream Pipeline Explosion releasing massive Amounts of Methane:
https://youtu.be/7KBsf7bX9Nc?si=tDIxlFFF2ThO6Aeb
on Systems Dynamics:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_dynamics
the ‘Limits to Growth’ Report, commissioned by the Club of Rome:
https://www.clubofrome.org/publication/the-limits-to-growth/
the Club of Rome:
on Jay Wright Forrester:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Wright_Forrester
on the concept of the Anthropocene:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene
on James C. Scott:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_C._Scott
Mies, M. & Bennholdt-Thomsen, V. (1999). The Subsistence Perspective. Beyond the Globalised Economy. Zed Books.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/subsistence-perspective-9781856497763/
on the New Economic Policy (NEP):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Economic_Policy
on the Belt and Road Initiative:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative
Nachmani, A. (1990). Civil War and Foreign Intervention in Greece: 1946-49. Journal of Contemporary History, 25(4), 489–522.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/260759
on the “Soft Coup against the Wilson Labour Government”:
https://www.declassifieduk.org/a-possible-coup-against-the-labour-government/
https://www.mi5.gov.uk/history/the-cold-war/the-wilson-plot
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/mar/15/comment.labour1
on the actions of the US against North Korea in the Korean War:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_the_Korean_War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_North_Korea
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegations_of_biological_warfare_in_the_Korean_War
on the Cultural Revolution:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_Revolution
on Mao’s concept of the Mass Line:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/works/red-book/ch11.htm
on Jung’s concept of the Collective unconscious:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_unconscious
on (Neo-)Malthusianism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malthusianism
Ehrlich, P. R. (1971). The Population Bomb. Ballantine Books.
http://pinguet.free.fr/ehrlich68.pdf
Tainter, J. A. (1988). The Collapse of Complex Societies. Cambridge University Press.
https://www.sustainable.soltechdesigns.com/Joseph-A-Tainter-The-collapse-of-complex-societies.pdf
on Millenarianism:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millenarianism
Enzensberger, H. M. (1978). Two Notes on the End of the World. New Left Review. I/110.
Hansen, J. (2010). Storms of my Grandchildren. The Truth about the Coming Climate Catastrophe and Our Last Chance to Save Humanity. Bloomsbury.
https://www.bloomsbury.com/in/storms-of-my-grandchildren-9781408807460/
Sweezy, P.M. (1990). Monopoly Capitalism. In: Eatwell, J., Milgate, M., Newman, P. (eds) Marxian Economics. Palgrave Macmillan.
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-1-349-20572-1_44
on Technofeudalism:
Varoufakis, Y. (2024). Technofeudalism. What Killed Capitalism. Penguin.
https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/451795/technofeudalism-by-varoufakis-yanis/9781529926095
Durand, C. (2024). How Silicon Valley Unleashed Techno-feudalism. The Making of the Digital Economy. Verso.
https://www.versobooks.com/products/2790-how-silicon-valley-unleashed-techno-feudalism
Culture, Power and Politics Podcast episode on the debate around the concept “Technofeudalism”:
https://culturepowerpolitics.org/2025/07/04/is-capitalism-over-the-technofeudalism-debate/
Conservation International:
Earth League International:
https://earthleagueinternational.org/
Rockström, J. et al. (2024). The Planetary Commons. A new Paradigm for Safeguarding Earth-regulating Systems in the Anthropocene. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2301531121
the Trilateral Commission:
the Earth Commission:
Johan Rockström’s interview in the Guardian:
Future Histories Episodes on Related Topics
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https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e44-anna-kornbluh-on-climate-counteraesthetics/
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S03E30 | Matt Huber & Kohei Saito on Growth, Progress and Left Imaginaries
S03E23 | Andreas Malm on Overshooting into Climate Breakdown
S03E19 | Wendy Brown on Socialist Governmentality
https://www.futurehistories.today/episoden-blog/s03/e19-wendy-brown-on-socialist-governmentality/
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If you are interested in democratic economic planning, these resources might be of help:
Democratic planning – an information website
https://www.democratic-planning.com/
Sorg, C. & Groos, J. (eds.)(2025). Rethinking Economic Planning. Competition & Change Special Issue Volume 29 Issue 1.
https://journals.sagepub.com/toc/ccha/29/1
Groos, J. & Sorg, C. (2025). Creative Construction - Democratic Planning in the 21st Century and Beyond. Bristol University Press. [for a review copy, please contact: amber.lanfranchi[at]bristol.ac.uk]
https://bristoluniversitypress.co.uk/creative-construction
International Network for Democratic Economic Planning
Democratic Planning Research Platform:
https://www.planningresearch.net/
---
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Episode Keywords
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