The Necessity of System Change: An Ecological and Marxian Synthesis

M. Graziano Ceddia and Jacopo Nicola Bergamo

Over the last few decades, we have witnessed both an intensification and a convergence of a number of crises: from the 2008 global financial crisis to the emergence of new infectious diseases (the SARS outbreak of 2003 and the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19, to mention two), to the acceleration of climate change and biodiversity loss, to the persistence of various forms of malnutrition. Such crises have offered the opportunity to reflect on the most important drivers. For example, we know that the encroachment of human activities related to the expansion of farming, logging, and mining into previously remote wild habitats is an important driver for biodiversity loss and the emergence of new infectious diseases, while also accelerating climate change (for example, through deforestation). We know that the continuous extraction and use of fossil fuels in transport and production is the main cause of greenhouse gas emissions. Finally, we also know thatthe deregulation of the financial markets has encouragedspeculative behaviours, which can wreak havoc on economic and social systems.

In all of these cases, we have heard experts, regulators, and members of civil society calling for radical changes to financial, food, and energy systems. But while such outlooks are important, they remain incomplete, since they tend to focus on the proximate causes while missing the deeper systemic elements. In what follows, we provide a more comprehensive narrative that looks at the systemic cause of the different crises: the accumulation and circulation of capital on an ever-increasing scale.

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