Crises & Roots: Towards an Understanding of World-Ecology, Nature & the Capitalocene with Jason W. Moore - Episode 40

50 Conversations! That's what this beautiful talk with Jason W. Moore marks for your two curious hosts. Thank you so so much for giving us your time and attention, and for listening to our silly rants and constant tangents. And a huge thank you to every one of our fifty guests for coming along and putting up with us!  

In this milestone episode, your hosts find a strange tree in their backyard. So they begin digging to see where its roots lie. But as the hole gets deeper, the roots show no sign of thinning or ending; they curl and twist and entangle and as the ground caves in, an subterranean wonder comes to light. As they explore these mysterious tunnels of endless roots and otherworldly sights, they run across Professor Jason W. Moore, an apparent connoisseur of this strange and wonderful web of life. As they walk along, Jason recounts the often-hushed history of our world: the importance of 1492 in capitalism's history, the constructed divide of Humans/Nature as a way to extend frontiers of capital accumulation, and how these extend into our present. 

They discuss the faulty concept of the Anthropocene and Jason's suggested alternative, the Capitalocene, as well as the idea of understanding Capitalism as a world-ecology, that is a system that engulfs and extends beyond mere economy, affecting the entirety of the web of life on Earth. Though they had to end their walk & talk due to Skander's sore calves, the trio managed to quickly touch on questions of Degrowth, academic sectarianism, and Scientism. As Jason points them to a ladder leading back to their yard, your hosts feel encouraged by the professor's writings and reflections to better understand the history of our world, to delve deeper into the roots of our crises, and to seek solutions which better embolden the struggle of life against death and profit.

 

You can find Jason on Twitter - @oikeios

Or on his website!

Let us know your thoughts at risingwiththetide@gmail.com as well as what you'd like us to talk about next!

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Song for the episode: "So What" by Pinegrove