About the Book
Refusing Ecocide: From Fossil Capitalism to a Liveable World provides a critical analysis of the central role of fossil capitalism in causing climate change and argues that only alternatives based upon democratic eco-socialism can prevent the deepening of the climate crisis.
Employing three core concepts within historical materialism – capitalist accumulation, imperialism and hegemony – it locates the existential threat of our changing climate in the drive for increasing profit and growth, the domination of advanced capitalist states that strip resources and exploit cheap labour, and the consent to the capitalist way of life in the global North. With attention to the ways in which, powered by fossil fuels, capital has subjected the world to its predatory logic, this book charts this history and surveys the damage from the Industrial Revolution to today’s deep civilizational crisis, arguing that the market-based and purely technological solutions of ‘climate capitalism’ are too little, too late.
A call for a multifaceted and multi-scalar shift away from capitalist accumulation, imperialism and class hegemony and instead towards democratic eco-socialism, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences with interests in political and social theory, the environment and sustainability.
Table of Contents:
Introduction Part I: Fossil Capitalism and Climate Crisis 1. Fossil Capitalism and the Trifecta of Power 2. Fordism, Consumer Capitalism and the Great Acceleration 3. Climate Crisis and the Quickening of Fossil Capitalism’s Death Drive Part II: Toward a Liveable World 4. The False Solutions of Climate Capitalism 5. Alternatives to Fossil Capitalism? 6. Toward Eco-socialism
About the Author :
William K. Carroll is Professor of Sociology at the University of Victoria, Canada. His research explores relationships between corporate power, fossil capitalism and the climate crisis, the political economy and ecology of corporate capitalism, social movements and social change, and critical social theory and method. He has also co-directed ‘Mapping the power of the carbon-extractive corporate resource sector’, a partnership of several universities and civil-society organizations which has examined corporate power and resistance within the global political economy with a focus on fossil capital based in western Canada. He is the author of Expose, Oppose, Propose: Alternative Policy Groups and the Struggle for Global Justice (2016) and The Making of a Transnational Capitalist Class: Corporate Power in the 21st Century (2010) and the co-author of Organizing the 1%: How Corporate Power Works (2018). He is also the editor of The Elgar Companion to Antonio Gramsci (2024) and Regime of Obstruction: How Corporate Power Blocks Energy Democracy (2021) and the co-editor of A World to Win: Contemporary Social Movements and Counter-Hegemony (2016).
Review :
"In Refusing Ecocide: From Fossil Capitalism to a Liveable World, William Carroll draws upon his decades of work in political economy and sociology to present a lucid critique of the limitations of current responses to the global crises of nature and justice, and to outline alternatives that have real potential to save what may yet be saved. While sympathetic to elements of the Green New Deal supported by social democrats in the USA, degrowth economics, and the Buen Vivir movement rooted in Indigenous Andean culture, Carroll argues that none of these approaches alone can achieve the transformation of an imperialist and capitalist system that exercises cultural and political hegemony in the Global North. Building on an understanding of revolutionary change that is deeply informed by Gramscian concepts, Carroll outlines the multi-scalar political agency required to fundamentally restructure our states and economies. This book is an essential resource for those seeking to articulate clearly why current approaches to the climate crisis are failing, and to refocus their efforts to build just alternatives to capitalist ecocide."
Laurie Adkin, Professor Emerita of Political Science, University of Alberta, Canada
“The deepening climate crisis is caused by the capitalist mode of production and living and its main agents, fossil capital, supported by imperial politics. William Carroll gives us a historical understanding of how fossil capital´s power has led to a civilizational crisis and the current ecocide. The promise of Green Capitalism is a false one, based as it is on technological and market fetishism, “clean growth” (which usually means “dirty” capitalist accumulation) and a largely unsustainable hegemony of the everyday, e.g. the dominance of a car-centred mobility system. Historical materialism at its best! Carroll also contributes to the urgently needed creation of emancipatory alternatives. Democratic eco-socialism has the potential to unite these into a coherent project against fossil capitalism because it intervenes in production relations, promotes democratic planning and develops strategies to unite progressive forces. A must-read for activists, progressive decision-makers, scholars and anyone interested in critical thinking and radical change!”
Ulrich Brand, Professor of International Politics, University of Vienna, Austria, and co-author of The Imperial Mode of Living (2021) and Capitalism at the Limit (forthcoming)
"Tracing the roots of capitalist development through its reliance on imperialism and the establishment of a hegemonic narrative to promote the development of Fossil Capitalism, William Carroll established the foundation of the present-day climate crisis. In Refusing Ecocide: From Fossil Capitalism to a Liveable WorldCarroll shows us how the ideology of market capitalism, its focus on a “free market” for energy, and the transformation from a Fordist model of production to neoliberal austerity created a culture of individualism centered on the use of fossil fuels (suburbanization, home ownership and the spread of automobiles). This endlessly accelerating reliance on fossil fuels laid the foundation of today’s climate crisis. What, he asks, are the alternatives to reverse the focus on growth and the expansion of fossil fuel dependence? Through an analysis of various proposals broadly classified within the rubric of a Green New Deal Degrowth initiatives and Buen Vivir, Carroll demonstrates that any program that does not challenge the rationale of market capitalism will fail to address the existential crisis facing society. The solution is a move towards what he calls Eco-socialism, a system that embarks on a careful path to undo the reliance on market capitalism by examining the forces and relations of production, by implementing planning on a local and global scale, and by identifying and supporting social forces already arrayed to put an end to Fossil Capitalism. William Carroll counters the pessimism of dealing with the climate crisis by offering a positive vision of how society can move forward to a more equitable and liberatory future."
David Fasenfest, Adjunct Professor, Faculty of Environmental & Urban Change, York University, Canada and author of Marx Matters (2024)
"Refusing Ecocide presents a bold and unapologetic analysis of the climate crisis. William K. Carroll shows how the roots of ecological collapse lie in capitalism’s relentless drive for profit and extraction, and calls for rejecting superficial fixes like green capitalism. Carroll pushes us to imagine a future grounded in eco-socialism, where collective stewardship and democratic control reshape our relationship with the Earth. In this era of deepening environmental collapse, Refusing Ecocide delivers a powerful and transformative vision for those seeking to dismantle capitalism’s destructive logic and reimagine a regenerative way of living."
S. A. Hamed Hosseini, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, University of Newcastle, Australia and co-author of Capital Redefined: A Commonist Value Theory for Liberating Life (2024)
