Earth Capital

The Long History of Capitalism and Its Aftermath

Alessandro Stanziani

• Publisher: Polity
• Year: 2025
• Print ISBN: 9781509571499
• eBook ISBN: 9781509571505
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Histoire
• Subtopic: Histoire moderne

This book is a major new history of capitalism that takes account of the material and ecological underpinnings of productive activity as well as the social, political and institutional dimensions of economic life. It retraces the history of capitalism over a long time period, giving particular attention to the role of food, agriculture, energy and natural resources, and with an eye to the future, mindful of the need to find solutions to an ecological crisis that threatens to overwhelm us all.

Alessandro Stanziani shows that the development of capitalism since the twelfth century has been based on two primary forms of exploitation: of labour, often coerced, and of what he calls 'Earth capital', by which he means both the planet as a whole and its land and natural resources as factors of production. While these two forms of exploitation have gone hand-in-hand, the emphasis has shifted over time: forced labour gradually declined in importance from 1870 to the present, the exploitation of land, fossil fuels and natural resources grew at an unprecedented rate from 1870 to precedented rate, the destructive consequences of which are becoming increasingly apparent today.

Looking to the future, Stanziani argues that, in order to deal with the immense challenges we now face, we must be prepared radically to rethink our economic and political systems. He proposes a new social contract that would make democracy, social equality and the environment the three pillars of the world of tomorrow.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Graphs and Tables
• Foreword by Thomas Piketty: Earth Capital: Long Live Eco-History!
• Introduction
• Part I: Green Growth and Forced Labour, 12th–19th Century
• 1 Indispensable Labour, Forced Labour
• 2 Energy Resources in Preindustrial Economies
• 3 Crops and Material Culture
• 4 A Dangerous Mix: Environment, Institutions and Inequality
• Conclusion: Why Europe? The Power of Violence and Constraint
• Part II: The Productivist Regime and the Great Acceleration, 1870–1970
• 5 The Age of Capital
• 6 Seeds, Plants and Genetics
• 7 Transmissible Diseases and Food: Meat
• 8 Capital, Neocolonialism and Famine
• Conclusion
• Part III: From the 1970s to 2050: High Globalization, Collapse and Tomorrow’s World
• 9 Neoliberalism and the Euphoria of Speculation
• 10 Hunting for Seed Varieties vs. Genetic Selection
• 11 Towards the World of Tomorrow
• Conclusion: Just Institutions vs. Just Societies
• Index
• End User License Agreement