The Imperial Mode of Living: Everyday Life and the Ecological Crisis of Capitalism

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    Markus Wissen, Ulrich Brand

    Publisher: Verso

    Year: 2021

    Format: Verso

    Size: 256 pages

    ISBN: 9781788739122

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Our unsustainable life: why we can’t have everything we want

With the concept of the Imperial Mode of Living, Brand and Wissen highlight the fact that capitalism implies uneven development as well as a constant and accelerating universalisation of a Western mode of production and living. The logic of liberal markets since the nineteenth century, and especially since World War II, has been inscribed into everyday practices that are usually unconsciously reproduced. The authors show that they are a main driver of the ecological crisis and economic and political instability.

The Imperial Mode of Living implies that people’s everyday practices, including individual and societal orientations, as well as identities, rely heavily on the unlimited appropriation of resources; a disproportionate claim on global and local ecosystems and sinks; and cheap labour from elsewhere. This availability of commodities is largely organised through the world market, backed by military force and/or the asymmetric relations of forces as they have been inscribed in international institutions. Moreover, the Imperial Mode of Living implies asymmetrical social relations along class, gender and race within the respective countries. Here too, it is driven by the capitalist accumulation imperative, growth-oriented state policies and status consumption. The concrete production conditions of commodities are rendered invisible in the places where the commodities are consumed. The imperialist world order is normalised through the mode of production and living.

What People Are Saying

“An essential political read for our times. Spelling out the brutal contradictions of the ‘imperial mode of living’ and its ‘green economy,’ Brand and Wissen invite the reader to consider a ‘solidary mode of living.’ Here, sociability and sustainability can be joined, and hopefully celebrate the rich plurality of global cultures.” Ariel Salleh

Book Details

Author: Ulrich Brand
Author: Markus Wissen
Format: Verso
ISBN: 9781788739122
Size: 256 pages
Publisher: Verso
Year: 2021

Tags: against war and empire ....... anticapitalism ....... ecology ....... Markus Wissen ....... marxism ....... Translated by Zachary King ....... Ulrich Brand ....... Verso .......


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