On 29 November, Miriam Boyer will present a paper at the conference “Green Capitalism – A New Regime of Accumulation?” in Berlin.
Abstract of the paper:
An increasingly popular analysis of the relationship between society, nature and technology argues that the application of technologies in natural systems amounts to a ‘real subsumption of nature.’ The argument is analogous to Marx’s distinction between a real/formal subsumption of the labour process under capital. A foundational contribution argued that biotechnologies in the forestry industry could harness nature to “work harder, faster and better” (Boyd 2001, 564). According to this argument, technological interventions constitute a “real,” vis-àvis a “formal” subsumption of nature in the case of non-biologically-based industries (ibid.). In the wake of various ‘green’ capitalist projects, scholarly papers making this argument have multiplied. Moreover, Eco-marxist authors have more recently also used the argument to advance the idea of a ‘working’ nature and to question the distinction between nature and society. The contribution takes a critical stance vis-à-vis the ‘subsumption of nature’ thesis. Taking the example of high-tech plant breeding, it suggests that the notion of a formal/real subsumption of nature does not help to better understand the relationship between society, nature and technology. Just the opposite, it avoids specifying just how technologies associated with green capitalist projects harness and interact with nature. Moreover, the argument is problematic as a theoretical proposition that erases emergent properties that distinguish social relations from nature. Rather than a useful tool for understanding technological transformations in green capitalist projects, the ‘Real Subsumption of Nature’ argument contributes to the ideological basis of green capitalist projects.