Thursday, March 28 marked the beginning of the Reimagining Capitalism lecture series organized by the Global Capitalism Pathway, with the goal of bringing scholars and activists together from multiple disciplines in order to reimagine a more sustainable model of capitalism for the future.
The series was kicked off with a lecture by Boston College Professor of Sociology Juliet Schor. Schor specializes in the sociology of economics and her lecture, entitled “Pathways to Plentitude: Beyond Consumerism and Climate Chaos,” served as a history of the relationship between capitalism and the environment, a pointed critique of the overconsumption habits commonplace in industrial nations, and a suggestion of how to create more sustainable consumption practices.
Schor began her lecture in the crowded 1941 Room by describing a history of global capitalism. Tracing modern capitalism’s roots back to the eighteenth century, Schor described how capitalism began as a racialized system, with enslaved Africans serving as the backbone of the cotton and sugar industries. This system later progressed during the Industrial Revolution to include women and children in the workforce.
Alongside her discussions of capitalism’s racial, gender and class disenfranchisement, Schor chronicled its historic connections to environmental degradation, mentioning the deforestation of the island of Madeira to accommodate the sugar trade, and the rise of fossil fuel capitalism that has resulted in excessive amounts of carbon dioxide pumped into the atmosphere. She noted that this is a trend that has rapidly accelerated post-World War II due to the growth of population and production, and has led to dramatic environmental disasters, such as Hurricane Maria, which killed over three thousand people in Puerto Rico, and Cyclone Idai, which destroyed the entire city of Beira in Mozambique.
After providing this historical backdrop, Schor targeted contemporary consumer culture and the failure to hold companies that pollute the environment accountable for their actions. She provided a two-pronged solution that I felt admirably encompassed both short and long term societal solutions to halting environmental degradation. Schor’s short term goals largely focused on changes in both policy and consumption habits. She emphasized the need to use productivity growth to reduce hours and growth, rather than expand production, pointing to other industrialized nations such as the Netherlands as examples of countries that have successfully decreased work hours and maintained a high quality of life. Schor then stated that with the introduction of shorter hours, our consumption habits should adjust to low cost consuming and sustainable lifestyles. This I felt was one of Schor’s most successful arguments, as she utilized specific examples such as clothing swaps and thrifting as means of combating the exploitative fast fashion industry to support her point.
Schor’s inclusion of long term goals gave her lecture a commendable edge that allowed for it to not completely consist of individualism-based solutions on how to save the environment. She stressed the need to hold large corporations and politicians accountable for environmental catastrophe, and stated that if they do not make a change, it is up to the masses to take action and create change. Schor’s point that stuck with me the most on this topic is that our society must shift focus from having a growth imperative to having a resistance imperative, as our planet is in too much danger to continue focusing on economic growth.
Overall, Schor’s lecture was both a pointed critique of capitalism and an excellent means of providing solutions to our current climate crisis. Unlike most anti-capitalist statements, Schor’s contained an element of hope with her feasible solutions, and unlike most solutions on how to save the environment that focus on individual action, hers stressed the need for communal responsibility and holding corporations accountable in order to create change. •
