Elmar Altvater and Birgit Mahnkopf

Abstract

While most of the rich industrialized countries still have at their disposal large amounts of raw materials and fossil energy, bottlenecks have emerged for all of them as well as for the middle-income industrializing countries. Whatever the decisive differences among advanced and other industrialized countries, these bottlenecks emerged as economic growth increased demand for raw materials, and as international competition on the primary goods markets has intensified. The fight for primary materials is not over with the emergence of artificial intelligence and ubiquitous digitalization. On the contrary, this will likely intensify given the global nexus of land, water, food, minerals, and energy, and given that a few countries dominate the market for critical minerals.

As the anthropocene is human-made, humankind would seem to have the ability to overcome its negative consequences, such as climate collapse and species extinction. This essay contends that, under contemporary conditions, another “Great Transformation” would require a change of the conditions of production in their entirety, including distribution, consumption, and finance. We show why we cannot base our hopes on a “green narrative” promising to decarbonize the global economy, and explain why and how this promise has been more or less systematically broken. Today, we are faced with a renewal of geopolitics based on fossil-fuel production and large infrastructure projects to transport carbons of all kinds. This geopolitics pertains not only to oil and gas, but increasingly also to metals and minerals that have become “strategic resources”. As we show, instead of the urgently needed “revolution in energy policy” towards 100 per cent renewable energy production and substantial reduction in energy consumption, all signs point to a counter-revolution in energy transition. Further, we highlight some features of the global minerals and metals crunch, which has been stimulated by the race for a number of “strategic materials” needed for many “green technologies” as well as for the digitalization of the economy.

While in current debates, economic and geopolitical dimensions of resource scarcity receive broad attention, the impact of the physical scarcity of minerals on the geo-economy of global capitalism, and even more importantly on a “post-fossil” future, are rarely attended to. Against this backdrop, we explore a number of unavoidable trade-offs between economic and ecological goals, including the shift towards a “greener capitalism.” We argue that, according to the principle of capitalist accumulation, even a transition towards renewable energy technologies will result in a vicious circle between the energy and metal sectors. Moreover, in many countries (foremost in China), it would sharpen the already severe contradictions embedded in the nexus of water and energy, and therefore would also negatively affect food production. The conclusion confronts the reader with many uncomfortable insights; yet, we argue that the “good life” must begin today.

From: Socialist Register 2019, vol. 55

Editor: Wang Yi