Studies in Critical ~~ BNOTue ENTRopy OF CAPITALISMStudies in Critical Social Sciences Book Series Haymarket Books is proud to be working with Brill Academic Publishers (www. brillnl) to republish the Studies in Critical Social Sciences book series in paperback editions. This peer-reviewed book series offers insights into our current reality by exploring the content and consequences of power relationships under capitalism, and by considering the spaces of opposition and resistance to these changes that have been defining our new age. Our full catalog of SCSS volumes can be viewed at www-haymarketbooks.org/category/scss-series. Series Editor David Fasenfest, Wayne State University Editorial Board Chris Chase-Dunn, University of California—Riverside G. William Domhoff, University of California—Santa Cruz Colette Fagan, Manchester University Martha Gimenez, University of Colorado, Boulder Heidi Gottfried, Wayne State University Karin Gottschall, University of Bremen Bob Jessop, Lancaster University Rhonda Levine, Colgate University Jacqueline O'Reilly, University of Brighton Mary Romero, Arizona State University Chizuko Ueno, University of TokyoTHE ENTROPY OF CAPITALISM Rosert Bie O, Chicago, ILFirst published in 2012 by Brill Academic Publishers, The Netherlands. © 2012 Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands Published in paperback in 2013 by Haymarket Books P.O. Box 180165 Chicago, Tl. 60618 773-583-7884 www.haymarketbooks.org ISBN )78-1-60846-242-1 Trade distribution: In the US. through Consortium Book Sales, www.cbsd.com In the UK, Turnaround Publisher Services, www.turnaround-psl.com In Australia, Palgrave Macmillan, www.palgravemacmillan.com.au Inall other countries by Publishers Group Worldwide, www.pgw.com Cover design by Ragina Johnson. This book was published with the generous support of Lannan Foundation and the Wallace Global Fund. Printed in Canada by union labor on recycled paper containing 100 percent postconsumer waste in accordance with the guidelines of the Green Press Initiative, www.greenpressinitiative.org. 10987654321 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. RECYCLED »E Paper made rom eyeled meted Fsc* 6103567CONTENTS List of Figures... Introduction. 1. Understanding the Limits and Decay of the Capitalist Mode of Production... Introduction and Core Hypothesis of the Argument Contribution of the Systems Perspective ‘The Entropy Question within Marxism .. The Significance of Human Capacity. A Trend towards Absolute Poverty .. Imperialism and the Entropy Question... 2. Capitalism as an Adaptive System Simplicity and Complexity. ‘The Critique of Modernism Issues of Structuralism and Evolution ‘The Role of Agency .... Phase Transitions and Acquired Momentum in Capitalist Development... ‘The Adaptive Problem Faced by Imperialism... Why Capitalism Can't Adapt to Become More Green 3. The ‘Systemic Turn’ in Capitalist Political Economy Defining the ‘Systemic Turn’. Capitalism Learns to Act with Systemic Processes .. Fundamental Contradictions Still Drive Capitalism Basic Principles of the Systemic Turn in Management .. Systemic Consciousness and the Issue of Development A Critique of Evolutionism.. A Largely Phoney ‘Empowerment’ of Workers Knowledge as a Basis for Selective Diffusion. The North-South Issue within the New Management Models... ‘The Notion of Embedding’ and Its Contradictions.....vi CONTENTS ‘The Political Equivalent of Network Capitalism and Its Limitations... Dissenting Networks and Why the Dominant Order Fears Them.. 4. The Era of Feedback from Entropy. Information and the Possibility of a Change of Course Managing the Social Contradictions of Capitalism through Negative Energy Flows The Core-Periphery Dimension Payback for Earlier ‘Export to the Future’ ‘The Information from Social Degradation Energy and Identity... ‘The Peak Oil Debate... A New Regime of Nature. ‘The Approaching Food Crisis ‘The Era of Complexity and Capitalism’s Failur ‘The Role of Finance Capital in Profiting from, and Accentuating, Disorder .... ‘The Political Dimension and the Plunge into Militarism. ‘The ‘Colonisation’ of Security. 5. Militarism and State Terrorism as a Response to Crisis .. Introduction: Chaos and Order.. Networks, and a ‘Diffused’ Form of Chaotic Repression Justifying Real Terrorism from above by Manufactured “Terrorism’ from Below: Historical Antecedents and Contemporary Forms.. The Destructive Impulse Takes Over ‘The Self-Propagating Chaotic Machine. The Auto-cannibalism of Capitalist Democracy. The Hollowed-Out Core and the ‘Great Reversal’ 6. Organisation of the Twenty-First Century International System... ‘The Scope and Limitations of a Non-Eurocentric Capitalist Mode of Production.. Authoritarian versus Systemic Power in International Relations.CONTENTS vii Rejection of a Rules-Based System... Dominating Information about the Future. Reinventing the Federation of the Western States .... 7. Contradictions in the Contemporary Phase of Imperialist Governance, and the Forces for Change within It.. Maintaining a System’s Core Features through Adaptation. ‘The Spectre of ‘Cold’ Imperialism, and the Ruling Order’s Attempt to Conjure It Spheres of Exergy, Spheres of Predictability The Futile Quest to Rebuild ‘Soft’ Power.. A New International Power Balance Premised on Scarcity? An Inter-dependent Exploitative System Held together by the Core... ‘Towards a Regulation Premised on Addressing Intra-core Entrop’ The Human Response to Scarcity and Restriction. Struggling to Contain the Forces of Informality and Human Adaptation... ‘The Historic Battle over Commons Regime: Food as an Example for the Low-Input Economy..... ‘The Left’s Role in the Struggle for a New Mode of Production Implications of Cybernetic Theory for Combating Capitalism’s Hegemonic Pull over the Network Debate .. Principles of the Emergent Mode of Production, and Found Objects, Which may Be Incorporated..... The New Epoch of History... Index of Subjects .Anpwn . World energy consumption, 1905-2005 . Ricardo’s theory of free trade..., . Case study of the rate of profit in US industr; . Visual representation of sustainable livelihoods... LIST OF FIGURES - Inter-imperialist co-operation as a Prisoners’ dilemma model.INTRODUCTION ‘The structure of this book reflects how the theory was actually devel- oped: in a concrete way, derived from facts and referring back to them. In this introduction, I will briefly summarise the main lines of the argument in a more abstract way, but the reader must bear in mind that this general exposition could only have been written at the end of the process, not at the beginning. ‘The twenty-first century opens up what is possibly the most difficult and decisive period in human history. The ruling capitalist mode of production is hitting violently against its limits: it manufactures unmanageable amounts of poverty, and depletes the ecosystem more than the latter can bear, These violent shocks threaten immense depri- vation ... but they also open up possibilities for renewal, if we can grasp them, By employing the term entropy, in our title and as a central theme of the book, we aim to capture the flavour of a ‘demise’ of something. But is it the demise of humanity itself, or of the capitalist mode of production, whose decline might on the contrary herald a rebirth of humanity? Radicals often speak of ‘the system’ to signify the socio-economic entity which currently oppresses us. The term implies that some- thing (not just economic exploitation but ideological alienation, militarism etc.) has built up a momentum of its own and become a self- propagating force, severed from rational control and consuming the society which produced it. The premise of this book is that this intui- tion is exactly on the right lines, but will only reveal its true potential if we really push the systems notion to a point where we can be rigorous about its implications. The task of a systems critique of capitalism could validly have been posed at any point of its history, but has special significance today, entering as we do a crisis of a new type where two systems — human and ecological — come into conflict and capitalism now consumes not just society itself, but its physical environment, to a point where neither can regenerate. Systems are not fated to acquire a runaway ‘bad’ dynamic, it is possible for them to function sustainably. To understand this, systems theory suggests two complementary conceptual approaches: