Anthropocene – What End of Capitalism?

Abstract

Around two hundred years ago marked the beginning of the geological era characterized by significant human impact on the ecosphere, recently scientifically termed the Anthropocene. Therefore, the question of the relationship between natural sciences and power, culture and humanistic thought needs to be addressed. The world can no longer be observed as a thing in itself, an equilibrium, or as a way of defining what is human, historical or social (Wark, 2015). The characteristics of this “human dominated” geological era should be reconsidered in relation to capitalist forms of social relations. We are talking about the kind of society in which the dominant relation between people is materialistic in nature while the relation between material things is social, and in which the circulation of money as capital is a purpose in itself. The subject is no longer the human (nor the ruling elite) but the capital (Cunha, 2015).
Science is so closely intertwined with value-loaded assumptions that it began to view the Anthropocene as something more or different from its scientific term, to such an extent that it is no longer even clear what is meant by it. Defining the contemporary moment as transhistorical Anthropocene, without differentiating between the societies geographically or socially, is really only justifiable if we hold that our current predicament is fundamentally a consequence of our biology (Baskin, 2014). The narrative about the geological impacts of humanity draws attention away from the key issues of power, geopolitics and the legacy of imperialism.