The Specter of Green Capital

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7514101
AutoresJohn W Maerhofer (0000-0003-2464-0216, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, autor de correspondencia)
Año2026
Volumen37
Número1
Páginas7-27
Fecha de publicación2026-01-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaCapitalism Nature Socialism (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1045-5752 • E-ISSN: 1548-3290
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10455752.2026.2618074
OpenAlexW7125149099
IdiomaEN
Referencias citadas21

This essay maps the contours of the contemporary world crisis through an eco-Marxist lens, interrogating the contested terrain where green capital and its eco/neofascist counterpart operate as a united front to ensure the survival of accumulation tactics in an era of ecological volatility. While some interpret current political developments as evidence of green capital’s exhaustion and decline, I argue instead that we are living through a transitional phase marked by the corrosion of neoliberal legitimacy and the rise of an eco/neofascist globalized political economy, one where green capital has been reconstituted as a central mechanism for managing capital’s legitimacy crisis, lingering as a spectral presence. Its mutation signals not a retreat but an absorption into a broader political reorganization, one that reconsolidates ecological and social relations in ways compatible with the eco/neofascist trajectory. This emergent order, defined by the breakdown of hitherto opposing systems of rule, deploys the language of civilizational security, border regimes, and ecological nationalism to reassert elite control in a time of systemic unpredictability and planetary entropy.

Capital (architecture) · Capital accumulation · Capitalism · Ecological crisis · Elite · Legitimacy · Nationalism · Political system · Politics · Environmental, Ecological, and Cultural Studies · Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy · Sustainable Development and Policies