The 2013ANTIPODEAAG Lecture The Environment Making State: Territory, Nature, and Value

My argument is that the state is fundamental to the value form because it delivers the use values of non-human nature to the process of capital accumulation. Capital cannot, and historically does not, capture non-human nature without the participation of the state. The state delivers the utilities of extra-human nature to the accumulation process by creating property regimes, physical infrastructure, and scientific knowledge. As such, the state is a crucial under-theorized political membrane in the ecological metabolism of capitalism and the value form. The capitalist states inherently environmental qualities are rooted in its fundamentally territorial qualities. Where are the utilities of non-human nature found? On the surface of the earth. What institutions ultimately control the surface of the earth? Territorially defined national states. The example of state formation in the early years of the United States is used to illustrate these ideas.