The politics of social-ecological justice and the paradox of economization

This article highlights a central paradox of the current conjuncture: while capitalism is the root-cause of the current polycrisis, promoting social-ecological goals within this system possibly requires to reinforce some of its key features – and especially economization (i.e. the extension of profit-making logics to non-economic domains). In contemporary dominant strategies (policies for inclusive-green growth; ethical-political consumption; and Corporate Social Responsibility), solutions to social-ecological problems become investment objects that deliver growth and profits. While these strategies, if fully implemented, may potentially improve social-ecological outcomes, they would make the ideal of social-ecological justice more difficult to achieve. This problem of ‘non-linearity’ in social change generates an ‘unrealistic-pragmatism’ versus ‘necessary-utopianism’ dilemma for progressive forces: seemingly realistic strategies are actually unable to address the polycrisis whereas approaches discarded as utopian offer the only rational solution to it, namely abandoning the myth of endless growth and subordinating the economy to social-ecological needs.