Global Ecology and Unequal Exchange: Fetishism in a Zero-Sum World

Increased globalization through market exchange and technologies of trade and communication are widely celebrated as a road to a more integrated, prosperous, and even egalitarian future world and yet there is overwhelming evidence that it is precisely these connections that continue to generate devastating ecological deterioration and increasingly severe inequalities within and between nations.There are powerful social groups who have very much to gain from the current organization of global society and it is precisely these interests who exert a primary influence over the way social processes are defined. The language devised to manage socio-ecological "problems" actually constrains our capacity to "solve" problems and the language of policy and management tends to avoid questions of power, conflict, and inequality.In this new book, Alf Hornborg points the way to a new way of thinking that will transcend the impasse of sustainable development.