Di Muzio - The tragedy of human development : the genealogy of capital as power

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Copyright 2018 by Tim Di Muzio

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN:HB 978-1-7834-8713-4
PB 978-1-7834-8714-1

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Is Available

Names: Di Muzio, Tim, author.

Title: The tragedy of human development : a genealogy of capital as power / Tim Di Muzio.

Description: London ; New York : Rowman & Littlefield International, Ltd., 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017041092 (print) | LCCN 2017054303 (ebook) | ISBN 9781783487158 (Electronic) | ISBN 9781783487134 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781783487141 (pbk : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: CapitalismPolitical aspects. | Power (Social sciences) | Money. | Accounting. | Right of property.

Classification: LCC HB501 (ebook) | LCC HB501 .D4625 2018 (print) | DDC 330.12/2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017041092

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.481992.

Printed in the United States of America

For Amanda, Michaela, Vince, Ryann, and Mitch.
May your minds be wide open and your hearts lead you on.

No book is easy. The present work was largely inspired by my last study on the rise of a global petro-market civilization and what I called carbon capitalism. Therein I explored the transition to fossil fuels as an historical exception, tracing it through Britain, the United States, and capitalist world order more broadly. Given the nonrenewable nature of fossil fuels and the elite penchant for building more energy-soaked built environments, I argued that we are headed toward a general crisis of social reproduction where energy-intensive lifestyles will no longer be reproducible. I concluded the book with the following phrase: After all it would be the ultimate tragedy of human development if the history of the human race proved to be nothing more noble than the story of an ape playing with a box of matches on a petrol dump (Di Muzio 2015b: 171). The phrase tragedy of human development seemed to flow naturally from my analysis, and I barely gave it a second thought until the book arrived in hard copy months after those words were written. Upon rereading the book, the phrase jumped out at me in bolder reliefs: what would it mean to conceive of human developmentindeed our history as a speciesas a tragedy? It seemed an open and interesting question, particularly given other renderings of human history as progress or catastrophe. The philosopher Walter Benjamin (18921940) had already declared human history one giant catastrophe, a radical statement if there ever was one and a somber philosophy of human affairs given our many achievements. The other extreme is the liberal, progressive view of history as a stadial exercise in human betterment finally realized in a commercial society. Our liberal friends do not always deny the atrocities of the stadial history they recount, but they are heavily discounted. It always seemed to me that this reading of history was far too optimistic and far too injudicious. Too optimistic in the sense that there is a liberal tendency to believe that capitalism and the price mechanism of the market will come to our rescue at every turn, if only in the long run for some. Too injudicious in the sense that our liberal friends are happy to somewhat acknowledge the horrible events of our history but like good capitalists are happy to write off or write down these events because it stops them from looking forward. Between these two extremescatastrophe and progressI believe we find tragedy. I will explain what I mean in greater detail later but for now allow me a few words about the subtitle of this book: a genealogy of capital as power. What I want to demonstrate in this bookif only in outlineis the emergence of a historical contradiction between the logic of differential accumulation, which aims for the greater inequality of power, income, and wealth and the logic of livelihood that is mostly concerned with acquiring those things most closely associated with a decent life. While they overlap, I will argue that these logics are fundamentally at odds and the crux of the tragedy of human development. In a word, the tragedy results because the logic of differential accumulation operates in the interests of the very few and supersedes the logic of livelihood. The weapons of differential accumulation are monetization, commodification, ownership and exclusion, and, ultimately, capitalization and war. We are so used to these weapons that few of us stop to question their historical emergence. They are taken as self-evident, a part of the natural world, as though things have always been this way. But things have not always been this way. In this light, the task I have set for myself in this study is to then, if not fully trace their emergence in all their geographical and historical complexity, at least provide somewhat of a guideline for future study. The task has not been easy given the scale of human history covered in this book and the still mounting array of literature scattered across disciplines. As the reader will be able to tell from the references, this book has been built on the shoulders of giants but it has also no less been constructed on the back of those whose work is lesser known but without which, we would know far, far less about ourselves and our world. I owe a great deal of intellectual debt to their work. But while this book has engaged literature across disciplines, at base it is wholly a work of critical political economy, that master social science that refuses to believe that politics and power can be separated from capitalist accumulation, the price mechanism of the market, and the increasing concentration of wealth and power so prevalent today. This book will have silences, gaps, and disappointments, but I hope these are at least matched by new discoveries, novel arguments, and new questions in need of answers. Ultimately, and whatever the shortcomings of this book, I think we must ask ourselves if it is possible for the logic of livelihood to triumph over the logic of differential accumulation. I will take up this question toward the end of this work when I discuss the biopolitics of global capitalism. But for now it is time to end this foreword and get to the task at hand. For after all, the hurricane of our history cannot roar in opening words alone.

Tim Di Muzio

Sydney, Toronto, Brussels, Paris

While the act of researching and writing can be a solitary effort, it is seldom done entirely alone. A debt of gratitude is owed to many peopleliving, dead and those whom I have not met but whose work I engage. It is impossible to name everyone but I do want to acknowledge the following people. My greatest debt is to Matt Dow who is an exemplary researcher. Without his help this book would not have been possible. I also thank Hanna Kivist for her patience and thoughtful discussions throughout the period I was engaged with this project. My best friends Tony Guindon and Art Piatek were exemplary hosts in both Toronto and Brussels and they contributed to this book more than they are likely aware. Stephen Gill and Isabella Bakker are a constant source of inspiration and I thank them for their hospitality and our discussions up at the Pines when I returned to Canada on study leave. I owe a debt of gratitude to Tim Onslow for countless discussions, Sydney nights filled with music and for sorting the index. My family both immediate and extended were also a constant source of support and encouragement. Last I want to thank my colleagues and students at the University of Wollongong who have helped make life on campus pleasant and intellectually engaging.