"Because he speaks the language of political philosophy and not that of environmentalism, Charbonnier manages, paradoxically, to bring questions of the material conditions of existence much closer to what those who pursue the modern ideals of freedom and prosperity need in order to realize them. He might succeed in rendering political ecology mainstream."Bruno Latour, Sciences Po, Paris"Impressive and forensic"Times Higher Education
AcknowledgementsForewordIntroductionChapter One. The critique of ecological reasonThe fabric of libertyThe other history. Ecology and the labour questionSubsisting, dwelling, knowingAutonomy and abundanceChapter Two. Sovereignty and property. Political philosophy and the landThe political affordances of the landGrotius: Empire and possessionLocke: the improving citizenChapter Three. Grain and the market. The order of commerce and the organic economy in the eighteenth centuryThe good use of the landThe agrarian kingdom of the PhysiocratsThe liberal pact: Adam SmithTwo types of growthFichte: the ubiquity of the modernsChapter Four. The new ecological regimeFrom one liberalism to anotherThe paradoxes of autonomy: GuizotThe paradoxes of abundance: JevonsColonial extractionsExtraction-autonomy: TocquevilleChapter Five. Industrial democracy. From Proudhon to DurkheimRevolutions and industryProperty and labourProudhon as critic of the liberal pactThe fraternal idiomDurkheim: 'carbon sociology'The political affordances of coalChapter Six. The technocratic hypothesis. Saint-Simon and VeblenMaterial flows and market arrangementsThe technological normativity of the modernsLaying bare the productive schemaVeblen and the cult of efficiencyThe engineer and propertyChapter Seven. Nature in a market societyMarx as a thinker of autonomyPutting the forest to good useTechnology and agronomyConquering the globeKarl Polanyi: protecting society, protecting natureDisembeddingSocialism, liberalism, conservatismChapter Eight. The great acceleration and the eclipse of natureFreedom from wantEmancipation and acceleration: Herbert MarcuseOil and atomic power: invisible energiesChapter Nine. Risks and limits: the end of certaintiesAlarms and controversiesThe critique of development and political naturalismRisk and the reinvention of autonomyThe impasse: between collapse and resilienceChapter Ten. The end of the modern exception and political ecologySymmetrizationsAuthority and compositionUnder naturalism lies productionUnequal ecological exchangeProvincializing critiqueA new conceptual cartographyChanging expectations of justiceAutonomy without abundanceTowards a new critical subjectChapter Eleven. The self-protection of the Earth.Changing expectations of justiceAutonomy without abundanceTowards a new critical subjectConclusion. Reinventing libertyNotesBibliography Index
Pierre Charbonnier is a researcher at the CNRS and a member of the Centre d'études européennes; he teaches at Sciences Po, Paris.