A critique of the “socio-ecological fix” and towards revolutionary rupture

Abstract

The “socio-ecological fix” has become increasingly popular to understand a possible and future energy transition off fossil fuels within the confines of capitalist social relations of production. The concept emerges and builds off David Harvey’s famous “spatial fix” concept to understand how capitalism can temporarily transcend the current climate crisis. The “socio-ecological fix” helps see how capitalist crises and fixes are economic and environmental at the same time, intertwined together. Through a review of the literature that develops the “socio-ecological fix” concept, I make two clear arguments. First, I argue that the concept is trapped in a specific historical understanding of 20th-century capitalism that goes through crisis and fixes. According to this framework, from which the “socio-ecological fix” functions within, the capitalist mode of production is here to stay indefinitely and can only be reformed through series of fixes. This understanding of capitalism not only downplays class struggle but also has too much of a narrow sense of politics in the context of the ongoing climate crisis. Second, I argue that this understanding of history largely ignores the potential for revolutionary ruptures that create social systems entirely at odds with capital. The severity of the climate crisis suggests that moving further into the 21st century will not allow such clean fixes. The climate crisis will make revolutionary ruptures not only possible, but inevitable.