Immanent critique and the exhaustion thesis: Neoliberalism and history’s vicissitudes

Abstract

The chapter departs from earlier discourses over the exhaustion of immanent critique, one-dimensionality, and the end of alternatives. The author addresses the current profound contradictions of capitalism and the environment, which have loomed earlier in capitalism’s growth imperative but have accelerated enormously with the latest phase of globalization and the consequent growth of the global economy relative to the biosphere (i.e., with massive increases in the production of waste and throughput of resources). This chapter addresses climate change and related ecological problems (e.g., biodiversity), and also focuses on their intersection with enormous class inequality. The core theme is the unsustainability of capitalism as we have known it, the role of critical theory, and the relation of critical theory to natural science.