🚨NEW article from me is OPEN access.

It explains the phenomenon of 'renewable capital' in the USA:

"a specific form of privatized wealth accumulation made possible by the ‘unbundling’ of electricity as a public utility."

Some highlights 👇🧵1/x
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/de… It starts w/ a paradox. Andreas Malm argued 'stock' resources like fossil fuels were more prone to capitalist property relations than 'flow' resources like water, solar and wind power.

So why are the 'flow' resources of solar & wind almost entirely privately owned today? 2/x

From Malm/Carton's Overshoot.

I'm cast as a 'most extreme' ecomodernist for 'uninhibited advocacy of nuclear power' (gasp!), yet they side w/ Jacobson et al on 100% renewables (most in energy policy/deployment find *this* 'extreme' no matter how many modeling studies u cite). 🧵 For example, prominent voices in the Biden admin's decarb policy assert the necessity of 'clean firm' generation alongside solar/wind.

Decarb expert @JesseJenkins here argues clean firm is a necessary part of the electricity 'diet'. See prez here: acee.princeton.edu/wp-content/upl…

I respect Malm's work a lot (he's a friend & comrade).

But here he characterizes my climate strategy as "extremely class-reductionist" &"hyper workerist."

I think this sheds some light on our different approaches to climate strategy. Quick 🧵1/n

https://twitter.com/VersoBooks/status/1728186733987090588

Malm fits in a tradition of the post-60s left in rejecting one core principle of Marxism: working class agency.

Malm explains the premise below (ie WC passivity). But I think this position depends on the below being a *permanent historical condition* 2/n

https://x.com/PoliticOfNature/status/1727721601293058327?s=20

Are you "outraged about the the interconnection queue"? Me too! There is more energy in the queue than we consume today! And most won't even be built! Madness!

Well, the masses are clamoring, & I'm gonna deliver:

A Marxist analysis of the interconnection queue problem. 1/x 🧵

https://twitter.com/hollyjeanbuck/status/1691631748197605779

The problem boils down to a contradiction inherent to a society based on commodity production between private labor & social labor.

For Marx capitalism is weird because production is undertaken by independent & uncoordinated *private* producers, BUT....2/x

I'm honestly tired of this debate, but one of the major Marxist journals has now fully embraced degrowth. I read JB Foster's introduction and wanted to tease out points of agreement and disagreement. 🧵1/x First, we all can agree we want to shift to an economy that prioritizes ecological sustainability & provisioning human needs (and one that produces for 'use value' over profit/exchange value - & rejects how GDP narrowly fixates on the latter). 2/x
monthlyreview.org/2023/07/01/pla…

I'm definitely w/ Brett Christophers that the IRA on balance will further entrench private sector control over the energy sector. nytimes.com/2023/05/08/opi… The FT this morning. The IRA is making all sorts of 'clean' investments palatable for Exxon-Mobil investors/shareholders. The 2020s are looking like yet another attempt to act as if we can pair large-scale, rapid decarbonization w/ private profit. on.ft.com/3nF4gd7

Re: Saito's response Marx only abandons the 'early version.' Forgive me: it's hard to read 'abandoned', 'completely parted ways w/' and 'discarded' HM & not get that impression.

But I tried to show Marx didn't abandon the "early version" & further it *is* HM - Why? 1/x For me, the essence of historical materialism is understanding the "progressive character of capitalism."

In Capital, Marx shows how capital itself *socializes* the production process - integrates cooperation, science, & 'the collective worker.' 2/x

https://twitter.com/Matthuber78/status/1632505124005216258?s=20

I've read this & I have many thoughts. I will write a review, but not sure when I'll have time or where it will end up. In the meantime, I can't help but address what I think is a totally unsubstantiated claim in the book: Marx *abandons* historical materialism late in life. 1/x Saito claims this abandonment begins in Capital (diverging from articulations of HM in 1859 preface/Grundrisse). Supposedly Marx's concepts of cooperation/real subsumption show he no longer believed the dev of productive forces create the material conditions for socialism. 2/x

Since I'm named here as a person who might advocate for asteroid mining & 'private jets for all' 🤔I wanted to address something: the ecomodernist socialist position is often represented as not wanting to change consumption patterns. No! 1/x newrepublic.com/article/170914… As a socialist I want to change *all of society* (including capitalist/privatized consumption). But the path to change is through challenging the *relations of production*. Only through social power over production can we collectively plan how much society needs (to consume) 2/x

I'm re-reading Capital Volume 2 by one Karl Marx, & I'm going to compile all the spicy quotes into one🧵(all pagination in the Penguin edition)

https://twitter.com/Matthuber78/status/1600288828983771138?s=20&t=rlGcHIOcWDrY0LH9o3mWFQ

With this, I think we can book end a long cycle of struggle for a left approach to climate action via state power - it started w/ Trump's election in 2016, crested with GND energy in 2019, and now has largely failed. A too long🧵on lessons learned. 1/x nytimes.com/2022/07/14/us/… Trump's victory made it obvious that the neoliberal Democratic party was in ruins. We needed a bolder approach to win over those masses drawn to right populism. On climate this meant learning from Bernie's left populism. @AlexCKaufman saw it coming here huffpost.com/entry/green-ne…

Interesting that during the neoliberal period a new academic subfield emerged called 'ecological Marxism' whose core tenet was rejecting something called 'productivism'.

Now more and more people are saying precisely this might displace neoliberalism.

project-syndicate.org/commentary/new… The ecosocialist critique of 'productivism' is also a critique of Soviet industrialism (see book for another view). But it seems equally clear solving climate change will go through new expanded industrial systems of production--energy, transport, housing. plutobooks.com/9781786807908/…

“But the confluence of economic problems and resurgent cultural issues has helped turn the emerging class divide in the Democratic coalition into a chasm…” 1/x

nytimes.com/2022/07/13/ups… “….as Republicans appear to be making new inroads among nonwhite and working-class voters — perhaps especially Hispanic voters — who remain more concerned about the economy and inflation than abortion rights and guns.”

Spot on from @KateAronoff:

“Neoliberalism’s best trick may not have been convincing a few useful idiots…that climate change isn’t a problem but convincing both sides of the political spectrum that an all-powerful market is the best way to deal with the crisis it created…” (38) Didn’t fit in tweet, but crucial end to the paragraph.

“…and that a big, active government is bound to do more harm than good.”

Massively important historic shift identified here from mass membership orgs to oligarchic advocacy nonprofit orgs run by/for highly educated professionals. catalyst-journal.com/2021/05/ngoism… “In other words, NGOs, regardless of ideological orientation, share certain common features that bolster the status quo not by accident of history but due to their structural position.”