Scarcity and the Emergence of Fundamentalist Ecology

Abstract

This article discusses the emergence of fundamentalist environmentalism in the mid-1980s. Fundamentalist versions of ecology, exemplified most notably by the theory of `deep ecology' and the social movement Earth First!, have mistakenly proposed social scarcity as a means to overcome natural scarcity. This confusion has led fundamentalist ecologists away from an analysis of the power relations which underlie social inequality and the destruction of nature. Instead, fundamentalist ecologists offer neo-Malthusian and anti-worker perspectives that shift responsibility for ecological crises away from capitalist structures of inequality and towards personal consumption practices. Failure to understand the materiality of ecological destruction and its connection to social relations has made it difficult for radical ecology to build alliances with other social movements.