‘Choose life’ not economic growth: critical social theory for people, planet and flourishing in the ‘age of nature’

Abstract

Robert J Antonio's ‘Climate Change, the Resource Crunch, and the Global Growth Imperative’ is an excellent starting point for examining the dominance of the ideology of ‘economic growth’ within contemporary societies and social thinking against the background of the growing and profound socio-ecological crises such as climate change, resource scarcity and rampant consumerism. His article integrates contemporary scientific evidence about climate change and the ecological devastation being wrought by contemporary patterns of globalised carbon-fuelled and climate changing capitalism with classical and contemporary sociological theorising and calls for a greater engagement of social theorising with these defining challenges of the 21st century. In particular, Antonio's article begins the process of sociological theory re-engaging and re-interpreting classical sociology (Weber, Durkheim, Mead and Dewey) to develop forms of social theorising, which overcome a simplistic nature–cultural dualism and can equip critical social theory as fit for purpose for analysing the ecological, climate and resource ‘crunches’ facing all societies in the 21st century.

Citation

Barry, J. (2009), "‘Choose life’ not economic growth: critical social theory for people, planet and flourishing in the ‘age of nature’", Dahms, H.F. (Ed.) Nature, Knowledge and Negation (Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 26), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 93-113. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0278-1204(2009)0000026006