World-Ecology can be seen as the attempt to systematically include an ecological perspective in the historical account of capitalism in World-System Theory. Key theoretical ideas of World-Ecology were developed by Jason Moore in his 2015 book “Capitalism in the Web of Life” and in other writings. Moore attempts to overcome the conceptual separation between Nature and Society by something he calls “double internality,” representing this via the hyphenated terms “humanity-in-nature” and “nature-in-humanity” (2015: 5). Moore follows Neil Smith (1990) in his understanding of the production of nature by capital, and the unity of humanity and nature through capital. However, in contrast to Smith, Moore stresses the agency of “non-human-nature” that is “no longer a passive substance upon which humanity leaves its footprint” (2010b: 191). Instead, “human agency is always within, and dialectically bounded to, nature as a whole – which is to say, human agency is not purely human at all. It is bundled with the rest of nature” (2015: 37).

Rather than focusing on the destruction of nature under capitalism, Moore asks “how is humanity unified with the rest of nature within the web of life” and argues that human history is a “co-produced history, through which humans have put nature to work – including other humans – in accumulating wealth and power” (2015: 9). The advantage of this is that he can systematically view the “great movements of modern world history” as “socio-ecological projects and processes aimed at reconfiguring nature–society relations” (2010b: 191, emphasis in original).

Moore combines Smith’s idea of the production of nature as defined by the exchange relation of capital with Harvey’s concept of the spatial fix and accumulation by dispossession to develop his idea of “cheap nature”. As with Harvey, he starts with the problem of the falling rate of profit which he explains as the contradiction between the overproduction of machinery and the underproduction of inputs (2015: 28). Concurring with Harvey, he argues that by geographical expansion into non-capitalist territories, capital can use “cheap labour” provided by peasants (whose social reproduction had not been paid for by capital) to increase the absolute rate of exploitation and thereby the rate of profit (2011: 23). Moore’s innovation, as it were, is to add “cheap nature” to this equation.

The argument is as follows. Capital accumulation leads to the increase in the ‘organic composition of capital’, i.e. the relation of fixed capital (investment) to variable capital (wage labour). In other words, the amount of capital invested per worker increases, leading to less new value created per unit of capital. For Moore, this has a material dimension and a value dimension. Materially, increased productivity and output per worker necessitates an ever-increasing material throughput of energy and raw materials. In terms of value, these have to be kept cheap to keep the rate of profits high (2015: 124). At the same time, cheap inputs decrease the value composition of capital, even if the technical composition (more machinery per worker) increases. For example, cheap coal leads to cheap steel so that less investment (and value) is needed for more machinery (2011: 25). This slows down the increase in the value composition of capital, so that profits remain high. In the other direction, cheap energy and cheap food mean that the social reproduction costs of labour can also be kept down, leading to cheap labour and a higher rate of exploitation. This is how Moore arrives at his “’Four Cheaps’ of labor power, food, energy, and raw materials” (2015: 17)[1].

The crux of Moore’s argument is that these ‘Four Cheaps’ are kept cheap by channelling “unpaid work outside the commodity system into the circuit of capital” (ibid. 17, emphasis in original). Drawing on feminists such as Maria Mies, he sees nature as providing ‘unpaid work’, in addition to the unpaid social reproduction work by women and the subsistence subsidy by peasant agriculture: “without women, nature and colonies […] accumulation falters”. Capitalism survives through “global ecological fixes” that are characterised by the “dialectic of plunder and productivity” (ibid. 124). While labour exploitation still plays a role in producing value, this is dwarfed by the role of unpaid work by women that Moore estimates at 70-80% and by nature that he puts at 70-250% of global GDP (ibid. 64). Labour can only remain productive because of “ecological surplus” – and this is then elevated to a general law, put starkly in the statement that “the law of value in capitalism is a law of Cheap Nature” (ibid. 53).

Moore uses these two generalisations to develop a historical account of the capitalist World-System as the unity of humanity and nature through capital in the latter’s incessant search for Cheap Nature. Since the “long sixteenth century”, he argues, capitalism has constantly transformed its relation to nature through “developmental ecological crises” (2011: 11). These development crises – defined as “turning points in the historical configuration of capital, power, and nature” (2015: 125) – occur when an accumulation wave dependent on Cheap Nature slows down due to the capitalisation and/or degradation of resources. They are resolved when a new “frontier of accumulation” is opened up and a new source of “ecological surplus” can slow down capitalisation and raise the rate of profit again (2011: 25). The “ever-mounting material-throughput demands of an ever-growing mass of capital” resulted in “evermounting biophysical degradation” (Moore 2010a: 38), undermining “the socio-ecological conditions of production” and leading to the “search for new commodity frontiers” (ibid. 39). In other words, once forests had been logged, the metals mined or the soils depleted, capital moved on to greener pastures.

Developing an impressive historic depth and range, Moore shows how the rise and fall of economic and political centres of the World-Economy was connected to their access to and use of ecological surplus. Explaining the shift in gravity from Spain to the Netherlands, Moore discusses the exploitation of indigenous workers in the silver mines in Potosí and the denudation of forests for the mines and the production of mercury; the rise of the sugar industry in Northeastern Brazil; the shift of Africa’s ‘slaving frontier; the destruction of clove, nutmeg and mace trees in Southeast Asia; the draining of wetlands across Europe; “the ever more expansive forays of the herring, cod and whaling fleets across the breadth of the Global North Atlantic”; and more (Moore 2010b: 190). Citing a seventeenth Century saying that “Amsterdam is standing on Norway” – Moore could show that its rise as a trading superpower was based on extensive logging in Norway’s southern forests (ibid. 200).

This discussion of historical nature, as a co-produced history of capitalism, is one of the strengths of the World-Ecology approach. “Nature” is included systematically into the spatial dynamics of capitalist expansion, accumulation and crisis, complementing Harvey’s more cursory look at the social relations of nature. The real, historic appropriation and degradation of nature in this account breathes life into Smith’s abstract argument about the “production of nature” – which can now be conceptualised as a co-produced natural and social reality, one in which flows of capital react to the overcapitalisation of nature in one geographical place in order to pursue the appropriation of ecological surplus somewhere else.

In Moore’s account, this dynamic is coming to an end, just as the “Great Frontier” of free Nature (2015: 302) is now closing down. Because ecological surplus is necessary for accumulation, the end of an ecological surplus will usher in the end of accumulation. Although he wisely avoids concrete predictions, Moore assumes that capitalism’s future is counted. The degradation of natural resources becomes a problem for capital – because it produces “negative value”, i.e. rather than a surplus, pollution and waste make labour, food and resources more expensive rather than cheaper. The ecological crises that used to lead to reconfigurations of the social relations of nature, now threaten capital itself (2015: 301-304). Climate change threatens capitalism, because of its “suppressive impact on labor and land productivity in world agriculture: signalling the end of capitalism’s longue durée cheap food regime” (2017: 599).

[1] Together with Raj Patel, Moore (2017) expands this to „seven cheap things“, but the more substantial account is in his 2015 book.

• Harvey, David. 2003. The New Imperialism. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
• Mies, Maria. 1986. Patriarchy and Accumulation on a World Scale: Women in the International Division of Labour. Third World books. London: Zed.
• Moore, Jason W. 2017. “The Capitalocene, Part I: On the Nature and Origins of Our Ecological Crisis.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 44 (3): 594–630. doi:10.1080/03066150.2016.1235036.
• Moore, Jason W. 2015. Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. London, New York: Verso.
• Moore, Jason W. 2011. “Transcending the Metabolic Rift: A Theory of Crises in the Capitalist World-Ecology.” The Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (1): 1–46. doi:10.1080/03066150.2010.538579.
• Moore, Jason W. 2010a. “'Amsterdam Is Standing on Norway' Part I: The Alchemy of Capital, Empire and Nature in the Diaspora of Silver, 1545-1648.” Journal of Agrarian Change 10 (1): 33–68. doi:10.1111/j.1471-0366.2009.00256.x.
• Moore, Jason W. 2010b. “‘Amsterdam Is Standing on Norway’ Part II: The Global North Atlantic in the Ecological Revolution of the Long Seventeenth Century.” Journal of Agrarian Change 10 (2): 188–227. doi:10.1111/j.1471-0366.2009.00262.x.
• Smith, Neil. 1990. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space. 2nd Edition. London: University of Georgia Press.

The university/ our department is not demanding a registration fee (this goes to WERN), so it is also possible to attend individual events for free.

However, if you would like to attend the entire conference, get access to the online lectures and participate in the closing party, registration fees will apply.

The University of Bonn is located in the heart of Bonn. Therefore, it is not difficult to find food for all needs within walking distance. During the day, for example, there are various food trucks on the market square that offer vegan fast food, Tibetan, Italian, Greek, .... You have to expect costs of 5-10€ per meal there. An always popular and cheap alternative is "die Kichererbse", a very good falafel shop near the main station. A plain falafel wrap costs €3.50 there. One of the best pizzas can be found at Tuscolos, which is also within walking distance. Most of the pizzas cost over €10, but they are of opulent size and taste great. You can also eat Asian food in the city centre. MamMam is about a 15 minutes walk away and Cay Tre is also within walking distance. Good wine in an appealing atmosphere with a selected menu can be found in "Syrah" and "La Cigale", if you want to go out for a more upscale meal in the evening. But you can always find something suitable if you simply stroll through the streets of Bonn's city centre  guided by the smells.

Bonn has a variety of different hotels, from large to small. Here is a small list of hotels near the university. Please check the availability of the hotel rooms before your arrival.

Derag Livinghotel Kanzler (4*, ca 75€/night)
Ameron Hotel Königshof (4*, located in the city centre, ca 105€/night)
Hilton Bonn (4*, 122€/night)
BrauHotel Bonn (3*, located in the city centre, 55€/night, more like a hostel)
Hotel Mercedes (3*, located in the city centre, 71€/night)
Prizeotel Bonn-City (direkt am Rhein, located in the city centre, 3*, 80€/night)
Hotel Europa (located in the city centre, 3*, ca 67€/night)