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西方崩溃速度比预期更快
已有 4 次阅读2026-11-3 09:34 |个人分类:政治 法律
Capital accumulation and the social-ecological crisis of our times | G. Ceddia & J. Bergamo
研究人员揭示：西方崩溃速度比预期更快｜G. Ceddia 与 J. Bergamo
2026年11月2日 InterviewsThe collapse of the West is first and foremost due to the failure of its economic system. Unfeathered capitalism is leading to liberalism's predictable self-canibalization. Graziano Ceddia and Jacopo Bergamo join Pascal to explore the connections between capitalism, ecological destruction and Europe’s growing social unrest. Drawing on Marxian analysis, they discuss protests, inequality, imperialism and the limits of green investment. The conversation considers China’s development, competing forms of ownership and the resilience of capitalism. Ceddia and Bergamo argue for economic democracy and public provision of essential services, while Lottaz presses them on practical alternatives, monetary reform and the possibilities for social and ecological change.
Graziano and Jacopo's Links: Homepage: www.iscrises.org
Their work in Monthly Review: https://monthlyreview.org/article-aut...
00:00 Europe’s protests and social unrest
07:56 Graziano on the roots of discontent
12:29 CRISES: connecting society and ecology
16:09 Capitalism, imperialism and the climate
27:05 China and competing economic models
31:23 Can green investment fix capitalism?
41:35 Economic democracy and essential services
52:17 Money, debt and changing social relations
2026年11月3日西方的崩溃首先源于其经济制度的失败。不受约束的资本主义正导致自由主义走向意料之中的自我吞噬。 格拉齐亚诺·切迪亚和雅各布·贝加莫与帕斯卡一起，探讨资本主义、生态破坏与欧洲日益加剧的社会动荡之间的联系。他们运用马克思主义分析，讨论抗议、不平等、帝国主义以及绿色投资的局限。对话涉及中国的发展、相互竞争的所有制形式以及资本主义的韧性。切迪亚和贝加莫主张经济民主和由公共部门提供基本服务，而洛塔兹则就切实可行的替代方案、货币改革以及社会和生态变革的可能性向他们追问。
格拉齐亚诺和雅各布的相关链接：
00:00 欧洲的抗议与社会动荡
05:35 格拉齐亚诺谈不满情绪的根源
09:23 CRISES：连接社会与生态
13:01 资本主义、帝国主义与气候
21:23 中国与相互竞争的经济模式
24:04 绿色投资能修复资本主义吗？
Original Video: 
• Capital accumulation and the social-ecolog...
Original Transcript: https://www.video-translations.org/tr...
Translated Transcript: https://www.video-translations.org/tr...
研究人员揭示：西方崩溃速度比预期更快｜G. Ceddia 与 J. Bergamo
西方的崩溃首先源于其经济制度的失败。不受约束的资本主义正导致自由主义走向意料之中的自我吞 噬。 格拉齐亚诺·切迪亚和雅各布·贝加莫与帕斯卡一起，探讨资本主义、生态破坏与欧洲日益加剧的社 会动荡之间的联系。他们运用马克思主义分析，讨论抗议、不平等、帝国主义以及绿色投资的局限。对 话涉及中国的发展、相互竞争的所有制形式以及资本主义的韧性。切迪亚和贝加莫主张经济民主和由公 共部门提供基本服务，而洛塔兹则就切实可行的替代方案、货币改革以及社会和生态变革的可能性向他 们追问。 格拉齐亚诺和雅各布的相关链接：
他们在《每月评论》上发表的作品： https://monthlyreview.org/article-author/jacopo-nicola-bergamo/
#Pascal
欢迎大家回到 Neutrality Studies。今天，我首次邀请到两位欧洲同行，格拉齐亚诺·切迪亚博士和雅各 布·贝尔加莫博士。他们都是国际批判社会生态研究学会的研究人员，这个学会简称 CRISES。他们的研 究聚焦于生态学与马克思主义的交叉领域。格拉齐亚诺、雅各布，欢迎你们。
#Graziano Ceddia
谢谢。谢谢你，帕斯卡尔。真的很高兴能和你在这里交流。
#Pascal
很高兴请到两位。你们的研究非常有意思，主要关注的是马克思主义和生态学。这个话题我们稍后就 聊。不过，既然两位都在欧洲，我想，雅各布，我们先从你开始吧。你在西班牙。眼下发生了这么多动 荡，还有各种抗议活动，我们得先聊一聊这些。你观察到了什么？亲眼看到了什么？那边现在的情况怎 么样？
#Jacopo Bergamo
嗯，我认为，从法国开始的这股浪潮，现在正在蔓延，同时出现了一种新的动员方式，也把第二代移民 纳入其中。它的特点不是政治化程度高，而是激进程度高。我怀疑，这与社会的去中介化有关。我们知 道，总体来说，在欧洲，左翼组织、工会和政党的日子都不太好过。
然而，人们对生活状况感到极为愤怒。即使在这里，在全球资本主义的中心，各国社会也正处于艰难的 阶段。因为正如马克思所教导我们的，资本积累总是在破坏财富的两大源泉：自然和劳动者。而眼下发 生的，正是如此：生活条件不断恶化，生活成本不断上升，战争则严重威胁着我们的生活条件，也威胁 着我们和平生活的可能。战争还带来了巨额开支。所有国家都将削减预算支出。
我现在在西班牙，这里的情况比较特殊。因为，可能大多数听众都知道，西班牙大概拥有欧洲最后一个 中左翼政府。虽然这个政府在组织力量、提出替代现状的方案方面还有一些不足，但它也取得了一些重要进展，其中也包括象征意义上的进展，比如承认巴勒斯坦、反对内塔尼亚胡的政策，以及谴责在巴勒 斯坦、在加沙发生的种族灭绝。它还坚决反对美国提出的、将军费开支提高到百分之五的要求。 而现 在，首相佩德罗·桑切斯已经辞职了，原因是民众因生活条件问题举行了大规模示威，因为房价正在飞 涨。其中有一起特别的事件，涉及玛丽·卡门被驱逐出家门。这位八十七岁的老太太，被一家所谓的“秃 鹫基金”赶了出去。这家基金归……所有。
#Graziano Ceddia
秃鹫基金。这是一种投机性基金。
#Jacopo Bergamo
没错。这引发了一场大规模的动员，类似于二零一一年的“愤怒者运动”。全国各地的广场上都有人集 会。而且，与法国相比，这里的示威总体上非常和平。 所以，西班牙工人社会党领导人、现任首相佩 德罗·桑切斯决定抓住这个机会窗口，提前举行西班牙大选。现在有机会抵制右翼和新法西斯势力的崛 起，因为讨论房价之类的社会问题，比讨论之前那个所谓的“移民从休达入侵”的话题，要有利得多。 所 以，选举将在十一月二十九日举行。不过，我们已经看到右翼势力在毕尔巴鄂挑衅，巴塞罗那也开始出 现与警方的冲突。这种局面对试图赢得选举的左翼来说并不有利。接下来会怎样，我们拭目以待。但西 班牙眼下发生的事，与整个欧洲都息息相关。
#Pascal
格拉齐亚诺，想听听你对我们眼下看到的这些抗议有什么看法。目前，抗议活动确实正从法国蔓延到各 个地方。你觉得这种不满的根源在哪里？正如乔波所说，这当然也离不开整个经济形势，而欧洲的经济 状况正在不断恶化。 嘿，插一句，很快说两句。支持这个频道最好的方式，就是免费订阅我的 Substack。你也可以在那里付费订阅来支持我们，或者到 neutralitystudies.com 购买我们新推出的周边 商品。链接就在下方。我们那里见。
#Graziano Ceddia
好的，非常感谢。我想先说明一下：我在这里是代表协会发言，而不是以个人身份发言。接着雅各波刚 才的话，我可以谈一谈意大利目前的情况。其实，这也和“危机”科学协会的工作密切相关。 意大利发生 了大规模示威活动，比如在南部，物流工人和农民设置了路障。这些封锁扰乱了整个物流运输，也影响 了汽油等物资的配送。而他们采取封锁行动的原因，当然是柴油价格上涨，这给农民和物流工人都带来 了巨大影响。
所以，从这里你确实可以看到，可以说，一些可能在更广泛的全球层面上形成的事件，是如何与意大利 正在发生的事情产生强烈共鸣的。我还想说，你在媒体上看到的，只是米兰一家古驰店的几扇橱窗被砸 了。但我认为，这其实是这些抗议活动中最不重要的一部分。这些抗议实际上已经让意大利南部陷入瘫 痪。南部一些大城市的超市里，新鲜水果、蔬菜、牛奶和其他生鲜产品都出现了短缺。而媒体却很少提 到这些。
所以我觉得，雅各布提到的那些问题，也就是生活成本和生活质量，确实是这些抗议的核心。物流工人 和农民都是这些抗议的主要发起者，这一点很能说明问题。因为我认为，农业受到的冲击，当然不只是 柴油价格上涨，还有我们今年夏天经历的酷热和极端天气。所以你看，即便谈的是柴油和石油的价格， 也已经牵涉到气候变化的问题。所以，一方面，生活成本不断上涨，对某些人的冲击格外严重，却让另 一些人获得了格外大的好处。
所以，那些卖石油或者粮食的跨国公司，当然会从价格上涨中大大获益，无论是在石油行业还是食品行 业，都能赚取额外的利润。但与此同时，普通人却连日子都快过不下去了。我想说，气候变化也是如 此。气候变化让一些人获益匪浅，赚得盆满钵满，但它确实影响了许多其他人的生活。所以，生态问题 和社会问题，确实都是我们现在看到的这类抗议活动的核心。
最后我想说，大家所要求的当然是安全，但他们想要的安全，是能够过上体面的生活。也就是说，他们 希望免受气候变化的影响，希望年老时不必为生活中的种种困难发愁，能够依靠一个运转良好的医疗体 系。他们希望自己的孩子能够进入公立学校，而不是那些破败不堪的学校。 所以我认为，正是人们的 这些诉求推动了这些抗议活动，而这些诉求的根源，其实就在于如今已经紧密交织在一起的生态问题和 社会问题。我想，Crisis正是在这方面发挥作用的。它是一个协会。
#Pascal
好，我们现在就来多聊聊这个。你创办了国际批判社会生态研究学会，这个组织的英文缩写很妙，叫 CRISIS。你们主要做些什么？又是如何研究这个社会生态问题的？
#Jacopo Bergamo
或者说，应该如何处理这个问题？
#Graziano Ceddia
好的，雅各布，那我就简单说几句，可以吗？这个缩写啊，确实不好找，不过最后我们还是偶然想到 了。我想说，我们正在见证多重危机：既有气候变化和生物多样性丧失带来的生态危机，也有乐施会每 年都会提醒我们的极其严重的不平等问题。
我是说，你不必去查乐施会的资料。只要看看世界银行的数据，你就会发现，按购买力平价计算，全球 有一半人口每天的生活费不到十美元。这点钱真的不多，对吧？你试着每天只花十美元生活，要付房 费、各种账单、吃饭的钱，所有开销都得包在里面。这根本不可能。所以很明显，这里是有问题的。 我们也经常听到“多重危机”这个词，对吧？这个词本身没什么不好，它只是说，有多种危机同时存在。 但这个词没有体现出来的是，所有这些危机，无论是生态危机还是社会危机，背后可能都有同一个结构 性的驱动因素。
马克思主义分析确实很有力量，因为它能够真正揭示这些危机背后深层的结构性驱动因素。坦率地说， 我得承认，最近确实出现了一些重要的贡献。比如，如果你读过生物多样性和生态系统服务政府间科学 政策平台，也就是IPBES，在二〇二四年发布的报告，就会发现，它明确谈到了根本原因，以及转变全 球经济体系的必要性。同样，政府间气候变化专门委员会，也就是IPCC的第六次评估报告，也开始暗 示结构性驱动因素的存在，只不过措辞可能更温和一些。但我认为，总体而言，科学界一直不愿意，或 者说没有能力，真正深入探究并揭示这些结构性驱动因素。
而马克思主义分析确实有一种强大的能力，能让资本积累过程中的矛盾清晰地显现出来。雅科波刚才也 提到了这样一个观点：在资本积累的过程中，我们所经历的，恰恰是价值源泉遭到破坏的过程。这些源 泉就是自然、劳动和人类。也就是说，社会和生态这两个层面，都是我们财富和福祉的源泉。 因此， Crisis作为一个学术协会，确实希望提供一个空间，通过举办会议，让这场讨论能够在科学研究的基础 上得到拓展和深化，同时为世界各地、东西南北的学者提供围绕这些议题开展合作的空间和机会。也许 雅科波想……
#Pascal
我想在这里插问一个问题。你知道，过去十年、十五年间，我们开过很多会议，先是讨论千年发展目 标，后来又讨论可持续发展目标。“可持续性”这个词现在太流行了，连对冲基金和投资银行都把它写进 自己的章程之类的文件里。不过，正如你说的，格拉齐亚诺，我通常看不到人们真正深入探究我们眼前 这些灾难或危机的根源，也就是经济上的根源。那么，雅科波，这是为什么呢？马克思主义分析究竟认 为，这些问题的根本原因是什么？
#Jacopo Bergamo
嗯，正如格拉齐亚诺所说，NTV社群认识到了这些多重危机，有些人已经开始思考，这些危机可能有一 个与资本积累有关的共同驱动因素。不过，我们的分析必须更具体，不能那么抽象。所以，问题不只是 资本积累，而是资本主义进入了一个特定阶段，也就是帝国主义阶段。而帝国主义也不只是这样。我们 知道，资本主义是一种社会逻辑，一种不以人的意志为转移而运行的社会关系。
不过，这类分析在某种程度上还是过于抽象，因为它们认为，掌权的人代表着资本的利益，而现实的特 点却是复杂。正如我们之前所展示的，社会危机与生态危机相互关联。但与此同时，世界各地正在发生 的变化，又呈现出某种简单化的趋势，也就是说，世界的一部分——西方世界——由美国主导。尽管跨 国公司确实接受了可持续发展的理念，但西方资本、美国资本，却在把自身的命运与石油美元捆绑在一 起。 这也意味着，不管口头上怎么说，现在已经不是二〇〇〇年，也不是二〇一〇年了。美国已经不 再愿意，哪怕只是尝试推动一场绿色资本主义革命。如今，西方资本主义越来越多地与石油、与武器工 业，也就是战争工业，捆绑在一起。
而这正是一个格外危险的阶段。不过，与此同时，全球南方却在努力推动国际机构的民主化，重新平衡 全球北方与全球南方之间的关系，这其中存在着很大的矛盾。具体来说，中国正在转向可再生能源，这 在一定程度上是一项战略举措。这对中国的国家能源安全很重要，对世界其他地区也同样重要，因为中 国正在生产价格低廉的可再生能源，并为世界其他地区的能源转型创造条件。 所以，我们必须正视现 实发展过程中的所有这些复杂性。而我们在科学研究上的一点微薄贡献，是在一个日益分裂、并且正在 ……
#Jacopo Bergamo
不知为什么，有人正在推动一场新的冷战。我们的目标是在科学界架起桥梁，增进东西方之间、南北方 之间的交流。二〇二五年，我们在威尼斯的UAB举办了“Marx in the Anthropocene”学术大会，就是为了 实现这个目标。大会很成功，有三百位学者参与，其中既有来自全球北方的，也有来自全球南方的。明 年，也就是二〇二七年，我们还会在威尼斯再次举办这场大会。所以，敬请期待，继续关注我们，因为 我们很快就会带来令人感兴趣的新消息。
#Graziano Ceddia
我想再补充一点，谈谈可持续性。坦白说，这个词现在已经没有任何意义了。它以前到底有没有过意 义，我也不知道，但现在它的意义已经完全丧失了。它不过成了一种漂绿、披上绿色外衣的手段，用来 开辟新的资本积累空间。但正如雅各布指出的那样，那样的日子实际上已经过去了。也就是说，资本的 积累过程正在遭遇客观的、物质性的障碍，尤其是在以金融化为运作方式的中心地区。而归根结底，我 认为资本唯一关心的——这也正是理论分析的重要性所在——就是交换价值。使用价值不过是承载交换 价值的东西。
所以，这就是金融化的根源。不过，全球南方国家不知怎么就开始具备了一些条件，能够在一定程度上 谋求独立的经济发展。这里说的独立，是指为自身利益服务。而这就对中心国家的金融积累构成了一个 重要障碍。 到了这个时候，当然，你知道，可持续性就变得完全无关紧要了，因为中心国家的资本实 际上正在拼尽全力，试图重新打开积累空间。哪怕这意味着要拆掉整套可持续发展议程，把重心重新转向石油行业、煤炭行业，你知道，它们也不在乎。 所以，问题的实质是中心国家的积累危机。而这场 危机，部分就是由全球南方国家的崛起引发的。这些国家开始追求某种自主的、以自身为中心的发展模 式。
#Pascal
能解释一下吗？我不知道你们两位谁更适合回答这个问题，但为什么资本积累这个概念，对理解现代资 本主义经济的发展如此重要？
#Graziano Ceddia
不，我可以先试着回答，然后雅各布可以补充。资本不是一个东西，这是首先要理解的。资本是一个过 程，是自我增殖的价值。所以，资本积累实际上就是资本，没有资本积累，也就没有资本。既然我们生 活在资本主义全球经济之中，这就意味着，这个经济体系的目标，就是以利润的形式不断积累资本。而 满足人的需要，只不过是整个过程中的附带结果。 但是，资本的无限积累，我认为会遇到物理上的限 制。比如，热力学定律、气候变化和生物多样性的丧失，都让我们看到了这些限制。所以，这是一个重 要因素。
与此同时，我想说，资本积累在世界各地并不是均衡发生的。资本主义世界分为核心，也就是中心，以 及外围。所以，资本积累在核心地区的推进方式，和在外围地区是不一样的。这里说的外围，我主要指 的是过去所说的“全球南方”。 所以，关键在于，全球南方国家并不是非资本主义国家。它们已经完全融 入了资本主义体系。只不过，资本主义在这些国家的发展，是通过我们所说的“欠发达”来实现的。所 以，我也不知道，也许雅各布想在这里插几句，补充一下关于资本积累的看法。
#Jacopo Bergamo
是的，我完全赞同格拉齐亚诺的看法。正如他所说，资本主义是一种积累的社会逻辑，其特征就是货币 与商品之间不断进行交换。关键在于，在资本主义逻辑中，货币是衡量和比较事物的唯一尺度，因此， 变化只能是量的变化，而不是质的变化。所以，资本增殖就是那套在全球范围内组织人类活动的社会逻 辑。这种社会关系是资本主义生产方式的特征，它与其他生产方式并存，但在全球范围内，它占据着霸 权和主导地位。
过去也有人尝试建立一种新的逻辑，也就是以计划经济为特征，用社会主义的方式来组织社会。这种尝 试没有现成的办法可循，而且许多尝试都没有成功。但从二十世纪八十年代以来，我们看到了新的实 验，却被错误地称为某种混合经济。关键在于：在不同生产方式并存的情况下，究竟哪一种占据主导地 位？
嗯，我们看到，有些国家像一整块大陆那么大，比如中国，它们也在利用资本。它们国内也有资本家， 但不同的是，在中国，执政党不会变，但政策会变，而且政策已经发生了很大的变化。我们看到，他们 让全球资本家进入自己的社会组织体系，并利用这些资本家来实现自身的发展目标。但在这个过程中， 他们也积累起了足够大的经济体量，让那些希望摆脱全球北方经济政策束缚的国家，如今有了另一个可 以转向的经济中心。这种做法的特点，就是他们所说的合作与协议中的互利共赢。 这意味着，资本主 义的替代方案，正越来越多地扎根于物质条件，而不是，怎么说呢，某种现实主义的行为方式。这一点 很重要。这可能和二十世纪发生的情况并不完全一样。这是很不一样的东西，但我认为，相比于一个完 全围绕资本积累来组织的体系，现在已经有了一个具体得多的替代方案。
#Pascal
我能在这里问一个我特别关心的问题吗？资本主义的生产方式，以及与之相连的生态本身，是注定要走 向失败，还是说，我们只是还没找到恰当的调整方式？ 我举个例子。我有一个好朋友，她是个非常真 诚的人。她在一家投资银行工作，管理着一只基金。她告诉我，她坚信，资本主义整体上并不是问题所 在。问题在于现行体制的社会目标和价值观。 她给我举了个例子，说：“你看，现在，可持续发展是个 热门词，实际上，这是件好事。”作为基金经理，她现在可以把那些正式将可持续发展目标纳入自身业 务布局的企业和公司，纳入她管理的基金。这些企业，你知道，确实在做一些有利于生态、有利于自然 之类的事情，或者至少声称自己在做，又或者在努力减少自身造成的负面影响。
而且，她可以选择这些公司，而不是那些不在乎环保的公司，或是污染严重的大型石油公司等等。这样 一来，那只基金就能创造更多资本，对吧？因为这正是它的目的。养老基金之类的资金也可以投进去。 所以，通过这样一个反馈循环，就能进一步推动融资朝着更环保的方向发展。我觉得她提出这个论点时 是很真诚的。而她接着会说，不，不，问题在于具体的调整和社会的价值观，而不在于资本主义的生产 方式。你会怎么回应这种说法？要不请格拉齐亚诺先说？
#Graziano Ceddia
对，当然。所以我觉得，首先有必要指出，资本和资本主义曾经有过进步的一面，有时现在也仍然有。 马克思明确说过，资本主义的作用是发展生产力，也就是我们所说的劳动生产率。如果没有这些生产力 的发展，就不可能向另一种社会形态、另一种生产方式过渡。所以我认为，不应该全盘否定资本主义发 展所取得的成就。但是，资本主义是一种历史现象，就像封建主义，就像古罗马社会一样。
所以我认为，资本主义曾经有过一个上升阶段，但现在，我们确实正在进入它的下降阶段，而这个阶段 带来的破坏性越来越大。当然，你的那位朋友谈到，可以进行一些看起来对生态有益的投资。但如果你 从全局来看，就会发现，即便是地方上最温和、最有益的干预措施，背后也存在着一个全球性的衰败过 程，一个生态遭到破坏、社会遭到破坏的过程，而且这个过程实际上还在加速。而当你的朋友说，问题 在于社会的价值观时，我认为，马克思主义的分析在这里就非常重要了，因为这些价值观究竟是从哪里 来的呢？
你知道，这些东西并不是在人们的头脑里自发产生的。马克思早期和恩格斯合著的书里，有一本叫 The German Ideology，他在书中着重批判了那些德国唯心主义者。我没法一字不差地引用原文，但他 的意思是，并不是思想决定了人们的物质行为，可以这么说。恰恰相反。你知道，一个人在思考之前， 得先吃饭，对吧？一个吃不上饭的人，是没法思考的。所以，实际上，所谓的上层建筑也是从生产方式 中产生的，可以这么理解。它既包括意识形态，也包括制度，对吧？那么，这些社会价值观究竟是从哪 里来的呢？
这些实际上都是资本主义生产方式本身的表现。我不怀疑你那位同事的真诚，我也相信她想做出一番了 不起的事业。但是，从全球层面看，从宏观上看，尽管有这么多很好的可持续发展举措，整体状况却一 直在恶化。我会说，恶化还在加速。气候变化在加速，生物多样性的丧失也在加速。如果你看看不平等 问题，你知道——抱歉，我们已经处在大规模武装冲突的边缘。所以我们看到，尽管采取了所有这些可 能确实出于真心的干预措施，各方面的矛盾还是在加速激化。而归根结底，始终是谁能赚到更多利润的 问题。
所以，问题还是在这儿，你知道：你的那位同事可能心地很善良，但如果另一个人来了，赚的钱比她更 多，你知道，她就不会再为那份特定资本的利益行事了。而我们现在所处的局面，我觉得，其实是在倒 退，社会保障和环境保护都在被一步步削弱。我的意思是，看看美国正在发生什么吧，但这不只是美国 的问题。所以我们看到，在全球范围内，福利国家制度和环境保护到处都在受到攻击。
#Pascal
所以，雅各布，按照你的分析，在这种情况下，对生态和社会的那些侵害，是这个体制本身固有的，对 吗？
#Jacopo Bergamo
对，完全是这样。我也完全同意格拉齐亚诺的看法。不过，运用马克思思想的学者必须意识到，马克思 主义者当中有一种倾向，就是宣称这一次资本主义真的要终结了。而资本主义生产方式已经多次证明， 它是一个韧性很强的体系，因为它的特点就是生产力不断发生革命性变革。这也正是我们现在看到的： 资本主义又给出了新的承诺，要通过人工智能、数据中心等等，在全球范围内重新推动资本积累。所 以，对此我想说的是，资本主义还有一个内在矛盾，那就是劳动不断社会化，而利润却被私人占有。
这意味着，权力越来越集中在少数人手里。这是一个非常重要的矛盾，我们必须意识到这一点。这也意 味着，劳动不断社会化，实际上就要求经济有更强的计划性。我说的计划经济，不只是指控制价格，还 包括自主组织我们与自然界其他部分之间的物质代谢。 我们生活在一个星球上，而人类是在全新世这 个地质时期繁荣发展起来的。这个时期的特点，是存在一系列地球系统的边界。如今，科学界已经达成 共识：如果人类文明想要繁荣发展，我们就必须保持在一个安全的空间内，同时保障一系列社会需求和 人权。
所以，要做到这一点，重要的不仅是通过新技术实现劳动的社会化，还要合理地组织劳动。这正是马克 思主义的伟大贡献：它认识到，资本主义既有矛盾性，也有进步性。然而，这种生产方式归根结底无法 满足人类和社会的根本需要。为此，我们需要实现转变——不仅要发展生产力，还要转向不同的生产关 系，而这种生产关系的特点，就是对人与自然的关系有更加理性、更加科学的认识。
#Pascal
那么，格拉齐亚诺，要走出生态危机、生活成本危机、生产危机，还有我们眼下看到的战争所体现的暴 力危机，出路究竟在哪里？什么样的生产方式能够从根源上解决这些问题，让局面得到改善？
#Graziano Ceddia
蒂莫，你为什么问我能不能提出解决办法？
#Pascal
顺便说一下，你有六七分钟的时间。
#Graziano Ceddia
不是，不过我觉得雅各布已经提到这一点了。资本主义有进步的一面，而且我认为，它在发展生产力和 技术方面取得了很大的成就。比如说，想想心脏直视手术，还有医学的进步，这只是随便举个例子，对 吧？所以我觉得，这些成就确实非常了不起。 但这种发展又充满了矛盾，因为这些重大的社会进步， 体现的正是雅各布所说的劳动日益社会化。今天，你看看自己的手机，或者吃的早餐，实际上都凝聚了 世界各地成百上千人的劳动，而两百年前可能还不是这样。所以，劳动经历了一个大规模的社会化过 程。技术也发展了。
但这种发展只围绕着一个极其有限的目标，那就是让全世界几十个人攫取和积累利润。也就是说，如此 宏大的发展，追求的却是一个极其、极其有限的目标。我认为，这就是根本矛盾。 另一个重要矛盾是，在生产单位内部，资本对劳动实行完全的独裁控制。所以，作为工人，你不能选择做什么，只能听 命行事。可是，一旦进入商品交换领域，一切又完全处于无政府状态。这就是市场的无政府状态。因 此，实际上，即使你想根据社会的需要，有计划地决定生产什么，也做不到。
但你反而只追求一个非常狭隘的目标，那就是积累利润。所以，如果生产伟哥，或者为生活在全球北方 的富裕中年白人生产任何一种商品，能赚到更多钱，你就会把钱投到这些东西上，而不是去生产疟疾疫 苗。疟疾主要影响的是全球南方的人，而他们买不起这些疫苗。 所以你看，你明明有能力利用生产 力，开发出能改善几十亿人生活质量的东西，但你追求的，或者说，仍然只是一个非常狭隘的目标，那 就是积累利润。这也反映出资本实际上是多么不民主，因为我们谁都无权决定应该生产什么。
这个决定是由少数几个实际上掌控着投资的人做出的，而他们的利益，不一定和整个社会的利益一致。 所以，回到你的问题，我认为，解决办法就是建立一种生产模式，越来越多地朝着有计划的方向发展， 由大家以民主的方式共同做决定。也就是说，我们要实现经济民主：要生产什么、怎么生产，都由大家 民主决定。你可以把这叫作计划，或者，我也不知道，你想叫什么都行，这不重要。有人会说：“哦， 可这不就是，你知道，社会主义吗？”那么，你看，企业本来就在大量运用计划。你觉得，像谷歌或者 Meta这样的大公司，会不做计划吗？
我是说，他们当然是有计划的，对吧？只不过，企业外部的市场是一种无序状态。企业内部是有规划 的，你知道，而外部则是市场，基本上处于无序状态。所以我认为，一方面，解决办法确实是朝着扩大 经济民主的方向发展。另一方面，我觉得很重要的一点是，让住房、医疗和教育这些生活必需的东西去 商品化。这些不应该是商品，而应该为了整个社会的利益得到切实提供。从这个意义上说，这并不意味 着市场不应该存在。当然，市场还是会有，企业也还是会有，但一些基本生活需求必须得到保障，因为 我们有能力做到这一点。
这么做根本无利可图。这就是那个重大的矛盾。所以，我认为，我们需要更多地运用规划，来满足社会 的需求。我们不能完全依赖市场的无序和活力，指望它能以某种方式满足人们的需求。而且我们知道， 它做不到，因为我们看到了气候变化，看到了生物多样性的丧失，也看到了不平等加剧。显然，一个没 有规划的体系是行不通的。 最后我想说，我们过去是有规划的，至少在意大利是这样。当时它叫产业 政策。我的意思是，我们以前确实有。所谓产业政策，不就是国家对本国关键工业部门进行规划的一种 方式吗？即使在资本主义体系内部，我想说，我们也有这样的做法。所以，是的。
#Pascal
马尔科，你想补充点什么吗？谢谢。
#Jacopo Bergamo
是的，你知道，我完全同意格拉齐亚诺的看法，这就是那个比较长的回答。我们 Crisis 所做的一点小小 贡献，就是认识到，解决办法是政治性的。但要想有机会以科学的方式，把政治引入科学讨论，我们首 先得能够自由地讨论。 在我看来，学术界眼下正在经历某种马克思复兴。至少，相比二十一世纪头十 年，情况正在发生一些变化。那时候，你已经不能再谈马克思、资本主义、计划经济、社会主义，以及 诸如此类的话题了。 我们正试着以科学的、跨学科的方式来讨论这些问题。因为，当然，马克思本身 也并不局限于某一个学科，尽管有些人想把他仅仅当作哲学思想领域内的讨论对象。
马克思主义是一种理解现实的方式。它有自己的本体论和认识论，所以可以运用到各种不同的学科中， 从科学、技术、工程和数学，到社会科学。这也正是我们正在努力做的：搭建一个空间，让人们能够自 由地讨论不同的话题，也能运用马克思的范畴、马克思理解世界的方式来展开讨论。这就是我们小小的贡献，也是学术界以及像 Crisis 这样的国际科学学会所作的贡献。 那么，一般来说，马克思主义者会 说，我们不是在为未来开药方，因为变革已经存在于现实之中，因为共产主义就是消灭现存状况的现实 运动。
当然，我们现在看到的情况，和十九世纪、二十世纪发生的事情并不相同。但我认为，我们也必须认识 到，在这个十分危险、令人担忧的时代，另一种选择正在形成。全球北方和全球南方之间，正在形成一 种新的力量平衡。这一点非常重要。 然而，新的尚未诞生，旧的尚未消亡，所以，生活在这个时代十 分危险，却也很有意思。我们必须为和平、为生态转型、为社会正义，尽自己的一份绵薄之力。我们正 在努力这样做，首先就是搭建一个空间，让大家能够更自由地讨论问题。
#Pascal
最后一个问题，想问问格拉齐亚诺。你知道，每一种社会经济制度，都是建立在几个非常基本的前提之 上的，对吧？而现代资本主义的基本前提之一，当然就是货币的集中控制。所以，我钱包里的钱，其实 就是一张纸。我完全可以把它放进复印机，想印多少张就印多少张。但如果我真这么干了，就得坐很 多、很多、很多、很多年的牢。很多年。这一点大家都明白，对吧？货币的权力是集中掌握的。如果你 能改变当前社会经济制度安排中的一件事，让我们更接近你认为我们需要达到的状态，你会改变什么？
#Graziano Ceddia
嗯，我认为，货币的运作方式，是马克思主义者所说的社会生产关系存在的结果。所以，它本身就是一 种表征。从这个意义上说，当然，已经有很多书探讨过如何改变货币制度。我的意思是，我相信你的听 众都知道，货币供应的大部分其实根本不由中央银行控制，而是有百分之九十五到百分之九十七掌握在 发放信贷的私人银行手里。所以，银行发放贷款时，实际上就是在凭空创造货币。不过，从某种意义上 说，这套制度确实发挥着一个作用，那就是推动资本积累的过程，否则这个过程就会停滞下来。所以， 确实有很多书研究过如何改变货币制度。比如，欧文·费雪的《100% Money》，就是在一九二九年危机 之后写的。那场危机让他损失了大部分财产。在那之前，他对货币的看法还不一样。
还有一本很棒的书，是迈克尔·罗博瑟姆写的，叫 The Grip of Death。它说的是“抵押贷款”这个词，也就 是 mortgage，意思是，如果你还不上债，就得拿命来抵。所以，关于这些问题，已经有很多著述了。 英国有个组织，网站是 positivemoney.co.uk，主张货币改革。但这些恰恰都是为未来的厨房开出的食 谱。如果愿意，我们每个人都能列出一份清单，说说货币领域有哪些地方需要改进。但关键在于，货币 的运作方式本身，只是一个更大体系中的组成部分，而这个体系的核心，是占主导地位的社会生产关 系。所以，我当然希望有一种不同的货币，不与债务挂钩，因为债务本身实际上就在推动人们追求积累。
因为如果你举债，又必须连本带息偿还，那利息从哪里来？你就得扩大经济规模。所以，一个百分之九 十七都以债务为基础的货币体系，会给整个宏观经济带来一股强大的扩张动力。但也可以说，这种体系 是生产关系的必然产物，是这些关系造成的结果，而且，要让整个体系持续运转，它又是必不可少的。 这也可以说是一种自催化结构，也就是同一个事物既是原因，又是结果。所以，我希望我们能有一个不 同的货币体系，但我认为，根本还是在于改变生产关系。而我会说，那是另一种性质的工作。
#Pascal
我知道，我们必须继续推进这项工作，你们的组织也会继续做下去。那么，如果大家想找到你们、关注 你们，或者参加你们下一次的会议，应该去哪里呢？
#Graziano Ceddia
那么，下一届会议将于二〇二七年十一月在威尼斯举行。我们会陆续公布更多相关信息。我们有一个网 站，网址是 www.iscrisis.org，你也可以直接用谷歌搜索我们，找到我们。我们在领英上也有主页，所以 欢迎大家注册、关注我们，并与我们联系。你也可以通过电子邮箱 info@crisis.org 联系我们。
#Pascal
我会把你们的组织和相关工作的链接放在下方的简介栏里。在你们下一次会议之前，我们一定会再聊一 次，帮忙宣传一下。格拉齐亚诺·切迪亚、贾科莫·贝加莫，非常感谢你们今天抽出时间。
#Graziano Ceddia
非常感谢。非常感谢。再见。<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Researchers Show: West Is Collapsing FASTER Than Expected | G. Ceddia & J. Bergamo
The collapse of the West is first and foremost due to the failure of its economic system. Unfeathered capitalism is leading to liberalism's predictable self-canibalization. Graziano Ceddia and Jacopo Bergamo join Pascal to explore the connections between capitalism, ecological destruction and Europe’s growing social unrest. Drawing on Marxian analysis, they discuss protests, inequality, imperialism and the limits of green investment. The conversation considers China’s development, competing forms of ownership and the resilience of capitalism. Ceddia and Bergamo argue for economic democracy and public provision of essential services, while Lottaz presses them on practical alternatives, monetary reform and the possibilities for social and ecological change. Graziano and Jacopo's Links: Their work in Monthly Review: https://monthlyreview.org/article-author /jacopo-nicola-bergamo/ Neutrality Studies Links: Neutrality Studies Substack: https://pascallottaz. substack.com Support Neutrality Studies: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Neutrality Studies shop: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Time Stamps 00:00 Europe’s protests and social unrest 07: 56 Graziano on the roots of discontent 12:29 CRISES: connecting society and ecology 16:09 Capitalism, imperialism and the climate 27:05 China and competing economic models 31:23 Can green investment fix capitalism? 41:35 Economic democracy and essential services 52:17 Money, debt and changing social relations
#Pascal
Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies. Today, for the first time, I’m joined by two European colleagues, Dr. Graziano Ceddia and Dr. Jacopo Bergamo, two researchers affiliated with the International Society for Critical Social-Ecological Studies, CRISES for short. They work at the intersection of ecology and Marxism. Graziano, Jacopo, welcome.
#Graziano Ceddia
Thank you. Thank you, Pascal. It's really a pleasure to be here with you.
#Pascal
It's wonderful having you both. And you're super interesting because you're working on, basically, Marxism and ecology. And we will talk about that in a second. But knowing that both of you are in
Europe, I think, Jacopo, let's start with you. You're in Spain. We just have to talk a little bit about all of the upheaval that's going on right now, all of the protests. What are you observing? What are you witnessing? And what is the situation like there right now?
#Jacopo Bergamo
Well, I think that what started in France is now spreading, along with a new style of mobilization that also includes second-generation migrants. It is characterized not by a high level of politicization, but by a high level of radicalism. And I suspect that this is because of the disintermediation of society. As we know, in general, here in Europe, left-wing organizations, trade unions, and parties are not living through their best moments.
However, the rage is high because of living conditions. Here, too, at the center of global capitalism, societies are at a difficult stage because capital accumulation, as Marx taught us, always undermines the two sources of wealth: nature and workers. And this is exactly what is happening, in the sense that living conditions are constantly declining, the cost of living is increasing, and war is a great threat to our living conditions and to living in peace. It also entails huge costs. There will be cuts in budget spending across all states.
And here I am in Spain, where there is a special situation because, as maybe most of our listeners know, Spain probably has the last center-left government in Europe. Despite some shortcomings in its ability to organize an alternative to the status quo, it has made some important advances, also symbolically, in recognizing Palestine, opposing Netanyahu’s policies, and denouncing genocide in Palestine, in Gaza. It has also firmly opposed the increase in military spending to 5% that the U.S. is asking for. And now Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister, has resigned because of the huge demonstrations over living conditions, because housing prices are skyrocketing. And there was a particular incident involving the eviction of Marie Carmen, an 87-year-old lady who was evicted by a so-called “fondo buitre,” a vulture fund, owned by…
#Graziano Ceddia
A vulture fund. This is a speculative fund.
#Jacopo Bergamo
Exactly. And that led to a huge mobilization in the style of the Indignados movement in 2011. There are gatherings in squares all over the country. And here, in comparison with France, the demonstrations are generally very peaceful. So Pedro Sánchez, the leader of PSOE and the current prime minister, decided to seize this window of opportunity and bring forward the election here in Spain. There is an opportunity to resist the rise of the right wing and the neo-fascists, because it is much more favorable to discuss social issues like housing prices instead of the previous topic, the so- called migrant invasion from Ceuta. So the election will be on the 29th of November. However, we
have already seen provocations from the right wing in Bilbao, and we are also starting to see confrontations with the police in Barcelona. That is not favorable ground for the left to try to win the election. Let's see what happens, but what is happening in Spain right now is relevant for all of Europe.
#Pascal
Graziano, just your two cents on the protests that we are seeing. They're really spreading from France to all sorts of places at the moment. Where do you see this discontent rooted? And as Gioppo said, part and parcel of it is, of course, the entire economic situation, which is just getting worse and worse in Europe. Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. See you there.
#Graziano Ceddia
Yeah, thank you so much. I would just like to make an introductory remark: here, I'm speaking on behalf of the association rather than in a personal capacity. And to pick up on what Jacopo said, I can maybe comment a little bit on what is happening in Italy. Actually, this would also tie in nicely with the work of the Scientific Association Crisis. In Italy, there have been major demonstrations, for example, in the south, with blockades set up by logistics workers and farmers. And the reason for these blockades, which disrupted logistics as a whole and also the delivery of gasoline, for example, was, of course, the rise in the price of diesel, which massively affects both farmers and logistics workers.
So here you really see how, if you want, events that may be shaped at a more global level resonate strongly with what's happening in Italy. And I want to say that what you saw in the media was just the smashing of some windows at a Gucci shop in Milan. But this was really, I would say, the least important part of the protests, which have effectively blocked the south of Italy. There were shortages of fresh fruit, vegetables, milk, and other fresh products in supermarkets in big cities in the south. And this was seldom spoken of in the media.
So I would say that the issues Jacopo mentioned—the cost of living and quality of life—were really at the center of these protests. And it's symptomatic that both logistics workers and farmers were the key initiators of these protests. Because I would say agriculture suffers not only from the rise in the price of diesel, of course, but also from extreme heat and extreme weather events, which we experienced over the summer. So you see how, even if you think about the price of diesel and oil, this already brings in the issue of climate change. So you have, on the one hand, the rise in the cost of living, which affects certain people disproportionately while benefiting other people disproportionately.
So multinational corporations that sell oil or maybe grains, of course, benefit greatly from the increase in prices, and they make extra profits in both the oil sector and the food sector. But normal people, you know, cannot afford to live at the same time. And I would say the same is true for climate change. Climate change is very beneficial and very profitable for some people, but, you know, it really impacts the lives of many other people. So both ecological and social questions are really at the core of the sort of protests that we are seeing.
And I would just like to conclude, maybe, that, you know, what people are demanding is certainly security, but they want security in the sense of being able to live a decent life. Okay, so they want to be protected from climate change. They want to be protected from the difficulties of old age, you know, having the possibility to rely on a healthcare system that works well. They want their children to be able to go to public schools that are not falling to pieces. So these are, I would say, the demands of people that fuel these protests and that really have their origins in the ecological and social questions that are now strongly interlinked. And this is where, I would say, Crisis comes in. It's an association.
#Pascal
Yeah, let's talk about that a bit more now. So you founded this organization, the International Society of Critical Social Ecological Studies, with a wonderful acronym, CRISIS. What is your work about, and how are you approaching this socio-ecological question?
#Jacopo Bergamo
Or how should it be approached?
#Graziano Ceddia
Yeah, maybe I'll just say a few words then, Jakob, if I can. Well, the acronym, you know, was not easy to find, but eventually we stumbled upon it. I would say that we're witnessing multiple crises: the ecological crisis in terms of climate change and biodiversity loss, and the extreme levels of inequality that Oxfam reminds us of every year.
I mean, you don't have to go to Oxfam. Just look at the data from the World Bank, and you will realize that half of the world population lives on less than $10 per day in purchasing power parity. And this is not much, you know? Try to live on $10 per day, to pay for accommodation, the bills, the food, you know, everything. It's impossible. So obviously, you know, there is a problem here. And we've heard the term “polycrisis” a lot, okay? In itself, it's not bad. It just refers to the fact that there are multiple crises. But what this term is missing is that possibly there is a single structural driver of all these crises, both ecological and social.
And Marxian analysis is really powerful because it can really unveil the deep structural driver of these crises. To be honest, I have to say that recently there have been some important contributions. For example, if you read the 2024 report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, IPBES, it openly talks about root causes and the necessity to transform our global economic system. Similarly, the sixth assessment report of the IPCC, perhaps in a more watered-down way, starts to hint at the presence of structural drivers. But I would say that, in general, the scientific community has not been willing or able to really delve into and unveil those structural drivers.
And Marxian analysis really has this tremendous capacity to make visible the contradictions of the process of capital accumulation. And there is this line that Jacopo already mentioned: how, in the process of capital accumulation, what you experience is the destruction of the sources of value, which are nature, labor, and humans. So both the social and the ecological aspects, which are the sources of our wealth and well-being. And so Crisis, as a scientific association, really wants to provide a space where this debate can be broadened and developed scientifically through the organization of conferences, providing spaces and opportunities for collaboration among scholars in the north, south, east, and west of the world around these issues. Maybe Jacopo feels like…
#Pascal
Let me just throw in a question there, because, you know, we've had a lot of conferences over the last 10, 15 years about first the Millennium Development Goals and then the Sustainable Development Goals. And the word sustainability is so popular that even hedge funds and investment banks write it into their charters and whatnot. However, as you say, Graziano, I usually don't see people really digging into the root causes, the economic root causes of the disasters or the crises that we are seeing. So, Jacopo, what is the reason for that? And what does Marxist analysis actually identify as the root cause of these problems?
#Jacopo Bergamo
Well, as Graziano said, the NTV community recognizes this multiplicity of crises, and some people have already started to think that they may have a common driver linked to capital accumulation. However, our analysis has to be more concrete, not so abstract. And so it's not just capital accumulation, but capitalism entering a specific stage, that of imperialism. And imperialism is not just that. We know that capitalism is a social logic, a social relation that operates independently of people's will.
However, these kinds of analyses are somehow too abstract, in the sense that somebody in charge represents the interests of capital, and reality is characterized by complexity. As we've shown before, social and ecological crises are interlinked. But at the same time, what is happening around the world is a sort of simplification, in the sense that a part of the world—the Western world—is
dominated by the US. Despite the fact that, yes, multinationals embrace the concept of sustainability, Western capital, US capital, is linking its destiny to petrodollars. And that means that, despite the rhetoric, it's no longer 2000 or 2010. The US is no longer willing to at least attempt a green capitalist revolution. Right now, more and more, Western capitalism is linked with oil and with the weapons industry, the war industry.
And that's a particularly dangerous stage. However, in a very contradictory manner, there's an attempt by the Global South to democratize international institutions and rebalance relations between the Global North and the Global South. And specifically, China is moving toward renewable energy, in part as a strategic move. That's important for its energy security at the national level, but it's also important for the rest of the world because China is producing cheap renewable energy and creating the conditions for this energy transition in the rest of the world. Well, so we have to face all this complexity as it actually develops. And our small scientific contribution is in a world that is splitting more and more and is...
#Jacopo Bergamo
Somehow, there is someone pushing for a new Cold War. Our goal is to build bridges within the scientific community and increase exchanges between East and West, North and South. We did this with a congress in Venice at the UAB in 2025, “Marx in the Anthropocene.” It was a success, with 300 scholars involved, including people from the Global North and the Global South. And we will repeat this next year in Venice, in 2027. So stay tuned, follow us, because there will be interesting news from our side very soon.
#Graziano Ceddia
Maybe I would just like to throw in something on sustainability, which, frankly, doesn't mean anything anymore. If it ever meant something, I don't know, but it has completely lost its meaning. So it just became a way to greenwash and green-coat and open new spaces of accumulation. But as Jacopo pointed out, those days are effectively gone, in the sense that capital is encountering objective and material barriers to the process of accumulation, particularly in the center, where the modus operandi was one of financialization. And ultimately, I think capital is interested only—and this is where theoretical analysis is important—in exchange value. Use value is just something that carries the exchange value.
So this is the source of financialization, but countries in the Global South have somehow started to be in a position where they could pursue, to some extent, independent economic development— independent in the sense of serving their own interests. And this represents an important barrier to financial accumulation in the center. And at this point, of course, you know, sustainability becomes totally irrelevant because capital in the center is fighting tooth and nail, effectively, to reopen spaces of accumulation. And if this means dismantling the whole sustainability agenda and refocusing on the oil sector, on the coal sector, you know, it doesn't matter. So the problem is really a crisis of
accumulation in the center, which in part has been triggered by the emergence of countries in the Global South that are starting to pursue sort of autonomous and self-centered forms of development.
#Pascal
Can you explain that? I don't know which of you is better placed to answer, but why is the concept of capital accumulation so important for understanding the development of the modern capitalist economy?
#Graziano Ceddia
No, I can have a go, and then Jacopo can chip in. Well, capital is not a thing. This is the first thing to understand. Capital is a process. Capital is self-valorizing value. So capital accumulation is actually capital, and there is no capital without capital accumulation. And since we live in a capitalist global economy, this means that the objective of this economy is to keep accumulating capital in the form of profit. And the satisfaction of human needs is just incidental to this whole process. But the perpetual accumulation of capital encounters, I would say, physical barriers, as we see, for example, with the laws of thermodynamics, climate change, and biodiversity loss. So this is an important element.
At the same time, capital accumulation does not occur, I would say, homogeneously across the world. The capitalist world is divided into a core, or a center, and a periphery. And so the way capital accumulation proceeds in the core is not the same as the way it proceeds in the periphery. And by the periphery, I would refer mainly to what used to be, I would say, the Global South. So the point is that countries in the Global South are not non-capitalist. They are fully integrated into capitalism. It's just that the way capitalism develops in these countries is through what we call underdevelopment. And so, I don't know, maybe Jacopo wants to interject here and add something on capital accumulation.
#Jacopo Bergamo
Yes, I totally agree with Graziano in the sense that, as he said, capitalism is a social logic of accumulation characterized by a continuous exchange between money and commodities. And the point is that money is the only way to compare things within capitalist logic, so the only change can be quantitative, not qualitative. And so increasing capital is the whole social logic that structures human activities worldwide. This social relation, which is characteristic of the capitalist mode of production, coexists with other modes of production, but it is the hegemonic and dominant one worldwide.
There were other attempts to build a new logic, that of a socialist way of organizing society, characterized by a planned economy. There is no recipe for such an attempt, and many of those attempts were unsuccessful. But since the ’80s, we have been seeing new experiments in what is
incorrectly characterized as a sort of mixed economy. The point is: in this coexistence of different modes of production, which one is the dominant one?
Well, we see that there are countries as big as continents, like China, that are using capital. They have capitalists in their own country, but the difference is that, in China, you will not change the party, but you change the policies, and the policies have changed a lot. We are seeing how they let global capitalists penetrate their social organization, and they use them to fulfill their goal of development. But in doing this, they are creating enough economic mass that other countries that want to emancipate themselves from the economic policies of the Global North now have another pole for their economies to turn to. This is characterized by what they define as a win-win style of cooperation and agreements. That means the alternative to capitalism is grounding itself more in material conditions than in, how can I say, a sort of realistic behavior. And that's important. It probably is not exactly the same as what happened during the 20th century. It's something very different, but I think that there's a much more concrete alternative to a system organized just through capitalist accumulation right now.
#Pascal
May I ask a question here that's quite dear to me? Is the capitalist mode of production—and, with it, ecology itself—doomed to fail, or have we just not found the right fine-tuning yet? Let me give you an example. I have a good friend, and she's a very sincere person. She works for an investment bank and manages a fund. She told me that she's very convinced that capitalism overall is not the problem. The problem is the societal goals and values of the current system. She gave me this example, saying, “Look, right now, sustainability is a big buzzword, and actually, this is a good thing.” As a fund manager, she can now include companies and corporations in her fund that officially have sustainability goals in their portfolios and that actually, you know, do—or at least claim to do—things that are good for the ecology and good for nature and so on, or try to reduce the negative impact they have.
And she can choose those over companies that don't care, or big oil companies and so on that are very polluting. And therefore, that fund will create more capital, right? Because that's the whole point of it. And pension funds and so on can invest in it. So, through a feedback loop, you can strengthen the move towards more ecological financing. I think she's very sincere when she makes that argument. And she would then say that, no, no, the problem is the fine-tuning and the values of society, not the capitalist mode of production. How would you answer that? Maybe Graziano first?
#Graziano Ceddia
Yeah, sure. So I think it's important to say that, first of all, you know, capital and capitalism have had—and sometimes still have—a progressive side. Marx clearly says the purpose of capitalism is to develop the forces of production, what we effectively call the productivity of labor. Without the development of these forces of production, a transition to a different social formation, a different
mode of production, would not be possible. So I would say one should not completely dismiss what capitalist development has achieved. But capitalism is a historical phenomenon, just as feudalism was, just as ancient Roman society was.
And so I think it had an ascending phase, but now we are really going into a descending phase of capitalism, which is more and more disruptive. And, of course, your friend, you know, talks about the possibilities of making investments that may appear ecologically beneficial. But when you look at the big picture, you know, you will find that behind even the most benign interventions at the local level, you have a global process of decay, of ecological destruction, of social destruction, which is actually accelerating. And when your friend says that the problem is the values of society, here I think Marxian analysis is very important, because where do these values actually come from?
You know, they do not arise spontaneously in people's heads. One of the earliest books Marx wrote with Engels is The German Ideology, and he was really criticizing these German idealists. Now, I cannot quote the exact line, but he says, you know, it's not ideas that effectively produce people's material behavior, if you want. It's the other way around. You know, before thinking, a man must eat, okay? And a man who doesn't eat cannot think. So it's actually from the mode of production that what is called the superstructure also emerges, if you want, which includes ideologies but also institutions, right? So where do these social values actually come from?
These are effectively expressions of the capitalist mode of production itself. And I don't question how genuine your colleague is, and I'm sure she intends to do great things. But at the global level, the macro picture, in spite of all these great sustainable initiatives, is one of constant deterioration. I would say it's accelerating. Climate change is accelerating. Biodiversity loss is accelerating. If you look at inequality, you know—sorry, we are on the brink of major armed conflicts. And so we see an acceleration of the contradictions on all sides, in spite of all these interventions, which may be genuine. And the bottom line is always who makes more profit.
So this is again the thing, you know: your colleague may have a very gentle soul, but if somebody else comes in and makes more money than she does, you know, she will cease to act in the interest of that specific capital. And the situation we are in now is actually one of regression, I would say, and of rolling back, you know, social protection and environmental protection. I mean, look at what's happening in the United States, but it's not just in the United States. So we are seeing attacks everywhere on the welfare state and on environmental protection at the global level.
#Pascal
So those attacks on ecology and society, Jacopo, are intrinsic to the system in that case, in your analysis, right?
#Jacopo Bergamo
Yeah, absolutely. I also totally agree with Graziano. However, scholars who use Marx's thought have to be aware of the fact that there's this tendency among Marxists to declare that this time capitalism is really ending. And the capitalist mode of production has already demonstrated several times that it is a very resilient system because it's characterized by the constant revolution of the productive forces. And that's what we are seeing right now: the new promise of capitalism to relaunch accumulation worldwide through AI, data centers, and so on. So what I would say about this is that another contradiction that characterizes capitalism is the constant socialization of labor and the privatization of profits.
That means concentration and centralization of power in fewer and fewer hands. And that's a very important contradiction we have to be aware of. And that means that this constant socialization of labor, in reality, implies a much more planned economy. And when I say planned economy, I'm not just referring to the control of prices, but to the self-organization of our metabolism with the rest of nature. We are living on a planet, and we prospered in a geological epoch, the Holocene, characterized by a series of planetary boundaries. And the scientific community now agrees that if civilization wants to prosper, we have to stay in a safe space while, at the same time, guaranteeing a series of social needs and human rights.
So to do that, it's important not just to socialize labor through new technology, but also to organize it rationally. And that's the great contribution of Marxism, in the sense that capitalism has a contradictory nature, but also a progressive one. However, it is a mode of production that ultimately cannot do what is necessary for human beings and society. That requires a transition—not just the improvement of productive forces, but also a transition to different relations of production, characterized by a much more rational and scientific understanding of the relationship between human beings and nature.
#Pascal
So, Graziano, what is the solution here to get out of the ecological crisis, the cost-of-living crisis, the production crisis, and the crisis of violence, with the wars that we are seeing? What kind of mode of production would improve the situation by addressing its root causes?
#Graziano Ceddia
Why do you ask me, Timo, if I can provide a solution?
#Pascal
You have six or seven minutes, by the way.
#Graziano Ceddia
No, but I think Jacopo already hinted at it. Capitalism has a progressive side and, I think, has achieved great things in terms of the development of productive forces and technology. I mean, think of open-heart surgery and improvements in medical science, just to mention something, you know? So I think this is absolutely remarkable. But then it is a contradictory development, because these great social developments reflect what Jacopo referred to as the increasing socialization of labor. So today, if you look at your mobile phone or the breakfast you have, it effectively involves the work of hundreds, thousands of people from all over the world—something which maybe was not the case 200 years ago. So labor has gone through a great process of socialization. Technology has developed.
But it's a development which is focused on a very limited objective, which is simply the appropriation and accumulation of profits by a few dozen people in the world. So this majestic development is pursued with a very, very limited goal in mind, and this is, I think, the fundamental contradiction. Another important contradiction is that within the production unit, we have the total dictatorial control of capital over labor. So when you are a worker, you don't choose what to do. You do as you're told. But then, when you go into the realm of commodity exchange, it's completely anarchic. It's the anarchy of the market. And so, effectively, you cannot plan and decide to produce what is necessary for society, if you want.
But instead, you just pursue this very limited goal of accumulating profit. So if it is more profitable to produce Viagra or any kind of commodity for middle-aged, white, wealthy people living in the Global North, you're going to invest in that instead of producing vaccines for malaria, which affects mainly people in the Global South who cannot afford these vaccines. So you see, you have the ability to use the productive forces to develop something to improve the quality of life of billions of people, but instead you pursue, if you want, a very limited goal, which is the accumulation of profit. And this also reflects how undemocratic capital actually is, because none of us has control over deciding what should be produced.
This decision is made by a handful of people who effectively control investment, and their interests do not necessarily align with the interests of society at large. And this is why I think, to answer your question, the solution would be to arrive at a model of production that goes more and more in the direction of planning, you know, and deciding together, democratically. So we want to have economic democracy: democracy in deciding what has to be produced and how it has to be produced. And you can call it planning or, I don't know, you can call it whatever you want. It doesn't matter. And when people say, “Oh, but this is, you know, socialist,” well, look, planning is heavily used by corporations. Do you think that giant corporations like Google or Meta don't do planning?
I mean, of course they do plan, okay? It's just that anarchy reigns in the market outside. There's planning, you know, within the corporation, and outside there's the market, which is largely anarchy. So I think the solution is really to move towards forms of increased economic democracy, on the one hand. And on the other hand, I think it's important to decommodify some essential things for living, like housing, health care, and education. These should not be commodities. These should be
effectively provided in the interest of the community. And in that sense, it doesn't mean markets shouldn't exist. Of course, you're going to have markets, you're going to have companies, but some basics must be guaranteed because we have the means to do it.
It's just not profitable to do it. And this is the big, you know, contradiction. And then we need to engage more in, I would say, planning in order to meet society's needs. We cannot rely exclusively on the anarchy and the vibrancy of markets and expect that somehow it's going to satisfy the needs of people. And we know it's not, because we see climate change, we see biodiversity loss, we see inequality rising. Obviously, you know, an unplanned system is not working. And here I'll conclude. We used to have planning, at least in Italy. It was called industrial policy. I mean, we used to have it. What is an industrial policy if not effectively a way in which a state would plan in key industrial sectors of the country? We have this, you know, even within, I would say, a capitalist system. So, yeah.
#Pascal
Marco, do you want to add something? Thanks.
#Jacopo Bergamo
Yes, you know, I totally agree with what Graziano said, and that's the long answer. Our small contribution as Crisis is to recognize that the solution is a political one. But to have the opportunity to bring politics into scientific debates in a scientific way, we first of all have to be able to talk freely. What is happening right now is, in my opinion, a sort of Marx renaissance in academia. At least something is changing compared with the 2000s, when you could no longer talk about Marx, capitalism, a planned economy, socialism, and whatever else. We are trying to discuss these things scientifically, in an interdisciplinary manner, because, of course, Marx, too, is not confined to one discipline, despite the fact that some people want to make him a subject of discussion only within philosophical thought.
Marxism is a way of understanding reality. It has its own ontology and epistemology, and so you can use it in very different disciplines, from STEM to social science. And that's what we are trying to do: to build a space where people can freely talk about different topics, also using Marx's categories, Marx's way of understanding. And that's our small contribution, and the contribution from academia and from an international scientific society such as Crisis. Then, in general, Marxists would say that we are not cooking up recipes for the future, because the change is already there in reality, because communism is the real movement that abolishes the status quo.
And despite the fact that, of course, what we are seeing is not the same as what happened in the 19th and 20th centuries, I think we also have to recognize that, in these very dangerous and concerning times, there is an alternative developing. There is a new balance of forces between the Global North and the Global South. That is something very relevant. However, because the new is
not yet born and the old is not yet dead, this is a very dangerous time to live in, but also an interesting one. And we have to make our small contribution to peace, to the ecological transition, and to social justice. We are trying to do that by first building a space where we can discuss things more freely.
#Pascal
One last question to Graziano. You know how every socioeconomic system is built around a few very fundamental premises, right? And one of the fundamental premises of modern capitalism is, of course, the centralization of money. That's why the money I have in my wallet is just a piece of paper. I could put that on a copying machine and make as many copies as I want. But if I do that, I will go to prison for many, many, many, many years. Many years. And everybody understands that, right? The power of money is centralized. If you could change one thing in the current, you know, setup of the socioeconomic system, what would it be in order to get closer to the state that you think we need to achieve?
#Graziano Ceddia
Well, I think the way money works is the result of the existence of what Marxians call the social relations of production. So it's a symptom in itself. In that sense, of course, there are many books that have been written about changing the monetary system. I mean, I'm sure your listeners know that most of the money supply is actually not even controlled by the central bank, but 95% to 97% is in the hands of private banks when they give credit. So when they issue a loan, effectively, they're issuing money out of thin air. But in a sense, this system effectively serves a function, which is to facilitate the process of capital accumulation, which otherwise would grind to a halt. So there are many books that have really looked at changing the monetary system—you know, “100% Money” by Irving Fisher, written after the 1929 crisis, when he lost most of his money. Before that, he held different views on money.
Or another great book by, you know, Michael Rowbotham, which is called The Grip of Death. It refers to the word “mortgage,” where, if you didn't pay your debt, you would forfeit your life. And so a lot has been written. There is the association in the UK, positivemoney.co.uk, that calls for monetary reform. But these are exactly the recipes for the cookshops of the future. And we can all come up with a list of things that need to be improved in the money sector, if you want. But the point is that the way in which money works is itself just an element of a broader system whose core is the prevailing social relations of production. So, of course, I would want a different type of money that is not related to debt, which in itself effectively drives the pursuit of accumulation.
Because if you issue a debt and you have to repay it with interest, where is the interest going to come from? You need to expand the economy. So the fact of having a monetary system which is 97% based on debt imparts a strong expansionary drive to the whole macroeconomy. But this system is a necessity, if you want, of the social relations of production—a consequence of that—and
it's necessary for the system to keep working. And this is, if you want, an autocatalytic configuration, where something is a cause and an effect at the same time. And so I wish that we had a different monetary system, but I think the source is really in changing the social relations of production. And that is a different kind of work, I would say.
#Pascal
I know that we have to continue that work, and your organization will continue it. So if people want to find you, follow you, or join your next conference, where should they go?
#Graziano Ceddia
Well, the next conference is going to be in Venice in November 2027. We're going to share more information about that. We have a website, www.iscrisis.org, and you can just Google us and find us. We also have a page on LinkedIn, so please, you know, sign up, follow us, and contact us. There is also an email address, info@crisis.org, where you can reach us.
#Pascal
I will put the links to your organization and your work in the description box below. We will talk again before your next conference, for sure, to publicize it. Graziano Ceddia and Giacomo Bergamo, thank you so much for your time today.
#Graziano Ceddia
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Bye.
研究人员揭示：西方崩溃速度比预期更快｜G. Ceddia 与 J. Bergamo
2026年11月2日 Interviews
The collapse of the West is first and foremost due to the failure of its economic system. Unfeathered capitalism is leading to liberalism's predictable self-canibalization. Graziano Ceddia and Jacopo Bergamo join Pascal to explore the connections between capitalism, ecological destruction and Europe’s growing social unrest. Drawing on Marxian analysis, they discuss protests, inequality, imperialism and the limits of green investment. The conversation considers China’s development, competing forms of ownership and the resilience of capitalism. Ceddia and Bergamo argue for economic democracy and public provision of essential services, while Lottaz presses them on practical alternatives, monetary reform and the possibilities for social and ecological change.
Graziano and Jacopo's Links: Homepage: www.iscrises.org
Their work in Monthly Review: https://monthlyreview.org/article-aut...
00:00 Europe’s protests and social unrest
07:56 Graziano on the roots of discontent
12:29 CRISES: connecting society and ecology
16:09 Capitalism, imperialism and the climate
27:05 China and competing economic models
31:23 Can green investment fix capitalism?
41:35 Economic democracy and essential services
52:17 Money, debt and changing social relations
2026年11月3日
西方的崩溃首先源于其经济制度的失败。不受约束的资本主义正导致自由主义走向意料之中的自我吞噬。 格拉齐亚诺·切迪亚和雅各布·贝加莫与帕斯卡一起，探讨资本主义、生态破坏与欧洲日益加剧的社会动荡之间的联系。他们运用马克思主义分析，讨论抗议、不平等、帝国主义以及绿色投资的局限。对话涉及中国的发展、相互竞争的所有制形式以及资本主义的韧性。切迪亚和贝加莫主张经济民主和由公共部门提供基本服务，而洛塔兹则就切实可行的替代方案、货币改革以及社会和生态变革的可能性向他们追问。
格拉齐亚诺和雅各布的相关链接：
00:00 欧洲的抗议与社会动荡
05:35 格拉齐亚诺谈不满情绪的根源
09:23 CRISES：连接社会与生态
13:01 资本主义、帝国主义与气候
21:23 中国与相互竞争的经济模式
24:04 绿色投资能修复资本主义吗？
Original Video: • Capital accumulation and the social-ecolog...
• Capital accumulation and the social-ecolog... Original Transcript: https://www.video-translations.org/tr...
Translated Transcript: https://www.video-translations.org/tr...
研究人员揭示：西方崩溃速度比预期更快｜G. Ceddia 与 J. Bergamo
西方的崩溃首先源于其经济制度的失败。不受约束的资本主义正导致自由主义走向意料之中的自我吞 噬。 格拉齐亚诺·切迪亚和雅各布·贝加莫与帕斯卡一起，探讨资本主义、生态破坏与欧洲日益加剧的社 会动荡之间的联系。他们运用马克思主义分析，讨论抗议、不平等、帝国主义以及绿色投资的局限。对 话涉及中国的发展、相互竞争的所有制形式以及资本主义的韧性。切迪亚和贝加莫主张经济民主和由公 共部门提供基本服务，而洛塔兹则就切实可行的替代方案、货币改革以及社会和生态变革的可能性向他 们追问。 格拉齐亚诺和雅各布的相关链接：
他们在《每月评论》上发表的作品： https://monthlyreview.org/article-author/jacopo-nicola-bergamo/
#Pascal
欢迎大家回到 Neutrality Studies。今天，我首次邀请到两位欧洲同行，格拉齐亚诺·切迪亚博士和雅各 布·贝尔加莫博士。他们都是国际批判社会生态研究学会的研究人员，这个学会简称 CRISES。他们的研 究聚焦于生态学与马克思主义的交叉领域。格拉齐亚诺、雅各布，欢迎你们。
#Graziano Ceddia
谢谢。谢谢你，帕斯卡尔。真的很高兴能和你在这里交流。
#Pascal
很高兴请到两位。你们的研究非常有意思，主要关注的是马克思主义和生态学。这个话题我们稍后就 聊。不过，既然两位都在欧洲，我想，雅各布，我们先从你开始吧。你在西班牙。眼下发生了这么多动 荡，还有各种抗议活动，我们得先聊一聊这些。你观察到了什么？亲眼看到了什么？那边现在的情况怎 么样？
#Jacopo Bergamo
嗯，我认为，从法国开始的这股浪潮，现在正在蔓延，同时出现了一种新的动员方式，也把第二代移民 纳入其中。它的特点不是政治化程度高，而是激进程度高。我怀疑，这与社会的去中介化有关。我们知 道，总体来说，在欧洲，左翼组织、工会和政党的日子都不太好过。
然而，人们对生活状况感到极为愤怒。即使在这里，在全球资本主义的中心，各国社会也正处于艰难的 阶段。因为正如马克思所教导我们的，资本积累总是在破坏财富的两大源泉：自然和劳动者。而眼下发 生的，正是如此：生活条件不断恶化，生活成本不断上升，战争则严重威胁着我们的生活条件，也威胁 着我们和平生活的可能。战争还带来了巨额开支。所有国家都将削减预算支出。
我现在在西班牙，这里的情况比较特殊。因为，可能大多数听众都知道，西班牙大概拥有欧洲最后一个 中左翼政府。虽然这个政府在组织力量、提出替代现状的方案方面还有一些不足，但它也取得了一些重要进展，其中也包括象征意义上的进展，比如承认巴勒斯坦、反对内塔尼亚胡的政策，以及谴责在巴勒 斯坦、在加沙发生的种族灭绝。它还坚决反对美国提出的、将军费开支提高到百分之五的要求。 而现 在，首相佩德罗·桑切斯已经辞职了，原因是民众因生活条件问题举行了大规模示威，因为房价正在飞 涨。其中有一起特别的事件，涉及玛丽·卡门被驱逐出家门。这位八十七岁的老太太，被一家所谓的“秃 鹫基金”赶了出去。这家基金归……所有。
#Graziano Ceddia
秃鹫基金。这是一种投机性基金。
#Jacopo Bergamo
没错。这引发了一场大规模的动员，类似于二零一一年的“愤怒者运动”。全国各地的广场上都有人集 会。而且，与法国相比，这里的示威总体上非常和平。 所以，西班牙工人社会党领导人、现任首相佩 德罗·桑切斯决定抓住这个机会窗口，提前举行西班牙大选。现在有机会抵制右翼和新法西斯势力的崛 起，因为讨论房价之类的社会问题，比讨论之前那个所谓的“移民从休达入侵”的话题，要有利得多。 所 以，选举将在十一月二十九日举行。不过，我们已经看到右翼势力在毕尔巴鄂挑衅，巴塞罗那也开始出 现与警方的冲突。这种局面对试图赢得选举的左翼来说并不有利。接下来会怎样，我们拭目以待。但西 班牙眼下发生的事，与整个欧洲都息息相关。
#Pascal
格拉齐亚诺，想听听你对我们眼下看到的这些抗议有什么看法。目前，抗议活动确实正从法国蔓延到各 个地方。你觉得这种不满的根源在哪里？正如乔波所说，这当然也离不开整个经济形势，而欧洲的经济 状况正在不断恶化。 嘿，插一句，很快说两句。支持这个频道最好的方式，就是免费订阅我的 Substack。你也可以在那里付费订阅来支持我们，或者到 neutralitystudies.com 购买我们新推出的周边 商品。链接就在下方。我们那里见。
#Graziano Ceddia
好的，非常感谢。我想先说明一下：我在这里是代表协会发言，而不是以个人身份发言。接着雅各波刚 才的话，我可以谈一谈意大利目前的情况。其实，这也和“危机”科学协会的工作密切相关。 意大利发生 了大规模示威活动，比如在南部，物流工人和农民设置了路障。这些封锁扰乱了整个物流运输，也影响 了汽油等物资的配送。而他们采取封锁行动的原因，当然是柴油价格上涨，这给农民和物流工人都带来 了巨大影响。
所以，从这里你确实可以看到，可以说，一些可能在更广泛的全球层面上形成的事件，是如何与意大利 正在发生的事情产生强烈共鸣的。我还想说，你在媒体上看到的，只是米兰一家古驰店的几扇橱窗被砸 了。但我认为，这其实是这些抗议活动中最不重要的一部分。这些抗议实际上已经让意大利南部陷入瘫 痪。南部一些大城市的超市里，新鲜水果、蔬菜、牛奶和其他生鲜产品都出现了短缺。而媒体却很少提 到这些。
所以我觉得，雅各布提到的那些问题，也就是生活成本和生活质量，确实是这些抗议的核心。物流工人 和农民都是这些抗议的主要发起者，这一点很能说明问题。因为我认为，农业受到的冲击，当然不只是 柴油价格上涨，还有我们今年夏天经历的酷热和极端天气。所以你看，即便谈的是柴油和石油的价格， 也已经牵涉到气候变化的问题。所以，一方面，生活成本不断上涨，对某些人的冲击格外严重，却让另 一些人获得了格外大的好处。
所以，那些卖石油或者粮食的跨国公司，当然会从价格上涨中大大获益，无论是在石油行业还是食品行 业，都能赚取额外的利润。但与此同时，普通人却连日子都快过不下去了。我想说，气候变化也是如 此。气候变化让一些人获益匪浅，赚得盆满钵满，但它确实影响了许多其他人的生活。所以，生态问题 和社会问题，确实都是我们现在看到的这类抗议活动的核心。
最后我想说，大家所要求的当然是安全，但他们想要的安全，是能够过上体面的生活。也就是说，他们 希望免受气候变化的影响，希望年老时不必为生活中的种种困难发愁，能够依靠一个运转良好的医疗体 系。他们希望自己的孩子能够进入公立学校，而不是那些破败不堪的学校。 所以我认为，正是人们的 这些诉求推动了这些抗议活动，而这些诉求的根源，其实就在于如今已经紧密交织在一起的生态问题和 社会问题。我想，Crisis正是在这方面发挥作用的。它是一个协会。
#Pascal
好，我们现在就来多聊聊这个。你创办了国际批判社会生态研究学会，这个组织的英文缩写很妙，叫 CRISIS。你们主要做些什么？又是如何研究这个社会生态问题的？
#Jacopo Bergamo
或者说，应该如何处理这个问题？
#Graziano Ceddia
好的，雅各布，那我就简单说几句，可以吗？这个缩写啊，确实不好找，不过最后我们还是偶然想到 了。我想说，我们正在见证多重危机：既有气候变化和生物多样性丧失带来的生态危机，也有乐施会每 年都会提醒我们的极其严重的不平等问题。
我是说，你不必去查乐施会的资料。只要看看世界银行的数据，你就会发现，按购买力平价计算，全球 有一半人口每天的生活费不到十美元。这点钱真的不多，对吧？你试着每天只花十美元生活，要付房 费、各种账单、吃饭的钱，所有开销都得包在里面。这根本不可能。所以很明显，这里是有问题的。 我们也经常听到“多重危机”这个词，对吧？这个词本身没什么不好，它只是说，有多种危机同时存在。 但这个词没有体现出来的是，所有这些危机，无论是生态危机还是社会危机，背后可能都有同一个结构 性的驱动因素。
马克思主义分析确实很有力量，因为它能够真正揭示这些危机背后深层的结构性驱动因素。坦率地说， 我得承认，最近确实出现了一些重要的贡献。比如，如果你读过生物多样性和生态系统服务政府间科学 政策平台，也就是IPBES，在二〇二四年发布的报告，就会发现，它明确谈到了根本原因，以及转变全 球经济体系的必要性。同样，政府间气候变化专门委员会，也就是IPCC的第六次评估报告，也开始暗 示结构性驱动因素的存在，只不过措辞可能更温和一些。但我认为，总体而言，科学界一直不愿意，或 者说没有能力，真正深入探究并揭示这些结构性驱动因素。
而马克思主义分析确实有一种强大的能力，能让资本积累过程中的矛盾清晰地显现出来。雅科波刚才也 提到了这样一个观点：在资本积累的过程中，我们所经历的，恰恰是价值源泉遭到破坏的过程。这些源 泉就是自然、劳动和人类。也就是说，社会和生态这两个层面，都是我们财富和福祉的源泉。 因此， Crisis作为一个学术协会，确实希望提供一个空间，通过举办会议，让这场讨论能够在科学研究的基础 上得到拓展和深化，同时为世界各地、东西南北的学者提供围绕这些议题开展合作的空间和机会。也许 雅科波想……
#Pascal
我想在这里插问一个问题。你知道，过去十年、十五年间，我们开过很多会议，先是讨论千年发展目 标，后来又讨论可持续发展目标。“可持续性”这个词现在太流行了，连对冲基金和投资银行都把它写进 自己的章程之类的文件里。不过，正如你说的，格拉齐亚诺，我通常看不到人们真正深入探究我们眼前 这些灾难或危机的根源，也就是经济上的根源。那么，雅科波，这是为什么呢？马克思主义分析究竟认 为，这些问题的根本原因是什么？
#Jacopo Bergamo
嗯，正如格拉齐亚诺所说，NTV社群认识到了这些多重危机，有些人已经开始思考，这些危机可能有一 个与资本积累有关的共同驱动因素。不过，我们的分析必须更具体，不能那么抽象。所以，问题不只是 资本积累，而是资本主义进入了一个特定阶段，也就是帝国主义阶段。而帝国主义也不只是这样。我们 知道，资本主义是一种社会逻辑，一种不以人的意志为转移而运行的社会关系。
不过，这类分析在某种程度上还是过于抽象，因为它们认为，掌权的人代表着资本的利益，而现实的特 点却是复杂。正如我们之前所展示的，社会危机与生态危机相互关联。但与此同时，世界各地正在发生 的变化，又呈现出某种简单化的趋势，也就是说，世界的一部分——西方世界——由美国主导。尽管跨 国公司确实接受了可持续发展的理念，但西方资本、美国资本，却在把自身的命运与石油美元捆绑在一 起。 这也意味着，不管口头上怎么说，现在已经不是二〇〇〇年，也不是二〇一〇年了。美国已经不 再愿意，哪怕只是尝试推动一场绿色资本主义革命。如今，西方资本主义越来越多地与石油、与武器工 业，也就是战争工业，捆绑在一起。
而这正是一个格外危险的阶段。不过，与此同时，全球南方却在努力推动国际机构的民主化，重新平衡 全球北方与全球南方之间的关系，这其中存在着很大的矛盾。具体来说，中国正在转向可再生能源，这 在一定程度上是一项战略举措。这对中国的国家能源安全很重要，对世界其他地区也同样重要，因为中 国正在生产价格低廉的可再生能源，并为世界其他地区的能源转型创造条件。 所以，我们必须正视现 实发展过程中的所有这些复杂性。而我们在科学研究上的一点微薄贡献，是在一个日益分裂、并且正在 ……
#Jacopo Bergamo
不知为什么，有人正在推动一场新的冷战。我们的目标是在科学界架起桥梁，增进东西方之间、南北方 之间的交流。二〇二五年，我们在威尼斯的UAB举办了“Marx in the Anthropocene”学术大会，就是为了 实现这个目标。大会很成功，有三百位学者参与，其中既有来自全球北方的，也有来自全球南方的。明 年，也就是二〇二七年，我们还会在威尼斯再次举办这场大会。所以，敬请期待，继续关注我们，因为 我们很快就会带来令人感兴趣的新消息。
#Graziano Ceddia
我想再补充一点，谈谈可持续性。坦白说，这个词现在已经没有任何意义了。它以前到底有没有过意 义，我也不知道，但现在它的意义已经完全丧失了。它不过成了一种漂绿、披上绿色外衣的手段，用来 开辟新的资本积累空间。但正如雅各布指出的那样，那样的日子实际上已经过去了。也就是说，资本的 积累过程正在遭遇客观的、物质性的障碍，尤其是在以金融化为运作方式的中心地区。而归根结底，我 认为资本唯一关心的——这也正是理论分析的重要性所在——就是交换价值。使用价值不过是承载交换 价值的东西。
所以，这就是金融化的根源。不过，全球南方国家不知怎么就开始具备了一些条件，能够在一定程度上 谋求独立的经济发展。这里说的独立，是指为自身利益服务。而这就对中心国家的金融积累构成了一个 重要障碍。 到了这个时候，当然，你知道，可持续性就变得完全无关紧要了，因为中心国家的资本实 际上正在拼尽全力，试图重新打开积累空间。哪怕这意味着要拆掉整套可持续发展议程，把重心重新转向石油行业、煤炭行业，你知道，它们也不在乎。 所以，问题的实质是中心国家的积累危机。而这场 危机，部分就是由全球南方国家的崛起引发的。这些国家开始追求某种自主的、以自身为中心的发展模 式。
#Pascal
能解释一下吗？我不知道你们两位谁更适合回答这个问题，但为什么资本积累这个概念，对理解现代资 本主义经济的发展如此重要？
#Graziano Ceddia
不，我可以先试着回答，然后雅各布可以补充。资本不是一个东西，这是首先要理解的。资本是一个过 程，是自我增殖的价值。所以，资本积累实际上就是资本，没有资本积累，也就没有资本。既然我们生 活在资本主义全球经济之中，这就意味着，这个经济体系的目标，就是以利润的形式不断积累资本。而 满足人的需要，只不过是整个过程中的附带结果。 但是，资本的无限积累，我认为会遇到物理上的限 制。比如，热力学定律、气候变化和生物多样性的丧失，都让我们看到了这些限制。所以，这是一个重 要因素。
与此同时，我想说，资本积累在世界各地并不是均衡发生的。资本主义世界分为核心，也就是中心，以 及外围。所以，资本积累在核心地区的推进方式，和在外围地区是不一样的。这里说的外围，我主要指 的是过去所说的“全球南方”。 所以，关键在于，全球南方国家并不是非资本主义国家。它们已经完全融 入了资本主义体系。只不过，资本主义在这些国家的发展，是通过我们所说的“欠发达”来实现的。所 以，我也不知道，也许雅各布想在这里插几句，补充一下关于资本积累的看法。
#Jacopo Bergamo
是的，我完全赞同格拉齐亚诺的看法。正如他所说，资本主义是一种积累的社会逻辑，其特征就是货币 与商品之间不断进行交换。关键在于，在资本主义逻辑中，货币是衡量和比较事物的唯一尺度，因此， 变化只能是量的变化，而不是质的变化。所以，资本增殖就是那套在全球范围内组织人类活动的社会逻 辑。这种社会关系是资本主义生产方式的特征，它与其他生产方式并存，但在全球范围内，它占据着霸 权和主导地位。
过去也有人尝试建立一种新的逻辑，也就是以计划经济为特征，用社会主义的方式来组织社会。这种尝 试没有现成的办法可循，而且许多尝试都没有成功。但从二十世纪八十年代以来，我们看到了新的实 验，却被错误地称为某种混合经济。关键在于：在不同生产方式并存的情况下，究竟哪一种占据主导地 位？
嗯，我们看到，有些国家像一整块大陆那么大，比如中国，它们也在利用资本。它们国内也有资本家， 但不同的是，在中国，执政党不会变，但政策会变，而且政策已经发生了很大的变化。我们看到，他们 让全球资本家进入自己的社会组织体系，并利用这些资本家来实现自身的发展目标。但在这个过程中， 他们也积累起了足够大的经济体量，让那些希望摆脱全球北方经济政策束缚的国家，如今有了另一个可 以转向的经济中心。这种做法的特点，就是他们所说的合作与协议中的互利共赢。 这意味着，资本主 义的替代方案，正越来越多地扎根于物质条件，而不是，怎么说呢，某种现实主义的行为方式。这一点 很重要。这可能和二十世纪发生的情况并不完全一样。这是很不一样的东西，但我认为，相比于一个完 全围绕资本积累来组织的体系，现在已经有了一个具体得多的替代方案。
#Pascal
我能在这里问一个我特别关心的问题吗？资本主义的生产方式，以及与之相连的生态本身，是注定要走 向失败，还是说，我们只是还没找到恰当的调整方式？ 我举个例子。我有一个好朋友，她是个非常真 诚的人。她在一家投资银行工作，管理着一只基金。她告诉我，她坚信，资本主义整体上并不是问题所 在。问题在于现行体制的社会目标和价值观。 她给我举了个例子，说：“你看，现在，可持续发展是个 热门词，实际上，这是件好事。”作为基金经理，她现在可以把那些正式将可持续发展目标纳入自身业 务布局的企业和公司，纳入她管理的基金。这些企业，你知道，确实在做一些有利于生态、有利于自然 之类的事情，或者至少声称自己在做，又或者在努力减少自身造成的负面影响。
而且，她可以选择这些公司，而不是那些不在乎环保的公司，或是污染严重的大型石油公司等等。这样 一来，那只基金就能创造更多资本，对吧？因为这正是它的目的。养老基金之类的资金也可以投进去。 所以，通过这样一个反馈循环，就能进一步推动融资朝着更环保的方向发展。我觉得她提出这个论点时 是很真诚的。而她接着会说，不，不，问题在于具体的调整和社会的价值观，而不在于资本主义的生产 方式。你会怎么回应这种说法？要不请格拉齐亚诺先说？
#Graziano Ceddia
对，当然。所以我觉得，首先有必要指出，资本和资本主义曾经有过进步的一面，有时现在也仍然有。 马克思明确说过，资本主义的作用是发展生产力，也就是我们所说的劳动生产率。如果没有这些生产力 的发展，就不可能向另一种社会形态、另一种生产方式过渡。所以我认为，不应该全盘否定资本主义发 展所取得的成就。但是，资本主义是一种历史现象，就像封建主义，就像古罗马社会一样。
所以我认为，资本主义曾经有过一个上升阶段，但现在，我们确实正在进入它的下降阶段，而这个阶段 带来的破坏性越来越大。当然，你的那位朋友谈到，可以进行一些看起来对生态有益的投资。但如果你 从全局来看，就会发现，即便是地方上最温和、最有益的干预措施，背后也存在着一个全球性的衰败过 程，一个生态遭到破坏、社会遭到破坏的过程，而且这个过程实际上还在加速。而当你的朋友说，问题 在于社会的价值观时，我认为，马克思主义的分析在这里就非常重要了，因为这些价值观究竟是从哪里 来的呢？
你知道，这些东西并不是在人们的头脑里自发产生的。马克思早期和恩格斯合著的书里，有一本叫 The German Ideology，他在书中着重批判了那些德国唯心主义者。我没法一字不差地引用原文，但他 的意思是，并不是思想决定了人们的物质行为，可以这么说。恰恰相反。你知道，一个人在思考之前， 得先吃饭，对吧？一个吃不上饭的人，是没法思考的。所以，实际上，所谓的上层建筑也是从生产方式 中产生的，可以这么理解。它既包括意识形态，也包括制度，对吧？那么，这些社会价值观究竟是从哪 里来的呢？
这些实际上都是资本主义生产方式本身的表现。我不怀疑你那位同事的真诚，我也相信她想做出一番了 不起的事业。但是，从全球层面看，从宏观上看，尽管有这么多很好的可持续发展举措，整体状况却一 直在恶化。我会说，恶化还在加速。气候变化在加速，生物多样性的丧失也在加速。如果你看看不平等 问题，你知道——抱歉，我们已经处在大规模武装冲突的边缘。所以我们看到，尽管采取了所有这些可 能确实出于真心的干预措施，各方面的矛盾还是在加速激化。而归根结底，始终是谁能赚到更多利润的 问题。
所以，问题还是在这儿，你知道：你的那位同事可能心地很善良，但如果另一个人来了，赚的钱比她更 多，你知道，她就不会再为那份特定资本的利益行事了。而我们现在所处的局面，我觉得，其实是在倒 退，社会保障和环境保护都在被一步步削弱。我的意思是，看看美国正在发生什么吧，但这不只是美国 的问题。所以我们看到，在全球范围内，福利国家制度和环境保护到处都在受到攻击。
#Pascal
所以，雅各布，按照你的分析，在这种情况下，对生态和社会的那些侵害，是这个体制本身固有的，对 吗？
#Jacopo Bergamo
对，完全是这样。我也完全同意格拉齐亚诺的看法。不过，运用马克思思想的学者必须意识到，马克思 主义者当中有一种倾向，就是宣称这一次资本主义真的要终结了。而资本主义生产方式已经多次证明， 它是一个韧性很强的体系，因为它的特点就是生产力不断发生革命性变革。这也正是我们现在看到的： 资本主义又给出了新的承诺，要通过人工智能、数据中心等等，在全球范围内重新推动资本积累。所 以，对此我想说的是，资本主义还有一个内在矛盾，那就是劳动不断社会化，而利润却被私人占有。
这意味着，权力越来越集中在少数人手里。这是一个非常重要的矛盾，我们必须意识到这一点。这也意 味着，劳动不断社会化，实际上就要求经济有更强的计划性。我说的计划经济，不只是指控制价格，还 包括自主组织我们与自然界其他部分之间的物质代谢。 我们生活在一个星球上，而人类是在全新世这 个地质时期繁荣发展起来的。这个时期的特点，是存在一系列地球系统的边界。如今，科学界已经达成 共识：如果人类文明想要繁荣发展，我们就必须保持在一个安全的空间内，同时保障一系列社会需求和 人权。
所以，要做到这一点，重要的不仅是通过新技术实现劳动的社会化，还要合理地组织劳动。这正是马克 思主义的伟大贡献：它认识到，资本主义既有矛盾性，也有进步性。然而，这种生产方式归根结底无法 满足人类和社会的根本需要。为此，我们需要实现转变——不仅要发展生产力，还要转向不同的生产关 系，而这种生产关系的特点，就是对人与自然的关系有更加理性、更加科学的认识。
#Pascal
那么，格拉齐亚诺，要走出生态危机、生活成本危机、生产危机，还有我们眼下看到的战争所体现的暴 力危机，出路究竟在哪里？什么样的生产方式能够从根源上解决这些问题，让局面得到改善？
#Graziano Ceddia
蒂莫，你为什么问我能不能提出解决办法？
#Pascal
顺便说一下，你有六七分钟的时间。
#Graziano Ceddia
不是，不过我觉得雅各布已经提到这一点了。资本主义有进步的一面，而且我认为，它在发展生产力和 技术方面取得了很大的成就。比如说，想想心脏直视手术，还有医学的进步，这只是随便举个例子，对 吧？所以我觉得，这些成就确实非常了不起。 但这种发展又充满了矛盾，因为这些重大的社会进步， 体现的正是雅各布所说的劳动日益社会化。今天，你看看自己的手机，或者吃的早餐，实际上都凝聚了 世界各地成百上千人的劳动，而两百年前可能还不是这样。所以，劳动经历了一个大规模的社会化过 程。技术也发展了。
但这种发展只围绕着一个极其有限的目标，那就是让全世界几十个人攫取和积累利润。也就是说，如此 宏大的发展，追求的却是一个极其、极其有限的目标。我认为，这就是根本矛盾。 另一个重要矛盾是，在生产单位内部，资本对劳动实行完全的独裁控制。所以，作为工人，你不能选择做什么，只能听 命行事。可是，一旦进入商品交换领域，一切又完全处于无政府状态。这就是市场的无政府状态。因 此，实际上，即使你想根据社会的需要，有计划地决定生产什么，也做不到。
但你反而只追求一个非常狭隘的目标，那就是积累利润。所以，如果生产伟哥，或者为生活在全球北方 的富裕中年白人生产任何一种商品，能赚到更多钱，你就会把钱投到这些东西上，而不是去生产疟疾疫 苗。疟疾主要影响的是全球南方的人，而他们买不起这些疫苗。 所以你看，你明明有能力利用生产 力，开发出能改善几十亿人生活质量的东西，但你追求的，或者说，仍然只是一个非常狭隘的目标，那 就是积累利润。这也反映出资本实际上是多么不民主，因为我们谁都无权决定应该生产什么。
这个决定是由少数几个实际上掌控着投资的人做出的，而他们的利益，不一定和整个社会的利益一致。 所以，回到你的问题，我认为，解决办法就是建立一种生产模式，越来越多地朝着有计划的方向发展， 由大家以民主的方式共同做决定。也就是说，我们要实现经济民主：要生产什么、怎么生产，都由大家 民主决定。你可以把这叫作计划，或者，我也不知道，你想叫什么都行，这不重要。有人会说：“哦， 可这不就是，你知道，社会主义吗？”那么，你看，企业本来就在大量运用计划。你觉得，像谷歌或者 Meta这样的大公司，会不做计划吗？
我是说，他们当然是有计划的，对吧？只不过，企业外部的市场是一种无序状态。企业内部是有规划 的，你知道，而外部则是市场，基本上处于无序状态。所以我认为，一方面，解决办法确实是朝着扩大 经济民主的方向发展。另一方面，我觉得很重要的一点是，让住房、医疗和教育这些生活必需的东西去 商品化。这些不应该是商品，而应该为了整个社会的利益得到切实提供。从这个意义上说，这并不意味 着市场不应该存在。当然，市场还是会有，企业也还是会有，但一些基本生活需求必须得到保障，因为 我们有能力做到这一点。
这么做根本无利可图。这就是那个重大的矛盾。所以，我认为，我们需要更多地运用规划，来满足社会 的需求。我们不能完全依赖市场的无序和活力，指望它能以某种方式满足人们的需求。而且我们知道， 它做不到，因为我们看到了气候变化，看到了生物多样性的丧失，也看到了不平等加剧。显然，一个没 有规划的体系是行不通的。 最后我想说，我们过去是有规划的，至少在意大利是这样。当时它叫产业 政策。我的意思是，我们以前确实有。所谓产业政策，不就是国家对本国关键工业部门进行规划的一种 方式吗？即使在资本主义体系内部，我想说，我们也有这样的做法。所以，是的。
#Pascal
马尔科，你想补充点什么吗？谢谢。
#Jacopo Bergamo
是的，你知道，我完全同意格拉齐亚诺的看法，这就是那个比较长的回答。我们 Crisis 所做的一点小小 贡献，就是认识到，解决办法是政治性的。但要想有机会以科学的方式，把政治引入科学讨论，我们首 先得能够自由地讨论。 在我看来，学术界眼下正在经历某种马克思复兴。至少，相比二十一世纪头十 年，情况正在发生一些变化。那时候，你已经不能再谈马克思、资本主义、计划经济、社会主义，以及 诸如此类的话题了。 我们正试着以科学的、跨学科的方式来讨论这些问题。因为，当然，马克思本身 也并不局限于某一个学科，尽管有些人想把他仅仅当作哲学思想领域内的讨论对象。
马克思主义是一种理解现实的方式。它有自己的本体论和认识论，所以可以运用到各种不同的学科中， 从科学、技术、工程和数学，到社会科学。这也正是我们正在努力做的：搭建一个空间，让人们能够自 由地讨论不同的话题，也能运用马克思的范畴、马克思理解世界的方式来展开讨论。这就是我们小小的贡献，也是学术界以及像 Crisis 这样的国际科学学会所作的贡献。 那么，一般来说，马克思主义者会 说，我们不是在为未来开药方，因为变革已经存在于现实之中，因为共产主义就是消灭现存状况的现实 运动。
当然，我们现在看到的情况，和十九世纪、二十世纪发生的事情并不相同。但我认为，我们也必须认识 到，在这个十分危险、令人担忧的时代，另一种选择正在形成。全球北方和全球南方之间，正在形成一 种新的力量平衡。这一点非常重要。 然而，新的尚未诞生，旧的尚未消亡，所以，生活在这个时代十 分危险，却也很有意思。我们必须为和平、为生态转型、为社会正义，尽自己的一份绵薄之力。我们正 在努力这样做，首先就是搭建一个空间，让大家能够更自由地讨论问题。
#Pascal
最后一个问题，想问问格拉齐亚诺。你知道，每一种社会经济制度，都是建立在几个非常基本的前提之 上的，对吧？而现代资本主义的基本前提之一，当然就是货币的集中控制。所以，我钱包里的钱，其实 就是一张纸。我完全可以把它放进复印机，想印多少张就印多少张。但如果我真这么干了，就得坐很 多、很多、很多、很多年的牢。很多年。这一点大家都明白，对吧？货币的权力是集中掌握的。如果你 能改变当前社会经济制度安排中的一件事，让我们更接近你认为我们需要达到的状态，你会改变什么？
#Graziano Ceddia
嗯，我认为，货币的运作方式，是马克思主义者所说的社会生产关系存在的结果。所以，它本身就是一 种表征。从这个意义上说，当然，已经有很多书探讨过如何改变货币制度。我的意思是，我相信你的听 众都知道，货币供应的大部分其实根本不由中央银行控制，而是有百分之九十五到百分之九十七掌握在 发放信贷的私人银行手里。所以，银行发放贷款时，实际上就是在凭空创造货币。不过，从某种意义上 说，这套制度确实发挥着一个作用，那就是推动资本积累的过程，否则这个过程就会停滞下来。所以， 确实有很多书研究过如何改变货币制度。比如，欧文·费雪的《100% Money》，就是在一九二九年危机 之后写的。那场危机让他损失了大部分财产。在那之前，他对货币的看法还不一样。
还有一本很棒的书，是迈克尔·罗博瑟姆写的，叫 The Grip of Death。它说的是“抵押贷款”这个词，也就 是 mortgage，意思是，如果你还不上债，就得拿命来抵。所以，关于这些问题，已经有很多著述了。 英国有个组织，网站是 positivemoney.co.uk，主张货币改革。但这些恰恰都是为未来的厨房开出的食 谱。如果愿意，我们每个人都能列出一份清单，说说货币领域有哪些地方需要改进。但关键在于，货币 的运作方式本身，只是一个更大体系中的组成部分，而这个体系的核心，是占主导地位的社会生产关 系。所以，我当然希望有一种不同的货币，不与债务挂钩，因为债务本身实际上就在推动人们追求积累。
因为如果你举债，又必须连本带息偿还，那利息从哪里来？你就得扩大经济规模。所以，一个百分之九 十七都以债务为基础的货币体系，会给整个宏观经济带来一股强大的扩张动力。但也可以说，这种体系 是生产关系的必然产物，是这些关系造成的结果，而且，要让整个体系持续运转，它又是必不可少的。 这也可以说是一种自催化结构，也就是同一个事物既是原因，又是结果。所以，我希望我们能有一个不 同的货币体系，但我认为，根本还是在于改变生产关系。而我会说，那是另一种性质的工作。
#Pascal
我知道，我们必须继续推进这项工作，你们的组织也会继续做下去。那么，如果大家想找到你们、关注 你们，或者参加你们下一次的会议，应该去哪里呢？
#Graziano Ceddia
那么，下一届会议将于二〇二七年十一月在威尼斯举行。我们会陆续公布更多相关信息。我们有一个网 站，网址是 www.iscrisis.org，你也可以直接用谷歌搜索我们，找到我们。我们在领英上也有主页，所以 欢迎大家注册、关注我们，并与我们联系。你也可以通过电子邮箱 info@crisis.org 联系我们。
#Pascal
我会把你们的组织和相关工作的链接放在下方的简介栏里。在你们下一次会议之前，我们一定会再聊一 次，帮忙宣传一下。格拉齐亚诺·切迪亚、贾科莫·贝加莫，非常感谢你们今天抽出时间。
#Graziano Ceddia
非常感谢。非常感谢。再见。<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Researchers Show: West Is Collapsing FASTER Than Expected | G. Ceddia & J. Bergamo
The collapse of the West is first and foremost due to the failure of its economic system. Unfeathered capitalism is leading to liberalism's predictable self-canibalization. Graziano Ceddia and Jacopo Bergamo join Pascal to explore the connections between capitalism, ecological destruction and Europe’s growing social unrest. Drawing on Marxian analysis, they discuss protests, inequality, imperialism and the limits of green investment. The conversation considers China’s development, competing forms of ownership and the resilience of capitalism. Ceddia and Bergamo argue for economic democracy and public provision of essential services, while Lottaz presses them on practical alternatives, monetary reform and the possibilities for social and ecological change. Graziano and Jacopo's Links: Their work in Monthly Review: https://monthlyreview.org/article-author /jacopo-nicola-bergamo/ Neutrality Studies Links: Neutrality Studies Substack: https://pascallottaz. substack.com Support Neutrality Studies: https://neutralitystudies.com/donate Neutrality Studies shop: https://neutralitystudies.com/shop Time Stamps 00:00 Europe’s protests and social unrest 07: 56 Graziano on the roots of discontent 12:29 CRISES: connecting society and ecology 16:09 Capitalism, imperialism and the climate 27:05 China and competing economic models 31:23 Can green investment fix capitalism? 41:35 Economic democracy and essential services 52:17 Money, debt and changing social relations
#Pascal
Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies. Today, for the first time, I’m joined by two European colleagues, Dr. Graziano Ceddia and Dr. Jacopo Bergamo, two researchers affiliated with the International Society for Critical Social-Ecological Studies, CRISES for short. They work at the intersection of ecology and Marxism. Graziano, Jacopo, welcome.
#Graziano Ceddia
Thank you. Thank you, Pascal. It's really a pleasure to be here with you.
#Pascal
It's wonderful having you both. And you're super interesting because you're working on, basically, Marxism and ecology. And we will talk about that in a second. But knowing that both of you are in
Europe, I think, Jacopo, let's start with you. You're in Spain. We just have to talk a little bit about all of the upheaval that's going on right now, all of the protests. What are you observing? What are you witnessing? And what is the situation like there right now?
#Jacopo Bergamo
Well, I think that what started in France is now spreading, along with a new style of mobilization that also includes second-generation migrants. It is characterized not by a high level of politicization, but by a high level of radicalism. And I suspect that this is because of the disintermediation of society. As we know, in general, here in Europe, left-wing organizations, trade unions, and parties are not living through their best moments.
However, the rage is high because of living conditions. Here, too, at the center of global capitalism, societies are at a difficult stage because capital accumulation, as Marx taught us, always undermines the two sources of wealth: nature and workers. And this is exactly what is happening, in the sense that living conditions are constantly declining, the cost of living is increasing, and war is a great threat to our living conditions and to living in peace. It also entails huge costs. There will be cuts in budget spending across all states.
And here I am in Spain, where there is a special situation because, as maybe most of our listeners know, Spain probably has the last center-left government in Europe. Despite some shortcomings in its ability to organize an alternative to the status quo, it has made some important advances, also symbolically, in recognizing Palestine, opposing Netanyahu’s policies, and denouncing genocide in Palestine, in Gaza. It has also firmly opposed the increase in military spending to 5% that the U.S. is asking for. And now Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister, has resigned because of the huge demonstrations over living conditions, because housing prices are skyrocketing. And there was a particular incident involving the eviction of Marie Carmen, an 87-year-old lady who was evicted by a so-called “fondo buitre,” a vulture fund, owned by…
#Graziano Ceddia
A vulture fund. This is a speculative fund.
#Jacopo Bergamo
Exactly. And that led to a huge mobilization in the style of the Indignados movement in 2011. There are gatherings in squares all over the country. And here, in comparison with France, the demonstrations are generally very peaceful. So Pedro Sánchez, the leader of PSOE and the current prime minister, decided to seize this window of opportunity and bring forward the election here in Spain. There is an opportunity to resist the rise of the right wing and the neo-fascists, because it is much more favorable to discuss social issues like housing prices instead of the previous topic, the so- called migrant invasion from Ceuta. So the election will be on the 29th of November. However, we
have already seen provocations from the right wing in Bilbao, and we are also starting to see confrontations with the police in Barcelona. That is not favorable ground for the left to try to win the election. Let's see what happens, but what is happening in Spain right now is relevant for all of Europe.
#Pascal
Graziano, just your two cents on the protests that we are seeing. They're really spreading from France to all sorts of places at the moment. Where do you see this discontent rooted? And as Gioppo said, part and parcel of it is, of course, the entire economic situation, which is just getting worse and worse in Europe. Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. See you there.
#Graziano Ceddia
Yeah, thank you so much. I would just like to make an introductory remark: here, I'm speaking on behalf of the association rather than in a personal capacity. And to pick up on what Jacopo said, I can maybe comment a little bit on what is happening in Italy. Actually, this would also tie in nicely with the work of the Scientific Association Crisis. In Italy, there have been major demonstrations, for example, in the south, with blockades set up by logistics workers and farmers. And the reason for these blockades, which disrupted logistics as a whole and also the delivery of gasoline, for example, was, of course, the rise in the price of diesel, which massively affects both farmers and logistics workers.
So here you really see how, if you want, events that may be shaped at a more global level resonate strongly with what's happening in Italy. And I want to say that what you saw in the media was just the smashing of some windows at a Gucci shop in Milan. But this was really, I would say, the least important part of the protests, which have effectively blocked the south of Italy. There were shortages of fresh fruit, vegetables, milk, and other fresh products in supermarkets in big cities in the south. And this was seldom spoken of in the media.
So I would say that the issues Jacopo mentioned—the cost of living and quality of life—were really at the center of these protests. And it's symptomatic that both logistics workers and farmers were the key initiators of these protests. Because I would say agriculture suffers not only from the rise in the price of diesel, of course, but also from extreme heat and extreme weather events, which we experienced over the summer. So you see how, even if you think about the price of diesel and oil, this already brings in the issue of climate change. So you have, on the one hand, the rise in the cost of living, which affects certain people disproportionately while benefiting other people disproportionately.
So multinational corporations that sell oil or maybe grains, of course, benefit greatly from the increase in prices, and they make extra profits in both the oil sector and the food sector. But normal people, you know, cannot afford to live at the same time. And I would say the same is true for climate change. Climate change is very beneficial and very profitable for some people, but, you know, it really impacts the lives of many other people. So both ecological and social questions are really at the core of the sort of protests that we are seeing.
And I would just like to conclude, maybe, that, you know, what people are demanding is certainly security, but they want security in the sense of being able to live a decent life. Okay, so they want to be protected from climate change. They want to be protected from the difficulties of old age, you know, having the possibility to rely on a healthcare system that works well. They want their children to be able to go to public schools that are not falling to pieces. So these are, I would say, the demands of people that fuel these protests and that really have their origins in the ecological and social questions that are now strongly interlinked. And this is where, I would say, Crisis comes in. It's an association.
#Pascal
Yeah, let's talk about that a bit more now. So you founded this organization, the International Society of Critical Social Ecological Studies, with a wonderful acronym, CRISIS. What is your work about, and how are you approaching this socio-ecological question?
#Jacopo Bergamo
Or how should it be approached?
#Graziano Ceddia
Yeah, maybe I'll just say a few words then, Jakob, if I can. Well, the acronym, you know, was not easy to find, but eventually we stumbled upon it. I would say that we're witnessing multiple crises: the ecological crisis in terms of climate change and biodiversity loss, and the extreme levels of inequality that Oxfam reminds us of every year.
I mean, you don't have to go to Oxfam. Just look at the data from the World Bank, and you will realize that half of the world population lives on less than $10 per day in purchasing power parity. And this is not much, you know? Try to live on $10 per day, to pay for accommodation, the bills, the food, you know, everything. It's impossible. So obviously, you know, there is a problem here. And we've heard the term “polycrisis” a lot, okay? In itself, it's not bad. It just refers to the fact that there are multiple crises. But what this term is missing is that possibly there is a single structural driver of all these crises, both ecological and social.
And Marxian analysis is really powerful because it can really unveil the deep structural driver of these crises. To be honest, I have to say that recently there have been some important contributions. For example, if you read the 2024 report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, IPBES, it openly talks about root causes and the necessity to transform our global economic system. Similarly, the sixth assessment report of the IPCC, perhaps in a more watered-down way, starts to hint at the presence of structural drivers. But I would say that, in general, the scientific community has not been willing or able to really delve into and unveil those structural drivers.
And Marxian analysis really has this tremendous capacity to make visible the contradictions of the process of capital accumulation. And there is this line that Jacopo already mentioned: how, in the process of capital accumulation, what you experience is the destruction of the sources of value, which are nature, labor, and humans. So both the social and the ecological aspects, which are the sources of our wealth and well-being. And so Crisis, as a scientific association, really wants to provide a space where this debate can be broadened and developed scientifically through the organization of conferences, providing spaces and opportunities for collaboration among scholars in the north, south, east, and west of the world around these issues. Maybe Jacopo feels like…
#Pascal
Let me just throw in a question there, because, you know, we've had a lot of conferences over the last 10, 15 years about first the Millennium Development Goals and then the Sustainable Development Goals. And the word sustainability is so popular that even hedge funds and investment banks write it into their charters and whatnot. However, as you say, Graziano, I usually don't see people really digging into the root causes, the economic root causes of the disasters or the crises that we are seeing. So, Jacopo, what is the reason for that? And what does Marxist analysis actually identify as the root cause of these problems?
#Jacopo Bergamo
Well, as Graziano said, the NTV community recognizes this multiplicity of crises, and some people have already started to think that they may have a common driver linked to capital accumulation. However, our analysis has to be more concrete, not so abstract. And so it's not just capital accumulation, but capitalism entering a specific stage, that of imperialism. And imperialism is not just that. We know that capitalism is a social logic, a social relation that operates independently of people's will.
However, these kinds of analyses are somehow too abstract, in the sense that somebody in charge represents the interests of capital, and reality is characterized by complexity. As we've shown before, social and ecological crises are interlinked. But at the same time, what is happening around the world is a sort of simplification, in the sense that a part of the world—the Western world—is
dominated by the US. Despite the fact that, yes, multinationals embrace the concept of sustainability, Western capital, US capital, is linking its destiny to petrodollars. And that means that, despite the rhetoric, it's no longer 2000 or 2010. The US is no longer willing to at least attempt a green capitalist revolution. Right now, more and more, Western capitalism is linked with oil and with the weapons industry, the war industry.
And that's a particularly dangerous stage. However, in a very contradictory manner, there's an attempt by the Global South to democratize international institutions and rebalance relations between the Global North and the Global South. And specifically, China is moving toward renewable energy, in part as a strategic move. That's important for its energy security at the national level, but it's also important for the rest of the world because China is producing cheap renewable energy and creating the conditions for this energy transition in the rest of the world. Well, so we have to face all this complexity as it actually develops. And our small scientific contribution is in a world that is splitting more and more and is...
#Jacopo Bergamo
Somehow, there is someone pushing for a new Cold War. Our goal is to build bridges within the scientific community and increase exchanges between East and West, North and South. We did this with a congress in Venice at the UAB in 2025, “Marx in the Anthropocene.” It was a success, with 300 scholars involved, including people from the Global North and the Global South. And we will repeat this next year in Venice, in 2027. So stay tuned, follow us, because there will be interesting news from our side very soon.
#Graziano Ceddia
Maybe I would just like to throw in something on sustainability, which, frankly, doesn't mean anything anymore. If it ever meant something, I don't know, but it has completely lost its meaning. So it just became a way to greenwash and green-coat and open new spaces of accumulation. But as Jacopo pointed out, those days are effectively gone, in the sense that capital is encountering objective and material barriers to the process of accumulation, particularly in the center, where the modus operandi was one of financialization. And ultimately, I think capital is interested only—and this is where theoretical analysis is important—in exchange value. Use value is just something that carries the exchange value.
So this is the source of financialization, but countries in the Global South have somehow started to be in a position where they could pursue, to some extent, independent economic development— independent in the sense of serving their own interests. And this represents an important barrier to financial accumulation in the center. And at this point, of course, you know, sustainability becomes totally irrelevant because capital in the center is fighting tooth and nail, effectively, to reopen spaces of accumulation. And if this means dismantling the whole sustainability agenda and refocusing on the oil sector, on the coal sector, you know, it doesn't matter. So the problem is really a crisis of
accumulation in the center, which in part has been triggered by the emergence of countries in the Global South that are starting to pursue sort of autonomous and self-centered forms of development.
#Pascal
Can you explain that? I don't know which of you is better placed to answer, but why is the concept of capital accumulation so important for understanding the development of the modern capitalist economy?
#Graziano Ceddia
No, I can have a go, and then Jacopo can chip in. Well, capital is not a thing. This is the first thing to understand. Capital is a process. Capital is self-valorizing value. So capital accumulation is actually capital, and there is no capital without capital accumulation. And since we live in a capitalist global economy, this means that the objective of this economy is to keep accumulating capital in the form of profit. And the satisfaction of human needs is just incidental to this whole process. But the perpetual accumulation of capital encounters, I would say, physical barriers, as we see, for example, with the laws of thermodynamics, climate change, and biodiversity loss. So this is an important element.
At the same time, capital accumulation does not occur, I would say, homogeneously across the world. The capitalist world is divided into a core, or a center, and a periphery. And so the way capital accumulation proceeds in the core is not the same as the way it proceeds in the periphery. And by the periphery, I would refer mainly to what used to be, I would say, the Global South. So the point is that countries in the Global South are not non-capitalist. They are fully integrated into capitalism. It's just that the way capitalism develops in these countries is through what we call underdevelopment. And so, I don't know, maybe Jacopo wants to interject here and add something on capital accumulation.
#Jacopo Bergamo
Yes, I totally agree with Graziano in the sense that, as he said, capitalism is a social logic of accumulation characterized by a continuous exchange between money and commodities. And the point is that money is the only way to compare things within capitalist logic, so the only change can be quantitative, not qualitative. And so increasing capital is the whole social logic that structures human activities worldwide. This social relation, which is characteristic of the capitalist mode of production, coexists with other modes of production, but it is the hegemonic and dominant one worldwide.
There were other attempts to build a new logic, that of a socialist way of organizing society, characterized by a planned economy. There is no recipe for such an attempt, and many of those attempts were unsuccessful. But since the ’80s, we have been seeing new experiments in what is
incorrectly characterized as a sort of mixed economy. The point is: in this coexistence of different modes of production, which one is the dominant one?
Well, we see that there are countries as big as continents, like China, that are using capital. They have capitalists in their own country, but the difference is that, in China, you will not change the party, but you change the policies, and the policies have changed a lot. We are seeing how they let global capitalists penetrate their social organization, and they use them to fulfill their goal of development. But in doing this, they are creating enough economic mass that other countries that want to emancipate themselves from the economic policies of the Global North now have another pole for their economies to turn to. This is characterized by what they define as a win-win style of cooperation and agreements. That means the alternative to capitalism is grounding itself more in material conditions than in, how can I say, a sort of realistic behavior. And that's important. It probably is not exactly the same as what happened during the 20th century. It's something very different, but I think that there's a much more concrete alternative to a system organized just through capitalist accumulation right now.
#Pascal
May I ask a question here that's quite dear to me? Is the capitalist mode of production—and, with it, ecology itself—doomed to fail, or have we just not found the right fine-tuning yet? Let me give you an example. I have a good friend, and she's a very sincere person. She works for an investment bank and manages a fund. She told me that she's very convinced that capitalism overall is not the problem. The problem is the societal goals and values of the current system. She gave me this example, saying, “Look, right now, sustainability is a big buzzword, and actually, this is a good thing.” As a fund manager, she can now include companies and corporations in her fund that officially have sustainability goals in their portfolios and that actually, you know, do—or at least claim to do—things that are good for the ecology and good for nature and so on, or try to reduce the negative impact they have.
And she can choose those over companies that don't care, or big oil companies and so on that are very polluting. And therefore, that fund will create more capital, right? Because that's the whole point of it. And pension funds and so on can invest in it. So, through a feedback loop, you can strengthen the move towards more ecological financing. I think she's very sincere when she makes that argument. And she would then say that, no, no, the problem is the fine-tuning and the values of society, not the capitalist mode of production. How would you answer that? Maybe Graziano first?
#Graziano Ceddia
Yeah, sure. So I think it's important to say that, first of all, you know, capital and capitalism have had—and sometimes still have—a progressive side. Marx clearly says the purpose of capitalism is to develop the forces of production, what we effectively call the productivity of labor. Without the development of these forces of production, a transition to a different social formation, a different
mode of production, would not be possible. So I would say one should not completely dismiss what capitalist development has achieved. But capitalism is a historical phenomenon, just as feudalism was, just as ancient Roman society was.
And so I think it had an ascending phase, but now we are really going into a descending phase of capitalism, which is more and more disruptive. And, of course, your friend, you know, talks about the possibilities of making investments that may appear ecologically beneficial. But when you look at the big picture, you know, you will find that behind even the most benign interventions at the local level, you have a global process of decay, of ecological destruction, of social destruction, which is actually accelerating. And when your friend says that the problem is the values of society, here I think Marxian analysis is very important, because where do these values actually come from?
You know, they do not arise spontaneously in people's heads. One of the earliest books Marx wrote with Engels is The German Ideology, and he was really criticizing these German idealists. Now, I cannot quote the exact line, but he says, you know, it's not ideas that effectively produce people's material behavior, if you want. It's the other way around. You know, before thinking, a man must eat, okay? And a man who doesn't eat cannot think. So it's actually from the mode of production that what is called the superstructure also emerges, if you want, which includes ideologies but also institutions, right? So where do these social values actually come from?
These are effectively expressions of the capitalist mode of production itself. And I don't question how genuine your colleague is, and I'm sure she intends to do great things. But at the global level, the macro picture, in spite of all these great sustainable initiatives, is one of constant deterioration. I would say it's accelerating. Climate change is accelerating. Biodiversity loss is accelerating. If you look at inequality, you know—sorry, we are on the brink of major armed conflicts. And so we see an acceleration of the contradictions on all sides, in spite of all these interventions, which may be genuine. And the bottom line is always who makes more profit.
So this is again the thing, you know: your colleague may have a very gentle soul, but if somebody else comes in and makes more money than she does, you know, she will cease to act in the interest of that specific capital. And the situation we are in now is actually one of regression, I would say, and of rolling back, you know, social protection and environmental protection. I mean, look at what's happening in the United States, but it's not just in the United States. So we are seeing attacks everywhere on the welfare state and on environmental protection at the global level.
#Pascal
So those attacks on ecology and society, Jacopo, are intrinsic to the system in that case, in your analysis, right?
#Jacopo Bergamo
Yeah, absolutely. I also totally agree with Graziano. However, scholars who use Marx's thought have to be aware of the fact that there's this tendency among Marxists to declare that this time capitalism is really ending. And the capitalist mode of production has already demonstrated several times that it is a very resilient system because it's characterized by the constant revolution of the productive forces. And that's what we are seeing right now: the new promise of capitalism to relaunch accumulation worldwide through AI, data centers, and so on. So what I would say about this is that another contradiction that characterizes capitalism is the constant socialization of labor and the privatization of profits.
That means concentration and centralization of power in fewer and fewer hands. And that's a very important contradiction we have to be aware of. And that means that this constant socialization of labor, in reality, implies a much more planned economy. And when I say planned economy, I'm not just referring to the control of prices, but to the self-organization of our metabolism with the rest of nature. We are living on a planet, and we prospered in a geological epoch, the Holocene, characterized by a series of planetary boundaries. And the scientific community now agrees that if civilization wants to prosper, we have to stay in a safe space while, at the same time, guaranteeing a series of social needs and human rights.
So to do that, it's important not just to socialize labor through new technology, but also to organize it rationally. And that's the great contribution of Marxism, in the sense that capitalism has a contradictory nature, but also a progressive one. However, it is a mode of production that ultimately cannot do what is necessary for human beings and society. That requires a transition—not just the improvement of productive forces, but also a transition to different relations of production, characterized by a much more rational and scientific understanding of the relationship between human beings and nature.
#Pascal
So, Graziano, what is the solution here to get out of the ecological crisis, the cost-of-living crisis, the production crisis, and the crisis of violence, with the wars that we are seeing? What kind of mode of production would improve the situation by addressing its root causes?
#Graziano Ceddia
Why do you ask me, Timo, if I can provide a solution?
#Pascal
You have six or seven minutes, by the way.
#Graziano Ceddia
No, but I think Jacopo already hinted at it. Capitalism has a progressive side and, I think, has achieved great things in terms of the development of productive forces and technology. I mean, think of open-heart surgery and improvements in medical science, just to mention something, you know? So I think this is absolutely remarkable. But then it is a contradictory development, because these great social developments reflect what Jacopo referred to as the increasing socialization of labor. So today, if you look at your mobile phone or the breakfast you have, it effectively involves the work of hundreds, thousands of people from all over the world—something which maybe was not the case 200 years ago. So labor has gone through a great process of socialization. Technology has developed.
But it's a development which is focused on a very limited objective, which is simply the appropriation and accumulation of profits by a few dozen people in the world. So this majestic development is pursued with a very, very limited goal in mind, and this is, I think, the fundamental contradiction. Another important contradiction is that within the production unit, we have the total dictatorial control of capital over labor. So when you are a worker, you don't choose what to do. You do as you're told. But then, when you go into the realm of commodity exchange, it's completely anarchic. It's the anarchy of the market. And so, effectively, you cannot plan and decide to produce what is necessary for society, if you want.
But instead, you just pursue this very limited goal of accumulating profit. So if it is more profitable to produce Viagra or any kind of commodity for middle-aged, white, wealthy people living in the Global North, you're going to invest in that instead of producing vaccines for malaria, which affects mainly people in the Global South who cannot afford these vaccines. So you see, you have the ability to use the productive forces to develop something to improve the quality of life of billions of people, but instead you pursue, if you want, a very limited goal, which is the accumulation of profit. And this also reflects how undemocratic capital actually is, because none of us has control over deciding what should be produced.
This decision is made by a handful of people who effectively control investment, and their interests do not necessarily align with the interests of society at large. And this is why I think, to answer your question, the solution would be to arrive at a model of production that goes more and more in the direction of planning, you know, and deciding together, democratically. So we want to have economic democracy: democracy in deciding what has to be produced and how it has to be produced. And you can call it planning or, I don't know, you can call it whatever you want. It doesn't matter. And when people say, “Oh, but this is, you know, socialist,” well, look, planning is heavily used by corporations. Do you think that giant corporations like Google or Meta don't do planning?
I mean, of course they do plan, okay? It's just that anarchy reigns in the market outside. There's planning, you know, within the corporation, and outside there's the market, which is largely anarchy. So I think the solution is really to move towards forms of increased economic democracy, on the one hand. And on the other hand, I think it's important to decommodify some essential things for living, like housing, health care, and education. These should not be commodities. These should be
effectively provided in the interest of the community. And in that sense, it doesn't mean markets shouldn't exist. Of course, you're going to have markets, you're going to have companies, but some basics must be guaranteed because we have the means to do it.
It's just not profitable to do it. And this is the big, you know, contradiction. And then we need to engage more in, I would say, planning in order to meet society's needs. We cannot rely exclusively on the anarchy and the vibrancy of markets and expect that somehow it's going to satisfy the needs of people. And we know it's not, because we see climate change, we see biodiversity loss, we see inequality rising. Obviously, you know, an unplanned system is not working. And here I'll conclude. We used to have planning, at least in Italy. It was called industrial policy. I mean, we used to have it. What is an industrial policy if not effectively a way in which a state would plan in key industrial sectors of the country? We have this, you know, even within, I would say, a capitalist system. So, yeah.
#Pascal
Marco, do you want to add something? Thanks.
#Jacopo Bergamo
Yes, you know, I totally agree with what Graziano said, and that's the long answer. Our small contribution as Crisis is to recognize that the solution is a political one. But to have the opportunity to bring politics into scientific debates in a scientific way, we first of all have to be able to talk freely. What is happening right now is, in my opinion, a sort of Marx renaissance in academia. At least something is changing compared with the 2000s, when you could no longer talk about Marx, capitalism, a planned economy, socialism, and whatever else. We are trying to discuss these things scientifically, in an interdisciplinary manner, because, of course, Marx, too, is not confined to one discipline, despite the fact that some people want to make him a subject of discussion only within philosophical thought.
Marxism is a way of understanding reality. It has its own ontology and epistemology, and so you can use it in very different disciplines, from STEM to social science. And that's what we are trying to do: to build a space where people can freely talk about different topics, also using Marx's categories, Marx's way of understanding. And that's our small contribution, and the contribution from academia and from an international scientific society such as Crisis. Then, in general, Marxists would say that we are not cooking up recipes for the future, because the change is already there in reality, because communism is the real movement that abolishes the status quo.
And despite the fact that, of course, what we are seeing is not the same as what happened in the 19th and 20th centuries, I think we also have to recognize that, in these very dangerous and concerning times, there is an alternative developing. There is a new balance of forces between the Global North and the Global South. That is something very relevant. However, because the new is
not yet born and the old is not yet dead, this is a very dangerous time to live in, but also an interesting one. And we have to make our small contribution to peace, to the ecological transition, and to social justice. We are trying to do that by first building a space where we can discuss things more freely.
#Pascal
One last question to Graziano. You know how every socioeconomic system is built around a few very fundamental premises, right? And one of the fundamental premises of modern capitalism is, of course, the centralization of money. That's why the money I have in my wallet is just a piece of paper. I could put that on a copying machine and make as many copies as I want. But if I do that, I will go to prison for many, many, many, many years. Many years. And everybody understands that, right? The power of money is centralized. If you could change one thing in the current, you know, setup of the socioeconomic system, what would it be in order to get closer to the state that you think we need to achieve?
#Graziano Ceddia
Well, I think the way money works is the result of the existence of what Marxians call the social relations of production. So it's a symptom in itself. In that sense, of course, there are many books that have been written about changing the monetary system. I mean, I'm sure your listeners know that most of the money supply is actually not even controlled by the central bank, but 95% to 97% is in the hands of private banks when they give credit. So when they issue a loan, effectively, they're issuing money out of thin air. But in a sense, this system effectively serves a function, which is to facilitate the process of capital accumulation, which otherwise would grind to a halt. So there are many books that have really looked at changing the monetary system—you know, “100% Money” by Irving Fisher, written after the 1929 crisis, when he lost most of his money. Before that, he held different views on money.
Or another great book by, you know, Michael Rowbotham, which is called The Grip of Death. It refers to the word “mortgage,” where, if you didn't pay your debt, you would forfeit your life. And so a lot has been written. There is the association in the UK, positivemoney.co.uk, that calls for monetary reform. But these are exactly the recipes for the cookshops of the future. And we can all come up with a list of things that need to be improved in the money sector, if you want. But the point is that the way in which money works is itself just an element of a broader system whose core is the prevailing social relations of production. So, of course, I would want a different type of money that is not related to debt, which in itself effectively drives the pursuit of accumulation.
Because if you issue a debt and you have to repay it with interest, where is the interest going to come from? You need to expand the economy. So the fact of having a monetary system which is 97% based on debt imparts a strong expansionary drive to the whole macroeconomy. But this system is a necessity, if you want, of the social relations of production—a consequence of that—and
it's necessary for the system to keep working. And this is, if you want, an autocatalytic configuration, where something is a cause and an effect at the same time. And so I wish that we had a different monetary system, but I think the source is really in changing the social relations of production. And that is a different kind of work, I would say.
#Pascal
I know that we have to continue that work, and your organization will continue it. So if people want to find you, follow you, or join your next conference, where should they go?
#Graziano Ceddia
Well, the next conference is going to be in Venice in November 2027. We're going to share more information about that. We have a website, www.iscrisis.org, and you can just Google us and find us. We also have a page on LinkedIn, so please, you know, sign up, follow us, and contact us. There is also an email address, info@crisis.org, where you can reach us.
#Pascal
I will put the links to your organization and your work in the description box below. We will talk again before your next conference, for sure, to publicize it. Graziano Ceddia and Giacomo Bergamo, thank you so much for your time today.
#Graziano Ceddia
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Bye.
#Pascal
Welcome back, everybody, to Neutrality Studies. Today, for the first time, I’m joined by two European colleagues, Dr. Graziano Ceddia and Dr. Jacopo Bergamo, two researchers affiliated with the International Society for Critical Social-Ecological Studies, CRISES for short. They work at the intersection of ecology and Marxism. Graziano, Jacopo, welcome.
#Graziano Ceddia
Thank you. Thank you, Pascal. It's really a pleasure to be here with you.
#Pascal
It's wonderful having you both. And you're super interesting because you're working on, basically, Marxism and ecology. And we will talk about that in a second. But knowing that both of you are in
Europe, I think, Jacopo, let's start with you. You're in Spain. We just have to talk a little bit about all of the upheaval that's going on right now, all of the protests. What are you observing? What are you witnessing? And what is the situation like there right now?
#Jacopo Bergamo
Well, I think that what started in France is now spreading, along with a new style of mobilization that also includes second-generation migrants. It is characterized not by a high level of politicization, but by a high level of radicalism. And I suspect that this is because of the disintermediation of society. As we know, in general, here in Europe, left-wing organizations, trade unions, and parties are not living through their best moments.
However, the rage is high because of living conditions. Here, too, at the center of global capitalism, societies are at a difficult stage because capital accumulation, as Marx taught us, always undermines the two sources of wealth: nature and workers. And this is exactly what is happening, in the sense that living conditions are constantly declining, the cost of living is increasing, and war is a great threat to our living conditions and to living in peace. It also entails huge costs. There will be cuts in budget spending across all states.
And here I am in Spain, where there is a special situation because, as maybe most of our listeners know, Spain probably has the last center-left government in Europe. Despite some shortcomings in its ability to organize an alternative to the status quo, it has made some important advances, also symbolically, in recognizing Palestine, opposing Netanyahu’s policies, and denouncing genocide in Palestine, in Gaza. It has also firmly opposed the increase in military spending to 5% that the U.S. is asking for. And now Pedro Sánchez, the prime minister, has resigned because of the huge demonstrations over living conditions, because housing prices are skyrocketing. And there was a particular incident involving the eviction of Marie Carmen, an 87-year-old lady who was evicted by a so-called “fondo buitre,” a vulture fund, owned by…
#Graziano Ceddia
A vulture fund. This is a speculative fund.
#Jacopo Bergamo
Exactly. And that led to a huge mobilization in the style of the Indignados movement in 2011. There are gatherings in squares all over the country. And here, in comparison with France, the demonstrations are generally very peaceful. So Pedro Sánchez, the leader of PSOE and the current prime minister, decided to seize this window of opportunity and bring forward the election here in Spain. There is an opportunity to resist the rise of the right wing and the neo-fascists, because it is much more favorable to discuss social issues like housing prices instead of the previous topic, the so- called migrant invasion from Ceuta. So the election will be on the 29th of November. However, we
have already seen provocations from the right wing in Bilbao, and we are also starting to see confrontations with the police in Barcelona. That is not favorable ground for the left to try to win the election. Let's see what happens, but what is happening in Spain right now is relevant for all of Europe.
#Pascal
Graziano, just your two cents on the protests that we are seeing. They're really spreading from France to all sorts of places at the moment. Where do you see this discontent rooted? And as Gioppo said, part and parcel of it is, of course, the entire economic situation, which is just getting worse and worse in Europe. Hey, just a very quick note. The best way to support this channel is by signing up for my free Substack. You can also help with a paid subscription there, or you can get some of our new merch on neutralitystudies.com. Links below. See you there.
#Graziano Ceddia
Yeah, thank you so much. I would just like to make an introductory remark: here, I'm speaking on behalf of the association rather than in a personal capacity. And to pick up on what Jacopo said, I can maybe comment a little bit on what is happening in Italy. Actually, this would also tie in nicely with the work of the Scientific Association Crisis. In Italy, there have been major demonstrations, for example, in the south, with blockades set up by logistics workers and farmers. And the reason for these blockades, which disrupted logistics as a whole and also the delivery of gasoline, for example, was, of course, the rise in the price of diesel, which massively affects both farmers and logistics workers.
So here you really see how, if you want, events that may be shaped at a more global level resonate strongly with what's happening in Italy. And I want to say that what you saw in the media was just the smashing of some windows at a Gucci shop in Milan. But this was really, I would say, the least important part of the protests, which have effectively blocked the south of Italy. There were shortages of fresh fruit, vegetables, milk, and other fresh products in supermarkets in big cities in the south. And this was seldom spoken of in the media.
So I would say that the issues Jacopo mentioned—the cost of living and quality of life—were really at the center of these protests. And it's symptomatic that both logistics workers and farmers were the key initiators of these protests. Because I would say agriculture suffers not only from the rise in the price of diesel, of course, but also from extreme heat and extreme weather events, which we experienced over the summer. So you see how, even if you think about the price of diesel and oil, this already brings in the issue of climate change. So you have, on the one hand, the rise in the cost of living, which affects certain people disproportionately while benefiting other people disproportionately.
So multinational corporations that sell oil or maybe grains, of course, benefit greatly from the increase in prices, and they make extra profits in both the oil sector and the food sector. But normal people, you know, cannot afford to live at the same time. And I would say the same is true for climate change. Climate change is very beneficial and very profitable for some people, but, you know, it really impacts the lives of many other people. So both ecological and social questions are really at the core of the sort of protests that we are seeing.
And I would just like to conclude, maybe, that, you know, what people are demanding is certainly security, but they want security in the sense of being able to live a decent life. Okay, so they want to be protected from climate change. They want to be protected from the difficulties of old age, you know, having the possibility to rely on a healthcare system that works well. They want their children to be able to go to public schools that are not falling to pieces. So these are, I would say, the demands of people that fuel these protests and that really have their origins in the ecological and social questions that are now strongly interlinked. And this is where, I would say, Crisis comes in. It's an association.
#Pascal
Yeah, let's talk about that a bit more now. So you founded this organization, the International Society of Critical Social Ecological Studies, with a wonderful acronym, CRISIS. What is your work about, and how are you approaching this socio-ecological question?
#Jacopo Bergamo
Or how should it be approached?
#Graziano Ceddia
Yeah, maybe I'll just say a few words then, Jakob, if I can. Well, the acronym, you know, was not easy to find, but eventually we stumbled upon it. I would say that we're witnessing multiple crises: the ecological crisis in terms of climate change and biodiversity loss, and the extreme levels of inequality that Oxfam reminds us of every year.
I mean, you don't have to go to Oxfam. Just look at the data from the World Bank, and you will realize that half of the world population lives on less than $10 per day in purchasing power parity. And this is not much, you know? Try to live on $10 per day, to pay for accommodation, the bills, the food, you know, everything. It's impossible. So obviously, you know, there is a problem here. And we've heard the term “polycrisis” a lot, okay? In itself, it's not bad. It just refers to the fact that there are multiple crises. But what this term is missing is that possibly there is a single structural driver of all these crises, both ecological and social.
And Marxian analysis is really powerful because it can really unveil the deep structural driver of these crises. To be honest, I have to say that recently there have been some important contributions. For example, if you read the 2024 report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, IPBES, it openly talks about root causes and the necessity to transform our global economic system. Similarly, the sixth assessment report of the IPCC, perhaps in a more watered-down way, starts to hint at the presence of structural drivers. But I would say that, in general, the scientific community has not been willing or able to really delve into and unveil those structural drivers.
And Marxian analysis really has this tremendous capacity to make visible the contradictions of the process of capital accumulation. And there is this line that Jacopo already mentioned: how, in the process of capital accumulation, what you experience is the destruction of the sources of value, which are nature, labor, and humans. So both the social and the ecological aspects, which are the sources of our wealth and well-being. And so Crisis, as a scientific association, really wants to provide a space where this debate can be broadened and developed scientifically through the organization of conferences, providing spaces and opportunities for collaboration among scholars in the north, south, east, and west of the world around these issues. Maybe Jacopo feels like…
#Pascal
Let me just throw in a question there, because, you know, we've had a lot of conferences over the last 10, 15 years about first the Millennium Development Goals and then the Sustainable Development Goals. And the word sustainability is so popular that even hedge funds and investment banks write it into their charters and whatnot. However, as you say, Graziano, I usually don't see people really digging into the root causes, the economic root causes of the disasters or the crises that we are seeing. So, Jacopo, what is the reason for that? And what does Marxist analysis actually identify as the root cause of these problems?
#Jacopo Bergamo
Well, as Graziano said, the NTV community recognizes this multiplicity of crises, and some people have already started to think that they may have a common driver linked to capital accumulation. However, our analysis has to be more concrete, not so abstract. And so it's not just capital accumulation, but capitalism entering a specific stage, that of imperialism. And imperialism is not just that. We know that capitalism is a social logic, a social relation that operates independently of people's will.
However, these kinds of analyses are somehow too abstract, in the sense that somebody in charge represents the interests of capital, and reality is characterized by complexity. As we've shown before, social and ecological crises are interlinked. But at the same time, what is happening around the world is a sort of simplification, in the sense that a part of the world—the Western world—is
dominated by the US. Despite the fact that, yes, multinationals embrace the concept of sustainability, Western capital, US capital, is linking its destiny to petrodollars. And that means that, despite the rhetoric, it's no longer 2000 or 2010. The US is no longer willing to at least attempt a green capitalist revolution. Right now, more and more, Western capitalism is linked with oil and with the weapons industry, the war industry.
And that's a particularly dangerous stage. However, in a very contradictory manner, there's an attempt by the Global South to democratize international institutions and rebalance relations between the Global North and the Global South. And specifically, China is moving toward renewable energy, in part as a strategic move. That's important for its energy security at the national level, but it's also important for the rest of the world because China is producing cheap renewable energy and creating the conditions for this energy transition in the rest of the world. Well, so we have to face all this complexity as it actually develops. And our small scientific contribution is in a world that is splitting more and more and is...
#Jacopo Bergamo
Somehow, there is someone pushing for a new Cold War. Our goal is to build bridges within the scientific community and increase exchanges between East and West, North and South. We did this with a congress in Venice at the UAB in 2025, “Marx in the Anthropocene.” It was a success, with 300 scholars involved, including people from the Global North and the Global South. And we will repeat this next year in Venice, in 2027. So stay tuned, follow us, because there will be interesting news from our side very soon.
#Graziano Ceddia
Maybe I would just like to throw in something on sustainability, which, frankly, doesn't mean anything anymore. If it ever meant something, I don't know, but it has completely lost its meaning. So it just became a way to greenwash and green-coat and open new spaces of accumulation. But as Jacopo pointed out, those days are effectively gone, in the sense that capital is encountering objective and material barriers to the process of accumulation, particularly in the center, where the modus operandi was one of financialization. And ultimately, I think capital is interested only—and this is where theoretical analysis is important—in exchange value. Use value is just something that carries the exchange value.
So this is the source of financialization, but countries in the Global South have somehow started to be in a position where they could pursue, to some extent, independent economic development— independent in the sense of serving their own interests. And this represents an important barrier to financial accumulation in the center. And at this point, of course, you know, sustainability becomes totally irrelevant because capital in the center is fighting tooth and nail, effectively, to reopen spaces of accumulation. And if this means dismantling the whole sustainability agenda and refocusing on the oil sector, on the coal sector, you know, it doesn't matter. So the problem is really a crisis of
accumulation in the center, which in part has been triggered by the emergence of countries in the Global South that are starting to pursue sort of autonomous and self-centered forms of development.
#Pascal
Can you explain that? I don't know which of you is better placed to answer, but why is the concept of capital accumulation so important for understanding the development of the modern capitalist economy?
#Graziano Ceddia
No, I can have a go, and then Jacopo can chip in. Well, capital is not a thing. This is the first thing to understand. Capital is a process. Capital is self-valorizing value. So capital accumulation is actually capital, and there is no capital without capital accumulation. And since we live in a capitalist global economy, this means that the objective of this economy is to keep accumulating capital in the form of profit. And the satisfaction of human needs is just incidental to this whole process. But the perpetual accumulation of capital encounters, I would say, physical barriers, as we see, for example, with the laws of thermodynamics, climate change, and biodiversity loss. So this is an important element.
At the same time, capital accumulation does not occur, I would say, homogeneously across the world. The capitalist world is divided into a core, or a center, and a periphery. And so the way capital accumulation proceeds in the core is not the same as the way it proceeds in the periphery. And by the periphery, I would refer mainly to what used to be, I would say, the Global South. So the point is that countries in the Global South are not non-capitalist. They are fully integrated into capitalism. It's just that the way capitalism develops in these countries is through what we call underdevelopment. And so, I don't know, maybe Jacopo wants to interject here and add something on capital accumulation.
#Jacopo Bergamo
Yes, I totally agree with Graziano in the sense that, as he said, capitalism is a social logic of accumulation characterized by a continuous exchange between money and commodities. And the point is that money is the only way to compare things within capitalist logic, so the only change can be quantitative, not qualitative. And so increasing capital is the whole social logic that structures human activities worldwide. This social relation, which is characteristic of the capitalist mode of production, coexists with other modes of production, but it is the hegemonic and dominant one worldwide.
There were other attempts to build a new logic, that of a socialist way of organizing society, characterized by a planned economy. There is no recipe for such an attempt, and many of those attempts were unsuccessful. But since the ’80s, we have been seeing new experiments in what is
incorrectly characterized as a sort of mixed economy. The point is: in this coexistence of different modes of production, which one is the dominant one?
Well, we see that there are countries as big as continents, like China, that are using capital. They have capitalists in their own country, but the difference is that, in China, you will not change the party, but you change the policies, and the policies have changed a lot. We are seeing how they let global capitalists penetrate their social organization, and they use them to fulfill their goal of development. But in doing this, they are creating enough economic mass that other countries that want to emancipate themselves from the economic policies of the Global North now have another pole for their economies to turn to. This is characterized by what they define as a win-win style of cooperation and agreements. That means the alternative to capitalism is grounding itself more in material conditions than in, how can I say, a sort of realistic behavior. And that's important. It probably is not exactly the same as what happened during the 20th century. It's something very different, but I think that there's a much more concrete alternative to a system organized just through capitalist accumulation right now.
#Pascal
May I ask a question here that's quite dear to me? Is the capitalist mode of production—and, with it, ecology itself—doomed to fail, or have we just not found the right fine-tuning yet? Let me give you an example. I have a good friend, and she's a very sincere person. She works for an investment bank and manages a fund. She told me that she's very convinced that capitalism overall is not the problem. The problem is the societal goals and values of the current system. She gave me this example, saying, “Look, right now, sustainability is a big buzzword, and actually, this is a good thing.” As a fund manager, she can now include companies and corporations in her fund that officially have sustainability goals in their portfolios and that actually, you know, do—or at least claim to do—things that are good for the ecology and good for nature and so on, or try to reduce the negative impact they have.
And she can choose those over companies that don't care, or big oil companies and so on that are very polluting. And therefore, that fund will create more capital, right? Because that's the whole point of it. And pension funds and so on can invest in it. So, through a feedback loop, you can strengthen the move towards more ecological financing. I think she's very sincere when she makes that argument. And she would then say that, no, no, the problem is the fine-tuning and the values of society, not the capitalist mode of production. How would you answer that? Maybe Graziano first?
#Graziano Ceddia
Yeah, sure. So I think it's important to say that, first of all, you know, capital and capitalism have had—and sometimes still have—a progressive side. Marx clearly says the purpose of capitalism is to develop the forces of production, what we effectively call the productivity of labor. Without the development of these forces of production, a transition to a different social formation, a different
mode of production, would not be possible. So I would say one should not completely dismiss what capitalist development has achieved. But capitalism is a historical phenomenon, just as feudalism was, just as ancient Roman society was.
And so I think it had an ascending phase, but now we are really going into a descending phase of capitalism, which is more and more disruptive. And, of course, your friend, you know, talks about the possibilities of making investments that may appear ecologically beneficial. But when you look at the big picture, you know, you will find that behind even the most benign interventions at the local level, you have a global process of decay, of ecological destruction, of social destruction, which is actually accelerating. And when your friend says that the problem is the values of society, here I think Marxian analysis is very important, because where do these values actually come from?
You know, they do not arise spontaneously in people's heads. One of the earliest books Marx wrote with Engels is The German Ideology, and he was really criticizing these German idealists. Now, I cannot quote the exact line, but he says, you know, it's not ideas that effectively produce people's material behavior, if you want. It's the other way around. You know, before thinking, a man must eat, okay? And a man who doesn't eat cannot think. So it's actually from the mode of production that what is called the superstructure also emerges, if you want, which includes ideologies but also institutions, right? So where do these social values actually come from?
These are effectively expressions of the capitalist mode of production itself. And I don't question how genuine your colleague is, and I'm sure she intends to do great things. But at the global level, the macro picture, in spite of all these great sustainable initiatives, is one of constant deterioration. I would say it's accelerating. Climate change is accelerating. Biodiversity loss is accelerating. If you look at inequality, you know—sorry, we are on the brink of major armed conflicts. And so we see an acceleration of the contradictions on all sides, in spite of all these interventions, which may be genuine. And the bottom line is always who makes more profit.
So this is again the thing, you know: your colleague may have a very gentle soul, but if somebody else comes in and makes more money than she does, you know, she will cease to act in the interest of that specific capital. And the situation we are in now is actually one of regression, I would say, and of rolling back, you know, social protection and environmental protection. I mean, look at what's happening in the United States, but it's not just in the United States. So we are seeing attacks everywhere on the welfare state and on environmental protection at the global level.
#Pascal
So those attacks on ecology and society, Jacopo, are intrinsic to the system in that case, in your analysis, right?
#Jacopo Bergamo
Yeah, absolutely. I also totally agree with Graziano. However, scholars who use Marx's thought have to be aware of the fact that there's this tendency among Marxists to declare that this time capitalism is really ending. And the capitalist mode of production has already demonstrated several times that it is a very resilient system because it's characterized by the constant revolution of the productive forces. And that's what we are seeing right now: the new promise of capitalism to relaunch accumulation worldwide through AI, data centers, and so on. So what I would say about this is that another contradiction that characterizes capitalism is the constant socialization of labor and the privatization of profits.
That means concentration and centralization of power in fewer and fewer hands. And that's a very important contradiction we have to be aware of. And that means that this constant socialization of labor, in reality, implies a much more planned economy. And when I say planned economy, I'm not just referring to the control of prices, but to the self-organization of our metabolism with the rest of nature. We are living on a planet, and we prospered in a geological epoch, the Holocene, characterized by a series of planetary boundaries. And the scientific community now agrees that if civilization wants to prosper, we have to stay in a safe space while, at the same time, guaranteeing a series of social needs and human rights.
So to do that, it's important not just to socialize labor through new technology, but also to organize it rationally. And that's the great contribution of Marxism, in the sense that capitalism has a contradictory nature, but also a progressive one. However, it is a mode of production that ultimately cannot do what is necessary for human beings and society. That requires a transition—not just the improvement of productive forces, but also a transition to different relations of production, characterized by a much more rational and scientific understanding of the relationship between human beings and nature.
#Pascal
So, Graziano, what is the solution here to get out of the ecological crisis, the cost-of-living crisis, the production crisis, and the crisis of violence, with the wars that we are seeing? What kind of mode of production would improve the situation by addressing its root causes?
#Graziano Ceddia
Why do you ask me, Timo, if I can provide a solution?
#Pascal
You have six or seven minutes, by the way.
#Graziano Ceddia
No, but I think Jacopo already hinted at it. Capitalism has a progressive side and, I think, has achieved great things in terms of the development of productive forces and technology. I mean, think of open-heart surgery and improvements in medical science, just to mention something, you know? So I think this is absolutely remarkable. But then it is a contradictory development, because these great social developments reflect what Jacopo referred to as the increasing socialization of labor. So today, if you look at your mobile phone or the breakfast you have, it effectively involves the work of hundreds, thousands of people from all over the world—something which maybe was not the case 200 years ago. So labor has gone through a great process of socialization. Technology has developed.
But it's a development which is focused on a very limited objective, which is simply the appropriation and accumulation of profits by a few dozen people in the world. So this majestic development is pursued with a very, very limited goal in mind, and this is, I think, the fundamental contradiction. Another important contradiction is that within the production unit, we have the total dictatorial control of capital over labor. So when you are a worker, you don't choose what to do. You do as you're told. But then, when you go into the realm of commodity exchange, it's completely anarchic. It's the anarchy of the market. And so, effectively, you cannot plan and decide to produce what is necessary for society, if you want.
But instead, you just pursue this very limited goal of accumulating profit. So if it is more profitable to produce Viagra or any kind of commodity for middle-aged, white, wealthy people living in the Global North, you're going to invest in that instead of producing vaccines for malaria, which affects mainly people in the Global South who cannot afford these vaccines. So you see, you have the ability to use the productive forces to develop something to improve the quality of life of billions of people, but instead you pursue, if you want, a very limited goal, which is the accumulation of profit. And this also reflects how undemocratic capital actually is, because none of us has control over deciding what should be produced.
This decision is made by a handful of people who effectively control investment, and their interests do not necessarily align with the interests of society at large. And this is why I think, to answer your question, the solution would be to arrive at a model of production that goes more and more in the direction of planning, you know, and deciding together, democratically. So we want to have economic democracy: democracy in deciding what has to be produced and how it has to be produced. And you can call it planning or, I don't know, you can call it whatever you want. It doesn't matter. And when people say, “Oh, but this is, you know, socialist,” well, look, planning is heavily used by corporations. Do you think that giant corporations like Google or Meta don't do planning?
I mean, of course they do plan, okay? It's just that anarchy reigns in the market outside. There's planning, you know, within the corporation, and outside there's the market, which is largely anarchy. So I think the solution is really to move towards forms of increased economic democracy, on the one hand. And on the other hand, I think it's important to decommodify some essential things for living, like housing, health care, and education. These should not be commodities. These should be
effectively provided in the interest of the community. And in that sense, it doesn't mean markets shouldn't exist. Of course, you're going to have markets, you're going to have companies, but some basics must be guaranteed because we have the means to do it.
It's just not profitable to do it. And this is the big, you know, contradiction. And then we need to engage more in, I would say, planning in order to meet society's needs. We cannot rely exclusively on the anarchy and the vibrancy of markets and expect that somehow it's going to satisfy the needs of people. And we know it's not, because we see climate change, we see biodiversity loss, we see inequality rising. Obviously, you know, an unplanned system is not working. And here I'll conclude. We used to have planning, at least in Italy. It was called industrial policy. I mean, we used to have it. What is an industrial policy if not effectively a way in which a state would plan in key industrial sectors of the country? We have this, you know, even within, I would say, a capitalist system. So, yeah.
#Pascal
Marco, do you want to add something? Thanks.
#Jacopo Bergamo
Yes, you know, I totally agree with what Graziano said, and that's the long answer. Our small contribution as Crisis is to recognize that the solution is a political one. But to have the opportunity to bring politics into scientific debates in a scientific way, we first of all have to be able to talk freely. What is happening right now is, in my opinion, a sort of Marx renaissance in academia. At least something is changing compared with the 2000s, when you could no longer talk about Marx, capitalism, a planned economy, socialism, and whatever else. We are trying to discuss these things scientifically, in an interdisciplinary manner, because, of course, Marx, too, is not confined to one discipline, despite the fact that some people want to make him a subject of discussion only within philosophical thought.
Marxism is a way of understanding reality. It has its own ontology and epistemology, and so you can use it in very different disciplines, from STEM to social science. And that's what we are trying to do: to build a space where people can freely talk about different topics, also using Marx's categories, Marx's way of understanding. And that's our small contribution, and the contribution from academia and from an international scientific society such as Crisis. Then, in general, Marxists would say that we are not cooking up recipes for the future, because the change is already there in reality, because communism is the real movement that abolishes the status quo.
And despite the fact that, of course, what we are seeing is not the same as what happened in the 19th and 20th centuries, I think we also have to recognize that, in these very dangerous and concerning times, there is an alternative developing. There is a new balance of forces between the Global North and the Global South. That is something very relevant. However, because the new is
not yet born and the old is not yet dead, this is a very dangerous time to live in, but also an interesting one. And we have to make our small contribution to peace, to the ecological transition, and to social justice. We are trying to do that by first building a space where we can discuss things more freely.
#Pascal
One last question to Graziano. You know how every socioeconomic system is built around a few very fundamental premises, right? And one of the fundamental premises of modern capitalism is, of course, the centralization of money. That's why the money I have in my wallet is just a piece of paper. I could put that on a copying machine and make as many copies as I want. But if I do that, I will go to prison for many, many, many, many years. Many years. And everybody understands that, right? The power of money is centralized. If you could change one thing in the current, you know, setup of the socioeconomic system, what would it be in order to get closer to the state that you think we need to achieve?
#Graziano Ceddia
Well, I think the way money works is the result of the existence of what Marxians call the social relations of production. So it's a symptom in itself. In that sense, of course, there are many books that have been written about changing the monetary system. I mean, I'm sure your listeners know that most of the money supply is actually not even controlled by the central bank, but 95% to 97% is in the hands of private banks when they give credit. So when they issue a loan, effectively, they're issuing money out of thin air. But in a sense, this system effectively serves a function, which is to facilitate the process of capital accumulation, which otherwise would grind to a halt. So there are many books that have really looked at changing the monetary system—you know, “100% Money” by Irving Fisher, written after the 1929 crisis, when he lost most of his money. Before that, he held different views on money.
Or another great book by, you know, Michael Rowbotham, which is called The Grip of Death. It refers to the word “mortgage,” where, if you didn't pay your debt, you would forfeit your life. And so a lot has been written. There is the association in the UK, positivemoney.co.uk, that calls for monetary reform. But these are exactly the recipes for the cookshops of the future. And we can all come up with a list of things that need to be improved in the money sector, if you want. But the point is that the way in which money works is itself just an element of a broader system whose core is the prevailing social relations of production. So, of course, I would want a different type of money that is not related to debt, which in itself effectively drives the pursuit of accumulation.
Because if you issue a debt and you have to repay it with interest, where is the interest going to come from? You need to expand the economy. So the fact of having a monetary system which is 97% based on debt imparts a strong expansionary drive to the whole macroeconomy. But this system is a necessity, if you want, of the social relations of production—a consequence of that—and
it's necessary for the system to keep working. And this is, if you want, an autocatalytic configuration, where something is a cause and an effect at the same time. And so I wish that we had a different monetary system, but I think the source is really in changing the social relations of production. And that is a different kind of work, I would say.
#Pascal
I know that we have to continue that work, and your organization will continue it. So if people want to find you, follow you, or join your next conference, where should they go?
#Graziano Ceddia
Well, the next conference is going to be in Venice in November 2027. We're going to share more information about that. We have a website, www.iscrisis.org, and you can just Google us and find us. We also have a page on LinkedIn, so please, you know, sign up, follow us, and contact us. There is also an email address, info@crisis.org, where you can reach us.
#Pascal
I will put the links to your organization and your work in the description box below. We will talk again before your next conference, for sure, to publicize it. Graziano Ceddia and Giacomo Bergamo, thank you so much for your time today.
#Graziano Ceddia
Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Bye.
