A New Economic Epistemology for Social and Ecological Justice

José Bellver Soroa, FUHEM

2025

The transgression of planetary boundaries exemplifies the idea proposed by ecological economist Herman Daly that humanity has moved from living in an “empty world” to a “full world.” Today, however, the problem is not merely one of “filling” but of “overflowing”—particularly with waste and environmental toxicity. These are not only unequally generated but also unequally distributed, thereby making Marco Armiero’s concept of the Wasteocene (2021) particularly relevant. This concept, developed by the environmental historian, critiques our current mode of socio-economic organization—one rooted in exploitation, dispossession, and the discarding of people, territories, and species.

The struggle for ecological justice must therefore incorporate an analysis of how economic systems interact with both society and nature. The ecological crisis is anything but neutral. Yet not every economic lens suffices. Far from mainstream economic theory, what is required is an integrative framework—one that synthesizes insights from ecological economics, feminist economics, and political economy in its broader sense. This integrative and systemic framework enables a deeper understanding of the global economy and its entanglements with the natural world—ultimately unveiling the economic roots of ecological injustices.

The conventional understanding of the economy is typically limited to its visible stages: production, trade, consumption, and finance. However, such a perspective significantly narrows our comprehension of its interactions with society and nature. It restricts our vision to that which has a price—determined by the forces of supply and demand—while leaving crucial elements of economic life outside the analytical frame.

Returning to the Greek etymology of the term, mainstream economics more closely resembles chrematistics, a concept Aristotle critiqued as the art of acquiring wealth for its own sake –an endeavor driven by money accumulation rather than meeting social needs. In contrast, oikonomía refers to household management, a form of stewardship centered on sustaining life. Any meaningful understanding of the economy’s relationship to the environment must be complemented by oikología –ecology, or the knowledge of how our shared home, Earth, functions. Moreover, this understanding must include the interplay between the economy and society.

Several critical schools within the field of economics have been shedding light to further understand these interactions, notably ecological economics, feminist economics, and diverse traditions encompassed under the umbrella of political economy (e.g., Marxist, post-Keynesian, institutionalist approaches). In Spain, recent efforts have aimed to foster dialogue among these critical perspectives to forge a common foundation for a 21st-century economic paradigm, especially promoted by FUHEM. This systemic paradigm has been termed Economía Inclusiva (Inclusive Economics), though it could arguably –in terms of translation and connotations of the terms– be described as Ecosocial Economics.

Adopting a systemic view reveals the economy as an open system embedded within and interacting with larger systems—society and the biosphere. Within society, the economy interfaces with other institutions such as the state and the household. Both society and economy are in turn situated within the ecological system from which they draw resources and into which they expel waste.

As the scale of resource extraction and waste generation increases, so too does the material size and impact of the economic system. In this regard, the concept of social metabolism is illuminating. It allows us to conceptualize the global economy as a kind of living organism—albeit one comprised of many unequal sub-organisms (i.e., nations, regions). This material hypertrophy of the economy lies at the heart of our current state of ecological overshoot.

Moreover, the economy does not only rely on raw materials; it also depends fundamentally on human labor. Yet laborers do not spontaneously emerge—they must be born, raised, cared for, and supported throughout life. Social reproduction occurs primarily within households—traditionally through women’s unpaid labor—but also via state-provided welfare services such as healthcare, education, and social protection. 

Across all dimensions of society, the exercise of power is central. Power structures institute and sustain various logics of domination—whether along lines of class (capitalism), gender (patriarchy), race (racism), or geography (imperialism). These forms of domination operate at multiple scales, from the local to the global.

To fully grasp the nature of the contemporary economy, it is essential to recognize it as a capitalist system, driven by competition and the relentless pursuit of profit. This logic underlies the imperative for perpetual growth, which in turn fuels planetary overshoot.

Karl Marx analyzed the internal contradictions of capitalism. But beyond these, further contradictions arise from the economy’s interface with society and nature—systems governed by fundamentally different logics. For instance, since the rise of financial capitalism and neoliberalism in the 1970s, public social institutions have been systematically undermined through austerity measures and structural adjustment programs designed to open new domains for capital accumulation while straining social reproduction. In broader terms, the drive for infinite accumulation, characteristic of capitalism, ultimately threatens to destabilize the very conditions that make it possible—most evidently in the case of the ecological crisis, which is deeply unequal in both its origins and its consequences.

In this sense, Nancy Fraser (Cannibal Capitalism, 2023) argues that capitalism not only exploits commodified labor but also “cannibalizes” the non-commodified conditions of life and reproduction –namely, nature, care work, political legitimacy, and cultural meaning. The above mentioned Wasteocene it is the material and geopolitical expression of this cannibalism: it manifests in sacrificial zones, expendable bodies, and degraded ecosystems as the hidden costs of capitalist growth. As such, the Wasteocene complements Jason Moore’s concept of the Capitalocene, both of which underscore the non-neutral, power-laden relationship between humanity and nature in the Anthropocene epoch (Armiero, 2021; Moore, 2015; Fraser, 2023).

This systemic framework thus emphasizes the deep entanglement between social and ecological crises, providing strong justification for adopting a socio-ecological perspective on justice, as advocated in the Speak4Nature deliverable on ecological justice theory.

References

Armiero, M. (2021). Wasteocene: Stories from the global dump. Cambridge University Press.

Fraser, N. (2023). Cannibal capitalism: How our system is devouring democracy, care, and the planet and what we can do about it. Verso books.

Moore, J. W. (2015). Capitalism in the Web of Life: Ecology and the Accumulation of Capital. Verso Books.

Cantalapiedra, S. Á., Barceló, A., Carpintero, Ó., Carrasco. C., Martínez, Á., Recio, A. & Roca, J. (2012). Por una economía inclusiva. Hacia un paradigma sistémico. Revista de economía crítica, (14), 277-301.