Coming Authoritarian Ecology

Fabrice Flipo is Professor of Philosophy of Science and Political Philosophy at Telecom Business School, France. He is a researcher at the Laboratory of Social and Political Change at the Paris 7 Diderot University, as well as the author of several books on political ecology and emancipation.

• Preface.ixPart 1 The Situation in France 1Introduction to Part 1 3Chapter 1. Exploring the Earth’s Hidden Face 51.1. What is ecology? 51.2. Ecology, a new science? 91.3. What can we learn from ecology and the natural sciences? 121.3.1. The planet 121.3.2. France. 141.3.3. The United Kingdom. 181.3.4. What must be done? Three positions: green growth, degrowth and other development 201.4. What should be taken seriously? Risk, relativism and constructivism 231.4.1. Social sciences and natural sciences: the “Great Divide”?241.4.2. Expertise and public decisions 29Chapter 2. Who Are the Ecologists? 332.1. “Whisteblower” scientists332.2. From environmentalism to ecologism.362.2.1. Naturalist associations372.2.2. A “movement” with unclear outlines402.2.3. “Ecologists” and “environmentalists”442.3. Ecology in politics, in France and around the world. 492.3.1. Ecologism in the French political arena492.3.2. Early alter-globalization and international ecopolitics54Part 2. An Active Minority against the Majorities.59Introduction to Part 2 61Chapter 3. Liberal Skepticism 673.1. Liberalism or emancipation from the Ancien Régime703.2. The rights of nature over humanism? 773.2.1. Animal rights.783.2.2. The rights of nature803.2.3. The legal dimension. 833.2.4. The “preference for nature” over human rights? 853.2.5. The rights of nature: a new universalism? 883.3. A refusal of the liberal rules of politics? 893.3.1. A rejection of the Rule of law? Catastrophism and “direct action”. 903.3.2. “Natural order” against “unnatural humans”? 943.4. The “liberal-libertarianism” of French ecologism.1053.4.1. Neither the State, nor the market: libertarian inspiration 1063.4.2. Neither right nor left: The centrist position. 1073.4.3. Faced with “Khmers verts”, the solution of technology and green capitalism. 1093.4.4. Ecological economics or the return of virtue.1133.5. The ecologist concern about an eco-fascism 115Chapter 4. Toward Eco-socialism? 1174.1. What is socialism? 1214.1.1. When the science of wealth produces pauperism 1214.1.2. Marxism or the moral unit of socialism 1254.1.3. Four socialist currents 1334.2. A difficult eco-socialism 1414.2.1. The theory of the “secondary front” 1424.2.2. What does “socializing” mean in the age of the Anthropocene? 1524.3. “It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism” 168Chapter 5. From Centrism to Eco-fascism 1715.1. What is conservatism? 1755.1.1. Contemporary Orléanism 1775.1.2. Illiberal conservatisms: from Bonald to the “extreme” right-wing1835.2. Is ecologism conservative? 1985.2.1. A real, but very minor, conservative current.2005.2.2. The war of partial connections and partial conclusions2145.2.3. “The ecology of the right”: Liberal, groupuscular or ecofascist 2385.3. Composing with the real: The question of alliances  241Conclusion 243Bibliography 249Index 291