The conference aims to facilitate a dialogue between theoretical debates in ecological Marxism and concrete inquiries of green capitalism.

The first part of this conference explores conceptual questions relating to the ecological contradictions of capitalism. It asks, among other things, what is the status and what are the main theoretical and methodological challenges for ecological Marxism today? How has the research on Marx and ecology contributed to Marxist ecology? Is there an ecological proletariat? Is critical theory, historical materialism, or eco-socialism up to analytic task?

Building on these conceptual questions, the second part of this conference will investigate green capitalism as an emergent phenomenon and as an accumulation regime in the making. The hypothesis of green capitalism is that the various efforts to ecologically modernize society have become a source of profit generation and capital accumulation––the counter thesis argues that those will necessarily run into problems of profitability. How can the paradox be understood that green capitalism is expected to fail in theory, while it has been taking shape in reality, in differing forms, to various extents and under different policy labels over the last decades?

We hope the conference can shed light on the challenges of ecological Marxism today and on the paradoxical phenomenon of green capitalism.

The conference is organized by Marius Bickhardt (Sciences Po Paris/CMB Berlin), Jacob Blumenfeld (Universität Oldenburg/Centre for Social Critique, HU Berlin), Gauthier Delozière (Sciences Po Paris/CMB Berlin), Cannelle Gignoux (Université Paris 8/CMB Berlin), Hans Rackwitz (Universität Jena/Leipzig), Daniela Russ (Universität Leipzig) with funding from Centre Marc Bloch, the Centre for Social Critique at Humboldt University Berlin, and the Global and European Studies Institute at the University of Leipzig.