These questions are focused in a new article titled On the possibility of morphocide: Can fossil capitalism be dismantled? In the article, Christian Ståhl discusses the possibility of dismantling a fossil-based economic system, based on Margaret S. Archer’s morphogenic theory of societal development.
According to the theory, societal structures always condition which types of actions that are possible, and the “costs” of acting differently. Simultaneously, it is through collective agency that structures change over time. The question of dismantling existing systems builds on a theoretical development on how social forms become or are made irrelevant (morphonecrosis). The article introduces the concept morphocide to denote an active ending of a social form.
The discussion circles on fossil capitalism as a social form, and how it has been and continues to be a source of greenhouse gases emissions. There are also significant economic interests related to fossil energy which exert a large influence over societal structures and priorities. In the article, it is described how people through collective agency can contribute to raising the costs for fossil investments, through activism, alternative consumption-critical lifestyles and legal processes. Such acts of resistance can support structural and cultural development. For fossil capitalism to be dismantled, these developments need to influence societal institutions that have influence over law and policy, for the change to become lasting and spread to different parts of society.
The article is published in Journal of Critical Realism and is available here.