From Metabolic Rift to “Metabolic Value”: Reflections on Environmental Sociology and the Alternative Globalization Movement

On the assumption that good theory is informed by praxis and vice versa, the essay brings sociological theory together with the alternative globalization movement. The responses of this emerging global civil society to contemporary environmental crises indicate that understandings of labor and value that evolved with industrial capital need to be broadened. The essay opens up this process with an outline of how capitalist production undermines its own social metabolism, a “metabolic rift,” that is maintained by the ideological separation of ecology and economics. However, from a grassroots perspective, it is clear that a conceptual vacuum exists between these two disciplines—a space in which a third discourse waits to be articulated. This subliminal “other” sphere of labor and value centers on reproduction of the humanity—nature metabolism by those whose labor is marginalized by capital—unpaid caregivers, peasants, and indigenous gatherers. The terms meta-industrial labor and metabolic value spell out the material, rift-healing, contribution of this unnamed international class. The essay seeks recognition for a vernacular science, an integrated movement strategy, and more inclusive social theory.