Financialization, Climate Change, and the Future of the Capitalist World-Ecology: On Kim Stanley Robinson's New York 2140

Abstract:This article takes Kim Stanley Robinson's science fiction as a point of departure for a series of reflections on the trajectory of the capitalist world-ecology. It argues that his novel New York 2140 provides an interesting description of financialized accumulation in the age of climate change. The novel provides a representation of what is arguably the most insurmountable contradiction of late capitalism: while climate change continues to cement the dominance of finance over the capitalist system as a whole, finance's dominance, nonetheless, coincides with the exacerbation of the climate crisis and the decline of long-run accumulation, not with its enhancement.