Nature on the Move: The Value and Circulation of Liquid Nature and the Emergence of Fictitious Conservation

Abstract

A rich body of literature investigates the many ways in which nature is impacted upon and transformed by the “endless accumulation of capital.” Much less attention has been reserved for understanding how capitalist actors increasingly aim to profit from the non-extractive use of nature. While recognized as important, the theorization of conservation as a capitalist project has only just commenced in earnest. The paper contributes to this effort by positing that the commodities created through capitalist conservation, so-called “environmental services,” constitute a type of capital that challenges dominant (Marxist) ideas about the links between value, production and nature. Most importantly, this new type of capital, which I call “liquid nature,” necessitates rethinking the relations between circulation and production in contemporary capitalism and how the emphasis in the creation of value is shifting from the latter to the former. Two indications of this shift are seen as key in enabling liquid nature, namely that the valourization of production is increasingly alienated from the act of production and that the value of capital, defined as value in process, increasingly relies on a continuous intensification of capital circulation. The paper concludes that the upshot of attempts to establish “liquid nature” as the new mode of sustainable accumulation under capitalism result in the emergence of “fictitious conservation.”