Sixteenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

The nature of capitalism requires an outside, that is, non-capitalized strata to extract surplus value, which means that capitalism essentially needs to expand. In other words, in order to survive, capital must aim for constant expansion (Castles & Kosack, 1981, p.28; Luxemburg [1913] 2003, p.348-9). The profit maximising strategies of capital have devastating consequences communities, resulting in dispossessed surplus populations, environmental degradation, scrape off indigenous cultures and local economies. Moreover, parliamentary democracies of the world based on representative majority rule are unable to respond to the needs of the peoples of the world and capitalism generates destructive tensions and unsustainable injustices. Within this configuration of power relations, the paper asks: How can we ensure justice? It argues that movements of the squares of 2011, encompassing the indignados in Spain and Greece and Occupy Wall Street in the U.S. have manifested how so many issues of social, ecological, political and economic justice are interconnected. Further, these movements manifested themselves as prefigurative politics that has the potential for humanity to relate to one another differently based on consensus decision making.