Maria Ceci Misoczky

Greening Capitalism? A Marxist Critique of Carbon Markets

Climate change is increasingly being recognized as a serious threat to dominant modes of social organization, inspiring suggestions that capitalism itself needs to be transformed if we are to ‘decarbonize’ the global economy. Since the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, carbon markets have emerged as the main politico-economic tools in global efforts to address climate change. Newell and Paterson (2010) have recently claimed that the embrace of carbon markets by financial and political elites constitutes a possible first step towards the transformation of current modes of capitalist organization into a new form of greener, more sustainable ‘climate capitalism.’ In this paper, we argue that the institutionalization of carbon markets does not, in fact, represent a move towards the radical transformation of capitalism, but is better understood as the most recent expression of ongoing trends of ecological commodification and expropriation, driving familiar processes of uneven and crisis-prone development. In this paper, we review four critical Marxist concepts: metabolic rift (Foster, 1999), capitalism as world ecology (Moore, 2011a), uneven development and accumulation through dispossession (Harvey, 2003, 2006), and sub-imperialism (Marini, 1972, 1977), developing a framework for a Marxist analysis of carbon markets. Our analysis shows that carbon markets form part of a longer historical development of global capitalism and its relation to nature. Carbon markets, we argue, serve as creative new modes of accumulation, but are unlikely to transform capitalist dynamics in ways that might foster a more sustainable global economy. Our analysis also elucidates, in particular, the role that carbon markets play in exacerbating uneven development within the Global South, as elites in emerging economies leverage carbon market financing to pursue new strategies of sub-imperial expansion.

Uma crítica à crítica domesticada nos estudos organizacionais

This is a position paper; written to provoke the debate and the contradictory. The argument developed considers different conceptions of emancipation, as well as their consequence for the production of critics. It introduces the critical management studies, under the perspective developed by Alvesson and Willmott. Following it is discussed the issue of emancipation, having as a reference the formulations of the Frankfurt School, in its different phases. It is considered, then, an article by Alvesson e Willmott dedicated to the issue of emancipation and its translation into microemancipation, domesticating the critics in organizational studies. In opposition, it is adopted a definition of emancipation considering the production of two Latin American authors, Enrique Dussel and Paulo Freire. It is also paid a tribute to the Brazilian critical production. The article ends up with a brief consideration on the inscription of the critics as an opposition to the production of functional science.

Implicações do uso das formulações sobre campo de poder e ação de bourdieu nos estudos organizacionais

This essay reviews Bourdieus conceptions, emphasizing the notion of social fields as a result of unequal distribution of different types of capital (types of power), as a field of forces and struggles, according to the relative positions in a relational space. Follows a critical review of the institutional perspective and how the notion of field was incorporated. We believe that Bourdieus conceptions may offer another look at the issue of social action and change. In this sense, some implications of using Bourdieus conceptions in organizational studies are explored.

A práxis da resistência e a hegemonia da organização

Este texto tem dois objetivos: o primeiro e prosseguir em um esforco coletivo de enfrentamento dos procedimentos de exclusao que marcam o campo dos estudos organizacionais. Ao tomar como tema de pesquisa os movimentos sociais, assumimos os riscos de ‘rechaco’ e ‘isolamento’, constantemente rememorados pelo ‘silencio da razao’. O segundo proposito e contribuir para tornar visivel parte da multiplicidade de mundos organizacionais negada pela hegemonia da organizacao. O termo hegemonia se refere, aqui, a um alinhamento do discurso politico que produz um significado social especifico: a definicao de organizacao a partir de um enfoque sistemico estrutural como objeto formalizado. Para que possamos nos envolver nessa tarefa, precisamos nos expor a outras possibilidades: tanto aquelas ja presentes em nosso campo disciplinar e que adotam uma abordagem processual do organizar, quanto por fertilizacao a partir do engajamento com outros campos disciplinares. Nesse sentido, fazemos uma breve revisao teorica sobre o tema da resistencia no que se refere a apropriacao do conhecimento, e registramos algumas producoes feitas por academicos ativistas ou por ativistas sem insercao na academia, ambos construindo conhecimento na sua praxis de intelectuais orgânicos.

Experimentando pensar: da fábula de Barnard à aventura de outras possibilidades de organizar

We got started from our necessity to adopt a critical relationship with the tradition of what we know as organizational studies, considering that it is imperative to remember where we came from to make it possible to discern where we are going to, and to formulate alternative ways for our academic endeavors. In this essay we have put a classic - Chester Ir-wing Barnards The Functions of the Executive - under the spot. And we have done it by assuming a I udo-therapeutic instance so as not being suffocated by him. Thus, we tell a tale about a fable: the fable about the intrinsic and transcendental liaison between co-operation and organization, highlighting the moral aspects therein. Afterwards, we have done some reflexive thinking along our search for finding/developing perspectives which might conduct to possibilities of changes in the practice, as well as in the way we think about organizations and organizing.

Resistindo ao desenvolvimento neocolonial: a luta do povo de Andalgalá contra projetos megamineiros

Latin America is experiencing a new era of the myth of development based on a model of extractivism. The most dramatic face of extractivism in the region has been, on the one hand, the growing presence of transnational mining corporations supported by national governments as well as regional and international finance and development institutions, and, on the other hand, the intense resistance against this development by social movements. In this paper we present the case of Andalgala (a small town in the Province of Catamarca in Argentina) and the people’s struggle against transnational mining corporations and their allies. Following the tradition of the Philosophy of Liberation and Dussel’s ana-dialectic method, we have closely engaged with, what have been called, the “Argentinean communities of NO”, expressing their opposition to neocolonial forms of development and management. In this paper we are specifically interested in understanding how the two main managerial devices used by mining companies, corporate social

Sobre o centro, a crítica e a busca da liberdade na práxis acadêmica

This article has its origin in the debates that anticipated and that happened during the IVth Meeting of Organizational Studies. This event was organized based in a call for papers with the issue: appropriating theory and practice – delocating the center. Despite the apparent consensus around this issue, the events revealed an i mportant diversity of understandings. In order to advance in the debate we need some categories of understanding that allow the critical reflection on our academic making, that help us to have a vocabulary for the debate and that allow us to think about our practice. In that sense, after establishing the relation between texts and authors from a Derridean inspired deconstructionism, I present some categories that can support our reflection modernity and trans-modernity; coloniality of knowledge and of the being, knowledge and geopolitics; border thinking. After that I develop some ideas on the meaning and the possibilities of the academic making in times of globalization, considering always the phenomenon of coloniality and insisting in the possibility of confronting it. At the end of the text there is the transcription of the presentation I made at the closing session of the IVth Meeting on Organization Studies.

Da abordagem de sistemas abertos à complexidade: algumas reflexões sobre seus limites para compreender processos de interação social

This essay begins with some considerations on the role played by metaphors and models in the construction and dissemination of theories. Following, there is a review of the main systemic thought approaches - opens systems, cybernetics, autopoiesis and complexity. Each one is criticized having as reference the way they consider (or do not consider) social interaction and possibility of change. In the final considerations metaphors and models are considered again, in order to discuss some risks of simplistic transposition of knowledge between disciplinary fields.

Bloch, Gramsci e Paulo Freire: referências fundamentais para os atos da denúncia e do anúncio

The appropriation and relations of Ernst Bloch, Antonio Gramsci and Paulo Freires texts is an important part of the reflections shared in our collective work, which has as study subject organization and the praxis of liberation. In this article we present our situated readings of these authors, followed by an exercise of building relations among them. Reality as a historical process and the liberation of human beings from oppressive conditions (material and intellectual) are present in the writings of these three authors. For Freire, the liberation of the oppressed is also the liberation of the oppressor; for Gramsci, the subalterns should become hegemonic by the formulation of a new intellectual and moral direction which should be committed to the higher values of human kind: its existence; for Bloch, liberation is immanent to the human existence. Therefore, liberation is conceived by these authors as a process, the same stands for hegemony, which is never complete, fixed or definitive, or to reality, which is becoming all the time. Bloch, Gramsci and Freire authorize positions which connect the system critique with the present and concrete utopia, in our learning in the interaction with social movements and struggles.

AN ANTI-MANAGEMENT STATEMENT IN DIALOGUE WITH CRITICAL BRAZILIAN AUTHORS

The expressions Management and Organization Studies and Management and Organization Knowledge are expressions of an Anglo-Saxon construct. The association of Organization Studies (OS) with Management (M) produces the subordination of the former to the latter. In a different direction, a critical approach elaborated in Brazilian OS provides an original body of knowledge that expresses an anti-management (A-M) attitude. As the Brazilian A-M authors point out, the distinction between North/South M is irrelevant; what is relevant is a coherent pluriversal A-M attitude. In this paper, we honor and disseminate the Brazilian original body of knowledge on OS and introduce an OS agenda that is liberated from M.The expressions Management and Organization Studies and Management and Organization Knowledge are expressions of an Anglo-Saxon construct. The association of Organization Studies (OS) with Management (M) produces the subordination of the former to the latter. In a different direction, a critical approach elaborated in Brazilian OS provides an original body of knowledge that expresses an anti-management (A-M) attitude. As the Brazilian A-M authors point out, the distinction between North/South M is irrelevant; what is relevant is a coherent pluriversal A-M attitude. In this paper, we honor and disseminate the Brazilian original body of knowledge on OS and introduce an OS agenda that is liberated from M.