This article argues that the depreciation of labour and the degradation of nature are today the principal causes of the structural crisis, because capitalism cannot go beyond the current level of exploitation of labour and nature without a corollary decrease in the rate of profit. It draws on a distinction between use value and exchange value that proves helpful for an understanding of two facts. Firstly, that the mobilisation of labour in non-saleable services is productive of value. Secondly, that the (...) « value » of nature does not belong to the order of economy. It belongs to a scale which cannot be evaluated : it provides wealth, but not value. (shrink)

From Work to Ecology : A New Way for Socialism. The articulation between social and ecological questions connects, on the one hand, with the question of the ends of human work, insofar as it is an activity aimed at the production of goods and services which can satisfy needs and, on the other hand, with a conception of wealth going beyond the exclusive framework of commodity value that capitalism imposes. The article presents the current state of thought on a number (...) of theoretical questions which are being debated within this perspective. It invites us to renew our connection with the critique of political economy whose starting-point is the analysis of commodity. (shrink)