ABSTRACT
The final chapter concludes that, in providing justification for a system that is inherently self-destructive – based on the double exploitation of society and the rest of nature – the soft-violence of the Hegelian state turns into the maximisation of violence. Due to the contradictory basis of the capitalist state, its responses are only partially effective and, what is more, always reproduce an asymmetric distribution of gains and losses that penalises vulnerable social groups and socioecological systems. The little that has been achieved in terms of environmental conservation and impact mitigation is in spite of the state rather than because of the state.
