ABSTRACT
The article introduces the concept of the ‘imperial mode of living’, which is sustained by capital and the capitalist state, in order to understand the persistence of resource- and energy-intensive everyday practices and their socio-ecological consequences. The imperial mode of living is principally based on an unlimited appropriation of resources and labour power and on a disproportionate claim to global sinks. In the constellation of the ‘multiple crises’, it contributes to safeguarding social stability in the global North and provides a hegemonic orientation in many societies of the global South. At the same time it has plunged global environmental politics into a severe crisis, fostering (neo-)imperialist strategies with respect to natural resources and sinks. In this sense, the imperial mode of living makes the crisis both more acute and able to be processed in a socially and spatially limited dimension. The concept thus helps to understand the simultaneous persistence and crisis of the neoliberal–imperial constellation and to identify starting points for counter-hegemonic struggles.
