ABSTRACT
Capitalist growth manifests in multiple forms – as aggregate economic output measured by gross domestic product, embodying monetary and social phenomena; as an ideological construct linked to progress and abundance; and, most critically, as a material process of extraction and ecosystem transformation. This chapter in the Routledge Handbook of Degrowth (2025) explores the latter, examining the socio-metabolic foundations of capitalist development and its ecological contradictions. Drawing on material flow accounting, it highlights the material scale and material composition of capitalist economies, emphasising the role of fossil fuels in shaping their socio-metabolic regime, but also highlighting material inequalities between capitalist cores and peripheries. The chapter then explores how social ecology contributes to a critical understanding of capitalism’s growth imperatives. In particular, it explores the implications of conceptualising the economic process of capital as a four-tiered structure encompassing relations of extraction, production, consumption and dissipation – processes that regulate accumulation and growth. This socio-metabolic approach complements classical critiques of capitalism by grounding the ecological contradictions of accumulation in material processes. Finally, the analysis offers a foundation for radical political alternatives, envisioning a material future beyond the imperatives of capitalist growth.
