André Gorz’s Labour-based Political Ecology and Its Legacy for the Twenty First Century

This chapter critically reviews André Gorz’s thinking, in particular his labour-based political ‎ecology, to argue that it belongs within environmental labour studies as a cutting-edge field of ‎inquiry. Based on Gorz’s theoretical toolkit, it discusses the historical transformation of the link ‎between capitalist development, natural environment and working-class struggles. In particular, the chapter focuses on Gorz's analysis of the ecological crisis as a crisis of capitalist reproduction, whose implications are relevant for a critical understanding of the post-Fordist mode of accumulation. To grasp the ecological dimension of contemporary valorisation – that is, to analyse how physical limits to growth are turned from obstacles to drivers of accumulation – the conclusion connects Gorz’s insights ‎with recent debates on biocapitalism, drawing especially on Melinda Cooper’s contributions.‎