Amsterdam’s circular economy at a world-ecological crossroads: postcapitalist degrowth or the next regime of capital accumulation?

Matthew Thompson, Charlotte Cator, XDavid Beel, Ian Rees Jones, Martin Jones and Kevin Morgan

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society, 2024, vol. 17, issue 3, 535-550

Abstract: This article conceptualises the circular economy as a space of immaterial, as well as material, metabolic flows mediated by capitalism and planetary urbanisation. World-ecology provides us with the critical lens to view the circular economy as part of an emergent regime of accumulation that may supersede neoliberalism. However, if each regime entails new frontier zones for appropriating cheap natures and dumping wastes, then the circular economy—as a strategy for revalorising waste—presents a possible structural limit to capitalism’s further expansion. Moreover, when combined with notions of degrowth and doughnut economics, the circular economy may provide an imaginary and set of prefigurative practices that point towards a postcapitalist economy. Through a case study of Amsterdam—a city aiming to be fully circular by 2050—we examine this contradictory crossroads, problematising the idea of circularity within capitalism and exploring the potential of postcapitalist alternatives within the circular economy.

Keywords: capitalism; circular city; doughnut economics; urban political economy; waste-value dialectic; world-ecology (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cjres/rsae022 (application/pdf)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:cjrecs:v:17:y:2024:i:3:p:535-550.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society is currently edited by Judith Clifton, Anna Davies, Betsy Donald, Emil Evenhuis, Stefania Fiorentino (Associate Editor), Harry Garretsen, Meric Gertler, Amy Glasmeier, Mia Gray, Robert Hassink, Dieter Kogler, Michael Kitson, Linda Lobao, Charles van Marrewijk, Ron Martin, Peter Sunley, Peter Tyler and Chun Yang

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().