Labour's Bargain with Nature: Towards a Microeconomic Narrative of Work-Ecology Entanglements

Chandni Dwarkasing
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Chandni Dwarkasing: Department of Economics, SOAS University of London. Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, UK

No 278, Working Papers from Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK

Abstract: Microeconomic frameworks, including those advanced within ecological economics, relate ecological disruption to what enters or leaves production and address it through internalisation, an approach whose contradictions are widely documented. This paper argues that these frameworks presuppose an analytical condition, that of \textit{capital bargaining on behalf of nature}, which rests on exchange value-based commensurability and the exogenous treatment of distribution. Together, these carry a narrative in which capital is nature's sole interlocutor. The paper does not claim that this condition causes ecological crises or the contradictions of commodification, but that it forecloses an alternative narrative, in which labour, too, bargains with nature. To complement existing microeconomic frameworks, the paper analyses labour within production. Drawing on metabolic rift theory, world-ecology and the ecological dimensions of the labour process, it develops a Sraffian baseline formalisation in which the ecological technical coefficient of production depends on labour's distributive share and working conditions. Four stylised work-ecology entanglements illustrate its range: joint deterioration (nutrient cycling), joint resistance (meatpacking), joint recovery (hazard exposure) and disjoint deterioration (consumption), with digital mediation offered as fifth and a more speculative entanglement encompassing an urgent research agenda. Where such entanglements apply, labour appears as a potential ecological interlocutor and not only as a party affected by external ecological changes.

Keywords: work-ecology; ecological labour process; metabolic rift; Sraffian microeconomics; externalities (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B5 D33 D62 J81 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16229
Date: 2026-10
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pke
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