Ethics or exploitation: unpacking sustainable capitalism

Capitalism has a seemingly endless ability to incorporate critique, to coopt criticism and to ‘fix’ crises in ways that re-establish the legitimacy of capitalist production and accumulation. We see this in the continued rise of ‘green’ ‘ethical’ and ‘participatory’ business in concepts like environmental, social, and governance (ESG), corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainable finance, or gender mainstreaming. Does the development of ESG and CSR agendas by corporations and investors present opportunities for meaningful social and environmental action?

Can activists influence perceptions of risk, profit, and crisis to improve environmental and social outcomes? 

Can sustainability advocates improve environmental and social outcomes by participating in corporate processes?

Can capitalism ever be sustainable?  

These are the central questions that two new books grapple with. False profits of ethical capital: finance, labour and the politics of risk by Claire Parfit and Undermining resistance: The governance of participation by multinational mining corporations by Lian Sinclair, both in the Progress in Political Economy series by Manchester University Press. 

Join the authors in conversation with Naomi Hogan from the Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility – for a conversation reaching across and beyond academia and activism. 

We hope this night can be the beginning of conversations about the limits of stakeholder or sustainable capitalism across any sectors of the economy, not limited to mining and finance. 

This event will be held in partnership with the Sydney Environment Institute, School of Geosciences and the Discipline of Political Economy, the University of Sydney. 

About the books

False profits of ethical capital

False profits of ethical capital is a timely study of an important political economic phenomenon: ESG investing and stakeholder capitalism. Moving beyond observations of the inadequacies of responsible business as a vehicle for social change, this book argues that ESG investing and related corporate responsibility practices facilitate profit through speculation on ethics. 

Ethical capital is framed as a process through which political challenges to capital accumulation on social and environmental grounds are transformed into opportunities for profit. A speculative moral economy prevails in which it is assumed that business can do well and do good at the same time, belying conflicts between different ‘stakeholders’. The practices of stakeholder capitalism aim to neutralise ethical dilemmas presented by overlapping social, ecological and economic crises and, in the process, alienate ethics from the human being and transform them, via financial calculus, into metrics that inform value relations. These processes manifest in ESG investing, sustainability reporting and corporate branding exercises. 

False profits of ethical capital exposes the contradictions that are concealed by sustainability politics, and suggests an alternative frame for thinking through the strategic challenges of contesting ethical capital.

Undermining Resistance 

Why do multinational mining corporations use participation to undermine resistance? Why and how do people affected by mining embrace or resist mining? Do the struggles of local communities, activists and NGOs matter on a global scale? Why are there so many different global standards in mining?

This book develops a new critical political economy approach to studying extractive accumulation which places company-community conflict in the context of shifting global crises in the governance of mining. The author draws on three detailed Indonesian cases to explain how participatory mechanisms continuously reshape and are reshaped by community-corporate conflict. Findings highlight feedback between local social relations, transnational activism, crises of legitimacy and global governance.

Corporate social responsibility, community development, ‘gender-mainstreaming’ and environmental monitoring are neither simple outcomes of corporate ethics nor mere greenwashing strategies. Rather, participation is a mechanism to undermine resistance and create social relations amenable to extractive accumulation. 

Since its launch in 2014, the blog Progress in Political Economy (PPE) has become a central forum for the dissemination and debate of political economy research with crossover appeal to academic, activist and public policy related audiences. Now a book series with Manchester University Press, PPE provides a new space for innovative and radical thinking in political economy, covering interdisciplinary scholarship from the perspectives of critical political economy, historical materialism, feminism, political ecology, critical geography, heterodox economics, decolonialism and racial capitalism. Series editors are Andreas Bieler (University of Nottingham), Gareth Bryant (University of Sydney), Mònica Clua-Losada (University of Texas Rio Grande Valley), Adam David Morton (University of Sydney), and Angela Wigger (Radboud University).

Speakers

Naomi Hogan (Discussant)

Naomi is the Company Strategy Lead at Australasian Centre for Corporate Responsibility, bringing experience in research, campaigns and advocacy, particularly on the impacts of coal and gas projects. Naomi trained in science communication, climate science and natural resource management at the Australian National University. Over the past 15 years, Naomi has worked with investors, companies, regional communities, Traditional Owners, scientists and policy makers towards enhanced climate disclosures and environmental protections.

Susan Park (Chair)

Susan is Professor of Global Governance in International Relations at the University of Sydney. She focuses on how international organisations and global governance can become greener and more accountable, particularly in the transition to renewable energy. She has been a visiting scholar at the London School of Economics, Oxford University, the Technical University of Munich, American University, and the Centennial Centre in Washington DC. Her work has been funded by the Australian, Canadian, British and German governments. Her most recent book is titled The Good Hegemon: Power, Accountability as Justice, and the Multilateral Development Banks (OUP, 2022). She has published numerous articles, most recently on the “Governance gaps and accountability traps in renewables extractivism” in Environmental Policy and Governance. She is also the lead editor of the journal Global Environmental Politics.

Claire Parfitt

Claire is a Lecturer in Political Economy at the University of Sydney, where she completed her doctorate in 2020. Her research contributes to debates in the social studies of finance, economic geography, cultural economy, interdisciplinary accounting literatures, and labour studies. In addition to working at universities, Claire has worked for trade unions and environmental NGOs in Australia and overseas, and she continues to be engaged in political work especially around labour rights.

Lian Sinclair

Lian is a postdoctoral researcher in the School of Geosciences, Sydney University. Lian researches the political economy, geography, development and governance of mining in Australia, Southeast Asia and globally. Their research focuses on how corporations, governments, community groups and NGOs contest the uneven costs and benefits of extractive industries. Lian’s PhD was conferred in 2020 from the Asia Research Centre, Murdoch University. They are also chair of the Mineral Policy Institute, a think tank and policy advocacy organisation. Before joining academia, Lian spent over a decade working with climate change activists, environmental organisations, and union organising. Her current research is on critical mineral global production networks and uneven regional development in Australia.