Many persons have referred to our current epoch as the Anthropocene given the vast impact of humanity on the planet, but some recent scholars make the argument that it would be more explanatory to understand the age we live in as the Capitalocene, and epoch shaped by capitalism and its extractive and exploitative systems and practices. Their argument is that it is not necessarily humanity as whole that has contributed to great problems we face today, but rather it is the economic system and the persons and powers who control it that are most culpable. 

One cannot judge an economic system to be a success that is destroying nature at a faster pace than it is able to regenerate. Capitalism has treated the corpus of our ecological endowment as if it were interest. Climate change is the capitalism induced fever of the planet.

Technology has bought capitalism some time, but you can’t ignore the limits of nature forever and not have real and devastating consequences. Economics must follow the laws of the house, and Earth is our house.

It is not sustainable for humanity to continue to pretend that nature is simply here for us, a commodity to be bought and sold, used and consumed, rather than a community within which to live.

Capitalism has commodified and objectified humans, other than humans, and all of nature. It is hurling us towards an unlivable climate, is responsible for the sixth great extinction, and has killed off about 70% of all wildlife on the planet over the past 50 years. If we don’t find a way to quickly transition from the Capitalocene era to the Ecozoic era, capitalism will continue to destroy human civilization as we know it and take most of the other-than-human life with it.

The persons and powers who profit the most from the exploitation of people and the planet do not simply ignore the social and ecological costs of capitalism, they actively and relentlessly invest in misinforming the public about them, and the return on their investment is more time to profit from a system that is driving us towards civilizational and ecological collapse.

An economic system that measures its success solely by profits and productivity fails in promoting social and environmental justice and well-being. The ultimate test of the viability of an economic system is whether it can function within the carrying capacity of the earth. Capitalism has failed this test.

If intelligent life exists in the distant future and looks at the portion of the geologic record represented by the Capitalocene, they will see a thin layer of catastrophic evidence of just how morally and ecologically bankrupt an economic system is that prioritizes profit and power over people and the planet.

We must avoid the binary ways of thinking that lead some to conclude that a critique of capitalism is equivalent to an affirmation of communism, and it should be noted that such a conclusion is often promoted by those who benefit the most from the current system.

Attempts at implementing communism have proven to exploit people and planet and end up concentrating both political and economic power in the hands of the few to the detriment of the many, thus diminishing human freedom and developing totalitarian societies that continue to treat the environment simply as a resource and an object for exploitation.

The fierce urgency of our social and ecological challenges requires much more collaboration and creativity than the binary thinking of capitalism vs communism can muster. The key question we must ask of our economic system is whether it is regenerative and sustainable for both human and other-than-human life.

Sadly and tragically, much of Christianity has been co-opted in the Capitalocene as a source of religious justification for our current economic system, with certain aspects of the Christian tradition being emphasized over others to create an ethos to strengthen the spirit of capitalism even when it conflicts with the spirit of justice and the well-being of all life.

The connection between Christianity and capitalism during the era of the Capitalocene should come as no surprise given that capitalism is the prevailing economic system in countries where the population is primarily Christian or historically primarily Christian. The interests of Christianity are often seen as connected to the political and economic interests of the state, thus contributing to a mutually reinforcing relationship between capitalism and Christianity. This creates a self perpetuating cycle of capitalism receiving religious justification from Christianity while Christianity receives economic benefits from capitalism. This dynamic is behind much of the crass Christian nationalism we are witnessing in our own society today. 

One of the most significant tasks for religious communities in our time whose is to disentangle ourselves from an economic system that has proven to be an existential threat to the survival of both human and other-than-human life on earth; a system whose only solutions to our social and ecological challenges is more growth on a finite planet. If religious communities are ever to become a force for regeneration and sustainability, we must cease providing religious justification  for the economic system that is fueling the fever of our planet and eating into the ecological endowment upon which all life depends. May we find the courage and wisdom to find creative and collaborative ways to move beyond the commodification of life and to live and love more fully into the reality that we are all part of the beloved community of all life. 

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