Towards Postcapitalist Value in Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future

Abstract

ABSTRACT: This paper establishes a dialogue between Kim Stanley Robinson’s The Ministry for the Future and recent scholarship on the Capitalocene. By drawing on Jason W. Moore’s concepts of world-ecology and Cheap Natures, it argues that the novel attempts to reconceptualize economics with the aim of integrating biospheric sustainability into the composition of value. Through its emphasis on reformulating the value-form of capital, the text persuades readers that reformations can lead to a postcapitalist world-ecology.