Water Struggles as Resistance to Neoliberal Capitalism - (Progress in Political Economy) by Madelaine Moore (Hardcover)

About the Book

Water struggles as resistance to neoliberal capitalism is an important intervention into social reproduction theory and eco-socialist debates. It provides a timely analysis of the role of expropriation in the current global water crisis and makes a persuasive argument for understanding class as an emergent process constituted through struggle.

Book Synopsis

This book provides an important intervention into social reproduction theory and the politics of water. Presenting an incorporated comparison, it analyses the conjuncture following the 2007 financial crisis through the lens of water expropriation and resistance. This brings into view the way that transnational capital has made use of and been facilitated by the strategic selectivities of both the Irish and the Australian state, as well as the particular class formations that emerged in resistance to such water grabs. What is revealed is a crisis-ridden system that is marked by increasing reproductive unrest - class understood through the lens of social reproduction theory. As an important analysis of two significant water struggles, the book makes a compelling argument for integrating the study of social movements within critical political economy.

From the Back Cover

This book places struggles over water within an account of capitalist expropriation. It examines the Irish water charges protests and resistance to unconventional gas in Australia, exploring the tension between life-making and profit-making on the new water commodity frontier.

Struggles over water are about more than access or management of a resource. What is at stake are the social relations and institutions that allow water grabs to occur. Taking up David Harvey's conception of a spatial fix, the book shows how crises move through the conditions that make capitalist accumulation possible. Working at the points of contradiction, struggles over water both interrupt processes of capitalist reproduction and open a space for subversive rationalities. In Australia and Ireland, what has emerged is a time of reproductive unrest.

Review Quotes

'The planet's water is in peril, seen as a resource for the global economy at the service of transnational capital. In her powerful new book, Madelaine Moore shows us that water does not exist outside the politics and culture that shapes our core values. To protect water and the human right to water requires a profound commitment to social change and true democracy from the ground up.'
Maude Barlow, water activist and co-founder Blue Planet Project

'Madelaine Moore's concept of "reproductive unrest" provides a sophisticated lens on emerging resistances to the world-wide commercialisation of water services. Her comparison of distinctive instances of water grabbing in Australia and Ireland foregrounds a global patterning of public services captured by transnational capital. Corresponding civic mobilisations animate her sensitive exposition of maturing socio-ecological movements in defence of social reproduction needs. Moore's analysis offers an exemplary inquiry into the changing complexion, meaning and impact of contemporary anti-capitalist resistances.'
Philip McMichael, Professor Emeritus of Global Development, Cornell University

'A remarkable aspect of the book lies in its engagement with long-term historical developments to characterise the various types of neoliberal regimes co-existing today and why these issues matters to understand water struggles.'
Basile Boulay, EADI Debating Development Research Blog

About the Author

Madelaine Moore is a Postdoctoral Researcher in Sociology at the University of Bielefeld