The aff's ecological fix greens capitalism to seek surplus value maximization – this results in over-accumulation seeking the environment as a carrier to resolve inevitable capitalist crises – their link turns and perm serve as ideological defense of capitalism and makes it impossible to find an alternative

(Huajie, “The Contradictions of Capitalism, “Greening” of Capitalism and the Lessons From Fuzhou’s Socialist Ecocivilization Construction,” Capitalism Nature Socialism, Volume 32, Issue 3, 23 Jun 2020, Taylor & Francis, accessed 2/2/2022, -tmur)

By its very nature, the “greening” of capitalism is not so much the purported solution to the ecological crisis but rather the hoped-for solution to the crisis of capitalism itself. It is capitalism that maintains its survival by the “ecological fix” (Smith 2007; Castree 2008). As said before, the essence of capitalism is valorization. “Growth or Death” is its iron law, pursuing the maximization of surplus value its ultimate goal. Therefore, maintaining capital accumulation is the law of capitalist survival, and natural resources are the basic production conditions for capital accumulation. In this regard, the first wave of the “greening” of capitalism is an inevitable response of capitalism in the face of the danger that the production conditions constituted by natural resources will be exhausted. The continued accumulation of capital triggers a crisis of over-accumulation, which can be solved only by a vehicle able and willing to “absorb” the excess capital. Capital must find a carrier that “absorbs” excess capital to resolve this crisis (Baran 1966). The stage of free competition and private monopoly capitalism in the 19th century was based on the steam engine and railway construction as carriers. Fordism before the 1970s was based on fossil fuels and automobiles as carriers (Harvey 1990; Freund and Martin 2000). When the role of “absorption” is exhausted, capital seeks “environment” to act as the next carrier to resolve the capitalist crisis, which leads to the second wave of the “greening” of capitalism. As part of this wave, unlike before, the status and role of environment in capital accumulation are not only a precondition for capital accumulation but themselves have become an important strategic fields of capital accumulation, wrapped in a “green” coat continue to seek surplus value maximization. Despite this difference, the two waves of “greening” of capitalism are continuing their essential function of keeping capitalism in existence.

As far as its methods are concerned, green capitalism claims that free market mechanisms can solve major environmental problems such as climate change. In fact, this view serves as the ideological defense of capitalism, epitomized only recently by the market-oriented environmental policy – a product of neoliberal politics. In the two waves of “greening” of capitalism, we find that the first one has prompted capitalist countries to pay attention to environmental protection but market-oriented environmental governance has not become a dominant method. In the protection of forests, Pinchot’s conservation movement fits squarely within the utilitarian tradition which holds that public policy should be directed to “serve the greatest good of the greatest number for the longest time” (DesJardins 2013, 53). Acting in a manner consistent with this sentiment, Pinchot encouraged the use of experts to these utilitarian ends. It was not until the mid-1980s, when the policy of the U.S. Forest Service was reconsidered, that the idea of protecting forests by introducing the free market mechanism came into being. This is also the period when neoliberalism flourished (DesJardins 2013, 51–59). From then on, governing the environment with thorough market-oriented thinking has gradually come to occupy the dominant position. Until 2018, William Nordhaus, who was affiliated with market thinking in environmental economics, won the Nobel Prize in economics, which can be regarded as a symbolic peak of this dominant position. Therefore, we can neither regard the market mechanism as the only mechanism for environmental governance nor cheer for the temporary and partial progress of its governance. To do so would be to risk helping the market get rid of its culpability for destroying the environment. This will make it impossible for human beings to truly find the root cause of the ecological crisis, and it will also obscure the effectiveness of the alternative production and lifestyle aimed at socialist system design and value to solve the ecological crisis so that human society will go farther and farther on the wrong path that only seems to be correct.