Eco-social foundations of capitalist value chains

The transformation of the world economy over the last three decades has ushered in what the World Bank calls an ‘age’ of global value chains (GVCs). Of note, most academic and policy literature on GVC’s fail to relate them to their eco-social foundations. This is in part because of these literature’s weak theorisation of capitalism. This article introduces the term capitalist value chains (CVCs) to signify the importance of conceptually connecting one of contemporary capitalism’s prime organisational forms (value chains) to its essential social and ecological relations. It argues that capitalism in general, and CVCs in particular, are based on general appropriation – the exploitation of labour and expropriation of nature. It deploys metabolic and corporeal rift theory to illuminate how CVCs expand through the ever-greater, increasingly ecocidal, expropriation of nature by conjointly drawing upon a growing exploited labour force. It demonstrates these arguments through a case study of the digital-technology – Capitalist Value Chain nexus.