We publish here some excerpts from the latest work by sociologist Alain Bihr, L'écocide capitaliste , co-published in February 2026 in three volumes by Page 2 (Lausanne) and Syllepse (Paris). ---- The author's aim is to take stock of the ongoing ecological catastrophe and show how capitalist relations of production are one of its structural causes, reminding us that only a revolutionary upheaval can limit its effects. The excerpts published here focus on some of the mechanisms of capital's self-justification, constantly seeking valorization and accumulation. Thus, the authors analyze "small gestures," the invitation to take risks, and, finally, the call for resilience.
Here, ethics ends up making a virtue of necessity, that is, teaching voluntary submission to the existing order of things-in this case, ecocidal capitalism-with the primary effect of justifying it, masking in particular its heavy responsibility for the ongoing ecological catastrophe. And, just as with the recourse to the supposed virtues of the market and technology, the solution is sought in a resource internal to capitalism itself, produced and shaped by it.
Specifically, it concerns the subjugated individuality, characterized at the same time by its personal independence-by its liberation from personal and communal bonds of dependence, by its presumed autonomy of thought and life-and by its impersonal dependence: a dependence on the set of autonomized and fetishized social relations that characterize capitalism, and which require it to be, in all circumstances, responsible-and solely responsible-for its own actions and its own condition, submitting to their injunctions (Bihr, 2017: 195-208).
Let's make a small gesture!
Nudge is an English term that literally means "nudge," meaning "gentle push," a limited and timely assistance. It refers to a technique that consists of inducing individuals to adopt a certain behavior by making them see it as valuable.
This technique was popularized by Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler's best-selling book of the same name ( Nudge , 2022). Derived from behavioral psychology (Thaler received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2017), it is based on the idea that "small changes in the context of action can have a huge influence on children and adults, in a positive or negative sense (...) small, seemingly insignificant details can have a huge impact on people's behavior" (Id.: 19 and 22).
A prime example is the fly drawn on the bottom of urinals to encourage men to aim better, thus reducing splashes and the costs of cleaning public toilets...
This technique falls within what Sunstein and Thaler define as a «libertarian paternalism», which consists in encouraging (but not forcing) individuals to make the "right" decisions and to carry out the "right" actions, that is, those that will contribute to their well-being, behaving like those rational subjects that they are not spontaneously, but that the functioning of capitalism requires:
«In the sense in which we understand it, a policy is "paternalistic" if it seeks to influence choices in a way that promotes people's interests, as they conceive them (...) In short, our goal is to help individuals make the decisions they would have made if they had paid full attention, had complete information, unlimited cognitive capacity, and total self-control» (Id.: 24).
The very expression "libertarian paternalism" reveals the full ambivalence of this technique: it involves gently "guiding" individual behaviors in the direction of personal or general interest, to the point of transformation, while formally respecting freedom of choice. Here, in an almost exemplary form, we find the contradiction inherent in subjugated individuality.
Designed to influence individual behavior, this technique affects not only capitalist enterprises-which initially developed it in marketing-but also public administrations, committed to obtaining citizen compliance with laws and regulations. The latter are thus induced to develop and disseminate incentives ( nudges ) that complement or sometimes replace obligations and prohibitions. It is no coincidence that Sunstein and Thaler note with satisfaction the growing number of states and international organizations that have created actual Nudge Units within their own organizations (Id.: 34-35).
This technique can also be applied to ecological catastrophe management policies. The underlying idea is that, just as small streams make large rivers, a myriad of "small daily gestures"-avoiding waste, turning off lights when leaving a room, not letting water run unnecessarily, reducing home heating, etc.-can contribute to escaping the current catastrophic ecological regime.
Added to these are other practices: reducing or eliminating meat consumption, choosing organic products, separating waste, favoring public transportation over private cars, avoiding flying, and sharing consumer goods (cars, washing machines, books, etc.). More generally, it's about promoting a "revolution" in individual behavior, holding individuals accountable-and often blaming them-for presenting them as the primary, if not sole, culprits of the ecological crisis.
But this approach is highly problematic. The number of nudges needed would be so inconsistent that it would be inconsistent and, above all, provoke rejection by individuals who would ultimately reject permanent manipulation. And, above all, there is no guarantee that these measures will be sufficient: a few billion small incentives will not be enough to pull us out of the ecological impasse into which the current mode of production has led us (Rotillon, 2020: 88-97).
Sunstein and Thaler themselves acknowledge this in the chapter-significantly titled "Saving the Planet"-dedicated to the topic. They warn right from the start: "If you're reading this chapter hoping to discover that there's no need to worry because a few low-cost nudges will solve the problem, we're sorry to disappoint you" (Id.: 263).
After mentioning instruments such as carbon taxes or emissions markets, they acknowledge the superiority of binding measures over simple incentives: "We must at least recognize that rules and obligations likely offer consumers the opportunity to make significant savings while simultaneously protecting the planet" (Id.: 275). Nudges are thus relegated to complementary instruments: "Targeted legislation, going beyond the 'soft' approach, may be necessary in several areas. Interventions similar to nudges could complete the range of instruments" (Id.: 276).
The proposed examples, however, remain limited: publishing a list of the most polluting companies ( name and shame ), automatically setting "green" options for consumers, comparing energy consumption between neighbors, etc.
The main limitation of the "small gestures" strategy lies in its assumptions. On the one hand, it assumes that it is possible to transform consumption patterns without interfering with the production process that drives them, ignoring the structural link between productivism and consumerism. Using a household appliance to its full potential clashes with planned obsolescence; waste sorting has no impact on excessive packaging practices; giving up the car is often impossible without adequate public transportation; and turning down the heating is of little use in poorly insulated homes.
In other words, before asking consumers to "do their part," producers should set an example.
On the other hand, this strategy places the responsibility on individuals-isolated, atomized-to correct an ecocidal dynamic that stems from capitalist production relations themselves, without questioning them. This contradiction can only be overcome through collective action, capable of transforming or replacing these relations.
This inevitably implies a high level of political conflict, a far cry from the reassuring world in which everyone is invited to "do something to save the planet" in good conscience... and unawareness.
Let's take the risk!
Faced with risks of all kinds, constantly increasing (in intensity and frequency) under the impact of ecological catastrophe-but also of some of its supposed market or technical solutions-voices have been raised, trying to convince us that these risks are the price we must pay for continuing on the path of "progress," "development," or "modernity." These vague and ambiguous terms, through their euphemism, veil and legitimize what accompanies the world's becoming-capitalism: namely, capital's growing destructive grip on the natural and social world, as it gradually subjugates it to the demands of its own reproduction. It is in this sense that I understand them below.
Among these voices, the most influential was that of the German sociologist Ulrich Beck (1944-2015), author of another bestseller, Risk Society . According to Beck, the second half of the 20th century saw "a rupture within a modernity that emancipated itself from the confines of classical industrial society to assume a new form-which we call here the 'industrial risk society'" (Beck, 2001: 20), forcing us to abandon "the religion of progress," that is, the naive belief in the intrinsic virtues of modernity.
The latter, in fact, has not kept its promises: poverty persists, social inequalities are growing again, and the world's peripheries remain underdeveloped. Furthermore, where there has been an increase in wealth, it has been accompanied by a series of new ills, which Beck groups under the concept of risk: pollution, industrial disasters, nuclear risk, threats to health and safety, etc.
These risks are no longer external or natural, but generated by industrial development itself and its technical-scientific apparatus; they are not occasional but widespread risks, affecting both humans and non-humans, and are particularly denounced by environmental movements; they fuel anti-modern tendencies (critiques of science, technology, economic growth, etc.).
In short, we have moved from a "progressive society," confident in science and technology, to a "risk society," aware of their ambivalence and the "harms of progress," and therefore experiencing a growing loss of faith in scientific and technological rationality-all the more so since, being part of the problem, it is incapable of either preventing these risks or protecting us from them.
The growth of wealth has thus been accompanied by a growth of risks, to the point that their distribution has replaced that of wealth as the primary area of political conflict. In the "risk society," the central focus is no longer the class struggle for the appropriation of resources, but rather the relationship to risks and their distribution. A society in which sensitivity to risk grows, and, along with it, the demand for security directed at the state-which is often unable to respond.
A second factor further exacerbates this dynamic: what Beck calls "a social push toward individualization" (ibid.: 158). This is driven by the development of the welfare state, increased life expectancy, reduced working hours, the diffusion of cultural goods, and the transformation of labor markets (increased mobility, precariousness, and flexibility).
This assertion of the individual destabilizes the structures of industrial society, starting with class solidarity, giving rise to "a classless capitalism, which nevertheless retains all its structures and the inequalities that derive from them" (Id.: 160). It also affects the family, challenging traditional roles and contributing to women's emancipation, but introducing new risks, such as economic and relational precariousness.
Thus, "it is the individual himself (...) who becomes the unit of reproduction of the social sphere" (Id.: 162). This does not prevent, but rather encourages, the birth of new communities and social movements (ecologists, pacifists, feminists) mobilized against the risks of industrial society.
However, Beck doesn't go so far as to speak of a "post-industrial" society. Rather, he proposes a new phase of modernity: a "reflexive modernity." In this phase, societies would continue to modernize, but more consciously, questioning the exclusive role of governments, experts, and scientists.
This reflexive modernity would entail a new relationship with science-more self-critical and open to social needs-and with politics, through a democratization of decisions even outside representative institutions, through widespread counter-powers (media, associations, citizens, etc.).
In essence, Beck proposes a new "grand narrative" of modernity, divided into two phases: the second would correct the first through reflexivity. But this narrative does not stand up to rigorous historical analysis.
As Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and Dominique Pestre (2013) show, modernity has always been reflexive: it has always been aware of the risks it produced-but it has nevertheless chosen to run them. More than reflexivity, it is characterized by a true disinhibition with respect to risk:
"The term disinhibition has the advantage of uniting two moments: that of reflexivity, but also that of the transition to action, of the normalization of danger. Modernity has been a process of disinhibition-always, however, already restless" (Id.: 24).
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, risk management has aimed not at eliminating them, but at making them acceptable: through regulations, permits, insurance, and tolerance thresholds. In the postwar period, with Fordism and the welfare state, this logic became widespread, while radical criticisms of environmental damage also emerged.
Since the 1980s, neoliberalism has tended to individualize risk management, placing it on individuals, while the demand for state protection has grown. It is in this context that Beck develops his theories.
But it is precisely here that the limits of his analysis emerge. Modernity hasn't become reflexive today: it has always been so-without renouncing risks. What matters, rather, is that these risks have been systematically passed on to others: workers, local populations, consumers.
Risk is intrinsic to capitalist industrialization because the use of productive forces escapes the control of producers and is subordinated to the valorization of capital. Therefore, the problem is not science and technology per se, but the social relations that govern them.
This aspect completely escapes Beck, who goes so far as to argue that the monopolies of industrial society are dissolving. In reality, one of them has strengthened: the capitalist monopoly on the means of production.
If humanity today is unable to control the risks of technological and scientific development, it is because the majority of individuals have been dispossessed of control over production. Even Beck's proposals remain superficial: for example, when he hopes that technicians can freely express the risks they observe.
The radical solution would be another: abolish wage dependency and restore control of the means of production to producers. Without this transformation, any idea of countervailing power remains illusory.
The promise of a "reflexive modernity" capable of mastering risks is therefore an illusion. It amounts to inviting us to continue submitting to the capitalist logic of risk-the logic that imposed fertilizers and pesticides yesterday, GMOs today, and geoengineering tomorrow.
Ultimately, as the entire history of modernity demonstrates, reflexivity has never eliminated this disinhibition: it has been an integral part of it. Only an exit from modernity-that is, from the world's becoming capitalism-could liberate us.
We are resilient!
Since risk is inevitable in modernity, we must learn to manage it, if not tame it. This requires us to become resilient.
The term resilience originally referred to a material's ability to resist an impact or to return to its original structure after being deformed, like a spring or a plastic. By extension, it later came to indicate the ability of a body, organism, species, system, etc., to overcome an alteration in its state due to a change in the environment, returning to its previous state or evolving toward a new stable state without fundamentally changing its structure.
It is in psychology that the concept of resilience received its academic baptism in the field of human sciences. Beginning in the 1950s, it was developed by Anglo-Saxon psychologists-primarily Emmy Werner, Michael Rutter, and Norman Garmezy-who worked with people who had experienced traumatic childhood situations: abuse, neglect, abandonment, physical or sexual assault, families dispersed or destroyed by poverty, hunger, epidemics, war, etc. Against all odds, they noted that some of these people had nevertheless managed to become seemingly fulfilled adults. Since then, the concept has commonly referred to the ability some people develop to somehow "bounce back" after a traumatic experience, or simply to build themselves in an unfavorable environment.
In France, this concept was introduced in particular by Boris Cyrulnik, a neuropsychiatrist, who popularized it through several successful, yet largely repetitive, books. He essentially reduces resilience to a simple idea: "Life is still possible after the wound of trauma" (Cyrulnik, 2001: 79). But for this to happen, certain conditions must be met.
First, a solid prior psychological structure, which allows the individual to gain self-confidence through a certain emotional stability. This will allow them, at the time of trauma, to deploy defense mechanisms such as refuge in daydreaming, intellectualization, denial, or splitting, to protect themselves from the psychological wounds they have suffered. They will then need to find "a new ecological, emotional, behavioral, and institutional niche," capable of offering them new guardians of development: people who guide and support them with help, affection, and esteem.
Finally, this "new niche" must also offer him the possibility of "expressing his wound", thus allowing him to abandon "costly defense mechanisms such as denial, splitting or shameful secrecy" and to rebuild a "finally pacified narrative identity", through words, writing, drawing, humor, theater, altruism, etc., until "transforming suffering into a work of art" (Id.: 80-81).
Even in psychology, resilience has given rise to countless works that, while clarifying its process, conditions, and outcomes, but also its limits and risks, have sparked controversies that have multiplied its meanings and, in part, confused its significance. To the point that "by the mid-2000s, the meanings attributed to this word had become so numerous that some researchers who used it were careful to specify that they were speaking of 'true resilience'-or even 'authentic' resilience-as if to distinguish themselves from counterfeits!", thus transforming the notion into a sort of "all-purpose container" (Tisseron, 2014: 16).
This polysemy, the price of his success, probably contributed to his success itself. But Tisseron identifies above all, among the reasons for this success, some concerns typical of our age: attention to human life, the desire to define oneself more through the present and future projects than through the past, the desire to "positivize"-that is, to see the positive side of things rather than the negative: every cloud has a silver lining; what doesn't kill me makes me stronger, etc. (Id.: 67-69).
These concerns are far from alien to the contemporary evolution of the subjugated individuality, which, in addition to its aspiration to individual autonomy, increasingly asserts itself as a self-referential individuality, with a particularly marked narcissistic dimension.
At the same time, a further sign of its success, the notion has migrated from the field of psychology to the broader field of social sciences and then political action. After "resilient families," we began to talk about "resilient cities," "resilient banks," "resilient economies," and so on. In this context, resilience is no longer conceived-at least not immediately-as an individual, psychological process, but as a collective one that influences the preceding one. To explain such a migration of the notion, we must invoke even more general psychosocial transformations.
Tisseron observes that the emergence of the concept of resilience in the United States in the 1950s coincided with two significant developments in American society: on the one hand, "the distressing growth of precariousness in a society that traditionally values it" (Id.: 9); on the other, a new conception of psychic trauma: "psychic trauma would not be an abnormal reaction to a difficult situation-a reaction that could be related to a pre-existing personal fragility-but a normal reaction to an abnormal situation" (Id.: 10).
From that moment on, it is no longer just a question of treating particularly fragile individuals, but of bringing out resilience in everyone: «In a society where precariousness is the rule, resilience can appear as a sort of psychic immunology, capable of protecting against trauma a bit like a vaccination protects against the risk of infection» (Id.: 11).
On this basis, one can hypothesize that the success of the concept of resilience in Europe-and particularly in France-since the 2000s stems from the widespread application of the conditions that had allowed its emergence in the United States half a century earlier. This context is precisely marked by the spread of apprehension, fear, and anxiety in the face of potentially traumatic situations of various kinds: persistent mass unemployment, the precariousness of professional situations and personal relationships, the injunction to intensely mobilize individuals as "self-entrepreneurs" in the midst of the market, the destabilization of collective identities-professional, regional, national-produced by "globalization," and, of course, the increasingly acute perception of the effects of a planetary ecological catastrophe that continues to worsen.
But, at the same time, in the course of its transposition from the psychological to the social and political realm, the term has also undergone a semantic shift. From a descriptive and analytical concept, it has transformed into a desirable norm, then rapidly prescriptive and imperative: a mutation that partly escapes Tisseron. However, it is already germinating in the project of bringing out resilience for all and in each individual: from the idea that everyone can get by, one easily moves to the idea that everyone should be able to get by, and then to the idea that everyone must get by.
The adoption of the resilience paradigm in collective risk management fully confirms this shift, also leading to the broadening of the resilience process Tisseron evokes at the end of his essay. In this context:
«Resilience is today conceived as a four-step phenomenon: the anticipation of disaster and its prevention, particularly through the memory of good practices; the ability to resist it; the reconstruction of capacities and the implementation of new attitudes designed to ensure a fresh start; the reduction of the physical, but also psychological, consequences that may arise, and the consolidation of new attitudes» (Id.: 115-116).
In essence, the benefits of resilience in some should be able to be converted into precepts, if not recipes, capable of enabling others to prepare to face and, when the time is right, overcome the test of a traumatic experience.
Resilience here clearly fits into a perspective of political disaster management: disasters whose risk and threat are increasing, which governments consider inevitable and to which we are asked to react as such.
This management involves the preventive preparation of relief, aid, and assistance structures for victims, not only materially and medically, but also psychologically. It involves local associations and political leaders, who enjoy the trust of the population, as well as centralized state bodies and specialized personnel. Thus, when specific disasters occur-rail accidents, terrorist attacks, etc.-we hear about "psychological units" or "support units" deployed to the field.
This management also involves preventively preparing populations to face catastrophes: information campaigns, educational programs that teach both the virtues of solidarity and basic rescue practices, networks of testimonies from survivors of previous catastrophes, capable of coming to the aid of victims of new catastrophes, etc. And Tisseron concludes: "If the word 'resilience' applied to people poses more problems than it solves, it is undoubtedly destined for a great future in the fields of public health and collective prevention" (Id.: 118).
Among the disasters slated for such treatment, ecological disasters clearly occupy a prominent place. The concept of resilience, thus reworked, quickly took center stage in managing the risks associated with these disasters. Indeed, it is at the heart of the Hyogo Framework for Action, entitled " Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters ," adopted in 2007 by 168 states as part of the UNISDR ( United Nations International Strategy for Disaster Reduction ), as well as at the heart of the concerns of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, opened that same year.
Similarly, for the past twenty years, it has been widely mobilized in projects and practices for adapting urban systems to climate change, despite its limited operationalization in this field (Quenault, 2013). Again, at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, the French armed forces' commitment to providing medical and logistical support to an overwhelmed hospital system was called Operation Resilience .
So, in the coming years, when you suffocate in overheated cities during the summer, when you run out of drinking water, when, on the contrary-after exceptional rainfall-water invades your home, when a tornado blows away the roof, when you have to flee from an uncontrollable forest fire, or when you are faced with the next zoonosis, expect to hear it repeated, in different tones and from many quarters: be re-si-lient!
Without questioning too much about the nature of the risks you will be asked to adapt to, nor about their causes or those responsible.
*) Source. Published in French at https://plateformecl.org/la-catastrophe-ecologique-est-elle-soluble-dans-lethique/
Bibliography
- Ulrich Beck (2001), Risk Society: Towards a New Modernity , Paris, Aubier.
- Alain Bihr (2017), Neoliberal Newspeak. The Rhetoric of Capitalist Fetishism , Lausanne/Paris, Page 2 / Syllepse.
- Boris Cyrulnik (2001), "Manifesto for Resilience", Spirale , no. 18.
- Boris Cyrulnik (2012), "Why resilience?", in Cyrulnik Boris and Jorland Gérard (eds.), Resilience. Basic knowledge , Paris, Odile Jacob.
- Boris Cyrulnik (2014), "Why resilience?", in Anaut Marie and Cyrulnik Boris (eds.), Resilience. From research to practice. 1st World Congress on Resilience , Paris, Odile Jacob.
- Jean-Baptiste Fressoz and Dominique Pestre (2013), "Risk and risk society over two centuries", in Bourg Dominique, Joly Pierre-Benoît and Kaufmann Alain (eds.), Reflections on the risk society. Thinking about catastrophe , Paris, Presses universitaires de France.
- Béatrice Quenault (2013), "Critical review of the mobilization of the concept of resilience in relation to the adaptation of urban systems to climate change", EchoGéo , n. 24.
- Gilles Rotillon (2020), Climate AND the end of the month , Paris, Éditions Maïa.
- Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler (2022), Nudge. Last edition , Paris, Vuibert.
- Serge Tisseron (2014), Resilience , Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 5th edizione.
Note
1. The term resilience derives from the Latin verb resilire , which means both "to jump back" and "to return with a leap": in other words, to bounce back, or to retreat in order to better relaunch oneself.
2. Boris Cyrulnik defines himself as a "resilient." Born into a Jewish family shortly before the Second World War, he was a victim of anti-Semitic persecution and managed to survive after being separated from his parents, deported, and killed in Nazi extermination camps. This experience profoundly influenced his theoretical reflections on resilience.
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