Struggle Between Corporate Influence and Eco-Social Change: Understanding the Hurdles to Forward Progress
Corporate Interests and Entrenched Elite Influence Thwart Climate Action, Extending Resource Extraction, Inequality, and Ecological Destruction
The latest COP summit has once again highlighted the obstacles to meaningful climate action: the deep-rooted influence of corporate elites. Negotiations intended to reduce emissions are watered down, delayed, or dismissed, as vested interests in fossil fuels and other industries exert immense sway to preserve the status quo. The entities responsible for the climate crisis continue to steer the global agenda, stifling discussions on transformative change.
This state of affairs is far from accidental; it stems from power structures entrenched within economic and political systems. By examining the evolution and dominance of power complexes—coalitions of industries and elites—we can gain insight into the current crisis.
Capitalism's relentless pursuit of growth has fueled an ever-expanding cycle of resource extraction, commodification, and renewed rounds of accumulation. Over time, this process has re-shaped both society and the environment. Power complexes are more than byproducts of historical processes; they actively shape them.
In the 19th century, a financial power complex held sway. A tightly-knit group of banks and financiers controlled global capital, with the City of London at its core, supported by the British Navy. Even major peripheral states found themselves subject to stringent oversight from international investors, using mechanisms such as the Ottoman Public Debt Administration and the Roosevelt Corollary to ensure creditor demands were met. "Free-trade imperialism" would eventually wane with the onset of the Great Depression in 1929.
The mid-20th century ushered in the Fordist era, characterized by mass production, strong labor unions, and domestic markets in the Global North. As the financial power complex weakened, fossil fuel and livestock-agribusiness complexes emerged. Fossil fuels were used to extract more fossil fuels, fostering the intensification of fossil capital's material flow. Governments bolstered the dominance of fossil capital with public investments like highways, enabling the success of automotive giants in Detroit, Fiat in Mussolini's Italy, and Volkswagen in Hitler's Germany. Meanwhile, the livestock-agribusiness complex expanded through the capitalization of nature, industrializing agriculture and making farming petro-farming, with pest management shifting to chemical extermination. Despite increased productivity, this led to biodiversity loss, higher greenhouse gas emissions, and the displacement of smallholder farmers.
By the 1970s, cracks in the Fordist system paved the way for neoliberalism, revitalizing the financial power complex and spawning a new digital power complex. Today's rise of techno-fascists in the United States marks the culmination of this influence. Digital corporations and figures like Elon Musk and Peter Thiel, once champions of "progressive neoliberalism," now threaten democracy through misinformation, surveillance, and social control—evidence of their complicity in enabling Israel's genocide in Gaza.
Under neoliberalism, all four power complexes—financial, fossil fuel, livestock-agribusiness, and digital—interacted, driving unprecedented extractive forces of rents, materials, and data. This interdependence increases their power and resistance to change.
The fossil fuel power complex serves as a prime example of entrenched interests shaping policies and progress. In the United States, twenty-seven of BP's lobbyists in 2023 previously held government positions. Fossil fuel companies spend vast sums lobbying governments and funding trade associations opposed to Paris-aligned climate policies. These associations often adopt extreme stances to enable individual corporations to present a cleaner image.
Beyond overt lobbying, fossil fuel companies shape decision-making through privileged access to policymakers. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the European Union's Energy Platform Industry Advisory Group included leading fossil fuel companies but excluded public interest organizations. This group, operating under a professional-secrecy clause, played a significant role in shaping the RePowerEU plan and new gas-sourcing initiatives, framing fossil fuels as vital to national security. This strategy weaponizes legitimate concerns to justify investments in carbon-intensive infrastructure, such as liquefied natural gas terminals.
The concept of "lock-in" highlights the danger. Once investments are made in fossil infrastructure or technology, long-term dependencies form. For instance, lobbying efforts in Germany helped approve up to twelve LNG projects, with seven new projects subsequently proposed or under construction—exceeding the European Commission's recommendations. While lobbying for expanded LNG infrastructure in countries like Germany, fossil companies have simultaneously opposed energy transition policies and promoted increased gas exploration in countries like Mauritania and Senegal. These actions bind entire regions to a carbon-intensive future.
Rather than relying on technological fixes or profitable markets, effective responses to the current social-ecological crises necessitate the dismantling of entrenched power structures and embracing economic democratization and democratic planning. Pioneering research on influential networks of climate obstruction, impactful supply-side interventions extending beyond efficiency improvements, research into feasible strategies for de-growth and post-growth, and the tireless efforts of IPCC authors to challenge entrenched power dynamics offer promising approaches. Until climate science, media, and political leaders confront systemic issues and abandon techno-utopian fantasies, they remain complicit in perpetuating the structures driving social-ecological collapse.
Richard Bärnthaler ([email protected]) is an assistant professor in ecological economics at the University of Leeds Sustainability Research Institute. He serves on the board of the European Society for Ecological Economics.
Andreas Novy is head of the Institute for Spatial and Social-Ecological Transformations (ISSET) at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU Wien). He is president of the International Karl Polanyi Society (IKPS).
- The fossil fuel power complex, with its deep roots in policy-and-legislation, continues to obstruct climate-change action through lobbying efforts and privileged access to policymakers.
- The digital power complex, now influencing general-news and politics, poses a threat to democracy through misinformation, surveillance, and social control, as seen in the rise of techno-fascists in the United States.
- To address the social-ecological crises, it is crucial to dismantle entrenched power structures and move towards economic democratization and democratic planning, as highlighted by researchers in environmental-science and ecological economics.
