230 Communities and Social Capital
has to be combined with struggle around material relations. The dualism at the
heart of Western patriarchy is both material and cultural/ideological. Capitalist
patriarchy justifies its transcendence through the promise of (eventually) extend-
ing transcendence to all, including those who are now locked into the hierarchical
mechanisms of mediation. Universal transcendence is a promise that in ecological
terms capitalist patriarchy cannot achieve. If it attempts to extend the patterns of
consumption already achieved in the most successful economies, capitalist patriar-
chy will at some point run up against ecological limits. If capitalist patriarchy does
not continue to extend its economic reach, it will fall victim to the classic Marxian
problem of failure to realize profits and the inability to ideologically control those
it exploits, excludes and oppresses.
The limitation of Marxist theory is that it only takes account of one form of
mediation, class exploitation. Materialist ecofeminism would extend historical
materialist analysis to all mechanisms of mediation. Political agency would rest
with any peoples or groups who are exploited, marginalized or excluded by tran-
scendent structures of social and ecological exploitation: people who have lost
their land, economic migrants, bonded labourers, underpaid or unemployed work-
ers, those suffering from biological and ecological hazards, floods, drought, pollu-
tion, industrial injury, ill health, people subordinated, oppressed and exploited on
the basis of ethnicity, ‘race’ or gender. I would not want to make the case that all
or any of these groups hold the answer to ecological sustainability or that they are
likely to be more ecologically benign given the chance. The point is that their
chances are limited socially or ecologically to a greater or lesser extent and this
unites all these struggles. This is why building coalitions and coordinated political
action are essential. Collective power will come from networks of people and
groups all over the world making these connections, building coalitions of struggle
not just around ideas but material conditions. The rather comfortable green con-
cerns of the middle class in Europe, the US or Australia are not so indulgent if they
are connected and identify with the campaigns of indigenous peoples for their land
and cultural heritage, the position of the landless and the workless, ecologically
and economically threatened communities, as well as campaigns around species
and habitat (Mellor, 1997b, p192).
An ethics for social and environmental justice will not be ‘given’ to hu(man)ity
by nature, it will always be a construct of human reason, informed by a critical
awareness of the dynamics of socioeconomic power. However, developing such an
ethic must take place against the background of a nonanthropocentric ontology.
Hu(man)ity is essentially limited and framed by the unknowable and uncertain
agency of the natural world. Immanent and alive nature embraces hu(man)ity. Fail-
ure to comprehend the materiality and material consequences of the human condi-
tion occurs where dominant social groups use the labour and resources of others
(human and non-human) to mediate between themselves and their biological/eco-
logical conditions. This is the three-way relationship of the double-dialectic of
human–human–nature relations. The constraints of human existence as natural
beings are mediated through unequal human–human relations. The development