A Parasite Not a Cannibal? How the State and Capital Protect Accumulation Amid Devastation

Abstract Nancy Fraser's recent book, Cannibal Capitalism , breathes new life into the eco‐Marxist concept of the ecological contradiction, arguing capitalism destroys its own ecological conditions of possibility like a serpent eating its own tail. Fraser's thesis appears to be playing out in British Columbia forests, where industry is closing mills and cutting jobs, decrying an increasingly limited “fibre basket”. But amid the ecosystem degradation industrial forestry has wrought over decades, including impacts to now‐endangered caribou, forestry firms and the state protect capital's ability to accumulate: firms move capital outside BC; the state replenishes trees, maintains “investability”, and attempts to avoid caribou extinction without constricting capital's access to nature. Capitalism thus appears more parasitic than cannibalistic. Taking a long view, BC forestry is, like capitalism broadly, durable despite being anti‐ecological, in part due to the state's powerful stabilising role.