This theoretical contribution will examine the process of displacement of the constitutive contradictions of advanced capitalist societies from interior to exterior during the postwar era known as the ‘capitalist Golden Age’ (1945 to 1980). I ask the following question: what if this displacement is both an inherent and necessary process? In that case, the apparent stability or expansion gained in the core during this era was not only at the expense of externalized instability and destruction ‘elsewhere’; rather, this displacement was a precondition for growth in the centre. This has normative, political and methodological implications for current projects of socio-ecological transformation based on a proverbial Green New Deal. By examining theories of unequal ecological exchange and biophysically expanded versions of the labour process as developed by ecological anthropologists such as Hornborg or ecological economists such as Georgescu-Roegen, I will explore the possibility of understanding the material trajectory of advanced capitalism as a zero-sum game. This leads to a view of capitalist development in the 20th century where the accumulation process is no longer seen as progressive. To substantiate this argument, I will re-examine the energy flow patterns that sustained the growth of American capitalism during the Fordist period of accumulation, or so-called Golden Age of American capitalism. This revision of the American experience of growth from 1945 to 1980 can be considered a contribution to the wider study of the development of the dependence of capitalism on fossil fuels, or ‘fossil capital’.

这一理论贡献将考察先进的资本主义社会的构成矛盾从内战到外迁的战后过程，战后时代被称为“资本主义黄金时代”（1945年至1980年）。我问以下问题：如果这种迁移既是固有的又是必要的过程，该怎么办？在那种情况下，在这个时代核心的明显的稳定或扩张不仅是以外部不稳定和“其他地方”破坏为代价的；而且 相反，这种流离失所是该中心发展的先决条件。这对基于众所周知的绿色新政的当前社会生态转型项目具有规范，政治和方法论意义。通过研究不平等的生态交换理论和劳动过程的生物物理学上的扩展版本，如霍恩堡等生态人类学家或乔治·斯库·罗根等生态经济学家提出的理论，我将探索将先进资本主义的物质轨迹理解为零和的可能性。游戏。这导致了20世纪资本主义发展的观点，那里的积累过程不再被看作是渐进的。为了证实这一观点，我将重新研究在福特主义积累时期（即所谓的美国资本主义的黄金时代）维持美国资本主义增长的能量流动模式。