The drive to put prices on everything is a basic feature of capitalism. Political theorist Alyssa Battistoni asks then why capitalism has failed at putting a price on so much of nature, which she believes helps illuminate capitalism’s destruction of the natural world. She also argues that the relationship that capitalism forces us to have with the rest of nature makes us less free as human beings.
Alyssa Battistoni, Free Gifts: Capitalism and the Politics of Nature University of Princeton Press, 2025