James O’Connor

Co-founder/director of the Center for Political Ecology and Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz. From 1988 to 1993 James O’Connor served as Editor-in-Chief of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism: A Journal of Socialist Ecology. James O’Connor’s publications have had a major impact on the thinking of the generation of red-green scholar advocates who came of age in the 1970s and 1980s. His red-green synthesis continues to resonate, stimulate debate, and prompt new thinking, especially in light of resurgent attention to the relationship between capitalism, environmental degradation, and global crises.

Jim O’Connor email: cns [at] ucsc.edu

Oft-cited publications

Fiscal Crisis of the State

First edition St. Martins Press 1972, revised 4th printing Transaction 2009.

Natural Cuases - James O'Connor

Guilford Press, 1998.

The Meaning of Crisis

Blackwell, 1987.

Accumulation Crisis

Blackwell, 1984.

Major articles

What is Environmental History? Why Environmental History Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 8(2) June 1997.

“On the Two Contradictions of Capitalism,” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 2(3), 1991

Introduction: The Political Economy of Ecology” Capitalism, Nature, Socialism 3(1), 1989.

Capitalism, Nature, Socialism a theoretical introduction Capitalism Nature Socialism 1(1) 1988:11-38.

A Dialogue on Socialism and Ecology: A debate by James O’ Connor and Takis Fotopoulos