The question of whether ‘green capitalism’ is possible has become increasingly urgent in the context of climate change. Should it prove impossible, addressing the climate crisis will require a new economic and social order, alongside different ways of thinking about knowledge.
In this article, I engage with this question and its implications based on Cédric Durand’s publication “The Problem of Knowledge in the Anthropocene” (2026). The discussion considers whether green capitalism can resolve the ecological crisis within existing market structures, taking into account the assumptions about knowledge embedded in this system. Additionally, if green capitalism is not able to do so, it is elaborated how a new economic order might look like.
What is the aim of this study?
In his article, French economist Cédric Durand examines the foundations of knowledge underlying historical and contemporary debates on the feasibility and limitations of economic planning, specifically in the context of ecological challenges. Durand’s work thus engages with long-standing debates, such as the Socialist Calculation Debate, which first emerged in the 1920s. He challenges the purported victory of the Austrian School of economics – represented, amongst others by Friedrich August von Hayek and his intellectual successors.
His critique goes beyond the common argument that new digital technologies and networks make large-scale economic planning possible. Instead, Durand transcends the debate by adopting an epistemological approach, questioning how knowledge is produced, understood, and used. He thereby outlines “a possible path forward” (Durand, 2026, S. 13).
Green finance – green capitalism?
Starting with an exemplary case study of green finance, Durand illustrates the limits of the Hayekian epistemology. The concept of green finance is based on the idea of integrating all relevant (ecological) information into financial products with the goal to adequately price them and therefore strengthen the efficiency of the market.
One example of green finance is the use of ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) scores, which are intended to serve as indicators for ethical and sustainable investments. Durand convincingly argues that even if companies fully disclosed all necessary information about the environmental impact of their operations, and even if ESG scores reflected their real environmental impact rather than the perceived image of sustainability, the project of ‘green capitalism’ would still face a fundamental obstacle. This obstacle lies in the internal dynamics of financial markets themselves.
An example for this is a phenomenon called ‘greenium’ (blending of green and premium): Investors are often eager to invest in companies with a high perceived environmental benefit. Additionally, they are even willing to provide capital to ‘green’ companies at a lower borrowing cost than usual. As a result, the yields on these investments tend to be lower. Consequently, investors in ‘green’ companies accumulate capital more slowly than those investing in ‘non-green‘ firms. Further, the investments that are needed to transform the economy ecologically are often only insufficiently profitable, compared to conventional investments, even without a ‘greenium’.
These considerations therefore raise doubts about an economy in which the market is understood as an efficient information processor capable of accounting for the climatic impact of investments. This understanding of the market disregards both its limits as a knowledge system in accounting for ecological destruction and also dismisses the negative climatic effects of the imperative of capital accumulation.
Knowledge limits of the market
From a Hayekian perspective, the fundamental problem of knowledge is that the information needed to run an economy is dispersed across society, depends on local circumstances, and often takes the form of tacit knowledge, as it is acquired through practical experience, making it difficult to articulate or transfer. Centralizing this knowledge would therefore be impossible, as no single authority can fully collect or process information that is constantly changing and inherently subjective.
Durand trenchantly and ironically critiques Hayek with his own argument: Drawing on the political philosopher and economist John O’Neil, Durand elaborates that scientific and expert knowledge – which is essential for markets – is per se tacit knowledge gained through extensive training. Therefore, whoever accepts Hayek’s premise not only denies the collective or a central planning authority the ability to possess and use such knowledge, but also denies it to individual market actors themselves. Simply distributing this knowledge among them does not mean that can fully comprehend or make effective use of it. The Hayekian perspective is consequently vulnerable to the same objections that Hayek himself raised against concentrating all knowledge in a central planning authority: The market actors cannot fully comprehend the knowledge, making the distribution of knowledge by the market as a seemingly efficient knowledge processor pointless.
This proves to be especially contradictory if one considers that the Austrian School asserts individual responsibility for the (ecological) consequences of economic activity. To resolve this problem of knowledge, one must not only reform the idea of a market as an efficient information processor by, for example, acknowledging that there are ecological externalities that markets cannot account for – a restraint which Hayek surprisingly accepted. But instead, one must discard the Hayekian epistemology once and for all.
Epistemology of planned economies
One such paradigm shift leads Durand to the epistemology of planned economies. Drawing on the ideas of economist Charles Bettelheim, philosopher Kohei Saito and economic historian Karl Polanyi, he proclaims that one should accept the incommensurable plurality of elements that constitute an economy (labour, means of production, or ecological interactions) and the resulting insight that nature cannot be reduced to our knowledge or understanding of it.
For a planned economy, this means that an external and quantifiable overview of these elements of an economy – achieved through statistics, bureaucratic means, or science – can help to approximate the individual human needs and allocate goods accordingly. Additionally, the environmental impact of economic activity can be estimated, and, on this basis, economic activity can be planned beyond the imperative of capital accumulation. Nevertheless, Durand accepts that this quantifiable overview can never capture the elements of an economy in their abundance.
Therefore, contrary to the Hayekian epistemology, Durand perceives knowledge as something that cannot sufficiently be reduced to a quantitative and one-dimensional price signal. Consequently, a planned economy that seeks to transcend the commodity form must also develop alternative ways of incorporating knowledge of the qualitative inner human processes, including emotions, needs, or motivations.
To gain this internal perspective, he proposes bottom-up and self-organization processes in economic entities such as labour unions or cooperatives. By establishing these processes, dispersed qualitative knowledge can be incorporated into economic planning, thereby providing individuals with real agency.
The path forward
As I have elaborated, Durand convincingly demonstrates that so-called ‘green capitalism’ is inherently incapable of adequately addressing the ecological crisis. Yet in the context of accelerating climate change, the question of viable alternatives becomes ever more urgent. Durand’s critique of the epistemological foundations of ‘green capitalism’, together with his initial effort to sketch a knowledge system for a green planned economy, should therefore be understood not as a finished solution but as the starting point of a broader theoretical and practical project.
Reference
Durand, C. (2026). The problem of knowledge in the Anthropocene. Globalizations, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/14747731.2025.2601919