Introduction
Clare Follmann’s book "Scapegoat" is a radical deconstruction of modern nature conservation. The author argues that the language of "invasion" is not a neutral biological description, but a political tool. In the age of the Capitalocene, where the structural causes of environmental degradation remain untouchable, animals and plants become "theatrical stand-ins" for guilt. This article analyzes how technocratic newspeak masks the destructive effects of the extractive economy, calling for a shift from resource management toward a relational ontology.
Conservation Rhetoric and the Language of War
The language of nature conservation becomes a tool of violence when war metaphors—such as "invasion" or "neutralization"—legitimize the biopolitical ordering of fauna. This xenophobic rhetoric imposes a grid of perception in which the animal becomes a suspect, and the state gains a mandate to "manage" its elimination. The language of war polarizes the debate, simplifying complex ecological dependencies into a binary division between "us" and "them," which effectively excludes ethical reflection on the fate of beings deemed "undeserving."
Invasive Species as the Scapegoat of Capital
Invasive species serve as a scapegoat because it is easier to blame an owl or a beetle than global supply chains. The capitalist system, which requires easily stigmatized culprits, uses these organisms to divert attention from the extractive economy. The ethical consequence of this mechanism is regulatory substitution: instead of restructuring industry, the state apparatus turns its guns against beings that do not pay for election campaigns. The concept of "nativeness" becomes not a biological fact, but a powerful regulatory category used for the administrative ordering of living tissue.
Green Capitalism vs. Real Transformation
Green capitalism differs from real transformation in that it seeks to save the function of accumulation by merely changing its technical packaging. While technocracy masks devastation with spreadsheets, real change requires rebuilding the property regime. Indigenous knowledge plays a key role here, shattering the Western metaphysics of separating humans from nature and viewing the world as a web of obligations. Citizen science democratizes the production of knowledge, undermining the monopoly of laboratories, while mutual aid becomes an infrastructure for survival. Prefiguration allows us to build the seeds of a new order within the old, proving that communities can organize life outside the market. Liberal ecology, limited by planetary boundaries, fails because it does not question the very logic of profit that turns the biosphere into a portfolio of assets.
Summary
Will we manage to stop killing the passengers for the crimes of the drivers racing toward the abyss? The true test of our civilizational maturity will not take place in the offices of decision-makers, but in the cracks of the system, where communities reclaim the right to decide their common fate. We must transform from administrators of dead resources into kin of the living earth. The question is: can we do it before the sterile language of procedure finally displaces the remnants of authentic care and solidarity from our world?
📄 Full analysis available in PDF