Confronting Multiple Global Crises: A Political Economy Approach for the Twenty-first Century

This article develops a political economy framework to analyse multiple, overlapping global crises, including crises of capitalism, labour, gender, race, and ecology. Drawing on the philosophy of internal relations and a historical materialist approach, the author argues that these crises are not separate but internally related, arising from the structural dynamics of capitalist accumulation, which depends not only on the exploitation of wage labour but also on the expropriation of unpaid labour, racialized populations, and natural resources. The paper contends that understanding these interconnected crises requires moving beyond surface-level explanations toward analysing the underlying social relations that sustain capitalism. Ultimately, the article calls for an integrated approach that captures how different forms of oppression and exploitation co-constitute contemporary global instability.