Aldeia, João2026-01-122026-01-122024Aldeia, João (2024), “Opposing mastery, claiming the future. Life and death beyond capitalist modernity”, MAUSS International, 4, 222-236.978-2-38519-161-0http://hdl.handle.net/10400.2/20762Capitalist modernity accelerates the extinction of non-human species and leads to the contraction of human vital possibilities. Extinction has been the outcome of what Deborah Bird Rose called double death, i.e., a disruption of multispecies bonds that makes the death of individuals stop nourishing other individuals of other species, which results in a cascade of death. Double death stems from attempts of dominant classes to exercise mastery over other humans, non-humans and things, which has historically led to the establishment of hierarchical forms of socio-ecological organization. Although not all empirical hierarchies lead to death, the potential to kill is inherent to the principle of hierarchy because it is based on domination. In capitalist modernity, mastery has Cartesian and Utilitarian qualities that make double death particularly severe. However, since mastery is what causes the problem, opposing capitalist modernity is a crucial but insufficient step in the fight against double death, which requires ending the principle of hierarchy itself.engCapitalist modernityDouble deathEcologyExtinctionHierarchyMasteryjournal article