Climate Change, Coal and Cars: Commodity Fetishism in the Energy Transition in Indonesia

Abstract

The global rush to replace fossil fuels with cleaner forms of energy have generated the conditions for Indonesia to become a new resource frontier. The acceleration of extraction and smelting of nickel, in high demand by global manufacturers of electric vehicles, is wiping out island agriculture and fisheries in Indonesia. At the same time, coal production in Indonesia continues to increase for both export and domestic use, including for the country’s burgeoning nickel industry. In this paper, we present the political economy of the global energy transition as it is playing out in Indonesia today, specifically looking at the beneficiaries and losers of nickel and coal production. We then apply the Marxist concept of commodity fetishism and Gunderson’s critique of the defetishization thesis to problematize the greening of extractivism in Indonesia. Commodity fetishism involves the masking of the labour expended to produce commodities by treating the commodities as if they are objects with inherent value. The defetishization thesis argues that alternative markets can lead to a less mystified relationship with commodity production by giving consumers information about how the commodities are produced. We join critics of this thesis as it applies to the greening of extractivism in Indonesia. A new layer of commodity fetishism is being produced that serves to hide the devastating conditions under which energy is being produced in Indonesia.