Marx's Ecology
Materialism and Nature
John Bellamy FosterPublished by Monthly Review
2000, 288pp, ISBN 1583670122, Paperback
$30.00
Progress requires the conquest of nature. Or does it? This new account overturns conventional interpretations of Marx and in the process outlines a more rational approach to the current environmental crisis.
Marx, it is often assumed, cared only about industrial growth and the development of economic forces. John Bellamy Foster examines Marx's neglected writings on capitalist agriculture and soil ecology, philosophical naturalism, and evolutionary theory. He shows that Marx, known as a powerful critic of capitalist society, was also deeply concerned with the changing human relationship to nature.
Marx's Ecology covers many other thinkers, including Epicurus, Charles Darwin, Thomas Malthus, Ludwig Feuerbach, P. J. Proudhon, and William Paley.
By reconstructing a materialist conception of nature and society, Marx's Ecology challenges the spiritualism prevalent in the modern Green movement, pointing toward a method that offers more lasting and sustainable solutions to the ecological crisis.
CONTENTS
Preface
Introduction
Materialism
Ecology
The Crisis of Socio-Ecology
1. The Materialist Conception of Nature
Materialism and the Very Early Marx
Epicurus and the Revolution of Science and Reason
2. The Really Earthly Question
Feuerbach
The Alienation of Nature and Humanity
Association versus Political Economy
3. Parson Naturalists
Natural Theology
Natural Theology and Political Economy
The First Essay
The Second Essay
Thomas Chalmers and the Bridgewater Treatises
4. The Materialist Conception of History
The Critique of Malthus and the Origins of Historical Materialism
The New Materialism
Historical Geology and Historical Geography
Critique of the True Socialists
The Mechanistic "Prometheanism" of Proudhon
The View of the Communist Manifesto
5. The Metabolism of Nature and Society
Overpopulation and the Conditions of Reproduction of Human Beings
James Anderson and the Origins of Differential Fertility
Liebig, Marx, and the Second Agricultural Revolution
6. The Basis in Natural History for Our View
The Origin of Species
Darwin, Huxley, and the Defeat of Teleology
Marx and Engels: Labor and Human Evolution
The Plight of the Materialists
The Revolution in Ethnological Time: Morgan and Marx
A Young Darwinian and Karl Marx
Epilogue
Dialectical Naturalism
Marxism and Ecology after Engels
Caudwell's Dialectics
The Dialectical Ecologist
The Principle of Conservation
Notes
Index
About the Author
JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER is associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. He is the author of The Vulnerable Planet and co-editor of Hungry for Profit (2000), Capitalism and the Information Age (1998), and In Defense of History (1996).
REVIEWS
“In the best tradition of Marxist scholarship, John Bellamy Foster uses the history of ideas not as a courtesy to the past but as an integral part of current issues. He demonstrates the centrality of ecology for a materialist conception of history, and of historical materialism for an ecological movement.”
— RICHARD LEVINS, Harvard University
“Marx's Ecology is a bold,exciting interpretation of the historical background and context of Marx's ecological thought and a fascinating exploration of environmental history. Should be of interest to all who care about the fate of our `vulnerable planet.’”
— CAROLYN MERCHANT, University of California, Berkeley
“When I first saw John Bellamy Foster's new book I thought, `Oh no, not another great, thick, fat book on Marx!' But as soon as I started to read, I found it hard to put down. It has given me a new understanding of the totality of Marx's materialism and his development of the dialectic of human society and nature.” — R.C. LEWONTIN, Harvard University
“In Marx's Ecology, John Bellamy Foster brilliantly expands our understanding of Marx's thought, proving that Marx understood alienation to encompass human estrangement from the natural world. Foster criticizes the current version of environmentalism that equates Marxism and modernity with the degradation of nature and points towards a sophisticated and less nostalgic environmentalism which sees capitalism, not modernity, as the essential problem to be addressed.”
— BARBARA EPSTEIN, University of California, Santa Cruz
“Highly sophisticated, stated in lavish detail that historians of thought will find to be vital to their trade. Yet those of us who are not historians of thought will still find Foster’s basic theses about Darwin and Marx and ecology to be fascinating and clearly stated. This is an important book.”
— HOWARD J. SHERMAN, JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ISSUES
“Marx’s Ecology is a compelling, thought-provoking read that effectively and authoritatively pries open a space in the rather over-published realm of Marxist theory for a debate concerning the relationship between materialism and ecology. It should offer a catalyst to a serious reconsideration of the common assumption that Marx’s work has little to offer ecological discourse, beyond novel and sporadic secondary observations of the environmental effects of capitalist development.”
— J. CHRISTOPHER KOVATS-BERNAT, HUMAN ECOLOGY REVIEW
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