- 17 Dec 2003 20:56
#61231
So you'd like to ... Replace Capitalism with Ecosocialism
A guide by Walter R. Sheasby, Sociologist, a Coordinator of
[email protected]
This is a guide to the new field of Ecosocialism, the synthesis of
Green and Red social theory, a paradigm with a practical as well
as theoretical orientation for those coming to terms with the global
ecological crisis. Profound turning points in social theory have always
been in response to wrenching crises in society, and the growing
threat of global ecological disaster is sweeping together and coalescing
critical viewpoints.Several new books are making the ecosocialist
paradigm a serious contender against the sterile flatlands of capitalist
culture and ideology. The most important of these and the best place to
start is 'The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World'.
The author, Joel Kovel, has written widely on radical theory and politics
and teaches Social Studies at Bard College in Annandale, New York.
He challenged Ralph Nader for the nomination of the Green Party in the
2000 U.S. Presidential election and is a spokesperson for the Green Alliance.
Kovel's book relates the ecological crisis to the 'Grow or Die' dynamic of
capital, examines the various ecophilosophies and movements that have
arisen to address the crisis, and sketches out the approach of ecosocialism,
seen as a reunification of the producer and the means and conditions of
production in a sustainable, ecological context.Kovel draws from James
O'Connor's now well-established concept of the Second Contradiction of
Capitalism between productive forces and relations versus the conditions of production.
O'Connor's 1998 work, 'Natural Causes', was seen as an attempt
to deal with ecological issues left unanalyzed by Marx, but later work has
added to Marx's credentials in this area.
O'Connor's look at "Uneven and Combined Development" in relation to spatial
and temporal crises affecting the flow of limited use-values from tap to sink,
from resource extraction to disposal of pollutant and waste, is groundbreaking.
He suggests a new way of looking at the unsustainability of global capitalism
that links rigorous ecological analysis with the rationale of resistance struggles
in both the center and periphery of the empire. O'Connor, an economics professor emeritus at University of California at Santa Cruz is the founder and chief editor
of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism [email protected], a quarterly Guilford journal
that brings together ecosocialist writers from all over the world.
The book that has most stimulated a re-evaluation of Karl Marx's theory in
relation to environmental destruction is 'Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective'. The author, Paul Burkett, teaches economics at Indiana State University in Terre Haute and is a member of the Union for Radical Political Economics. Burkett has provided the most thorough analysis of Marx's
distinction between Use-Value and Exchange-Value in relation to the human embeddedness in nature and our devastation of that home.
John Bellamy Foster, who teaches sociology at the University of Oregon
in Eugene, has recently published his third work in this field, 'Ecology Against Capitalism', which covers some of the same ground as Kovel and as Foster's
short work in 1994, 'The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment', and a collection he co-edited, 'Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment'. A similar empirical study is the
1998 book by Tom Athanasiou, 'Divided Planet : The Ecology of Rich and Poor'. Foster's previous book, 'Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature', brought to the
fore Marx's concept of "Metabolism" or "Stoffwechsel" in German, an idea Marx derived from the pioneers studying the life cycles in the Cell (Theodor Schwann
and Matthias Schleiden) and in soil and sky (Justus Liebig). As Foster noted,
this approach to metabolic cycles in nature was brought into contemporary
science by the Russian biogeochemist, Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, in his
1924 classic, The 'The Biosphere'. Unfortunately, discussion of Marx's Ecology
has focused mainly on the relevance of philosophical materialism to contemporary politics rather than advancing Marxian studies of the Biosphere.
These substantial theoretical contributions are often ignored in philosophical
disputes over Marx's methodology, his ethics, his humanist ontology, or what
is seen as his productivism. University of Manchester philosopher Jonathan
Hughes in his 2000 work, 'Ecology and Historical Materialism (Studies in Marxism and Social Theory)', simply addressed the question of whether Marx's metatheory can be made consistent with ecologism, without referring to any of the authors
I've cited above. The ethical dimension is emphasized in a 1999 work by the German theorist, Saral K. Saran, 'Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? : A Critical Analysis of Humanity's Fundamental Choices'.
The field of ecosocialism has grown so much in literature and sophistication in
the last few years that a student needs to be somewhat wary of books published before 1998. Some of these have become classics, out-of-print in some cases,
but circulated by movement groups. Such is Brian Tokar's 'The Green Alternative : Creating an Ecological Future'. A useful history of the early days is Martin Ryle's 1988 'Ecology and Socialism'. One I have not seen is 'Green on red : evolving ecological socialism' edited by Rob Dobson and Ron Fletcher.
Another movement classic is Carolyn Merchant's 1992 'Radical Ecology : The Search for a Livable World (Revolutionary Thought/Radical Movements)', a book
that radicalized and ecologized many a young student in the last decade.
Ecosocialists are simultaneously Ecofeminists, and the best survey is
undoubtedly Northumbria University sociologist Mary Mellor's 1997 'Feminism & Ecology'. More directly relevant is her 'Breaking the Boundaries: Towards a
Feminist Green Socialism'. A critical examination of the recent academic
quarrels is provided by the Australian theorist Ariel Salleh in her 1999
'Ecofeminism As Politics : Nature, Marx and the Postmodern'.A number of ecosocialists have a background in ecoanarchism, and David Pepper, a
geography instructor at Oxford Brookes University, does a very fair job of
analyzing both the red and the black wings of the green movement in his
1993 'Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice'. Unfortunately,
Pepper sets forth a decidedly anthropocentric Marxism undoubtedly influenced
by Murray Bookchin, who rejected Marx, however, in his Social Ecology or
'Post-Scarcity Anarchism'.
Anthropocentrism versus ecocentrism was the issue often focused on by writers
in the 1980s and 1990s, as seen in the 1996 anthology edited by Ted Benton, a sociologist at the University of Essex, 'The Greening of Marxism'. Like the school
of Analytical Marxism, the early Ecological Marxists tended to rest on past
readings of Marx rather than keeping up with the new excavations and re-readings
in marxology. A major work that combines a close reading of Marx with contemporary empirical analysis is the difficult but rewarding tome by Istvan Meszaros, 'Beyond Capital : Towards a Theory of Transition'. His groundbreaking study, 'Marx's Theory of Alienation' is still available, and his new book addressing the ecological crisis, 'Socialism or Barbarism', will be out in the fall of 2002.
No study guide would be complete without mention of the embodiment of ecosocialism in the life and art of William Morris (1834-1896), whose vision of
a socialist future in his novel 'News from Nowhere and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)' has been the best introduction to ecosocialism since 1890. The best biography is E. P. Thompson's 1988 'William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary'.
A guide by Walter R. Sheasby, Sociologist, a Coordinator of
[email protected]
This is a guide to the new field of Ecosocialism, the synthesis of
Green and Red social theory, a paradigm with a practical as well
as theoretical orientation for those coming to terms with the global
ecological crisis. Profound turning points in social theory have always
been in response to wrenching crises in society, and the growing
threat of global ecological disaster is sweeping together and coalescing
critical viewpoints.Several new books are making the ecosocialist
paradigm a serious contender against the sterile flatlands of capitalist
culture and ideology. The most important of these and the best place to
start is 'The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World'.
The author, Joel Kovel, has written widely on radical theory and politics
and teaches Social Studies at Bard College in Annandale, New York.
He challenged Ralph Nader for the nomination of the Green Party in the
2000 U.S. Presidential election and is a spokesperson for the Green Alliance.
Kovel's book relates the ecological crisis to the 'Grow or Die' dynamic of
capital, examines the various ecophilosophies and movements that have
arisen to address the crisis, and sketches out the approach of ecosocialism,
seen as a reunification of the producer and the means and conditions of
production in a sustainable, ecological context.Kovel draws from James
O'Connor's now well-established concept of the Second Contradiction of
Capitalism between productive forces and relations versus the conditions of production.
O'Connor's 1998 work, 'Natural Causes', was seen as an attempt
to deal with ecological issues left unanalyzed by Marx, but later work has
added to Marx's credentials in this area.
O'Connor's look at "Uneven and Combined Development" in relation to spatial
and temporal crises affecting the flow of limited use-values from tap to sink,
from resource extraction to disposal of pollutant and waste, is groundbreaking.
He suggests a new way of looking at the unsustainability of global capitalism
that links rigorous ecological analysis with the rationale of resistance struggles
in both the center and periphery of the empire. O'Connor, an economics professor emeritus at University of California at Santa Cruz is the founder and chief editor
of Capitalism, Nature, Socialism [email protected], a quarterly Guilford journal
that brings together ecosocialist writers from all over the world.
The book that has most stimulated a re-evaluation of Karl Marx's theory in
relation to environmental destruction is 'Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective'. The author, Paul Burkett, teaches economics at Indiana State University in Terre Haute and is a member of the Union for Radical Political Economics. Burkett has provided the most thorough analysis of Marx's
distinction between Use-Value and Exchange-Value in relation to the human embeddedness in nature and our devastation of that home.
John Bellamy Foster, who teaches sociology at the University of Oregon
in Eugene, has recently published his third work in this field, 'Ecology Against Capitalism', which covers some of the same ground as Kovel and as Foster's
short work in 1994, 'The Vulnerable Planet: A Short Economic History of the Environment', and a collection he co-edited, 'Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment'. A similar empirical study is the
1998 book by Tom Athanasiou, 'Divided Planet : The Ecology of Rich and Poor'. Foster's previous book, 'Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature', brought to the
fore Marx's concept of "Metabolism" or "Stoffwechsel" in German, an idea Marx derived from the pioneers studying the life cycles in the Cell (Theodor Schwann
and Matthias Schleiden) and in soil and sky (Justus Liebig). As Foster noted,
this approach to metabolic cycles in nature was brought into contemporary
science by the Russian biogeochemist, Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky, in his
1924 classic, The 'The Biosphere'. Unfortunately, discussion of Marx's Ecology
has focused mainly on the relevance of philosophical materialism to contemporary politics rather than advancing Marxian studies of the Biosphere.
These substantial theoretical contributions are often ignored in philosophical
disputes over Marx's methodology, his ethics, his humanist ontology, or what
is seen as his productivism. University of Manchester philosopher Jonathan
Hughes in his 2000 work, 'Ecology and Historical Materialism (Studies in Marxism and Social Theory)', simply addressed the question of whether Marx's metatheory can be made consistent with ecologism, without referring to any of the authors
I've cited above. The ethical dimension is emphasized in a 1999 work by the German theorist, Saral K. Saran, 'Eco-Socialism or Eco-Capitalism? : A Critical Analysis of Humanity's Fundamental Choices'.
The field of ecosocialism has grown so much in literature and sophistication in
the last few years that a student needs to be somewhat wary of books published before 1998. Some of these have become classics, out-of-print in some cases,
but circulated by movement groups. Such is Brian Tokar's 'The Green Alternative : Creating an Ecological Future'. A useful history of the early days is Martin Ryle's 1988 'Ecology and Socialism'. One I have not seen is 'Green on red : evolving ecological socialism' edited by Rob Dobson and Ron Fletcher.
Another movement classic is Carolyn Merchant's 1992 'Radical Ecology : The Search for a Livable World (Revolutionary Thought/Radical Movements)', a book
that radicalized and ecologized many a young student in the last decade.
Ecosocialists are simultaneously Ecofeminists, and the best survey is
undoubtedly Northumbria University sociologist Mary Mellor's 1997 'Feminism & Ecology'. More directly relevant is her 'Breaking the Boundaries: Towards a
Feminist Green Socialism'. A critical examination of the recent academic
quarrels is provided by the Australian theorist Ariel Salleh in her 1999
'Ecofeminism As Politics : Nature, Marx and the Postmodern'.A number of ecosocialists have a background in ecoanarchism, and David Pepper, a
geography instructor at Oxford Brookes University, does a very fair job of
analyzing both the red and the black wings of the green movement in his
1993 'Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice'. Unfortunately,
Pepper sets forth a decidedly anthropocentric Marxism undoubtedly influenced
by Murray Bookchin, who rejected Marx, however, in his Social Ecology or
'Post-Scarcity Anarchism'.
Anthropocentrism versus ecocentrism was the issue often focused on by writers
in the 1980s and 1990s, as seen in the 1996 anthology edited by Ted Benton, a sociologist at the University of Essex, 'The Greening of Marxism'. Like the school
of Analytical Marxism, the early Ecological Marxists tended to rest on past
readings of Marx rather than keeping up with the new excavations and re-readings
in marxology. A major work that combines a close reading of Marx with contemporary empirical analysis is the difficult but rewarding tome by Istvan Meszaros, 'Beyond Capital : Towards a Theory of Transition'. His groundbreaking study, 'Marx's Theory of Alienation' is still available, and his new book addressing the ecological crisis, 'Socialism or Barbarism', will be out in the fall of 2002.
No study guide would be complete without mention of the embodiment of ecosocialism in the life and art of William Morris (1834-1896), whose vision of
a socialist future in his novel 'News from Nowhere and Other Writings (Penguin Classics)' has been the best introduction to ecosocialism since 1890. The best biography is E. P. Thompson's 1988 'William Morris: Romantic to Revolutionary'.
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