| home |
Marx's ecology in historical perspectiveJohn Bellamy Fosterhttp://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj96/foster.htm 'For the early Marx the only nature relevant to the understanding of history is human nature... Marx wisely left nature (other than human nature) alone.' These words are from George Lichtheim's influential book Marxism: An Historical and Critical Study, first published in 1961.(1) Though he was not a Marxist, Lichtheim's view here did not differ from the general outlook of Western Marxism at the time he was writing. Yet this same outlook would be regarded by most socialists today as laughable. After decades of explorations of Marx's contributions to ecological discussions and publication of his scientific-technical notebooks, it is no longer a question of whether Marx addressed nature, and did so throughout his life, but whether he can be said to have developed an understanding of the nature-society dialectic that constitutes a crucial starting point for understanding the ecological crisis of capitalist society.(2) A great many analysts, including some self styled eco-socialists, are prepared to acknowledge that Marx had profound insights into the environmental problem, but nonetheless argue that these insights were marginal to his work, that he never freed himself from 'Prometheanism' (a term usually meant to refer to an extreme commitment to industrialisation at any cost), and that he did not leave a significant ecological legacy that carried forward into later socialist thought or that had any relation to the subsequent development of ecology.(3) In a recent discussion in the journal Capitalism, Nature, Socialism a number of authors argued that Marx could not have contributed anything of fundamental relevance to the development of ecological thought, since he wrote in the 19th century, before the nuclear age and before the appearance of PCBs, CFCs and DDT--and because he never used the word 'ecology' in his writings. Any discussion of his work in terms of ecology was therefore a case of taking 120 years of ecological thinking since Marx's death and laying it 'at Marx's feet'.(4) My own view of the history of ecological thought and its relation to socialism is different. In this, as in other areas, I think we need to beware of falling into what Edward Thompson called 'the enormous condescension of posterity'.(5) More specifically, we need to recognise that Marx and Engels, along with other early socialist thinkers, like Proudhon (in What is Property?) and Morris, had the advantage of living in a time when the transition from feudalism to capitalism was still taking place or had occurred in recent memory. Hence the questions that they raised about capitalist society and even about the relation between society and nature were often more fundamental than what characterises social and ecological thought, even on the left, today. It is true that technology has changed, introducing massive new threats to the biosphere, undreamed of in earlier times. But, paradoxically, capitalism's antagonistic relation to the environment, which lies at the core of our current crisis, was in some ways more apparent to 19th and early 20th century socialists than it is to the majority of today's green thinkers. This reflects the fact that it is not technology that is the primary issue, but rather the nature and logic of capitalism as a specific mode of production. Socialists have contributed in fundamental ways at all stages in the development of the modern ecological critique. Uncovering this unknown legacy is a vital part of the overall endeavour to develop an ecological materialist analysis capable of addressing the devastating environmental conditions that face us today.
|