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The Ecological Rift
Humanity in the twenty-first century is facing what might be described as its ultimate environmental catastrophe: the destruction of the climate that has nurtured human civilization and with it the basis of life on earth as we know it. All ecosystems on the planet are now in decline. Enormous rifts have been driven through the delicate fabric of the biosphere. The economy and the earth are headed for a fateful collision--if we don't alter course.
In The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth environmental sociologists John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York offer a radical assessment of both the problem and the solution. They argue that the source of our ecological crisis lies in the paradox of wealth in capitalist society, which expands individual riches at the expense of public wealth, including the wealth of nature. In the process, a huge ecological rift is driven between human beings and nature, undermining the conditions of sustainable existence: a rift in the metabolic relation between humanity and nature that is irreparable within capitalist society, since integral to its very laws of motion.
Critically examining the sanguine arguments of mainstream economists and technologists, Foster, Clark, and York insist instead that fundamental changes in social relations must occur if the ecological (and social) problems presently facing us are to be transcended. Their analysis relies on the development of a deep dialectical naturalism concerned with issues of ecology and evolution and their interaction with the economy. Importantly, they offer reasons for revolutionary hope in moving beyond the regime of capital and toward a society of sustainable human development.
In The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth environmental sociologists John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York offer a radical assessment of both the problem and the solution. They argue that the source of our ecological crisis lies in the paradox of wealth in capitalist society, which expands individual riches at the expense of public wealth, including the wealth of nature. In the process, a huge ecological rift is driven between human beings and nature, undermining the conditions of sustainable existence: a rift in the metabolic relation between humanity and nature that is irreparable within capitalist society, since integral to its very laws of motion.
Critically examining the sanguine arguments of mainstream economists and technologists, Foster, Clark, and York insist instead that fundamental changes in social relations must occur if the ecological (and social) problems presently facing us are to be transcended. Their analysis relies on the development of a deep dialectical naturalism concerned with issues of ecology and evolution and their interaction with the economy. Importantly, they offer reasons for revolutionary hope in moving beyond the regime of capital and toward a society of sustainable human development.
544 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2010
About the author
John Bellamy Foster
82 books173 followersJohn Bellamy Foster is a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, editor of Monthly Review and author of several books on the subject of political economy of capitalism, economic crisis, ecology and ecological crisis, and Marxist theory.
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Displaying 1 - 23 of 23 reviews
February 17, 2011
Powerful and cogent analysis of our current climate change and environmental dilemmas, i.e. our ongoing ecological breakdown between humanity and nature and the impossibility of solving this coming planetary catastrophe within the historically rapacious global capitalist system.
As the authors write, "Ironically, most analyses of the environmental problem today are concerned less with saving the planet or life or humanity than saving capitalism--the system at the root of our environmental problems." They quote Derrick Jensen, "When most people in this culture ask, 'How can we stop global warming?' that's not really what they are asking. They're asking, 'How can we stop global warming without significantly changing this lifestyle [or death style, as some call it] that is causing global warming in the first place?" The answer is that you can't. It's a stupid, absurd, and insane question."
As Annie Leonard, author and host, The Story of Stuff says: "This book is desperately needed, because it ends any illusion that we can solve our pressing environmental crises within the same system that created them. With tweaking the system--using incremental market-based strategies--off the table, we can put our efforts into genuine, lasting solutions."
And this review comment by Derrick Jensen, author, Endgame and The Culture of Make Believe: "This important book treats industrial capitalism as the globally destructive force that it is, and powerfully points the way toward, as the authors put it, 'universal revolts against imperialism, the destruction of the planet, and the treadmill of accumulation.' We need these revolts if we are to survive. This book is a crucial part of that struggle."
As the authors write, "Ironically, most analyses of the environmental problem today are concerned less with saving the planet or life or humanity than saving capitalism--the system at the root of our environmental problems." They quote Derrick Jensen, "When most people in this culture ask, 'How can we stop global warming?' that's not really what they are asking. They're asking, 'How can we stop global warming without significantly changing this lifestyle [or death style, as some call it] that is causing global warming in the first place?" The answer is that you can't. It's a stupid, absurd, and insane question."
As Annie Leonard, author and host, The Story of Stuff says: "This book is desperately needed, because it ends any illusion that we can solve our pressing environmental crises within the same system that created them. With tweaking the system--using incremental market-based strategies--off the table, we can put our efforts into genuine, lasting solutions."
And this review comment by Derrick Jensen, author, Endgame and The Culture of Make Believe: "This important book treats industrial capitalism as the globally destructive force that it is, and powerfully points the way toward, as the authors put it, 'universal revolts against imperialism, the destruction of the planet, and the treadmill of accumulation.' We need these revolts if we are to survive. This book is a crucial part of that struggle."
January 2, 2012
Some notes: I've been skimming or skipping some of the chapters that seem like jargon-heavy, name-dropping intra-disciplinary quibbling (Dialectics of Nature and Marxist Ecology, Sociology of Ecology, etc). Perhaps those chapters are in some way different from the rest of the book, but I'm not interested or qualified to give them a fair shake at this point.
I was really excited when I found this book at the London Review Bookshop. I had heard Naomi Klein accolade JB Foster's works before, and noted that this book has accolades on the covers from Klein, Jensen, and Annie Leonard, which to me makes this an unusually star-studded book jacket. I was even considering applying to U of Oregon to study with the dude, before even reading the book. Some of the reason I was so excited: there are essays in this book that treat soil erosion from a Marxist perspective, and that just seemed too good to be true.
Maybe it was. There are a lot of things I really enjoy about this book. Like the only other work of env. sociology I've read, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, Foster, Clark, and York come up with a ton of great imagery and pithy names for the socio-ecological phenomena they describe - the Metabolic Rift, the Treadmill of Accumulation, the Midas Effect, etc. There are also just a few tremendously enlightening concepts - the Jevons Paradox and the Paperless Office Paradox not least among them. These concepts illustrate precisely why capitalism (or industrial civilization itself, potentially) will not become sustainable through so-called "dematerialization" - eco-friendly substitutes and efficiency improvements.
However, I also found a lot of things to take issue with about this book. Rather than a book in its own right (which it very definitely sells itself as), The Ecological Rift is more of a collection of modified essays that had been written for other things in the past. Which might have been a fine choice, except that the essays were not sufficiently modified to make them make any sense as a book. Many concepts are introduced as though the reader were entirely unfamiliar with them in chapter after chapter, making for a lot of redundant, simplistic explanation and a relative paucity of in-depth exploration of any concepts.
This seems to be a problem to some extent endemic in sociology. The authors are enamored with theory and find it acceptable to write at length about theory without demonstrating their theories with any substantial case studies. This is rather annoying to me. For this reason, I've avoided the most explicitly theoretical sections. The passages about Marx in particular often seem to stand uncomfortably in Marx's shadow rather than on his shoulders.
Potentially for the same reason, Foster et al's arguments also become dangerously thin and shallow at times. When they are critiquing a position they disagree with (which is often), they often simply mock their opponents, writing as though the arguments they were critiquing were patently absurd to their readers, so much so that they didn't even need to point out how so. This was tolerable when he was dealing with mainstream economists (yes, saying that a 50% loss in agricultural production would be anything but catastrophic is absurd), but using the same approach on people like Paul Hawken, James Lovelock, and deep ecologists (he refrains from naming Derrick Jensen) made me lose a substantial amount of respect for the authors. I may or may not agree with Foster et al's critique of positions like Hawken's, but it's kind of hard for me to say, since their critique is not well-developed. And to me, as a deep ecologist, his shallow "critique" of that system of thought seemed to caricature it grossly.
I was really excited when I found this book at the London Review Bookshop. I had heard Naomi Klein accolade JB Foster's works before, and noted that this book has accolades on the covers from Klein, Jensen, and Annie Leonard, which to me makes this an unusually star-studded book jacket. I was even considering applying to U of Oregon to study with the dude, before even reading the book. Some of the reason I was so excited: there are essays in this book that treat soil erosion from a Marxist perspective, and that just seemed too good to be true.
Maybe it was. There are a lot of things I really enjoy about this book. Like the only other work of env. sociology I've read, Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, Foster, Clark, and York come up with a ton of great imagery and pithy names for the socio-ecological phenomena they describe - the Metabolic Rift, the Treadmill of Accumulation, the Midas Effect, etc. There are also just a few tremendously enlightening concepts - the Jevons Paradox and the Paperless Office Paradox not least among them. These concepts illustrate precisely why capitalism (or industrial civilization itself, potentially) will not become sustainable through so-called "dematerialization" - eco-friendly substitutes and efficiency improvements.
However, I also found a lot of things to take issue with about this book. Rather than a book in its own right (which it very definitely sells itself as), The Ecological Rift is more of a collection of modified essays that had been written for other things in the past. Which might have been a fine choice, except that the essays were not sufficiently modified to make them make any sense as a book. Many concepts are introduced as though the reader were entirely unfamiliar with them in chapter after chapter, making for a lot of redundant, simplistic explanation and a relative paucity of in-depth exploration of any concepts.
This seems to be a problem to some extent endemic in sociology. The authors are enamored with theory and find it acceptable to write at length about theory without demonstrating their theories with any substantial case studies. This is rather annoying to me. For this reason, I've avoided the most explicitly theoretical sections. The passages about Marx in particular often seem to stand uncomfortably in Marx's shadow rather than on his shoulders.
Potentially for the same reason, Foster et al's arguments also become dangerously thin and shallow at times. When they are critiquing a position they disagree with (which is often), they often simply mock their opponents, writing as though the arguments they were critiquing were patently absurd to their readers, so much so that they didn't even need to point out how so. This was tolerable when he was dealing with mainstream economists (yes, saying that a 50% loss in agricultural production would be anything but catastrophic is absurd), but using the same approach on people like Paul Hawken, James Lovelock, and deep ecologists (he refrains from naming Derrick Jensen) made me lose a substantial amount of respect for the authors. I may or may not agree with Foster et al's critique of positions like Hawken's, but it's kind of hard for me to say, since their critique is not well-developed. And to me, as a deep ecologist, his shallow "critique" of that system of thought seemed to caricature it grossly.
Read
August 5, 2011This book is sure to have many foes as it argues for a socialist response to our current evironmental crisis. There is no question that our capitalist system is responsible for the degredation of the environment so we need an economic solution to ecological disaster. The main point this book makes is we cannot rely on the same system that got us into this situation to get us out.
Read
March 7, 2019An important concept -- but oh how I wish it had been delivered better. This isn’t so much a sustained argument as a rather scattershot assemblage which includes some very interesting stories -- like Jan Smuts and the relationship between holism and the apartheid state -- that don't necessarily cohere. And when they talk about fixes... oh boy. The Venezuelan petro-state might not be something to necessarily aspire to, especially given the way it's gone tits up since the book was written (admittedly largely due to outside forces, but something to take heed of nonetheless). Yes, capitalism is by its very definition unsustainable and some kind of ecological socialism will probably be necessary for the survival of the human race, and Foster et al have some good ideas, but this topic deserves a far more empirical analysis with less dialectical navel-gazing.
February 26, 2016
Wow, really important. This book is a Marxist perspective on ecological crises, showing how it all comes down to capitalism's mania for profit at any cost. The "rift" in the title is Marx's observation that because of industrialization, Britain's agricultural land was becoming depleted of nutrients. (People were kicked off the land to work in factories. Vegetables were being sent to the cities and reduced to waste that became pollution. Normally that waste would replenish the soil. With the soil being depleted, industrialists had to find supplies of Nitrogen elsewhere in the world and basically steal it. Thus a rift in the natural cycle by which the land is replenished.) The authors also point out another 19th century theory that shows how advances in the efficiency of coal-burning furnaces didn't save any coal at all. They actually cause more coal to be used. (Like the way WalMart claims to be going "green" by saving energy in their stores... which savings they invest in building more stores so even more energy is used than before.) Capitalism is built on the false notion that the earth and its resources are a "free gift" and in principle inexhaustible. Therefore, these costs don't ever make it into the equation. Plus, current capitalism dismisses the surplus theory of value, and reduces all use value to exchange value, thus further blinding itself to the true costs of doing business. There are some parts of tough-going through the details of theory. But on the whole the book is readable and informative. The conclusion is that without a revolution we are toast. They depend on exploited workers in the Third World for this. My read on this is... we are toast.
April 5, 2024
The "ecological rift" is a very helpful sociological tool that provides a critical understanding of the relationship of capitalist society to the non-human world. It is not only a theory, but also a tool that is used today in different types of sociological research in different geographical locations. The "ecological rift" provides a deeper understanding of how various economic activities can destroy nature on a large scale. It makes it possible to explain the destruction of vast swathes of forests through mass logging and coal extraction, but also the enslavement and murder of non-human animals in factory farms, oceans or intensive aquaculture.
The book also brings other interesting ideas. For example, a commentary on Marx's anthropocentrism (in which the authors do not give a satisfactory answer to biocentric objections), a critique of other environmental sociological currents or mainstream economists...
... and their proposals for solving environmental problems.
The book contains many other stimulating theoretical and practical ideas or insights. Through them, it shows how shallow the struggle for a "green" world (whatever that means) can be if it is not accompanied by efforts to change the current economic system.
-------------------------
„Ekologická trhlina“ je veľmi nápomocný sociologický nástroj, ktorý poskytuje kritické porozumenie vzťahu kapitalistickej spoločnosti k mimoľudskému svetu. Nejde len o teóriu, ale aj o prostriedok, ktorý je dnes využívaný v rôznych typoch sociologických výskumov v rôznych geografických lokalitách. „Ekologická trhlina“ prináša hlbšie porozumenie tomu, ako rôzne ekonomické činnosti dokážu vo veľkom rozsahu ničiť prírodu. Umožňuje vysvetliť ničenie obrovských častí lesov prostredníctvom masovej ťažby dreva a uhlia, ale i zotročovanie a vraždenie mimoľudských zvierat v priemyselných veľkochovoch, oceánoch či intenzívnych akvakultúrach.
Kniha prináša aj iné zaujímavé myšlienky. Napríklad komentár k Marxovmu antropocentrizmu (v ktorom autori nepodávajú uspokojivú odpoveď na biocentrické námietky), kritiku iných environmentálne sociologických prúdov či mainstreamových ekonómov...
... a ich návrhov na riešenie ekologických problémov.
Kniha obsahuje množstvo ďalších podnetných teoretických i praktických myšlienok či poznatkov. Prostredníctvom nich poukazuje na to, aký plytký dokáže byť boj za „zelený“ svet (nech to znamená čokoľvek), ak s ním ruka v ruke nekráča snaha o zmenu súčasného ekonomického systému.
“Ecologically, the system draws ever more destructively on the limited resources and absorptive capacity of nature, as the economy continually grows in scale in relation to the planetary system. The result is emerging and expanding ecological rifts that are turning into planetary chasms. The essential nature of the problem resides in the fact that there is no way out of this dilemma within the laws of motion of a capitalist system, in which capital accumulation is the primary goal of society.”
The book also brings other interesting ideas. For example, a commentary on Marx's anthropocentrism (in which the authors do not give a satisfactory answer to biocentric objections), a critique of other environmental sociological currents or mainstream economists...
“If we cannot rely on orthodox economists to avert crises in financial markets, an area that is supposedly at the core of their expertise, why should we rely on them to avert ecological crises, the understanding of which requires knowledge of the natural environment that is not typically covered in their training?”
... and their proposals for solving environmental problems.
“The most ambitious schemes [of establishment economists] involve massive geoengineering proposals to combat climate change, usually aimed at enhancing the earth’s albedo (reflectivity). These entail schemes like using high-flying aircraft, naval guns, or giant bal loons to launch reflective materials (sulfate aerosols or aluminum oxide dust) into the upper stratosphere to reflect back the rays of the sun. There are even proposals to create “designer particles” that will be “self-levitating” and “self-orienting” and will migrate to the atmosphere above the poles to provide “sunshades” for the Polar Regions. Such technocrats live in a Wonderland where technology solves all problems, and where the Sorcerer’s Apprentice has never been heard of. All of this is designed to extend the conquest of the earth rather than to make peace with the planet.”
The book contains many other stimulating theoretical and practical ideas or insights. Through them, it shows how shallow the struggle for a "green" world (whatever that means) can be if it is not accompanied by efforts to change the current economic system.
-------------------------
„Ekologická trhlina“ je veľmi nápomocný sociologický nástroj, ktorý poskytuje kritické porozumenie vzťahu kapitalistickej spoločnosti k mimoľudskému svetu. Nejde len o teóriu, ale aj o prostriedok, ktorý je dnes využívaný v rôznych typoch sociologických výskumov v rôznych geografických lokalitách. „Ekologická trhlina“ prináša hlbšie porozumenie tomu, ako rôzne ekonomické činnosti dokážu vo veľkom rozsahu ničiť prírodu. Umožňuje vysvetliť ničenie obrovských častí lesov prostredníctvom masovej ťažby dreva a uhlia, ale i zotročovanie a vraždenie mimoľudských zvierat v priemyselných veľkochovoch, oceánoch či intenzívnych akvakultúrach.
„Z ekologického hľadiska systém čoraz deštruktívnejšie čerpá z obmedzených zdrojov a absorpčnej kapacity prírody, keďže ekonomika vo vzťahu k planetárnemu systému neustále rastie. Výsledkom je vznik a rozširovanie ekologických trhlín, ktoré sa menia na planetárne priepasti. Podstata problému spočíva v tom, že v rámci zákonov pohybu kapitalistického systému, v ktorom je akumulácia kapitálu hlavným cieľom spoločnosti, neexistuje žiadne východisko z tejto dilemy.“
Kniha prináša aj iné zaujímavé myšlienky. Napríklad komentár k Marxovmu antropocentrizmu (v ktorom autori nepodávajú uspokojivú odpoveď na biocentrické námietky), kritiku iných environmentálne sociologických prúdov či mainstreamových ekonómov...
„Ak sa nemôžeme spoľahnúť na ortodoxných ekonómov, že zabránia krízam na finančných trhoch, teda v oblasti, ktorá je údajne jadrom ich odbornosti, prečo by sme sa na nich mali spoliehať, že zabránia ekologickým krízam, ktorých pochopenie si vyžaduje znalosti o prírodnom prostredí, ktoré zvyčajne nie sú súčasťou ich vzdelávania?“
... a ich návrhov na riešenie ekologických problémov.
„Najambicióznejšie plány [mainstreamových ekonómov] zahŕňajú masívne geoinžinierske návrhy na boj proti klimatickým zmenám, zvyčajne zamerané na zvýšenie albeda (miery odrazivosti) Zeme. Medzi tieto návrhy patrí používanie lietadiel lietajúcich vo vysokých výškach, námorných diel alebo obrovských balónov, ktoré by vypúšťali reflexné materiály (sulfátové aerosóly či prach z oxidu hlinitého) do horných vrstiev stratosféry, aby odrážali slnečné lúče. Existujú dokonca návrhy na vytvorenie "dizajnérskych častíc", ktoré sa budú "samé vznášať" a "orientovať" a budú migrovať do atmosféry nad pólmi, aby poskytli "slnečné clony" pre polárne oblasti. Takíto technokrati žijú v krajine zázrakov, kde technológia vyrieši všetky problémy a kde o Čarodejníkovom učňovi nikdy nepočuli. Toto všetko je určené skôr na rozšírenie dobývania Zeme než na dosiahnutie mieru s planétou.“
Kniha obsahuje množstvo ďalších podnetných teoretických i praktických myšlienok či poznatkov. Prostredníctvom nich poukazuje na to, aký plytký dokáže byť boj za „zelený“ svet (nech to znamená čokoľvek), ak s ním ruka v ruke nekráča snaha o zmenu súčasného ekonomického systému.
October 4, 2021
Some ideas in the book are worth a lot of our effort to understand and implement, but others are spoiling them to a degree that gives the book a strange bi-polar sense. I would still recommend to read the book, but the with a strong advice to think about the conditional reasoning.
November 13, 2020
This is an important book which leads the way for an explicitly Marxist, eco-socialist critical theory of the connected crises of capitalism and climate change, both of which, of course, have only worsened since this was published. For those who can persevere to the end, this book offers a wealth of insights on the dynamic connections, or “metabolism,” between nature and the social relations of production, and the “metabolic rift��� between society and nature which capitalism drives. Although it is heavy on theory, it does have a few suggestions for a practical/political way forward—if an ecological revolution can effectively challenge the “juggernaut of capital” in time to save the planet.
Some of the best chapters are those which offer trenchant rebuttals to the “ecological modernization” arguments of mainstream economists and social scientists, those who seek to solve the climate crisis by “attempting to bend nature even more to our will, to make it conform to the necessities of our production.” These “solutions”—whether in the form of “discounting” future liveability, advocating “green” or “sustainable” consumption, or staking everything on a technological miracle fix, do nothing to address the destructive logic and limitless accumulation inherent to capitalism itself. A radical ecology, by contrast, “involves an analysis that examines the social drivers of ecological degradation, illuminating the contradictions of the social order,” and highlights the necessity of a socialist system which would establish “a new relation to the earth.”
With this focus on metabolism and natural limits, the authors have developed a really interesting positive theoretical framework for eco-socialism, one that revitalizes Marx and Engels’ writings to show the necessity of overcoming social-productive and environmental alienation under capitalism. Despite its Marxist roots, this outlook overlaps with many non-Marxist approaches (some bits reminded me specifically of Wendell Berry) and thus it has the potential for a broad appeal. A non-alienated society, in which social metabolism is brought in line with natural metabolism, would be oriented toward the qualitative improvement of human activity by restoring the wealth of labor and nature to all; or to use Evo Morales’ formulation, society would be ordered for the goal of “not living better, but living well.”
The primary difficulty of this book, as others have noted, is its poor assemblage and occasional recourse to esoteric debates in the field of environmental sociology (90% of the chapters were previously published as academic articles, which explains these shortcomings). This gives rise to the absurd situation of encountering concepts and arguments repeatedly as if they were new, despite having been introduced to them in multiple chapters.
Nevertheless, there is a lot here to think about, especially for those adventurous enough to delve into some of the philosophical and sociological debates on the nature of ecological science itself. While some of it is abstruse, I found the section on “dialectical ecology” to be illuminating, especially in its exposition of a robust materialism which fuses a Marxist historical critique with evolutionary science. This "revolutionary materialist dialectics" aims to create “not simply a new social praxis, but a revived natural praxis—a reappropriation and emancipation of the human senses and human sensuousness in relation to nature.”
Some of the best chapters are those which offer trenchant rebuttals to the “ecological modernization” arguments of mainstream economists and social scientists, those who seek to solve the climate crisis by “attempting to bend nature even more to our will, to make it conform to the necessities of our production.” These “solutions”—whether in the form of “discounting” future liveability, advocating “green” or “sustainable” consumption, or staking everything on a technological miracle fix, do nothing to address the destructive logic and limitless accumulation inherent to capitalism itself. A radical ecology, by contrast, “involves an analysis that examines the social drivers of ecological degradation, illuminating the contradictions of the social order,” and highlights the necessity of a socialist system which would establish “a new relation to the earth.”
With this focus on metabolism and natural limits, the authors have developed a really interesting positive theoretical framework for eco-socialism, one that revitalizes Marx and Engels’ writings to show the necessity of overcoming social-productive and environmental alienation under capitalism. Despite its Marxist roots, this outlook overlaps with many non-Marxist approaches (some bits reminded me specifically of Wendell Berry) and thus it has the potential for a broad appeal. A non-alienated society, in which social metabolism is brought in line with natural metabolism, would be oriented toward the qualitative improvement of human activity by restoring the wealth of labor and nature to all; or to use Evo Morales’ formulation, society would be ordered for the goal of “not living better, but living well.”
The primary difficulty of this book, as others have noted, is its poor assemblage and occasional recourse to esoteric debates in the field of environmental sociology (90% of the chapters were previously published as academic articles, which explains these shortcomings). This gives rise to the absurd situation of encountering concepts and arguments repeatedly as if they were new, despite having been introduced to them in multiple chapters.
Nevertheless, there is a lot here to think about, especially for those adventurous enough to delve into some of the philosophical and sociological debates on the nature of ecological science itself. While some of it is abstruse, I found the section on “dialectical ecology” to be illuminating, especially in its exposition of a robust materialism which fuses a Marxist historical critique with evolutionary science. This "revolutionary materialist dialectics" aims to create “not simply a new social praxis, but a revived natural praxis—a reappropriation and emancipation of the human senses and human sensuousness in relation to nature.”
March 18, 2024
“Successful” capitalism, the ever increasing accumulation and profit maximization, can only function by maintaining the pillage and rape of the soil and Earth’s resources that is deemed to be unsustainable by climate scientists. Foster shows in great detail how there can be no environmental capitalism by the inherent logic of said system, and how any attempt at fixing the problem of climate change without addressing our accelerating metabolical relationship with the Earth is doomed to fail. A must read for all that are interested in having a livable planet.
March 17, 2018
Dense read, but absolutely worth it! While book is not just focused on climate change, you can get gist of it via his article here: https://monthlyreview.org/2012/12/01/...
January 5, 2024
See my review here: https://workersliberty.org/story/2024...
More notes below...
We discussed the chapters on Jevons paradox and on the Paperless Office paradox in a reading group. I think it got them wrong/overstated the phenomena, whereas there are wider general phenomena within capitalism which drive in the same direction.
The book is deeply flawed overall, and of little political value, as explained below: though some interesting bits, and it does show the fact that Marxism took ecology seriously.
The book introduces Marx’s historical concept of the “metabolic rift”, specifically with soil nutrients. They make much of “metabolic analysis”.
Metabolic rift theory is, I believe, both too complicated and not complicated enough. It has an appearance of complication, a mystique, an apparent sophistication. This is intimidating to the uninitiated and gives a false sense of deep insight to the initiated. But it doesn't bring very much at the level of ecological activism and programmatic or practical politics. It doesn't bring much in terms of scientific insight either, at least in both cases without a lot of prior insight. But it encourages arrogance to intervene in these things without seriously understanding or thinking through the science or politics.
They critique various academic and social science things, which is fine. This includes a critique of those who try to find universal social laws, “positivism”, where Marxists see history as important; and of social science which seeks to ignore nature (and history is important in nature too).
They make the case that capitalism respects no ecological boundaries or needs, correctly; the profit motive.
They’re sloppy and too fast on natural science, and when criticising eco-modernist techno-fixes they simplistically call in thermodynamic arguments. A bit ironic for those critiquing “positivism”.
The idea of capitalism trying to regiment and divide nature in harmful ways is interesting, though underexplored.
It brings in some third worldist and stalinist approaches to analysis; and in celebrating movements and ways forwards, it goes fully Stalinoid. It looks to the third world, to various dictators and leaders in Latin America, to indigenous movements, and to a shift away from the focus on the working class. They celebrate Chavez, “Bolivarian revolution”, Ecuador, Cuba, Bolivia. They’re explicitly third worldist at points there. They try to justify the use by Chavez’s Venezuela of oil and oil revenue because it funded “revolutionary” things. They have a lazy critique of bourgeois democracy. Their proposals are reformist, while having pretentions of more.
The restate, reconceptualise, recapitulate the profit motive in various different ways throughout. The Lauderdale paradox can help explain the profit motive to some extent; and also the destruction of commons and competitors, especially in colonial contexts. But that can be reframed in terms of wealth vs (economic) value: a critique of the profit motive. This contradiction between use value and exchange value, they state, is central to Marxism. Or another angle on the same: the “totalising logic”. Uncontrollable competition means capital never stands still. There’s an incessant drive to intensify the productive forces.
Sometimes the metabolic rift is shifted but not fixed: one ecological problem is fixed but others spring up in place.
They are too fast in their dismissal of nuclear, and geoengineering. Of course politics is the answer, not technology. But it conflates technocrats with technology.
Economists often ignore the reality of climate change, or use e.g. a discount rate to effectively ignore it. Their field is short-termist, puts the economy first, and poor people after richer. Natural scientists are better. The book over-states the role of economists as the antagonists; they very much focus on refuting bourgeois economists, perhaps overly so for my interest. They go into a lot of detail here.
It favourably mentions ecological economists.
Referencing Hugh Chavez (!) they advocate an odd formulation for a “green cultural revolution”, i.e. a taking seriously of ecology.
They’re right to push back against those who say that urgency means we need to leave capitalism as it is.
They talk much about metabolism but don’t convince me of the value of the theory is, what a metabolic analysis brings other than recognising complex interrelations, with which humans are also linked: which all good ecological approaches should do. Democratic management of the metabolism is advocated, which is fine.
They do critique Stalinism briefly, but remain Stalinoid.
Covers some stuff which Malm does later. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
They overstate some things about what capitalism can’t do (as opposed to won’t willingly do).
They’re right that we can’t rely on ecological breakdown to get rid of capitalism for us.
As carbon efficiency increases so does emissions. Not so straightforward as they say in this book.
They’re right to critique carbon markets. I think they’re too fast to dismiss sequestration technologies, politically and technology.
Sequestration could be argued to be creating a metabolic rift, but I think better to say a metabolic imbalance to restore metabolic harmony. Not sure.
The references to “low entropy” are a bit of a red herring, or daft. They commit to this more later.
They do a lot of generalisation from Marx’s comments made in specific contexts. Some of this seems justified, some not.
Most bourgeois climate economics seems awful. They’re correct that economic regime change is needed, and even that continual growth on the capitalist model is not possible.
The scheme of “two contradictions” doesn’t seem to me to add much. The first, of capitalist accumulation, combines both the exploitation of labour and the class struggle implied there and also the problems of overproduction and similar crises. The second they recognise is different to characterise, but summarise it as a tendency to both amass wealth and degrade the conditions of production (natural and social).
They are scientifically reductionist in their treatment of entropy, though they recognise it is only one part of what is going on.
From a programmatic (“movementist”) perspective they deduce that any movement fighting either absolute general law must fight both. In a sense this is stating in a more sophisticated sounding way that the fight against capitalism, capitalist exploitation and against capitalist environmental degradation must go together. But their conclusion seems to somewhat fudge, be movementist, and fade workers more into the background: talk of a “labour-environmentalist alliance”, their third wordlist perspectives, and the like.
They then delve into “dialectics”. They claim a tradition of “Western Marxism” which is critical of the “dialectics of nature” by Engels, and seeks to restrict “dialectics” to human society. They attribute it to Lukacs, who later (when he was more stalinist!) went back on this. USSR Marxism (i.e. for the most part Stalinism) took Engel’s unpublished text more seriously. They talked more of “dialectical materialism” than “historical materialism”. The authors claim that this Western Marxist approach builds a chasm between nature and society, that Marx saw a “single reality”, “requiring a single science”. Stalinist Marxism, the authors claim, had on the other hand “positivistic tendencies”.
I agree that we shouldn't take “The dialectics of nature” so seriously. But not by drawing a hard wall between nature and society: the boundary is not hard, it is messy. That said, science is constituted by multiple different research programmes, disciplines etc., with different laws and rules. There’s a singular science but multiple overlapping sciences. A problem with overstressing the value of a singularity of science is you make people who don’t know what they’re talking about in some area arrogantly think that because they understand Marxism they can pontificate about science. Marxists should be humble about what they don’t know. Perhaps there's also a sense in which dialectics is limited in its usefulness, whatever the domain.
They seem to argue that this rejection of dialectics of nature goes hand in hand with a rejection or protection against positivism. The methods of natural science can’t be straightforwardly applied to society. It is right to dismiss, as they say Lukacs did, Engles claim that “nature is the proof of dialectics”, especially if dialectics is seen as an important way of understanding society etc.
They make much of this disagreement between “Western Marxism” and “dialectical materialism”. They fall on the side of the latter; I on the former on this question (or somewhere else). The authors elsewhere seem to see “ecology” as the proof of dialectics.
Another question that they say distinguishes the two is about the nature of reality, about realism, idealism, materialism subject and object, and the like. That is, there’s a problem with ontology.
Everything changes and interacts, everything has a process, history, relations. They refer to this as dialectics. Some of the question about mechanism vs dialectics in evolution, the natural world, etc. is philosophically interesting but they treat too simplistically and it isn’t as politically important as they make out.
I should read anti-duhring, and Stephen J Gould on dialectics.
They assert that many economists see nature as mechanical and able to be tinkered with easily; many ecologists see it as in a grand harmonious order. They argue for a “materialist though not mechanical” conception, “concerned with interconnections and emergent order”. They see this as coming from Marxist scientists, and are concerned with “how these relate to the human-environment relationship”, but that it isn’t “functionalist” (i.e. that it recognises conflict and messiness?).
Their dismissal of gaia theory (a theory which I think is wrong) is lazy and ignorant. I agree, from my limited understanding, with what might be described as multiple levels of causation and selection in evolution; and that it cannot be reducible to genetic data abstracted from context or interrelation. Though they may be straw-manning some biologists.
Their critiques of Darwin, both in specific claims about what he says, and in accusing him of “functionalism”, seem factually wrong and lazy in approach to me.
Beyond their high-falutin sounding words, some of this part of the book, or the valuable parts of it, could be reinterpreted as advocating more interdisciplinary work; and (though maybe they aren’t fully endorsing it) theoretical pluralism in research programmes. This is very important, I think, which is why their approach is so wrong, in trying to link a political programme to a theoretical unity.
I think there’s a difference between Marxism and what Marx and Engels wrote. I’ve written on interpretations of quantum mechanics, but that isn’t linked to my political perspectives or tradition.
They recognise that evolution happens through a combination of gradualism and sudden changes, and that species can’t perfectly track selective pressure. I don’t think Darwin would dispute these: more generally, they straw man natural science in an effort, I think, to big up dialectics.
The discussion about environmental sociology has some philosophical interest but little political importance (and it does go on a while). They talk about realism vs constructionism about nature, and also about knowledge of it (i.e. ontology and epistemology). Some attempt a synthesis of both. Their approach, simplified, is that the world and people are material and real parts of nature, but that science is shaped by social factors, social construction, and class struggle. But it isn’t untethered from reality, though its direction, interest, and some details are socially shaped.
Their discussion of “double transference” of metaphors from society to natural science and back again is interesting. They recognise that Darwin usefully borrowed ideas from Malthus; but that transferring them back to society would be wrong and harmful. Energy (and indirectly entropy) reductionism are limited too, arguably with similar origin stories. Metaphor can be uk, but double transference is more suspect, more likely to be a slight of hand. They also critiqued proto-Kropotkinite ideas (cooperation etc.) on a similar basis.
The authors give suspect examplex, such as apartheid. Ideas linked to that include “wholism” and “deep ecology”, and while the science has been abandoned, some arguably lives on in environmental ethics etc. Likewise recapitulation theory, still alive in pop culture though discredited in science, was used to justify racism.
Apparently Tyndall's inaugural address is good.
They recognise that political motivations can warp science. Ecosystem ecology, they argue, is more progressive; politically and in its research.
Their concrete proposed ways forwards with science aren’t hugely useful.
The history recounted of imperialism and nutrients are interesting. I’m not sure their label “ecological imperialism” (tied up with bad conceptualisations of “periphery” and “core”) adds much, nor “global metabolic rift”. Organic farming is starting to exploit guano again.
In "where next", they criticise an overlooking of economics by ecologists, but also aren’t adequately critical of an individualised and limited approach, as with “IPAT”. That said, the critique of “economic Malthusianism”, arguably closer to Malthus himself, is interesting. A conflation of different types of consumption by environmentalists is a problem. E.G. most waste is not domestic. Consumers aren't the driving force. Even when this is somewhat recognised it is only somewhat. Some environmentalists treat consumerism, combatting it and climate change, as a cultural issue, that a cultural shift is the answer. That’s ahistorical, and advocating good marketing as an answer doesn’t cut the mustard. At an extreme, that means seeing ridiculous greenwashing and seeing capitalists and corporations as agency.
However, they don’t adequately push back against the anti-consumer idea. Consumerism is somewhat progressive, it has progressive elements. They kind of get there eventually, but only somewhat. And they fail to adequately refocus on production as agency: talking of investment disproportionately compared to that.
They throw in Hegel’s term “bad infinity” in an unenlightening way, more showing off it seems to me than engaging with it seriously.
What they envision in the broadest sense is unobjectionable if vague and not novel. But underneath that, talk of metabolic relations and community bring little. Some proclamations seem vague and hippyish: time will remain an important basis for production etc. They’re generally a bit vague and unscientific in how they approach it.
They’re right in the need to limit growth, and the limits of how far that can be done in capitalism, though they are soft on “degrowth” as a concept.
They seem to dodge revolution, the necessity of revolution, the question of whether it is necessary. They point towards reformist perspectives at many points, at least, and couple that with “revolutionary transformation” of social values.
They mention silly lifestyle stuff, but then reframe it in a socialist perspective. The working class remains absent. They talk about various agents in “counter-hegemony”, with the working class mentioned but only just. Mostly, it celebrates reformist and stalinoid politics in the global south.
Their arguments for the importance of metabolism reference Meszaros’s work too: a different line of argument.
They engage in a philistine way with Shrodinger’s “What is life?”, clearly using it to name drop without engaging seriously or critically — Shrodinger himself made necessary criticisms in later versions! — nor with a serious link between Marx’s “metabolism” and Shrodinger’s, of the depth implied.
---
Review by someone else which I don't entirely agree with https://www.workersliberty.org/blogs/... (see also comment below it)
Another review, though one I disagree with more https://www.workersliberty.org/story/...
See a reply https://www.workersliberty.org/story/...
And my reply to that https://www.workersliberty.org/story/... (Though I am tackling a different question here.)
---
Some quotes from the book:
More notes below...
We discussed the chapters on Jevons paradox and on the Paperless Office paradox in a reading group. I think it got them wrong/overstated the phenomena, whereas there are wider general phenomena within capitalism which drive in the same direction.
The book is deeply flawed overall, and of little political value, as explained below: though some interesting bits, and it does show the fact that Marxism took ecology seriously.
The book introduces Marx’s historical concept of the “metabolic rift”, specifically with soil nutrients. They make much of “metabolic analysis”.
Metabolic rift theory is, I believe, both too complicated and not complicated enough. It has an appearance of complication, a mystique, an apparent sophistication. This is intimidating to the uninitiated and gives a false sense of deep insight to the initiated. But it doesn't bring very much at the level of ecological activism and programmatic or practical politics. It doesn't bring much in terms of scientific insight either, at least in both cases without a lot of prior insight. But it encourages arrogance to intervene in these things without seriously understanding or thinking through the science or politics.
They critique various academic and social science things, which is fine. This includes a critique of those who try to find universal social laws, “positivism”, where Marxists see history as important; and of social science which seeks to ignore nature (and history is important in nature too).
They make the case that capitalism respects no ecological boundaries or needs, correctly; the profit motive.
They’re sloppy and too fast on natural science, and when criticising eco-modernist techno-fixes they simplistically call in thermodynamic arguments. A bit ironic for those critiquing “positivism”.
The idea of capitalism trying to regiment and divide nature in harmful ways is interesting, though underexplored.
It brings in some third worldist and stalinist approaches to analysis; and in celebrating movements and ways forwards, it goes fully Stalinoid. It looks to the third world, to various dictators and leaders in Latin America, to indigenous movements, and to a shift away from the focus on the working class. They celebrate Chavez, “Bolivarian revolution”, Ecuador, Cuba, Bolivia. They’re explicitly third worldist at points there. They try to justify the use by Chavez’s Venezuela of oil and oil revenue because it funded “revolutionary” things. They have a lazy critique of bourgeois democracy. Their proposals are reformist, while having pretentions of more.
The restate, reconceptualise, recapitulate the profit motive in various different ways throughout. The Lauderdale paradox can help explain the profit motive to some extent; and also the destruction of commons and competitors, especially in colonial contexts. But that can be reframed in terms of wealth vs (economic) value: a critique of the profit motive. This contradiction between use value and exchange value, they state, is central to Marxism. Or another angle on the same: the “totalising logic”. Uncontrollable competition means capital never stands still. There’s an incessant drive to intensify the productive forces.
Sometimes the metabolic rift is shifted but not fixed: one ecological problem is fixed but others spring up in place.
They are too fast in their dismissal of nuclear, and geoengineering. Of course politics is the answer, not technology. But it conflates technocrats with technology.
Economists often ignore the reality of climate change, or use e.g. a discount rate to effectively ignore it. Their field is short-termist, puts the economy first, and poor people after richer. Natural scientists are better. The book over-states the role of economists as the antagonists; they very much focus on refuting bourgeois economists, perhaps overly so for my interest. They go into a lot of detail here.
It favourably mentions ecological economists.
Referencing Hugh Chavez (!) they advocate an odd formulation for a “green cultural revolution”, i.e. a taking seriously of ecology.
They’re right to push back against those who say that urgency means we need to leave capitalism as it is.
They talk much about metabolism but don’t convince me of the value of the theory is, what a metabolic analysis brings other than recognising complex interrelations, with which humans are also linked: which all good ecological approaches should do. Democratic management of the metabolism is advocated, which is fine.
They do critique Stalinism briefly, but remain Stalinoid.
Covers some stuff which Malm does later. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
They overstate some things about what capitalism can’t do (as opposed to won’t willingly do).
They’re right that we can’t rely on ecological breakdown to get rid of capitalism for us.
As carbon efficiency increases so does emissions. Not so straightforward as they say in this book.
They’re right to critique carbon markets. I think they’re too fast to dismiss sequestration technologies, politically and technology.
Sequestration could be argued to be creating a metabolic rift, but I think better to say a metabolic imbalance to restore metabolic harmony. Not sure.
The references to “low entropy” are a bit of a red herring, or daft. They commit to this more later.
They do a lot of generalisation from Marx’s comments made in specific contexts. Some of this seems justified, some not.
Most bourgeois climate economics seems awful. They’re correct that economic regime change is needed, and even that continual growth on the capitalist model is not possible.
The scheme of “two contradictions” doesn’t seem to me to add much. The first, of capitalist accumulation, combines both the exploitation of labour and the class struggle implied there and also the problems of overproduction and similar crises. The second they recognise is different to characterise, but summarise it as a tendency to both amass wealth and degrade the conditions of production (natural and social).
They are scientifically reductionist in their treatment of entropy, though they recognise it is only one part of what is going on.
From a programmatic (“movementist”) perspective they deduce that any movement fighting either absolute general law must fight both. In a sense this is stating in a more sophisticated sounding way that the fight against capitalism, capitalist exploitation and against capitalist environmental degradation must go together. But their conclusion seems to somewhat fudge, be movementist, and fade workers more into the background: talk of a “labour-environmentalist alliance”, their third wordlist perspectives, and the like.
They then delve into “dialectics”. They claim a tradition of “Western Marxism” which is critical of the “dialectics of nature” by Engels, and seeks to restrict “dialectics” to human society. They attribute it to Lukacs, who later (when he was more stalinist!) went back on this. USSR Marxism (i.e. for the most part Stalinism) took Engel’s unpublished text more seriously. They talked more of “dialectical materialism” than “historical materialism”. The authors claim that this Western Marxist approach builds a chasm between nature and society, that Marx saw a “single reality”, “requiring a single science”. Stalinist Marxism, the authors claim, had on the other hand “positivistic tendencies”.
I agree that we shouldn't take “The dialectics of nature” so seriously. But not by drawing a hard wall between nature and society: the boundary is not hard, it is messy. That said, science is constituted by multiple different research programmes, disciplines etc., with different laws and rules. There’s a singular science but multiple overlapping sciences. A problem with overstressing the value of a singularity of science is you make people who don’t know what they’re talking about in some area arrogantly think that because they understand Marxism they can pontificate about science. Marxists should be humble about what they don’t know. Perhaps there's also a sense in which dialectics is limited in its usefulness, whatever the domain.
They seem to argue that this rejection of dialectics of nature goes hand in hand with a rejection or protection against positivism. The methods of natural science can’t be straightforwardly applied to society. It is right to dismiss, as they say Lukacs did, Engles claim that “nature is the proof of dialectics”, especially if dialectics is seen as an important way of understanding society etc.
They make much of this disagreement between “Western Marxism” and “dialectical materialism”. They fall on the side of the latter; I on the former on this question (or somewhere else). The authors elsewhere seem to see “ecology” as the proof of dialectics.
Another question that they say distinguishes the two is about the nature of reality, about realism, idealism, materialism subject and object, and the like. That is, there’s a problem with ontology.
Everything changes and interacts, everything has a process, history, relations. They refer to this as dialectics. Some of the question about mechanism vs dialectics in evolution, the natural world, etc. is philosophically interesting but they treat too simplistically and it isn’t as politically important as they make out.
I should read anti-duhring, and Stephen J Gould on dialectics.
They assert that many economists see nature as mechanical and able to be tinkered with easily; many ecologists see it as in a grand harmonious order. They argue for a “materialist though not mechanical” conception, “concerned with interconnections and emergent order”. They see this as coming from Marxist scientists, and are concerned with “how these relate to the human-environment relationship”, but that it isn’t “functionalist” (i.e. that it recognises conflict and messiness?).
Their dismissal of gaia theory (a theory which I think is wrong) is lazy and ignorant. I agree, from my limited understanding, with what might be described as multiple levels of causation and selection in evolution; and that it cannot be reducible to genetic data abstracted from context or interrelation. Though they may be straw-manning some biologists.
Their critiques of Darwin, both in specific claims about what he says, and in accusing him of “functionalism”, seem factually wrong and lazy in approach to me.
Beyond their high-falutin sounding words, some of this part of the book, or the valuable parts of it, could be reinterpreted as advocating more interdisciplinary work; and (though maybe they aren’t fully endorsing it) theoretical pluralism in research programmes. This is very important, I think, which is why their approach is so wrong, in trying to link a political programme to a theoretical unity.
I think there’s a difference between Marxism and what Marx and Engels wrote. I’ve written on interpretations of quantum mechanics, but that isn’t linked to my political perspectives or tradition.
They recognise that evolution happens through a combination of gradualism and sudden changes, and that species can’t perfectly track selective pressure. I don’t think Darwin would dispute these: more generally, they straw man natural science in an effort, I think, to big up dialectics.
The discussion about environmental sociology has some philosophical interest but little political importance (and it does go on a while). They talk about realism vs constructionism about nature, and also about knowledge of it (i.e. ontology and epistemology). Some attempt a synthesis of both. Their approach, simplified, is that the world and people are material and real parts of nature, but that science is shaped by social factors, social construction, and class struggle. But it isn’t untethered from reality, though its direction, interest, and some details are socially shaped.
Their discussion of “double transference” of metaphors from society to natural science and back again is interesting. They recognise that Darwin usefully borrowed ideas from Malthus; but that transferring them back to society would be wrong and harmful. Energy (and indirectly entropy) reductionism are limited too, arguably with similar origin stories. Metaphor can be uk, but double transference is more suspect, more likely to be a slight of hand. They also critiqued proto-Kropotkinite ideas (cooperation etc.) on a similar basis.
The authors give suspect examplex, such as apartheid. Ideas linked to that include “wholism” and “deep ecology”, and while the science has been abandoned, some arguably lives on in environmental ethics etc. Likewise recapitulation theory, still alive in pop culture though discredited in science, was used to justify racism.
Apparently Tyndall's inaugural address is good.
They recognise that political motivations can warp science. Ecosystem ecology, they argue, is more progressive; politically and in its research.
Their concrete proposed ways forwards with science aren’t hugely useful.
The history recounted of imperialism and nutrients are interesting. I’m not sure their label “ecological imperialism” (tied up with bad conceptualisations of “periphery” and “core”) adds much, nor “global metabolic rift”. Organic farming is starting to exploit guano again.
In "where next", they criticise an overlooking of economics by ecologists, but also aren’t adequately critical of an individualised and limited approach, as with “IPAT”. That said, the critique of “economic Malthusianism”, arguably closer to Malthus himself, is interesting. A conflation of different types of consumption by environmentalists is a problem. E.G. most waste is not domestic. Consumers aren't the driving force. Even when this is somewhat recognised it is only somewhat. Some environmentalists treat consumerism, combatting it and climate change, as a cultural issue, that a cultural shift is the answer. That’s ahistorical, and advocating good marketing as an answer doesn’t cut the mustard. At an extreme, that means seeing ridiculous greenwashing and seeing capitalists and corporations as agency.
However, they don’t adequately push back against the anti-consumer idea. Consumerism is somewhat progressive, it has progressive elements. They kind of get there eventually, but only somewhat. And they fail to adequately refocus on production as agency: talking of investment disproportionately compared to that.
They throw in Hegel’s term “bad infinity” in an unenlightening way, more showing off it seems to me than engaging with it seriously.
What they envision in the broadest sense is unobjectionable if vague and not novel. But underneath that, talk of metabolic relations and community bring little. Some proclamations seem vague and hippyish: time will remain an important basis for production etc. They’re generally a bit vague and unscientific in how they approach it.
They’re right in the need to limit growth, and the limits of how far that can be done in capitalism, though they are soft on “degrowth” as a concept.
They seem to dodge revolution, the necessity of revolution, the question of whether it is necessary. They point towards reformist perspectives at many points, at least, and couple that with “revolutionary transformation” of social values.
They mention silly lifestyle stuff, but then reframe it in a socialist perspective. The working class remains absent. They talk about various agents in “counter-hegemony”, with the working class mentioned but only just. Mostly, it celebrates reformist and stalinoid politics in the global south.
Their arguments for the importance of metabolism reference Meszaros’s work too: a different line of argument.
They engage in a philistine way with Shrodinger’s “What is life?”, clearly using it to name drop without engaging seriously or critically — Shrodinger himself made necessary criticisms in later versions! — nor with a serious link between Marx’s “metabolism” and Shrodinger’s, of the depth implied.
---
Review by someone else which I don't entirely agree with https://www.workersliberty.org/blogs/... (see also comment below it)
Another review, though one I disagree with more https://www.workersliberty.org/story/...
See a reply https://www.workersliberty.org/story/...
And my reply to that https://www.workersliberty.org/story/... (Though I am tackling a different question here.)
---
Some quotes from the book:
Jonathan Turner, who is strongly committed to what he calls “the goal of positivism [which] is to formulate and then test laws that apply to all societies in all places at all times.” For Turner, “Marxists and others make a fundamental mistake in assuming that the laws of social organization are time bound, such that the laws governing the operation of feudalism are somehow different than those directing capitalism.”
...
Despite the fact that many social laws seem immutable within a given era, history demonstrates that these can be swept away, often in a strikingly short span of time.
...
In the nineteenth century, Karl Marx introduced the notion of the “metabolic rift,” or a rift in the metabolic exchange between humanity and nature. The context was the robbing of the soil of the countryside of nutrients and the sending of these nutrients to the cities in the form of food and fiber, where they ended up contributing to pollution. ... Marx argued that it was necessary to “restore” the soil metabolism to ensure environmental sustainability for the generations to come. ... Nature can be seen as a web or a fabric made up of innumerable processes, relations, and interactions, the tearing of which ultimately results in a crash of the ecological system. Metabolic analysis serves as a means to study these complex relationships of ecological degradation and sustainability. Hence, Marx’s concept of socio-ecological metabolism and the emergence under capitalism of a metabolic rift will be central to this book.
...
Nevertheless, it is clear that the general nature of the “division of nature” under capitalism is such that it simplifies what was formerly complex.
...
This ecological rift is, at bottom, the product of a social rift: the domination of human being by human being. The driving force is a society based on class, inequality, and acquisition without end.
...
Scarcity, in other words, is a necessary requirement for something to have value in exchange, and to augment private riches.
...
More quotes below, in comments.
September 17, 2024
Five stars for the general concept behind this book: capitalism is a system of endless accumulation and inherently unsustainable development. It exploits both labor and the environment, disrupting the natural relationship between the two. Would recommend for this alone.
Two stars for the writing and organization: often repetitive and unedited, the book doesn't seem intended to be read from start to finish and relies on a handful of the same references drawn out over 400+ pages. I'd personally recommend reading the first and third sections, as the middle section (part 2) veers into a history of academic arguments over terminology and theory that for most readers like myself detracts from the point of the book.
This book lives more in the theoretical than the empirical, which at times limits the strength of its argument. However, it offers a nice analytical framework to organize all the various facts, figures, and daily experiences we encounter in relation to climate change, ecological degradation more generally, and our ✨ late capitalist economy. ✨ As long as you keep this in mind, the book strikes a good balance between popular non-fiction and academic writing.
I hope the authors will provide an updated and edited edition based on our current state of affairs and include more diverse, fully fleshed out case studies like those in section 3.
Two stars for the writing and organization: often repetitive and unedited, the book doesn't seem intended to be read from start to finish and relies on a handful of the same references drawn out over 400+ pages. I'd personally recommend reading the first and third sections, as the middle section (part 2) veers into a history of academic arguments over terminology and theory that for most readers like myself detracts from the point of the book.
This book lives more in the theoretical than the empirical, which at times limits the strength of its argument. However, it offers a nice analytical framework to organize all the various facts, figures, and daily experiences we encounter in relation to climate change, ecological degradation more generally, and our ✨ late capitalist economy. ✨ As long as you keep this in mind, the book strikes a good balance between popular non-fiction and academic writing.
I hope the authors will provide an updated and edited edition based on our current state of affairs and include more diverse, fully fleshed out case studies like those in section 3.
August 21, 2024
This book reads in a highly academic tone and feels like a very long literature review. Difficult to follow just the main ideas and very light on talking about solutions. There is a lot of details on the problems which does not help an already informed reader who wants to explore alternative solutions and look at the future. I found myself skipping lots of parts.
July 9, 2020
Eye-opening, edifying, but could've/should've been edited way down.
June 27, 2021
good content, but very repetitive. it cpuld have been 1/3 shorter and would be a great book
July 30, 2021
This book has some powerful analysis. But it could be shorter
September 12, 2021
A great look at Marxism and ecology. Marx correctly warns of the damage done by capitalism to our planet and he did that 150 years ago!
July 28, 2024
Actually pretty interesting but too much repetition. Could probably cut the book in half with the same amount of information.
March 7, 2017
This book gives me a reason to prefer economics over ecology. The authors called up big names, attached big institutions to them, and then mocked them with Trump words. The books flow one name to another name. Endless names and titles. Instead, they could've given a great deal of evidence, solid analysis, or even real-life stories. Disappointed.
February 1, 2022
Despite my frustration with the repetitive nature of this book (collection of essays) I learned a fair amount but (unfortunately?) was left feeling fairly pessimistic about the possibility of the most living things having a remotely soft landing.
Hey, this book was written in 2010 and I couldn't help reflecting on the lack of progress we have to show for the past 6 years. A country and world divided by fear and misinformation. Large segments of the population crashing from the false hope 'high' after Sanders ultimate surrender to Clinton. The largely disillusioned mass of Americans and frightened and disbelieving nations of the world looking on as the US faces a choice between two evils, while the hottest years on record, destructive mega storms, etc... Yup, not a lot to be optimistic about, in fact we're worse off with basically "time's up" left on the clock.
Still, back to this book and some good news, there are excellent insights regarding Marx's dialectical views along with legitimate & powerful strategies to free the world from capitalism and it's destructive consequences - OK, maybe not so legitimate given that it's highly unlikely the they will be peacefully adopted. Still, it's a worthy read but be sure to take a break on occasion and try to take a walk in the park/nature, hug a loved one, join a community action or group, learn a new skill, start a garden, dance...
Hey, this book was written in 2010 and I couldn't help reflecting on the lack of progress we have to show for the past 6 years. A country and world divided by fear and misinformation. Large segments of the population crashing from the false hope 'high' after Sanders ultimate surrender to Clinton. The largely disillusioned mass of Americans and frightened and disbelieving nations of the world looking on as the US faces a choice between two evils, while the hottest years on record, destructive mega storms, etc... Yup, not a lot to be optimistic about, in fact we're worse off with basically "time's up" left on the clock.
Still, back to this book and some good news, there are excellent insights regarding Marx's dialectical views along with legitimate & powerful strategies to free the world from capitalism and it's destructive consequences - OK, maybe not so legitimate given that it's highly unlikely the they will be peacefully adopted. Still, it's a worthy read but be sure to take a break on occasion and try to take a walk in the park/nature, hug a loved one, join a community action or group, learn a new skill, start a garden, dance...
November 1, 2018
A compendium of articles explaining a Marxian perspective on human-driven disruptions to the Earth's natural systems, and the consistent inadequacy of political responses.
The third chapter poignantly explains the vertigo-inducing discrepancy between the perspective of natural scientists on climate change, and the perspective of social scientists - and economists in particular. Immensely clarifying.
The third chapter poignantly explains the vertigo-inducing discrepancy between the perspective of natural scientists on climate change, and the perspective of social scientists - and economists in particular. Immensely clarifying.
October 23, 2016
Interesting overview of thought. I did not find the part with dialectics profound or really necessary. The solutions put forward in the book, I feel fall short. And I do not know any good solutions to the issues at hand in any way.
I would still recommend this book however.
I would still recommend this book however.
November 13, 2017
interesting book about ecology, capitalism, political economy, dialectical materialism and obviously about Marx.
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