Metabolism, energy, and entropy in Marx's critique of political economy: Beyond the Podolinsky myth |
| |
Authors: | Paul Burkett John Bellamy Foster |
| |
Institution: | (1) Department of Economics, Indiana State University, Terre Haute, IN, 47809;(2) University of Oregon, Oregon |
| |
Abstract: | Until recently, most commentators, including ecological Marxists, have assumed that Marx's historical materialism was only
marginally ecologically sensitive at best, or even that it was explicitly anti-ecological. However, research over the last
decade has demonstrated not only that Marx deemed ecological materialism essential to the critique of political economy and
to investigations into socialism, but also that his treatment of the coevolution of nature and society was in many ways the
most sophisticated to be put forth by any social theorist prior to the late twentieth century. Still, criticisms continue
to be leveled at Marx and Engels for their understanding of thermodynamics and the extent to which their work is said to conflict
with the core tenets of ecological economics. In this respect, the rejection by Marx and Engels of the pioneering contributions
of the Ukrainian socialist Sergei Podolinsky, one of the founders of energetics, has been frequently offered as the chief
ecological case against them. Building on an earlier analysis of Marx's and Engels's response to Podolinsky, this article
shows that they relied on an open-system, metabolic-energetic model that adhered to all of the main strictures of ecological
economics – but one that also (unlike ecological economics) rooted the violation of solar and other environmental-sustainability
conditions in the class relations of capitalist society. The result is to generate a deeper understanding of classical historical
materialism's ecological approach to economy and society – providing an ecological-materialist critique that can help uncover
the systemic roots of today's “treadmill of production” and global environmental crisis.
Paul Burkett is Professor of Economics at Indiana State University, Terre Haute. He is the author of
Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective (1999), and the co-author, with Martin Hart-Landsberg, of
China and Socialism: Market Reforms and Class Struggle (2005).
John Bellamy Foster is Professor of Sociology at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon, and co-editor of Monthly Review (New York). He is the author of The Vulnerable Planet (1994, 1999); “Marx's Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology,” American Journal of Sociology (September 1999); Marx's Ecology (2000); Ecology Against Capitalism (2002); and Naked Imperialism (2005). |
| |
Keywords: | |
本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录! |
|