Recipient of a Book Award
from the Section on Marxist Sociology of the American Sociological
Association
Marx’s Ecology:
Materialism and Nature
by JOHN BELLAMY FOSTER
PUBLISHED BY MONTHLY REVIEW PRESS
Introduction to
Marx’s Ecology Seminar
READ EXCERPT
TABLE OF CONTENTS
ISBN:
1-58367-012-2
$18.00 paper
ISBN:
1-58367-011-4
$48.00 cloth
300pp
2000
also by
John Bellamy Foster:
“In the best
tradition of Marxist scholarship, John Bellamy Foster uses the history of ideas
not as a courtesy to the past but as an integral part of current issues. He
demonstrates the centrality of ecology for a materialist conception of history,
and of historical materialism for an ecological movement.”
— RICHARD LEVINS, Harvard University
“Marx's
Ecology is a bold,exciting interpretation of the historical background
and context of Marx's ecological thought and a fascinating exploration of
environmental history. Should be of interest to all who care about the fate of
our `vulnerable planet.’”
— CAROLYN MERCHANT, University of
California, Berkeley
“When I first saw John Bellamy
Foster's new book I thought, ‘Oh no, not another great, thick, fat book on
Marx!’ But as soon as I started to read, I found it hard to put down. It
has given me a new understanding of the totality of Marx's materialism and his
development of the dialectic of human society and nature.”
— R.C. LEWONTIN, Harvard University
“In
Marx's Ecology, John Bellamy Foster brilliantly expands our
understanding of Marx's thought, proving that Marx understood alienation to
encompass human estrangement from the natural world. Foster criticizes the
current version of environmentalism that equates Marxism and modernity with the
degradation of nature and points towards a sophisticated and less nostalgic
environmentalism which sees capitalism, not modernity, as the essential problem
to be addressed."
— BARBARA EPSTEIN, University of
California, Santa Cruz
Progress requires the conquest of nature. Or does it? This new account overturns conventional interpretations of Marx and in the process outlines a more rational approach to the current environmental crisis.
Marx, it is often assumed, cared only about industrial growth and the development of economic forces. John Bellamy Foster examines Marx's neglected writings on capitalist agriculture and soil ecology, philosophical naturalism, and evolutionary theory. He shows that Marx, known as a powerful critic of capitalist society, was also deeply concerned with the changing human relationship to nature.
Marx's Ecology covers many other thinkers, including Epicurus, Charles Darwin, Thomas Malthus, Ludwig Feuerbach, P. J. Proudhon, and William Paley.
By reconstructing a materialist conception of nature and society, Marx's Ecology challenges the spiritualism prevalent in the modern Green movement, pointing toward a method that offers more lasting and sustainable solutions to the ecological crisis.
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Materialism
Ecology
The Crisis of Socio-Ecology
1. The Materialist Conception of Nature
Materialism and the Very Early Marx
Epicurus and the Revolution of Science and Reason
2. The Really Earthly Question
Feuerbach
The Alienation of Nature and Humanity
Association versus Political Economy
3. Parson Naturalists
Natural Theology
Natural Theology and Political Economy
The First Essay
The Second Essay
Thomas Chalmers and the Bridgewater Treatises
4. The Materialist Conception
of History
The Critique of Malthus and the Origins of Historical Materialism
The New Materialism
Historical Geology and Historical Geography
Critique of the True Socialists
The Mechanistic "Prometheanism" of Proudhon
The View of the Communist Manifesto
5. The Metabolism of Nature and Society
Overpopulation and the Conditions of Reproduction of Human Beings
James Anderson and the Origins of Differential Fertility
Liebig, Marx, and the Second Agricultural Revolution
6. The Basis in Natural History
for Our View
The Origin of Species
Darwin, Huxley, and the Defeat of Teleology
Marx and Engels: Labor and Human Evolution
The Plight of the Materialists
The Revolution in Ethnological Time: Morgan and Marx
A Young Darwinian and Karl Marx
Epilogue
Dialectical Naturalism
Marxism and Ecology after Engels
Caudwell's Dialectics
The Dialectical Ecologist
The Principle of Conservation
Notes
Index
About the Author
JOHN
BELLAMY FOSTER is associate professor of sociology at the
University of Oregon. He is the author of The Vulnerable Planet and
co-editor of Hungry for Profit (2000), Capitalism and the Information
Age (1998), and In Defense of History(1996).
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