The Ecological Crisis and the Logic of Capital [1 ed.] 9789004356009, 9789004355965

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The Ecological Crisis and the Logic of Capital

Studies in Moral Philosophy Series Editor Thom Brooks (Durham University) Editorial Board Chrisoula Andreou (University of Utah) Mark Bevir (University of California, Berkeley) Clare Chambers (University of Cambridge) Fabian Freyenhagen (University of Essex) Tim Mulgan (University of St Andrews) Ian Shapiro (Yale University)

VOLUME 12

The titles published in this series are listed at brill.com/simp

The Ecological Crisis and the Logic of Capital By

Chen Xueming Translated by

Wu Lihuan and Liu Baixiang Revised by

Chad Austin Meyers Advised by

Stephen Eric Sandelius

LEIDEN | BOSTON

Funded by The Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Sciences. The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available online at http://catalog.loc.gov LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2017033720

Typeface for the Latin, Greek, and Cyrillic scripts: “Brill”. See and download: brill.com/brill-typeface. isbn 978-90-04-35596-5 (hardback) isbn 978-90-04-35600-9 (e-book) Copyright 2017 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Brill Hes & De Graaf, Brill Nijhoff, Brill Rodopi and Hotei Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. This book is printed on acid-free paper and produced in a sustainable manner.

Contents Foreword xi Preface xiii Introduction: Capital and Ecology 1 On the Ecological-Marxian Analysis of the Ecological Crisis 1

Part 1 John Bellamy Foster’s Research on the Ecological Crisis 1 The Theoretical Basis of Ecological Civilization 67 Constructing a Marxist Theory of Ecology 67 Ecological Theory in Marx’s Work 70 The Essence of Marx’s Philosophical Materialism 74 Insights from Marx’s Ecological Theory 76 2 The Ecological Implications of Marx’s Materialist View of Nature 79 Marx’s Materialist Conception of Nature in his Doctoral Thesis 80 Marx’s Materialist Conception of Nature in his Relationship with Feuerbach 89 Marx’s Materialism as a Foundation for his Views on Ecology 95 3 The Ecological Implications of Marx’s Materialist Conception of History 104 Ecological Theory in Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts, 1844 104 Ecological Theory of The Communist Manifesto 110 4 The Ecological Implications of Marx’s Theory of “Metabolism” 120 The Theory of “Metabolism” in Capital 120 The “Metabolic Rift” in Capital 126 On the Cause of the “Metabolic Rift” 133 5 The Revelation of Marx’s Ecological Theory: Antagonism between Capital and Ecology 141 Marx’s View of the Opposition between Capital and Ecology 142 The Conflict between Capital and Ecology in Today’s World 151

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6 The Bush Administration and the Kyoto Protocol 159 The Bush Administration’s Attitude Towards the Kyoto Protocol 159 The U.S. Government’s Attitude Toward the Other “Earth Summits” 167 Obliging the Third World to “Swallow Pollution” 172 7 Giving up Illusions in Order to Overcome the Ecological Crisis 178 Can Environmental Problems be Solved through the “Dematerialization” of the Capitalist Economy? 178 Can Environmental Problems be Solved through the Development of Science and Technology? 182 Can Environmental Problems be Solved through a Capitalistic Market Approach to Nature? 187 Can Environmental Problems be Solved through Moral Reform and Establishing Ecological Ethics? 192 8 The Fight against the Ecological Crisis 198 Beyond the Bottom Line of a Money-Driven Economy 198 Putting People First 200 Constructing Humanity’s Relationship to Nature Based on “Freedom in General” 202 Having Enough, not Having More 205 Putting Land Ethics into Practice 207 Environmental Revolution Necessitates Social Revolution 209

Part 2 Research from Other Ecological Marxists 9 James O’Connor: The Intrinsic Relationship between Marxism and Ecology 233 Marx’s View on “History and Nature” 234 Marx’s view on “Capital and Nature” 239 Marx’s View on “Socialism and Nature” 243 10 David Pepper: Why Marx’s Ecological Theory Is Needed Now More Than Ever 251 Marxism Contains Enough Elements for an Ecological Theory 253 Solution to Environmental Problems in Marxism 256

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Ecological Contradictions: Inherent Contradictions of Capitalist Societies in Marxism 259 Capitalism: “Inherently Environmentally Unfriendly” in Marxism 263 The Cause of Overpopulation, Famine and “Natural Shortages” in Marxism 265 Overcoming Alienation from Nature and “Asserting its Humanness” in Marxism 269 Rationally Regulating Humanity’s Relationship to Nature in Marxism 274

11 Paul Burkett: The Inherent Relationship between Natural, Social and Environmental Crises in Marxism 278 The Four Necessary Conditions of Social Ecology 279 Nature and Historical Materialism 281 The Analysis of Ecological Value and the Theory of Capitalism 284 Perspectives on the Ecological Implications of Communism 294 12 Andre Gorz: Surpassing Economic Logic as the Key to Constructing an Ecological Civilization 302 The Capitalistic Division of Labor as the Root of all Alienation 304 Capitalism’s Profit Motive as the Cause of Ecological Destruction 307 Beyond Economic Logic, the Implementation of Ecological Logic 313 Advanced Socialism as the Key to Protecting the Environment 323 13 Ben Agger: The Ecological Dilemma has Shattered People’s Faith in Capitalism 332 Re-examining the Theory of the Crisis of Capitalism 333 Toward an Ecological Marxism 338 Transforming Capitalism through Decentralization and Debureaucratization 341 Combining American Populism with Ecological Marxism 344 14 William Leiss: A Marxist Approach to Green Theory 349 The Logical Connection between Controlling Nature and Controlling People 350 Human Satisfaction Ultimately Lies in Production, Not in Consumption 368

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15 Herbert Marcuse: The Marxist Path to Ecological Revolution 382 Marx’s Theory of the Liberation of Nature in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 382 An Analysis of Ecology in Today’s World 389 Marcuse’s Theory of the Liberation of Nature and the “Club of Rome” 396

Part 3 The Implications of Ecological Marxism 16 Marxism and the Construction of an Ecological Civilization 427 The Ecological Vision in Marx’s Works 428 The Practical Significance of Marx’s Ecological Worldview 434 17 The Inspiration of Ecological Marxism for Constructing an Ecologically Friendly Civilization 439 From Humanity’s Conflict with Nature to Conflicts between Human Beings 439 The Advantages of Constructing an Ecological Civilization in a Socialist Society 444 Constructing Ecological Civilization and Creating Humanity’s New Way of Being 451 Making the Construction of Ecological Civilization into a Great Revolution of Thought 457 18 Ecological Marxism’s Opposition to Postmodernism 465 “Green Politics” as a Form of Post-modern Politics 465 Should Modernization be Abandoned or Reformed? 467 Eco-centrism or Anthropocentrism? 470 Can Rationality Correct the Biases of Rationalism? 472 The Proper Way to Regard the Functions of Science and Technology 476 Humankind’s Search for Meaning 479 The Theoretical and Practical Relevance of Ecological Marxism Compared to Postmodernism 482 19 Western Marxism’s Rejection of Postmodernism 485 The Confrontation between Ecological Marxism and Postmodernism 485

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The Inheritance of Habermas’ Reflections on Modernity 490 The Inheritance of the Frankfurt School’s Critique of Society 493 The Inheritance of the Pioneers of Western Marxism 498 A Reflection on the Positive Significance of Marxism Itself 502

20 Personal Fulfillment through Production Rather than Consumption—An Essential Thesis of Ecological Marxism 508 Focusing on Production Rather than Consumption 508 New Concepts for an Overhaul of Current Consumption Patterns 513 Seeking Satisfaction in Productive Activity 518 The Implications of the Thesis of Fulfillment through Productive Activity 523 21 Ecological Marxism’s New Reflection on Contemporary Capitalism 527 The Cause of the Ecological Crisis—the Capitalist Mode of Production 527 From the Critique of the Profit Motive to the Critique of the Economic Reason of Capitalism 530 The Relationship between Environmental Protection and the Existing Capitalist Modes of Production 536 Capitalist Countries are Largely Ecologically Imperialist Countries 539 “Sustainable Development” is Impossible under Capitalism 541 22 An Ecologically Friendly Civilization is an Essential Goal of Chinese Socialism 545 Creating Environmental Standards for Chinese Socialism 545 Scientific Development Means “Green” Development 550 A Harmonious Society Founded on Harmony between Humanity and Nature 554 Promoting Human Fulfillment through the Unity of Humanity and Nature 558 23 The Strategic Choice for the Construction of Ecological Civilization under Chinese Socialism 564 The Three Strategies That we Can Not and Should Not Choose 564 The Viable Strategy of Ecologically Oriented Modernization 570

x 24 Challenges for the Construction of an Ecologically Friendly Civilization 575 Capital: Utilizing and Restricting 575 Technology: Development and Control 578 Production: Expansion and Reform 582 Consumption: Stimulus and Guidance 587

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Foreword The Ecological Crisis and the Logic of Capital was published by People’s Publishing House in September 2012. We successfully applied for the Chinese Fund for the Humanities and Social Science in 2015 (15WKS004). During the application and translation process, we enjoyed the cooperation of many people from both within and outside of our Project Team. I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt thanks to all the teachers and friends who offered us help in accomplishing the translation of this book. My deepest gratitude goes first and foremost to the People’s Publishing House and the author Professor Chen Xueming for their trust and support in my application for the Chinese Fund for Humanities and Social Science, and also for the author’s revision of the whole book for the English version. Second, I would like to express my gratitude to Stephen Eric Sandelius, the American teacher in our foreign language school of ECUST for his careful polishing and for his timely and generous help whenever I was in need, and also for his valuable suggestions. My sincere gratitude should also be given to ECNU’s Chad Austin Meyers, Doctor of Philosophy, whose native skills in English and excellent grasp of Chinese put the finishing touches on the whole book. He retranslated some parts of the text in light of our initial rendering, and put in tireless work to ensure that the text stands as an accurate and smooth rendering of the original. Likewise, I would like to extend my thanks to all of those involved in the translation process. They are Li qiaonan, Chen Yawen, Xu xiaoyi and Zuang yuan. I owe my gratitude to all the friends who have participated in finding all the reference materials. They are Liu yang, Yiru, Li Yichao, and Wu Qiong, who truly did indispensible work in helping me accomplish this project. I also can not forget the friends who assisted me to use CAT, Trados, Tmxmall which were most helpful and useful. They are professor Guan Xinchao, Li Mei, Guan Buo, Zhu Xiaoer and Zhangjing, without whose generous help I would not have finished the project in any reasonable timeframe. Thanks should also goes to my sincere friends Wu Biyu and He Jun for their valuable advice and suggestions whenever I encountered difficulties. Finally, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to Liu Siyuan for his translation of all the notes and poems and for searching for the references; his timely help was indispensible. Lastly, I would like to thank Liu Baixian for his translation, his patience and timely help whenever I had computer trouble, and for his sincere concern and constant support.

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It would be impossible to adequately acknowledge the generosity of so many friends in offering encouragement and support, and in a certain sense this book is as much theirs as it is mine. What I have asked of them far exceeds what I am able to repay. Wu Lihuan, Translator 20 March 2017

Preface The “Club of Rome” issued a warning about the ecological crisis nearly a half of a century ago. It has also been more than 20 years since the world’s top scientists signed a declaration in 1975 warning that humankind is facing a serious ecological threat. Throughout the world, environmental pollution and ecological destruction has continued, and in some areas, has intensified. Humanity is still facing the threat of the ecological crisis. So why do human beings find it so difficult to eliminate the ecological crisis? We get half the results by doubling the effort! Obviously, the key point is that people so far have still not caught the real culprit who is so greatly threatening the planet we live on, or perhaps, we vaguely recognize the culprit but dare not face or oppose it. We come to know the good seaman in bad weather. There are a number of people in the world today who claim to have not only found the real culprit who is destroying our home planet, but to have also pinned the culprit down with a critique so piercing that it has exposed him to the world. They are the active “ecological Marxists” in the Western world. These “ecological Marxists” have identified the culprit of the ecological crisis as none other than the logic of capital. They insist that as long as the logic of capital still predominates and production is mainly undertaken for the sake of maximizing profits, the ecological crisis is basically impossible to eliminate. Capital and ecology are naturally opposed. The reasoning behind the arguments against capitalism is that the latter not only impels some people to cruelly exploit others, resulting in systematic inequality between people, but also because it impels some people to endlessly exploit nature, which instills deep conflict into the relation between humans and nature. Of course these “ecological Marxists” do not superficially form their judgment out of vague and fanciful ideas. They have a powerful ideological weapon, which is Marxism, particularly the Marxist theory of capital. It is the Marxist theory of capital that enables them to demonstrate great insight and foresight, identifying capital as anti-ecological in nature. Capital is not a general thing, but a social being; it is the existing form of social relations of a specific historical era. Since capital emerged on earth, especially since it became the essence defining the scope of modernity and the basic constitution of modern society, it has played a decisive role in human society and nature, which is dominated by this social being and by the basic attributes of it as a social being. These “ecological Marxists” study the relationship between capital and the ecological environment and what kind of role

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capital plays in the ecological environment by analyzing the basic properties of capital as a social being. According to the analysis of these “ecological Marxists,” the first principle of capital is the principle of “utility,” that is, put everything into “useful systems;” it is this principle that makes the natural world lose its “emotional brilliance”, becoming just a specific embodiment of its own usefulness. Nature just like every being in the world can only defend its own existence before the courts of capital. The second principle of capital is the principle of “proliferation;” capital dies without proliferating; capital is nearly synonymous with proliferation; the ethos of capital is “the more, the merrier”, capital can be likened to a cancer cell, which in itself contains the endlessly flowing source of itself. It is this principle which determines that capital will bow to no limit in taking advantage of nature; capital is in pursuit of unlimited growth, and thereby its access to capital is endless, resulting in the destruction of nature without end. Leaving aside the powerful theoretical weapons that they hold, the reason why the ecological Marxists are so powerful in arguing that the logic of capital engenders maximum damage to the ecosystem is most importantly their ability to face the facts; they have drawn conclusions from numerous facts about what is happening before our eyes. Why did the Kyoto Agreement on curbing global warming result in nothing but a “very moderate” and “more of a symbolic” “small step”, and inexorably end in failure? How is it that the “Summit in Rio de Janeiro”, the “Johannesburg Summit,” the “Copenhagen Summit,” etc., which filled all of “the people of Earth” with the expectation that environmental problems will find solutions, resulted in nothing, miserably nothing? All of this, according to these ecological Marxists, means that the implementation of ecological protection under the premise of “doing no harm” to capitalism is futile. It is unrealistic for us to hope that the rulers of these capitalist countries will lead humanity to the goal of eliminating the ecological crisis. There is no doubt that there are theoretical vulnerabilities and shortcomings in some arguments held by the ecological Marxists, who start with the premise of exposing and criticizing the damage that the logic of capital wages on ecology, and then deduces the final way out of the ecological crisis in switching from the capitalist mode of production and way of life to the socialist mode of production and way of life. So, some of their views are clearly just one side of the story. But also, of course, their analysis and criticism is much more active and profound than today’s mainstream, which finds superficial solutions to the ecological crisis in ethical reform and the establishment of ecological ethics, and ultimately, in the development of science and technology, in realizing

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the “dematerialization” of the economy, in marketing nature and capitalizing nature. Let us remember the names of these “ecological Marxists”. Those who have passed away include Herbert Marcuse and Andre Gorz. Those who are still alive but have entered old age include Ben Agger, William Leiss, and James O’ Connor. Those who are still active today in the West include John Bellamy Foster, David Pepper, and Paul Burkett, to name a few. We enter the theory of “ecological Marxism” with a feeling of great reverence. The book is divided into three parts. Due to the great influence of J. B. Foster’s thought, in the first part we specifically analyze his research on the ecological crisis. Part 2 is dedicated to other ecological Marxists whose analyses of the ecological crisis deserve attention. Part 3 is dedicated to the implications of “ecological Marxism.” In addition, we devote tens of thousands of words to overview and discuss ecological Marxism’s theory of the relationship between “capital and ecology” in the “Introduction.” The study of “Ecological Marxism” has become popular in the Chinese academic world and has generated fruitful results. This work incorporates many of the fruits of concurrent domestic research for the purpose of clarification. So, at the same time, thanks you to those whose work made this book possible. Chen Xueming June 8, 2012

Introduction: Capital and Ecology

On the Ecological-Marxian Analysis of the Ecological Crisis

“The Club of Rome” issued that warning about the ecological crisis nearly a half a century ago, and it has been also 20 years since the world’s top scientists signed that declaration in 1975 warning humankind that it is facing a serious ecological threat. Throughout the world, environmental pollution and ecological destruction have continued and in some areas have intensified. Humanity is still facing the threat of natural and ecological crisis. So, why have human beings moved deeper and deeper into ecological crisis without being able to extricate themselves from it? Why does humanity find it so difficult to construct ecological civilization? Where is the solution to the ecological crisis? In this regard, the Western ecological Marxists have launched unique investigations. They have directed such investigations at capital, and insist that the prevailing logic of capital in today’s world is the real cause of the ecological crisis. In exploring their theories we have reviewed the relationship between capital and ecology, and the series of problems that it has caused. 1 What after all is capital? It is very important not to frame it simply as a thing; it is a social being. Marx explains quite clearly that “capital is not a thing, but rather a definite social production relation, belonging to a definite historical formation of society”.1 Marx argues that Capital is not a general being, but a social being, and emphasizes that capital is by nature social, that is, it is the social relation and way of being of a specific historical era. Since capital arrived in the world, especially once it became the essential scope of modernity, the fundamental constitution of modern society, it has played a decisive role in human society and nature, a role whose nature is controlled by its sociality, that is by the basic attributes of it as a social being. Therefore, we should start by analyzing the basic properties of capital as a social being in order to investigate the relationship between capital and the ecological environment, and the role that capital plays with respect to the ecological environment.

1  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 46, People’s Publishing House, 2nd Edition, Chinese, p. 922.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004356009_002

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In the Economic Manuscripts of 1857–1858 Marx’s following words shed light on a significant property of capital and analyzes the impact of this property on nature and the ecological environment. Thus, just as production founded on capital creates universal industriousness on one side—i.e. surplus labor, value-creating labor—so does it create on the other side a system of general exploitation of the natural and human qualities, a system of general utility, utilizing science itself just as much as all the physical and mental qualities, while there appears nothing higher in itself, nothing legitimate for itself, outside this circle of social production and exchange. Thus capital creates the bourgeois society, and the universal appropriation of nature as well as of the social bond itself by the members of society. Hence the great civilizing influence of capital; its production of a stage of society in comparison to which all earlier ones appear as mere local developments of humanity and as nature-idolatry. For the first time, nature becomes purely an object for humankind, purely a matter of utility; ceases to be recognized as a power for itself; and the theoretical discovery of its autonomous laws appears merely as a ruse so as to subjugate it under human needs, whether as an object of consumption or as a means of production. In accord with this tendency, capital drives beyond national barriers and prejudices as much as beyond nature worship, as well as all traditional, confined, complacent, encrusted satisfactions of present needs, and reproductions of old ways of life. It is destructive towards all of this, and constantly revolutionizes it, tearing down all the barriers which hem in the development of the forces of production, the expansion of needs, the all-sided development of production, and the exploitation and exchange of natural and mental forces.2 Marx’s words here connote a full range of meanings. However, we solely interpret the content that is relevant to the topic discussed in this article. We should say that two of Marx’s viewpoints shine clearly before us: first, the main property of capital is to put everything into “a system of utility”, that is, it creates a system of general utility. As long as capital is the basic principle of the times, every thing in the world is the embodiment of a system of general utility, while there appears nothing higher in itself, nothing legitimate for itself, outside this circle of social production and exchange. In other words, every thing must be 2  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 30, People’s Publishing House, 2nd Edition, Chinese, pp. 389–390.

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attached to capital, and may only defend its own being before the tribunal of capital. We can call this capital’s “principle of utility;” Second, the influence of the basic principle or the basic property of capital upon nature is to make it a useful thing, to make it become a tool. Capital only looks at and understands every being in the terms of usefulness, and of course, it always looks at and understands nature in terms of utility to the effect that nature can only express its own being in the abstract form of capital. In this way, nature loses its “sensual radiance”. It is only a concrete manifestation of utility, or rather, it is only a part of the universal relation of utility that makes up the core of capital. While humankind still worshiped nature before capital became the principle of the times, it is only afterward that nature becomes the true object of human being, truly a useful being, and was no longer believed to be a power for itself, and ceased to be the object of worship. After capital became the principle of the times, people have also continuously explored the theoretical knowledge of the independent laws of nature, but the purpose of this exploration is nothing more than to make it more subordinate to human needs, that is to make nature better perform the function of a tool. On other occasions, Marx expresses the effect of capital’s “utility principle” on nature as “production should have the maximum of all-round content, subjecting to itself all aspects of nature”.3 Capital, driven by its internal principle of utility, increasingly turns “pure nature” into “humanized nature.” Indeed, as Marx states, after capital became the principle of the times, humankind became enthusiastic about the development of nature, and the essence of this development was new (artificial) preparation of natural objects, by which they are given new use values; Hence exploration of all of nature in order to discover new, useful qualities in things; universal exchange of the products of all alien climates and lands.4 Capital’s “principle of utility” in a certain sense can be said to be the “principle of money.” Utility in the eyes of capital is making money. Capital connects everything in the world to money. Everything is transformed into a machine that can make money. If we can understand capital’s principle of utility in this way, then its relation to nature is to try to make it become a commodity, to 3  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 47, People’s Publishing House, 1st Edition, Chinese, p. 555. 4  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 46, People’s Publishing House, 1st Edition, Chinese, p. 392.

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make it become a machine that makes money, or, more precisely, to transform nature into money. And once nature turns into money, its own value disappears. Marx brilliantly exposed how capital effectively deprived the whole earth (including the natural world) of its own value with the aid of money as early as On the Jewish Question. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man—and turns them into commodities. Money is the universal self-established value of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world—both the world of men and nature—of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of man’s work and man’s existence, and this alien essence dominates him, and he worships it. The god of the Jews has become secularized and has become the god of the world. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an illusory bill of exchange.5 Here Marx points to money’s divesting of the world of its own value under the determination of the principle of utility of capital, which not only divests the human world of its own value, but nature of its own value as well. What we are looking at here is not simply the naked cash transactions between human beings, “it has resolved personal worth into exchange value;”6 we are also looking at human being’s relation to nature having become a monetary and utilitarian relation in which the dignity of nature devolves into exchange value. We usually say that under the rule of capital, the transcendent world of values disappears in accompaniment with the reification of the world of commodities, that is disappears in accompaniment with the exchange value of commodities ascending to transcendent status. In fact, this process is not only achieved by divesting the human world of value; it is also inseparable from divesting nature of value. In other words, it is not only human life whose value is under compulsion to be weighed in the market of capital; the value of nature must also be tested in the market as well. The transcendence of value is not only defeated by the question of how much you are worth, but is also smashed to shreds by the question of how much this natural being is worth. Human being is divested of value. We call this “the alienation of human being.” Nature is divested of its own value. We call this “the alienation of nature”. Unfortunately, when we

5  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3, People’s Publishing House, 2nd Edition, Chinese, p. 194. 6  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 275.

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spoke of the influence of capital’s principle of utility and monetary principle in the past, we spoke more of the “the alienation of human being”, especially the alienation of human labor, while paying less attention to “the alienation of nature.” Marx is well-known for putting forward the concept of the alienation of labor in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. But, in fact, Marx closely linked the alienation of nature to the alienation of human being, particularly the alienation of human labor. When talking about the alienation brought about by capital, Marx always includes both the alienation of labor and the alienation of nature. If you want to know how Marx looks at the alienation of nature, just look at Marx’s analysis of the alienation of land and it becomes clear, because the latter is a typical example of the alienation of nature. Marx gets right to the point, and the alienation of land demonstrates this fact: “that the land should likewise sink to the status of a commercial value, like man”.7 In this regard the alienation of land is the same as the alienation of other natural objects. Marx emphasizes that the alienation of nature is manmade, and it is caused by the rule of capital and money. He quotes Thomas Münzer’s words to attack the evils of private property: “Open your eyes! What is the evil? brew from which all usury, theft and robbery springs but the assumption of our lords and princes that all creatures are their property?”8 The capitalist system is an institution of money-worship, and it is money-worship that makes money become an independent thing and “the universal value” of all things. It has therefore divested human being and nature of their own value. According to Marx’s description, the alienation of nature is inextricably tied to the alienation of human being. He describes the effect of the alienation of nature on the alienation of human being: the degradation of the environment in the large towns had thus reached the point where light, air, cleanliness, were no longer part of their being, but rather darkness, polluted air, and raw, untreated sewage constituted their material environment. We can know from Marx’s description here that not only creative work but also the essential elements of life itself were forfeited as a result of this alienation of nature. Marx once said: “As man increasingly controls nature, individuals seem to increasingly become slaves of others or their own despicable slaves.”9 Of course, Marx here is not talking about human beings in the abstract sense, what he calls “mankind” who “increasingly controls nature” specifically refers to the owners 7  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, People’s Publishing House, 1st Edition, Chinese, p. 85. 8  See J. B. Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 74. 9  Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 775.

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of capital, who are driven by the utilitarian and monetary principle of capital and continuously engender the “alienation of human being” and “the alienation of nature”, while the latter continuously exacerbates the former. In one respect, the influence of the utilitarian and monetary principles of capital on the “alienation of human being” is direct, that is it directly inflicts alienation on human being, on the other hand, it is indirect, that is, it is realized by means of the alienation of nature. When ecological Marxists expose the anti-ecological nature of capital they always ask the question: what is nature originally like, what should human being’s relationship to nature originally be like, what is it that capital turns nature into according to the necessity of its own nature, and in what way does it change human being’s relationship to it? It should be said that it is a Marxist way of thinking to consider what kind of influence after all capital will exert on ecology, and it actually captures the key to the relationship between capital and ecology. Marcuse, the founder of ecological Marxism, argues that, according to Marx, nature is not just material, “it would appear not merely as stufforganic or inorganic matter-but as life force in its own right, as subject-object; the striving for life is the substance common to man and nature”.10 Why do people have a relationship with nature? This is not only because “the thing is object”, but also because “the thing is subject”. But seeing nature simply utilizable “object” is precisely the attitude with which the logic of capital treats material, and it is impossible to change this functional teleological approach to nature under the rule of the logic of capital. “The increasingly effective and useful control of nature” that is achieved by virtue of relying on this functional teleological approach seems to prove that this approach is, in turn, necessary. Foster, the most influential ecological Marxist in the West, points out that if capital is allowed to operate according to its own logic, the result is land- the essential human connection to the earth—is turned into mere real estate to be bought and sold by the highest bidder, People are forced to regard everything about them—the land, the rivers, the natural resources of the earth, as well as their own labor power—as mere commodities, to be exploited for greater gain, the result of which is “this reduction of everything to mere economic value”.11 Another ecological Marxist, O’Connor, believes that 10  Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, Boston, 1972, p. 65. 11  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 88.

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Marx and Engels were keenly aware of the damage that capitalism wreaks on material and biological as well as human nature.” They began with the premise that nature is a point of departure for capital but not a point of return.12 In his view, in the process of utilizing nature, capital treats nature both as “faucet” and “septic tank.” The means of production and objects of production that capital depends on are acquired from the earth in a variety of different ways, and in this sense capital utilizing nature is effectively the process of treating nature as faucet, but all of the human products that capital brings about (including all of those unwelcome derivative products) find their way back to nature in a variety of different ways, and in this sense, capital employs the natural world as a septic tank. Pepper stresses that according to Marx’s point of view, humans and nature are truly unified in pre-capitalist society. Humankind “naturally” creates use value from nature, in the process of which, there is no irreversible damage to “first nature”. Only in capitalist society under the domination of the principle of utility does the interaction between human society and nature result in the “production of a “second nature” that cannot transform into “first nature.” In other words, human society and nature become two diametrically opposed, separate entities: “second nature” is mainly the commodity that is produced for the sake of exchange value, but the exchange value of the commodity may not have the content of nature itself. In the capitalist system, almost every use value comes with a price tag, that is, every use value comes in the form of exchange value. Everything is a commodity, even the “comforts and aesthetic enjoyments” of such things in the tourism industry are pre-packaged and clearly marked as commodities. In this sense, So, under capitalism it is no longer valid to distinguish between first and second nature—there is no first nature left. All of first nature is commoditized, so all of first has become second nature.13

12  James O’Connor, Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism, The Guilford Press, 1998, p. 123. 13  David Pepper, Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice, London and York, Routledge, 1993, p. 117.

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2 The principle of utility of capital divests nature of its own value and turns it into a simple instrument, but the principle of proliferation that is tied to this principle of utility makes the instrumentalization of nature become increasingly serious. If capital were to simply utilize nature, and if capital’s use of nature were limited, capital’s destruction of nature would remain under a certain scope. But, the problem is that capital’s utilization of nature will never respect limits, and what capital pursues is infinite proliferation, so its utilization of nature is endless, and the resulting damage to nature is also endless. So, in studying the opposition between capital and ecology, we should not only explore the impact of the principle of utility on nature, but also examine the consequences of the principle of proliferation in nature. Capital comes to the human world to proliferate, and if it does not proliferate, capital dies, so in a certain sense, capital and proliferation are nearly synonyms. It can be said that capital is proliferation. Some metaphorically compare capital to a cancer cell, which itself implies an inexhaustible spring and continuous stream of proliferation. Those who possess capital view the acquisition of even more profit and surplus value as the basic starting point of production. This determines the core of production to be capital, or in other words, infinite expansion is the propensity of capitalist production. The basic principle of capital is that of proliferation, and the essence of capital consists in the pursuit of profit maximization. Capital is not capital, if it does not view gaining interest as the efficient and final cause, and in the process of pursuing profit, capital is unscrupulous and insatiable. Engels remarked: Thus, the interests of the ruling class became the driving factor of production, since production was no longer restricted to providing the barest means of subsistence for the oppressed people. This has been put into effect most completely in the capitalist mode of production prevailing today in Western Europe. The individual capitalists, who dominate production and exchange, are able to concern themselves only with the most immediate useful effect of their actions. Indeed, even this useful effect—inasmuch as it is a question of the usefulness of the article that is produced or exchanged—retreats far into the background, and the sole incentive becomes the profit to be made on selling.14

14  Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. 4, People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 385.

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Here Engels makes it perfectly clear that the pursuit of maximum profit is the only driving force and purpose of capitalist production. Marx once stated that “those contradictions which exposed later have been potentially included in the simple concept of capital.”15 One of the contradictions that Marx speaks of is the one between the infinite and the finite, and he remarks that the infinite mainly refers to capital’s endless pursuit of profit. We often say that capitalism is essentially a non-equilibrium system. In other words, the expansion of capital is always constrained by internal limits, but we cannot understand this to mean that the expansion of capital will only proceed by itself to a certain degree and then stop where “enough is enough;” rather, capital expands to some point where it tends toward self-destruction because of the breaking of equilibrium. Rosa Luxemburg wrote a very influential book entitled The Theory of Capital Accumulation at the beginning of the last century; it is a critique of the revisionists at the Second International, who approved and appreciated capitalism’s infinite accumulation; she insisted that capital could not accumulate infinitely in the capitalist society of her time. Here, Rosa Luxemburg’s point of view cannot be misunderstood to imply that capital can change its own essence, that is infinite accumulation. What she wants to demonstrate is that in the capitalist society of her time, even though the essence of capital is the pursuit of infinite accumulation, what the revisionists at the Second International believe is completely untrue, namely that capital could indeed achieve infinite accumulation and thereby forever maintain abundant vitality; rather, this accumulation is limited by various conditions, which necessarily dooms capitalism to the fate of decline. It must be pointed out that this tendency of capital to continuously pursue proliferation is complementary with the tendency of human consumption to infinitely expand. In order to make the capital that he owns proliferate, the capitalist must necessarily produce a large number of commodities, and the capital in his hands can only proliferate, and consequently, he can only profit once this large number of commodities that were produced are sold and consumed. The operators of capitalist production induce consumers to consume commodities that they do not really need, and through a variety of means induce them into consuming as much as possible. The consumer who exists in this state is not consuming in order to satisfy her true needs, but is simply fulfilling the role of a consumption machine, consuming for the sake of consumption. Mass production runs contrary to people’s real needs, and mass consumption is similarly contrary to people’s genuine needs. Marx gave an 15  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 30, People’s Publishing House, 2nd Edition, Chinese, p. 395.

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exceptionally profound exposition of the conduct of capital in realizing the aim of its own proliferation by stimulating people’s all-around material desires. He sums up this conduct as follows: Firstly, quantitative expansion of existing consumption; secondly: creation of new needs by propagating existing ones in a wide circle; thirdly: production of new needs and discovery and creation of new use values.16 In Marx’s view, what necessarily accompanies this infinite expansion of capitalist production brought about by the principle of proliferation is the infinite expansion of consumption, and what is intimately tied to mass production is mass consumption. The ecological Marxist Gorz attaches the conventional expression of “the more the better” to capital’s principle of proliferation and the phenomenon of mass production and mass consumption that it brings about. Gorz notes that in traditional pre-capitalist societies, the principle that people followed in the sphere of labor and production was: Enough is Enough. The things that people reaped by plowing and soughing on their own small piece of land were fully used to satisfy the needs of their own families and livestock. In Gorz’s view, the key is found in the understanding of the category “sufficient.” He argues that in that era, But the category of the ‘sufficient’ is not an economic category: it is a cultural or existential category. To say that ‘what is enough is enough’ is to imply that no good would be served by having more, that more would not be better. ‘Enough is as good as a feast’ as the English say.17 But after capitalist society comes about, production is engaged mainly for the sake of exchange, in which case production starts to follow the maxim of the more the better. So they broke with the original principle of “enough is enough”, and began worshiping the principle of “The More the Better”. Gorz states: In place of the certainty of experience that ‘enough is enough’ it gave rise to an objective measure of the efficiency of effort and of its success: the size of profits. Success was no longer therefore a matter for personal assessment and a question of the ‘quality of life’, it was measurable by 16  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 46, People’s Publishing House, 1st Edition, Chinese p. 391. 17  A. Gorz, Critique of Economic Reason, London, 1989, p. 112.

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the amount of money earned, by accumulated wealth. Quantification gave rise to an indisputable criterion and a hierarchical scale which had no need of validation by any authority, any norm, any scale of values. Efficiency was measurable and, through it, an individual’s ability and virtue: more was better than less, those who succeed in earning more are better than those who earn less.18 As long as we understand that the basic attribute of capital is proliferation, and that the belief of capital is “the more the better”, then it is not difficult to understand that capital is indeed essentially opposed to ecology. It is very simple to understand: the proliferation of capital is built on the basis of the endless usage of natural resources and the endless dumping of waste back into nature, but many of nature’s resources are not renewable, and there is limited space in the natural world that can accept this waste, which necessarily leads to the sharp contradiction between the infinite expansion of capitalist production and consumption on one hand and the carrying capacity of nature on the other. As long as the economy is run by capital as the agent, the protection of the ecological environment will not be taken into account. In a certain sense, capital is the embodiment of greed and fear. We originally may not really understand why some people engaging in economic activities disregard the contamination of the ecological environment or why they turn a deaf ear to people’s call to protect the ecological environment, but the reason is very simple: they are “capital personified;” they can only be driven by a principle, which is the realization of the maximization of the interest of capital. We can say that the plundering and destruction of nature is the necessary result of capital’s principle of proliferation. The first report put out by the Club of Rome, which specifically deals with the “human dilemma” of the 1970s provides the international community with The Limits of Growth. The report makes it clear that “the Earth is finite, and the closer any human activity is to Earth’s capacity to support such activities, the balance of factors that cannot be taken into account simultaneously becomes more obvious and impossible to solve”,19 therefore, growth has a “limit”. The limits of the carrying capacity of nature listed in the report, and in addition the limit of population that the earth can support, the limit of natural resources on Earth, and the limit of capacity of the Earth’s ecosystem to maintain its own balance. The report notes that with capital’s endless pursuit of proliferation, the parameters that determine the 18  Ibid., p. 113. 19  Dennis Middles et al. The Limits of Growth—The Report of the Club of Rome on Human Dilemma, Li Baoheng translation, Jilin People’s Publishing House, 1997, p. 56.

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destiny of humankind such as “the consumption of non-renewable resources” and “environmental pollution” exhibit geometric exponential growth. This fully shows that the mass production, mass consumption and mass waste characteristic of capitalism are causing the global ecological crisis. As some ecological Marxists have pointed out, the basic argument that Marx deploys to demonstrate the contradiction between capital and ecology is that “capitalism is a self-expanding system of economic growth”, and “nature is not self expanding”. Its aim is limitless growth or money’s pursuit of more of itself. Profit is the means of expansion, and also the goal of expansion. In the past, people tended to pay more attention to Marx’s exposition of the principle of proliferation of capital, exposing the contradiction between the infinite expansion of capitalist production and the relative shrinking of the working people’s purchasing power and demands, while ignoring the fact that Marx also reveals the contradiction between the infinite expansion of capitalist production and the limited carrying capacity of nature on the basis of the principles of capital. The American ecological Marxist James O’Connor points out that people only know of Marx’s “first contradiction of capitalism,” namely the contradiction between the tendency of the infinite expansion of capitalist production and the relative shrinking of the working people’s purchasing power and demand, but in fact, Marx also discusses “the second contradiction of capitalism,” namely, the contradiction between the tendency of capitalist production toward infinite expansion and the limited nature of the carrying capacity of nature, though the latter is expounded in less abundant and systematic words than is the former. In his view, for a scholar who is concerned about the ecological crisis, the most important task today is, “how can a theory of capitalism be constructed that would help us think clearly about global environmental destruction?”20 He argues that “the second contradiction of capitalism” is clearly apparent to the public when “use value” is elevated to the same status as “exchange value”. “In any account of the second contradiction of capitalism, use value must have more or less equal status with exchange value.”21 People not only see the contradiction between “the production and practice of value and surplus value” in capitalism, but also the contradiction between “the capitalist relation and power of social reproduction”. “The first contradiction of capitalism” challenges capital from the perspective of demand, while “the second contradiction of capitalism” challenges capital from the perspective of cost. “The first manifests itself in its purest form as a realization crisis; 20  James O’Connor, Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism, The Guilford Press, 1998, p. 127. 21  Ibid.

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the second as a liquidity crisis.”22 He stresses that Marxism’s exposition of the “second contradiction of capitalism” “focuses on the way that the combined power of capitalist production relations and productive forces self-destruct by impairing or destroying rather than reproducing their own conditions.”23 The British ecological Marxist Pepper also proposes that the ecological contradiction is actually the second largest contradiction of capitalism in Marx, and it can be explained by Marx’s theory of “abstract labor” just like the first major contradiction of capitalism, the economic contradiction. According to Marx’s analysis of capitalism based on the theory of “abstract labor”, it is the everexpanding markets of capitalism that actually cause overproduction, which, on the one hand, destroys its markets, and on the other hand, directly damages the ecological environment. When discussing the root causes of the current ecological crisis, ecological Marxists always cling to the principle of proliferation of capital and the capitalist’s greed for profits, and for some people, it is not so pleasant to hear it, but it is the nature of the problem, so their analysis and critique of the ecological crisis seems shocking. Here to illustrate Foster’s account: In a paper entitled Ecology Against Capitalism, Foster explicitly asks people to think critically about the “potentially catastrophic conflict between global capitalism and the global environment” in accordance with Marx’s ideas. He believes that since the 1970s, many people, especially young people have explored whether there is a limit to growth, despite the existence of one-sided perspectives in this discussion, but in any case, “it nonetheless highlighted the truism—conveniently ignored by capitalism and its economists—that infinite expansion within a finite environment was a contradiction in terms”. The pursuit of profit and unlimited growth is the nature of capitalism. The key is that Capitalist economies are geared first and foremost to the growth of profits, and hence to economic growth at virtually any cost, and this rush to grow generally means rapid absorption of energy and materials and the dumping of more and more wastes into the environment—hence widening environmental degradation.24 In another essay, The Ecology of Destruction, Foster uses the film Burn to help people understand more deeply Marx’s theory of the relationship between nature and the logic of capital proliferation. He remarks that Joseph Schumpeter 22  Ibid., p. 177. 23  Ibid., p. 165. 24  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, in Monthly Review, 2001, 10, Vol. 53, No. 5, pp. 2–3.

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praises the destruction of the ecological environment by capitalism as a “creative destruction”, but the true story of the film suggests that this “creativity” of capitalism is “destructive creativity”. The basic point he would like to make is that destroying the ecological environment is the essence of capitalism and the ultimate destiny of capitalism. He argues, “capital’s endless pursuit of new outlets for class-based accumulation requires for its continuation the destruction of both pre-existing natural conditions and previous social relations. Class exploitation, imperialism, war, and ecological devastation are not mere unrelated accidents of history but interrelated, intrinsic features of capitalist development”. As long as capitalism exists, there is always such a danger that its “destructive impulse” will turn into “destructive uncontrollability”, which is the “ultimate destiny of capitalism”. And we must understand, “capitalism destroyed not only the conditions of production but also those of life itself”. In this paper, Foster continues the critique of the infinite accumulation of capital. In his view, the fundamental problem is that Marx states that “there is no limit to the accumulation of capital. In this ‘deadly’ conflict nature is seen as a mere instrument of social domination”. Hence, capital by its very logic imposes what is in effect a scorched earth strategy. The planetary ecological crisis is increasingly all-encompassing, a product of the destructive uncontrollability of a rapidly globalizing capitalist economy, which knows no law other than its own drive to exponential expansion.25 In this situation, he thinks that if it is still stressed that “the foundation of our society is all normal”, it implies the continuation of the implementation of the capitalist economy, it implies the continuation of operating according to the logic of profit and accumulation, and of course, it also implies the continuation of the wanton destruction of the environment. Hobbes once described capitalism as “the war of all against all” but people rarely recognize that according to Marx’s theory, this “war of all against all” necessarily brings about all-around war on nature. “Whenever social resistance imposes barriers on the expansion of capital, the answer is always to find new ways to exploit nature more intensively.” Foster stresses, “that is the logic of profit”, and specifically this is to say: under the conditions of capitalism, “one builds to make money and to go on making it or to make more sometimes it is necessary to destroy”.26 In this way, Foster subsumes under “the logic of profit” not only the exploitation 25  J. B. Foster, The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 7. 26  Ibid., p. 8.

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of human beings, but also the destruction of nature. Foster once did an interview on the relationship between ecology and capitalism. He told the interviewer, as long as there is a day of capitalism, its motivating force will necessarily be the pursuit of “capital” and “profit.” This was the case in the capitalist societies of the past and so is it in the capitalist societies of today. “When you start looking concretely at the forces that are generating this crisis, it becomes clear that they are inseparable from the basic dynamics of the global capitalist system itself.”27 Similar discussions about capitalism’s anti-ecological essence are visible everywhere in Foster’s book. The reason why we extract parts of the text without any further explanation, is because in our view, Foster’s words are already very clear and expressive with respect to capital, profit, expansion, short-term investment, market behavior and the antagonistic relationship between unlimited accumulation and ecology. Foster is quite valuable, because he grounds his explanation of Marx’s attribution of the ecological crisis to the proliferation of capital in facts, which comes off both realistic and convincing. 3 As its name suggests, capitalist society is a society which revolves around “capital.” In other words, “capital” is the essence of capitalist society, and it is the basic structure of the capitalist form of society, from which the conclusion may be drawn that capital’s principles of utility and proliferation are the basic attributes of capitalist society. Another conclusion may also be drawn from this, namely that these two attributes determine capital to be necessarily antiecological, and moreover, capitalist society is necessarily incompatible with ecology because it is dominated by these two attributes. Every analysis and critique that ecological Marxists give to the ecological crisis aim to prove that it is impossible to fundamentally solve ecological problems in the capitalist system itself. The reasons they give are sufficient and irrefutable, because their arguments begin with the basic attributes of capital. As they emphasize, the ecological problems that are emerging now are ultimately the problems of a social system, namely the capitalist system, which is rooted in pursuing the logic of capital, and we must trace the roots of ecological problems in capitalist societies back to the social system of capitalism itself. To talk

27  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 4.

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about ecological issues without bringing up the logic of capital or the capitalist system would certainly be superficial, one-sided and indeed irrelevant. Ecological crisis is the intrinsic crisis of capitalist society, and ecological contradictions are the inherent contradictions of capitalist society. Ecological crisis and ecological contradictions are themselves evidence of the alienated nature of capitalist society. The English ecological Marxist, Pepper, makes a very persuasive argument in this respect. He stresses that whether it is economic crisis or ecological crisis, Marx views both as intrinsic to capitalist society, that is Marx regards these crises as capitalism’s own factors that lead to its own collapse, which is quite insightful. He states that economic crisis is intrinsic to capitalism, a point which few people oppose, but many still doubt whether ecological crisis is also linked to the capitalist system. But in fact, it is not just Marx’s demonstrations that show that the ecological contradiction is the intrinsic contradiction of capitalism; it also confirmed by the reality of society today. In Pepper’s view, on the one hand, Marx stressed that the “ecological contradiction” is linked to the other contradictions of capitalism and even that it stems from the other contradictions of capitalism, but on the other hand, he also proposed that “the net effect of ecological contradiction is to increase even further capitalism’s impetus for expansion, and exploitation of labor through appropriating surplus value.”28 Marx’s theory of abstract labor reveals that capitalism necessarily arises out of the movement from free competition to monopoly: [it] arises through a lack of competition, which paradoxically is the logical end result of ‘free’ competition, one of the most socially and environmentally exploitative capitalist organizations is the monopoly.29 Pepper also put forward the now famous assertion that capitalism is “inherently environmentally unfriendly”. He notes that Marx and his followers produce research on nature and the environment that aim to refute these ideas of the green party, in order to show as clearly as possible that it is not people themselves, but the social system and mode of production in which people exist that constitute the enemy of the environment. He borrows another’s words: “it is the way in which human ‘interference’ with nature is managed under capitalism that is the cause of much land degradation and the appalling human

28  David Pepper, Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice, London and York, Routledge, 1993, p. 83. 29  Ibid.

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consequences that stem from this.”30 The capitalist mode of production has brought about poverty, and poverty has led to environmental degradation. In his view, Marx’s research on nature and the environment makes us recognize that “the dynamic is at work in the material production processes which cause environmental degradation”, but at the same time, it also enables us to see how our erroneous attitude toward nature is “shaped specifically in capitalist development”, and it is precisely capitalism that breeds this attitude of distant separation from nature in people by means of making land and its products achieve objectification through commodification. So, what nature and the environment face under the capitalist system is this iron law of capitalism according to which the accumulation of capital must increase. Of course, it is necessary for the capitalist system that profits grow and capital expands, but it will certainly mean disaster for nature and the environment. D. Pepper points out that many people today are dreaming the “green dream of capitalism”, but the Marxian study of nature and the environment, its study of the ecological contradictions of capitalism, its research on “cost externalization” in capitalist society all show that this can and will only amount to nothing more than a dream. Capitalism can never become “green.” He concludes: “the ecological contradictions of capitalism make sustainable, or ‘green’ capitalism an impossible dream, therefore a confidence trick.”31 He quotes the words of O’Connor to prove his conclusion, all the green consumption in the world will not change the fact that aggregate consumption must stand in a certain relation to investment for capitalism to work, and that aggregate consumption is not regulated by consumers but by the rate of profit and accumulation—and the limits of the credit system.32 Another American ecological Marxist, Burkett, believes that Marx’s theory of capitalism contains a theory of environmental crisis. More specifically, Marx considers two kinds of environmental crises produced by capitalism:33 (1) the crises of capital accumulation, which stems from the disequilibrium between the material needs of the production of capital and 30  Ibid., p. 91. 31  Ibid., p. 95. 32  Ibid. 33  Paul Burkett, Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective, Macmillan Press LiD.1999. p. 107.

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the natural law of the conditions of production of raw materials; and (2) a more general crisis in the quality of development of human society, which stems from disturbances in the circulation of matter and vital forces that capitalism’s industrial division of town and country engenders. The latter crisis springs primarily from the erosion of nature as the condition of human development. He further suggests that in Marx, the environmental crisis is not only intrinsic to capitalism, but it is also the most fundamental crisis of capitalism. Marx expresses the basic contradictions of capitalism in three different ways: (1) “the contradiction between production for private profit and production for human needs.”34 Marx notes that the motive and purpose of capitalist production is to reap profits that private individuals can obtain, rather than to satisfy producers’ needs of social development or their needs of life; (2) The alienating relationship between the conditions of production, the producers and their communities;35 and (3) the conflict between socialized production and private possession, for instance, large-scale industrial productions under capitalism have the characteristic of socialization, demanding the division of labor on the basis of coordination, but these productive forces of society in general have become the means of capital’s own development and fall under the ownership of individual capitalists. In his view, regardless of which formulation is under consideration, the main content in the fundamental contradiction is capital’s appropriation of natural conditions for the sake of the profit motive and the alienating relationship between natural conditions and the needs of producers that results from it. He further points out that, as the main content of the fundamental contradiction of capitalism, the environmental contradiction develops to the extreme point of the historical crisis of capitalist relations. Here, it is important to note that the environmental crisis is an intrinsic part of the historical crisis of capitalist relations, all of which are determined by the contradiction between production for the sake of profit and production for the sake of human needs, and the historical crisis of capitalist relations is the manifestation and peaking of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism. The French ecological Marxist Gorz points out that in contemporary capitalist society there are a variety of crises, and it is not hard to notice after careful analysis that all of these crises are related to ecological problems or are derived from the ecological crisis itself. He believes that in today’s capitalist

34  Ibid., p. 176. 35  Ibid., p. 178.

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society, “all production is also destruction”,36 that is, every process of production is inextricably linked to the destruction of ecosystems. In this case, to recognize the crisis of capitalist society, we cannot lay ecological factors aside, that is, we cannot explain the various crises of capitalist society without including ecological factors in the equation. He states that in today’s capitalist society, “all culture encroaches upon nature and modifies the biosphere.” As long as this is made clear, we can know that “there is little doubt that ecological factors play a determining and aggravating role in the current economic crisis”, and that the variety of crises of capitalist society are “intensified by an ecological crisis.” It is in this sense that we may argue that the crisis of capitalism is essentially an ecological crisis.37 Gorz gives a concrete analysis of the relationship between the crisis of over-accumulation, the crisis of reproduction and the ecological crisis to illustrate that the ecological crisis is the ultimate root of all crises in capitalist society. He first reduces the crisis of over-accumulation to the crisis of reproduction: whether or not capitalism’s crisis of over-accumulation can be checked depends on whether or not capitalism can efficiently organize reproduction. “This is the nature of accumulation in affluent societies.”38 But the reality is: it is impossible for capitalist society to efficiently organize reproduction. Why not? To answer this question, Gorz traces the crisis of reproduction back to the ecological crisis. Gorz explains that the consumption and destruction of resources are the preconditions of the crisis of reproduction in contemporary capitalism: During the first phase, production becomes increasingly wasteful, that is destructive, for the sake of preventing the crisis of over-accumulation. It speeds up the destruction of the non-renewable resources on which it depends; and it over-consumes resources which are in principle renewable (air, water, forests, soil, etc.) at a pace which rapidly renders them scarce as well.39 During the second phase, confronting the depletion of pillaged resources, industry makes frantic efforts “to overcome the scarcities engendered by increased production by further increasing production.” “But the products of this additional production are not added to final consumption; they are consumed by industry itself.”40 36  A. Gorz: Ecology as Politics, Boston, 1980, p. 20. 37  Ibid., p. 21. 38  Ibid., p. 23. 39  Ibid., p. 26. 40  Ibid., p. 27.

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In summary, we are dealing with a classical crisis of over-accumulation, aggravated by a crisis of reproduction which is due, in the final analysis, to the increasing scarcity of natural resources.41 O’Connor stresses that capitalism is a system filled with crises, and presently the most important thing to do is fully understand the intrinsic link between the economic crisis and ecological crisis of capitalism. He sums up this intrinsic link as follows: First, the economic crisis leads to the ecological crisis, and the economic crisis is clearly tied to excessive competition, obsession with efficiency and cost reduction, to which also corresponds growth in the economic and physical oppression of workers, intensification in the externalization of costs and the resulting aggravation of the extent of environmental degradation. Second, the ecological crisis can lead to economic crisis. The ecological problems caused by capital itself, namely shortages in raw materials brought about by such factors as the standardization of market forces, high rents, the costs paid for traffic congestion and the swelling of the costs of energy in turn lead to not only damages in profits but also the risk of inflation. Third, the environmental movement caused by the environmental crisis may increase the extent of the economic crisis. The environmental movement, which refers to the struggle to protect the conditions of production, may lead to increased costs and the unintended consequences of reducing the flexibility and freedom of capital, thereby endangering capitalist accumulation. He states: Capitalist accumulation and crisis thus cause ecological problems, which in turn may cause economic problems. There is a mutually determining relationship—at the levels of production, market relations, social movements, and politics—between economic and ecological crisis trends and tendencies. Capital tends to negate itself when it undermines or destroys its own production conditions.42 Since the ecological crisis is the inherent and fundamental crisis of capitalist society, it is intimately tied to the system itself, so it would be unreasonable to expect the capitalist leaders of the West to guide humanity out of this crisis. The ecological Marxists not only demonstrate this point theoretically, but also illustrate their point of view by analyzing the Bush Administration’s 41  Ibid. 42  James O’Connor, Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism, The Guilford Press, 1998, pp. 183–184.

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attitude toward the “Kyoto Protocol” and by dissecting their observation of several “global summits” whose aims were uniformly the solution of environmental problems. In this respect, Foster’s analysis is the most systematic, sharp and profound. Foster points out that, “ironically” even though the “Kyoto Protocol” took a very “moderate”, more than anything “symbolic” tiny “step” in curbing global warming, it inexorably ran into failure. The failure was directly due to the Bush administration’s opposition and obstruction. The following passage illustrates Foster’s basic conclusion after examining the whole process of the Bush administration’s opposition to the “Kyoto Protocol: no matter how urgent it is for life on the planet as a whole that greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere be stopped, the failure of the “Kyoto Protocol” significantly to address this problem suggests that capitalism is unable to reverse course—that is, to move from a structure of industry and accumulation that has proven to be in the long run (and in many respects in the short run as well) environmentally disastrous. When set against the get-rich-quick imperatives of capital accumulation, the biosphere scarcely weighs in the balance. The emphasis on profits to be obtained from fossil fuel consumption and from a form of development geared to the auto-industrial complex largely overrides longer- term issues associated with global warming—even if this threatens, within just a few generations, the planet itself.43 Foster’s words very clearly express the following: First, the amount of greenhouse gases being emitted into the atmosphere is increasing dramatically, and this is bound to threaten the survival of all life on Earth, so solving the problem of greenhouse gas emissions has become the most urgent task that humankind faces today; Second, this large quantity of greenhouse gas emissions is mainly caused by the consumption of fossil fuels in the automotive industry and other large enterprises; Third, these large enterprises are controlled by the principle of profit, and as long as they exist, they will necessarily act in this way in the effort to rapidly accumulate capital. Fourth, the capitalist system represents the interests of these enterprise groups, so for it to change the developmental structure of capital accumulation in order to protect the environment and thereby reverse its original path of development would be impossible; Fifth, the Bush administration is the chief representative and chief executive of the capitalist system, so it is also beyond reproach for opposing the Kyoto Protocol’s 43  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, pp. 21–22.

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goal of protecting the ecological environment; Sixth, without touching the capitalist system and changing the rule of capital accumulation, it would be impossible to implement a provision even remotely similar to the Kyoto Protocol; Seventh, if humankind really wanted to accomplish the urgent mission of saving life on earth by stopping greenhouse gas emission, it would be antithetical for humankind to pin its hopes on agents of the capitalist system such as the Bush administration, and would take combining environmental protection with the struggle against the capitalist system. Foster emphasizes: the ecological imperialism of the center of the capitalist world economy was symbolized by “Washington’s refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on limiting greenhouse gas emissions generating global warming.”44 Foster points out that the facts demonstrate that the optimism coming out of Rio was misplaced largely because environmental groups were not really contemplating the economic forces arrayed against them or considering how fundamentally the capitalist economic system is geared toward environmental degradation.45 In fact, while most of the participants at The Rio Summit were optimistically wishing the Conference to succeed, the then-US President George W. Bush was singing the opposite tune the entire conference. In Foster’s opinion, George W. Bush’s remarks at the meeting do not merely exhibit a tactical step in his re-election strategy; they also perfectly showcase the attitude and priorities of the United States with respect to environmental costs and environmental control. He clearly demonstrated the position of the US Government in refusing to implement any environmental measure that may harm the capital and interests of the United States. Foster notes that the mood of the second earth summit, the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, could not have been more different from the first, “Rio’s hope had given way to Johannesburg’s dismay”.46 In his opinion, the frustration of the people who attended the meeting is perfectly understandable, because the overwhelming sense among environmental groups was that we had been losing ground on the environment and that negotiations weren’t going to accomplish anything at all. 44  J. B. Foster, The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 4. 45  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 1. 46  J. B. Foster, The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 4.

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The implementation of ecological protection under the premise of “doing no harm” to capitalism can only be wishful thinking. To expect the rulers of these capitalist countries to guide humankind in the elimination of the ecological crisis would be to attempt the impossible. It becomes glaringly obvious when looking at U.S. President George Bush’s attitude toward the Johannesburg conference. George Bush didn’t pay any attention at all to the session; he simply refused to attend the Conference. At the very moment that debates were taking place in Johannesburg on the future of world ecology, the Bush administration seized the world’s stage by threatening a war on Iraq, ostensibly over weapons of mass destruction—though to the world’s environmentalists assembled in Johannesburg it was clear even then that the real issue was oil. Foster made the prediction that since every “person of the Earth” is fully aware of the fact that the deterioration of the ecological environment is increasingly serious and the topic of environmental justice has become the most urgent problem, people will also hold a 3rd and 4th “Earth Summit”, but since people do not restrict capitalist accumulation in any way and since capital is so lawless, it will insist on an indexical type of expansion such that even if many more such earth summits were to be held again, no ideal results should be expected. Later events unfortunately unfolded as he called it, the renowned world climate conference held in Copenhagen in December 2009 failed to reach a practical and legally binding agreement. At the very least, such unsettling results do not run counter to the expectations of an ecological Marxist such as Foster. 4 It is clear that the logic of capital has brought about an increasingly serious ecological crisis, and that it is completely impossible to eliminate the ecological crisis without touching the capitalist system. However, people still always expect to look for a way out of the ecological crisis under the premise of upholding the logic of capital and doing no harm to the capitalist system. For this reason, there are all sorts of delusions of eliminating the ecological crisis. In the view of the ecological Marxists, it is impossible to focus people’s attention on the struggle against the logic of capital and the capitalist system and realize the beautiful wish to eliminate the ecological crisis and construct ecological civilization without eliminating such delusions. Foster states: This harsh conclusion regarding capitalism’s inherent anti-environmental character, drawn from the case of global warming, stands in stark

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contrast to the views of those in recent years have advanced the notion that capitalism is not a threat to but rather contains within itself the solution to global environmental problems.47 In this way, they argue on the positive side that the logic of capital has brought about the ecological crisis, and by correspondence, we can only eliminate the ecological crisis by getting rid of the logic of capital and at the same time exhaustively attacking all of the popular delusions about eliminating the ecological crisis. The first delusion about eliminating the ecological crisis is the attempt to solve environmental problems simply through moral reform and the establishment of ecological ethics. Faced with the challenge of mounting global ecological crises, some people have been calling for a “moral revolution that would incorporate ecological values and culture;” they believe that the secret to saving the Earth and eliminating the ecological crisis lies in the transformation of people’s ideas. As Foster points out, this appeal to new ecological and moral concepts is “the essence of Green thinking.” The reason why these people pin the hope of eliminating the ecological crisis on the execution of a moral revolution, is because mainly in their view, the ecological crisis is rooted in the problem of people’s ideas and moral education about the natural world, and the ecological crisis will vanish immediately after people’s ideas and moral education change. Foster insists, however, that yet behind most appeals to ecological morality there lies the presumption that we live in a society where the morality of the individual is the key to the morality of society. If people as individuals could simply change their moral stance with respect to nature and alter their behavior in areas such as propagation, consumption, and the conduct of business, all would be well.48 O’Connor also draws people’s attention to the delusion of attributing the root of the ecological crisis formulaically to “common greed” and the delusion of protecting the ecological environment by fighting this “common greed,” the result of which is “no systematic analysis of the ‘causes’ of the ecological crisis” as a whole.

47  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 22. 48  Ibid., p. 44.

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Just as these ecological Marxists put it, the cause of ecological crisis is the core of the existing capitalist system, the unimpeded workings of the logic of capital in today’s society, not people’s ideas and moral education. Those who call for moral reform ignore the core of the existing system and focus solely on people’s ideas and moral notions. In fact, apart from reforming the core of the existing system, it is impossible to achieve the goal of eliminating the ecological crisis by reforming our narrow moral lane. These ecological Marxists do not deny the existence of all kinds of immoral ideas about the environment in today’s public, but they argue that people shouldn’t just focus on the general public’s immoral ideas about the environment, and should primarily take up concern with the “higher immorality”. The “higher immorality” refers to the “structural immorality” that is built into the institutions of power in our society. As the saying goes from Mills: “In a civilization so thoroughly business penetrated as America, money becomes the one unambiguous marker of success the sovereign American value.”49 In their view, money first, the worship of money is the most important American value, which is precisely “the higher immorality.” The corrupting influence that all of this has on the public is visible in the loss of the capacity for moral indignation, the growth of cynicism. Under these circumstances, we can expect people to grow up with their heads full of information about saleable commodities, and empty of knowledge about human history, morality, culture, science, and the environment. What they stress is, these immoral notions pervading the public are dominated by the “higher immorality.” They do not inherently place more emphasis on money, but the “higher immorality” prompts them to care so little about other things; it is not that they have become greedier, but the “higher immorality” has prompted them to disregard all the other life ideals that could bring their greed under control. Since the immorality of the public is dominated by the “higher immorality,” if you want to have a moral revolution, then the priority would be to revolutionize the “life” of this “higher immorality” rather than the “life” of the general public’s unethical idea about the environment. Moreover, because this “higher immorality” is determined by the logic of capital and the capitalist mode of production, in the final analysis, the moral revolution is the revolutionary overturning of the logic of capital, the capitalist mode of production. Foster firmly states that “from an environmental perspective we have no choice but to resist the treadmill of production. this resistance must take the form of a farreaching moral revolution.”50 What he calls the “far-reaching moral revolution” 49  Cited from Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 46. 50  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 46.

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involves connecting the moral revolution to the transformation of this mode of production, that is transforming people’s immoral ideas about the environment by transforming this very mode of production. Second, the delusion about solving environmental problems simply through the “dematerialization” of the economy. The so-called “dematerialization” of the economy refers to improving energy efficiency and reducing the amount of waste dumped into the environment. Currently some people are trying to “decouple” in this way economic development from the model of economic growth that is based on the use of energy and the dumping of waste. The essence of this approach is to reduce the “impact on the environment per unit of GDP growth in currency”. The question is: is it possible to dematerialize the economy and transform the capitalist economy into a low-carbon economy under the premise of doing nothing about the logic of capital? Can you continue to reduce the impact on the environment per unit of GDP growth? The ecological Marxists answer this question with a categorical “no.” Foster points out that some people boast that today’s capitalist economy has been gradually “decoupling” from the economic model of “high energy input, high waste output”, which is untrue. As shown by the study The Weight of Nations: Material Outflows from Industrial Economies, although there have been reductions in the ratio of material outflow per unit of GDP, the output of waste per capita in the rich countries has nonetheless risen measurably. The “throughput” (quantity used) of materials and energy and the material output dumped into the environment have continued to increase appreciably in absolute terms. The very fact that the dematerialization of the capitalist world still has not been achieved already proves that capitalism itself cannot achieve “dematerialization”. Why can’t the capitalist economy achieve “dematerialization” by relying on capitalism itself? It is self-evident that achieving “dematerialization” would require support, but the capitalist system is not sufficient to provide it. As stated previously, capitalism is a profit-oriented system, and it is impossible to develop in the direction of “dematerialization” under the premise of worshipping profits. As some eco-Marxists have revealed through analysis, even if certain improvements in resource utilization have been made, under the dominance of the principle of profit at all costs, what accompanies an increasing rate of resource utilization is a continuous expansion of economic scale, and continuously expanding economic scale implies increasing the system’s overall quantity of energy consumption and waste output, which is to say that the capitalist principle of profit at all costs makes it such that the decreases in energy consumption and waste output brought about by increasing the rate of resource utilization not only fail to fill in the widening gap of increasing energy

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consumption and waste output brought about by the continuous expansion of economic scale, the sum total of energy consumption and waste output also increases significantly. The obsession with “dematerialization” is in fact an obsession with “the substitution of natural resources;” this is hopeful thinking that something else will “emerge” to replace those natural resources used in production. These ecoMarxists do not deny the possibility of substituting natural resources, but they firmly insist that this path of substitution of natural resources will necessarily be blocked if the capitalist principle of pursuing profit at all costs is the iron rule. The aim of rapid economic growth often conflicts with the utilization of alternative resources, and it is impossible for the capitalist to abandon rapid economic growth for the sake of finding and using alternative sources of energy. Moreover, just as important as capitalism’s emphasis on constant expansion is its short-sighted behavior in determining investment. When assessing the prospects of any investment, what capitalists calculate is how to regain the investment in the shortest possible period and ensure their perpetual profit. “capital needs to recoup its investment in the foreseeable future, plus secure a flow of profits to warrant the risk and to do better than alternative investment opportunities”.51 The short-sighted behavior of this investment is inconsistent with the search for and utilization of alternative resources, which is a long-term process, and capitalists, who are eager to recapture and increase profits in the shortest possible time, are often not interested in such long-term investments. Once again, another delusion that must be eliminated involves the attempt to solve environmental problems simply through the development of science and technology. To pin the hopes of solving environmental problems on the “dematerialization” of the economy is to pin all hope on the development of science and technology, because the “dematerialization” of the economy ultimately depends on the invention and development of technologies. Foster states: The wealthy capitalist countries were always seen to be their technological prowess-which would allow them to promote environmental improvements while also expanding their affluence (that is, growth of capital and consumption).52

51  Ibid., p. 3. 52  Ibid., p. 93.

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Facing the emboldening voices of those who are relying on technology to solve the environmental problems of today, ecological Marxists question them tit-for-tat: under the current capitalist system, can new technologies be used to achieve economic expansion while preventing environmental degradation? The British economist W. S. Jevons wrote a book entitled The Coal Question over 100 years ago. Jevons argues that increasing efficiency in the utilization of a natural resource such as coal only resulted in increasing rather than decreasing the demand for that resource. This is because such improvements in efficiency lead to the rising scale of production. This is the so-called “Jevons paradox”. Some ecological Marxists often use the Jevons Paradox to show that in today’s capitalist society, the demand for natural resources has increased in spite of the increases in efficiency of natural resource utilization brought about by technological innovation. The question is, what is the reason behind this phenomenon? They point out that it is impossible for Jevons to give the right answer, and the real reason is that: capitalism is an institution that directly pursues wealth while indirectly pursuing human needs. The aim of the former, that is, the pursuit of wealth completely transcends and cancels out the aim of the latter, which is the pursuit of human needs. In other words, capitalists do not restrict their activities to the production of commodities that satisfy basic human needs; they do not restrict their activities to providing services and facilities that human beings need. Instead, the production of more and more profit is the end in-itself, in which case, the relationship between technology and accumulation is one-sidedly the subservience of the former to the latter: technology is subordinate to accumulation. And when technology is subordinate to capitalist accumulation, even if there are new technologies that improve the utilization of natural resources, it is impossible to effectively reduce the amount of natural resources used. Although improving technology can create more efficient modes of production, this is likely a “creative destruction”, because the “cruel process” of capitalist accumulation will necessarily treat all possibilities of reducing the exploitation of nature that the new technology entails as obstacles to be removed. The basic point they repeatedly stress is, “science and technology is not the core issue of the ecological crisis, which is rather the logical relationship between the capitalist mode of production and nature.”53 In Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital, the authors argue that as a historical system, capitalism has always been dependent on 53  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology in Historical Perspective, contained International Socialism, Summer 2002. Chinese translation contains Foreign Theoretical Trends, 2004, No. 2 p. 34.

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epoch-making innovations. These are the kinds of innovations that alter the entire structure of production and the geography of production on a massive scale and around which the bulk of investment comes to cluster.54 Three epoch-making innovations came into play throughout the history of capitalism—the steam engine, the railroad, and the automobile. Since these three innovations were subservient to capitalist accumulation, they brought about the consequence of destroying nature, and in particular the third consequence has been most devastating. The facts are ruthlessly placed before people: as long as they continue to implement the capitalist economy, that is, as long as society “runs on the logic of profit and accumulation”, “new technology cannot solve the problem since it is inevitably used to further the class war and to increase the scale of the economy”.55 However thinking that such technological wonders can resolve the problem not only goes against the basic laws of thermodynamics … but also defies all that we know about the workings of capitalism itself, where technological change is subordinated to market imperatives.56 Finally, the last delusion that must be eliminated involves the attempt to solve environmental problems simply by the natural market, capitalization. Compared to the two previously mentioned methods, this method is indeed more welcomed by the capitalist rulers, that is, a number of environmental scientists have repeatedly advocated the solution of all environmental problems by means of giving economic value to nature and incorporating the environment more fully into the market system. The prescription that these economists write out to solve environmental problems is simply: the natural market, capital, “the overall logic is one of bringing the earth within the balance sheet.”57 Looking squarely at this prescription, the ecological Marxists ask sharply “Are these preventions more dangerous than the disease itself? Attempts to integrate the natural environment into the capitalist market system, whether it will form a new economic empire above the ecology, namely, a new colonialism that replaced the old colonialism that no longer worked? How does the end result?”58 54  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 98. 55  J. B. Foster, The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 8. 56  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, pp. 37–38. 57  Ibid., p. 27. 58  Ibid.

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Studying this problem most profoundly, Foster calls the idea of solving environmental problems through the market-oriented capitalization of nature a “utopian myth” established on the belief that the environment can and should become a self-regulating market system.59 He angrily points out that the strangeness of such a reductionist approach to nature arises out of the attempt to construct not only all of society but also the entire ecosystem and humankind along market-commodity lines.60 In order to expose this “utopian myth”, he points out that this “economic reductionism” of simplifying such natural things as land to economic functions contains three errors: to degrade the relationship between humans and nature to a market product that is established on the basis of personal interest above all else requires fully breaking all bonds with historical precedent; “economic reductionism” only believes in the “market price” of nature, but nature actually has its own “intrinsic value”; The inclusion of nature into the market system may even have the effect of resolving some ecological problems in the short term, but it will have absolutely no long-term effect. Foster concludes by exposing the three major inherent contradictions of this “Economic Reductionism:” the conditions of environmental reproduction (that is, ecological sustainability) can be undermined not only through the economy failing to take environmental costs into account, as is commonly supposed, but also by the attempted incorporation of the environment into the economy—the commodification of nature.61 In the same way that they expose the other delusions of eliminating the ecological crisis, when the ecological Marxists reveal the absurdity of applying the method of capitalizing nature to resolve environmental problems, they aim the spear directly at capitalism’s principle of accumulation. In their view, it is precisely under the conditions of capitalism where the supremacy of capital accumulation determines the solution of environmental problems through the capitalization of nature to be impossible. “The principal characteristic of capitalism is that “it is a system of self-expanding value in which accumulation of economic surplus—rooted in exploitation and given the force of law by competition—must occur on an ever-larger scale,” This characteristic of capitalism is often overlooked by “the utopian idea of the market” whose main

59  Ibid., p. 30. 60  Ibid., p. 31. 61  Ibid., p. 30.

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content is the capitalization of nature.62 What is most tragic about these economists who seek to address environmental problems by capitalizing nature is that they “rarely look at the environmental impact of the continued expansion of the economy as a result of continued economic growth.” They don’t want to face this objective fact that “there is an inherent conflict between the maintenance of the ecosystem and the biosphere and the maintenance of the fast and infinite economic growth represented by capitalism”. In their view, sustainable development is equal to “pricing the Earth”, which almost amounts to equating economic expansionism with nature itself. They believe that all environmental costs could be internalized into the “economic environment of profit creation”, but this is just wishful thinking, since “it is impossible to internalize all social and environmental costs in the private market structure”. They naively believe that the depletion of ecological resources will have the corresponding effect of focusing the economy on the protection of those very resources, but “this harmonious correspondence does not exist.” This becomes perfectly clear when it is taken into consideration that “the cost of land has never been interrupted by the rise of the building and the city landscape of cement hardening”. 5 Since any attempt to solve the ecological crisis under the premise that we do not touch the logic of capital and the capitalist system, we cannot fundamentally solve the problem, and the only option for eliminating the ecological crisis is to face the logic of capital, the capitalist system, and change the capitalist system into the socialist system. Ecological Marxists repeatedly stress that socialism is the best choice to eliminate the ecological crisis. They turn the analysis and critique of the ecological crisis into arguments for a socialist society. On the basis of elaborating the contradictions of capital and ecology in Marx’s theory, we further discuss Marx’s argument for the inevitability of socialism from an ecological point of view. In this way, O’Connor states: “One key question today is how to make ecological struggles productive of radical socioeconomic change.”63 What O’Connor means is that the current environmental movement is in full swing. The key is how to turn the power of the movement into the driving force behind the socialist movement aiming at thoroughly reforming capitalism. 62  Ibid., p. 36. 63  James O’Connor: Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism, The Guilford Press, 1998, p. 12.

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The crux of the problem is how do we struggle to change capitalism into socialism in order to eliminate the ecological crisis? How can we ensure the protection of the ecological environment under the socialist system? Almost all representatives of ecological Marxism have profound discussions about these questions. Where is the place that is most worth pondering in the huge theoretical system of ecological Marxism? It must be noted that they are striving to prove the necessity of establishing socialism. Socialism is found in the critique of the ecological crisis in today’s contemporary capitalist society. They raised the banner of socialism high in the ecological movement when socialism sunk to low tide, which is even more noble. They add a new perspective for people to explain socialism around the building of ecological civilization. The main reason why true socialism can effectively protect the ecological environment is that it is not centered around capital, it does not turn the logic of capital into the principle of social organization, it does not turn everything into a useful system according to the principle of utility, and everything is not for the sake of acquiring the most possible profit according to the principle of accumulation, so it severs the dialectical bond between capital and the natural world, which is to say that under the socialist system, nature does not simply serve as a useful tool, nor do people endlessly hunt for resources in nature and endlessly dump waste into nature. Andre Gorz explicitly remarks that we must be equipped with the following social environment to effectively unfold the work of ecological protection. We should produce practical and unbreakable items, produce easy-to-repair machines which can survive prolonged use, produce clothes which do not quickly become outdated. The main industries of central planning only produce for the sake of satisfying the basic needs of the resident population. Various towns should have workshops equipped with complete tool sets, machinery and raw materials where the people produce for themselves, and engage in production according to their own interests; people should have sufficient time to learn what they are interested in, not only reading and writing, but also a variety of crafts, that is all of those professional technologies that businesses deprive people of and which can only be regained through sale. Gorz points out that such a social environment is the only way ecological protection can be implemented. He states: Now, the economic imperative of productivity is totally different from the ecological imperative of resource conservation. Ecological rationality consists in satisfying material needs in the best way possible with as small a quantity as possible of goods with a high use-value and durability and thus doing so with a minimum of work, capital and natural resources. The quest for maximum economic productivity, by contrast, consists

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in selling at as high a profit as possible the greatest possible quantity of goods produced with the maximum of efficiency, all of which demands a maximization of consumption and needs.64 Gorz clearly describes the differences between the two kinds of rationality. He stresses that we must change the capitalist profit motive to implement ecological rationality. The socialist mode of production can and should be linked to ecological rationality. He believes that the rationality of the socialist and ecological way exists in the rationality of ecological reason. The center of socialist society is not capital, and its aim should be to meet the real needs of people, and realize the emancipation of human beings. In this way, over-production will be avoided, and by avoiding over-production, it avoids falling into grave ecological crises. David Pepper insists that serious pollution cannot possibly exist in real socialism, because it aims at achieving human emancipation, and eliminating pollution is the necessary precondition of realizing human emancipation. “A more future-oriented perspective acknowledges that a new environmental ethic will require new human relationships, which must be based on a new pattern of production”. This new model of production is the socialist model of production. “So, in theory, and if properly applied, socialism would not have to produce a polluting society.” The reason is: For common ownership (which does not need to imply undemocratic centralized ownership) would allow resource depletion to be planned, and minimized. And the absence of a market economy would be a good thing, permitting full employment, proper wealth distribution, a slowly growing economy and a lack of pressure for consumerism, all of which are inimicable to efficient production.65 Real socialism avoids the production of any waste that has no practical use for anyone. It produces to satisfy the real needs of human beings, not for profit, which is where the crux of the problem lies. The reason why human society wants to move towards genuine socialism, is because humans want to design a social form to achieve social justice, and to eliminate the ecological contradictions. Pepper insists that

64  A. Gorz: Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology, London. 1994, pp. 32–33. 65  David Pepper, Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice, London and York, Routledge, 1993, p. 127.

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In a non-consumerist, stable society, without overproduction-overdemand cycles, needs would be less volatile and more predictable than in capitalism. And where units of calculation need not be expressed universally and money for exchange purposes, the cash nexus will not govern the nature and purpose of economic activity and relationship. Instead other relevant consideration, including the environmental impacts of different products and production processes, can be made significant factors in decisions about what to do and not to do economically.66 Previously people would generally argue for the necessity of socialism from the perspective of the economic crisis of capitalism, but actually people should also argue for the necessity of socialism from the perspective of the ecological crisis of capitalism. By correspondence, people would previously demonstrate the superiority of socialism from the perspective of the socialization of the productive forces and production relations, but actually people should also demonstrate the superiority of socialism from the perspective of the socialization of the conditions of production, and once the superiority of socialism is understood in this way, the unique advantages that socialism has to solve the ecological crisis become very clear. O’Connor believes that Marx’s theory will allow people to see the “forces of opposition” in capitalist society. The “forces of opposition” are not only nurtured by the capitalist economic crisis, but are also accompanied by the ecological crisis of capitalism. As long as we understand the truth of the necessary opposition between ecology and capital in Marx, we may easily understand why there will always be “forces of opposition” in capitalist society. It is clear, therefore that hard questions about the inner connection between traditional crises of overproduction of capital and the crisis of capital underproduction have to be asked; and that other questions about the connections between the destruction of nature and people, on the one side, and the destruction of capital, on the other, also need to be asked”. “If we do, it may turn out that what is needed today is not ‘socialist construction’, but rather ‘socialist reconstruction’, of nature—including our own ‘nature’.67

66  Ibid., p. 128. 67  James O’Connor, Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism, The Guilford Press, 1998, p. 129.

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He also suggests that some of the traditional Marxists always believe that “productive forces and production relations are developed in a more social form,” namely that productive forces and production relations continuously move towards socialization, and capitalism will necessarily transition into socialism. But actually, In the ecological Marxist’s view, the developing of the more socialized model of supply and demand of the conditions of production, that is the conditions of production increasingly tending toward socialization will encourage the transition from capitalism to socialism. In sum, there may be not one but two ‘paths to socialism’, or, to be more accurate, two tendencies that together lead to increased socialization of productive forces, production relations, conditions of production, and the social relation of the production and reproduction of these conditions.68 The increasing of the degree of socialization of productive forces and production relations leads to the movement toward socialism, and “the increased degree of socialization of production conditions and that of these social relations of production and reproduction” will also lead to socialism. We should not only see the former trend but also the latter trend in the writings of Marx. If we understand socialism simply as developing productive forces, then socialism will tend to endlessly “exploit” nature, and there will be no essential link between socialism and ecological protection. In fact, comprehending the essence of socialism in this way is one-sided and at the very least fails to distinguish the boundary between socialism and capitalism. Paul Burkett thinks that Marx’s projection of future human development cannot be reduced to a growth of free time and mass consumption based on the further expansion and technical perfection of capitalism’s anti-ecologically developed productive forces.69 In fact, Marx foresees a qualitative enrichment of human-nature relations and of relations among human beings, a prospect which is pro-ecological and pro-human.70 Paul Burkett discusses the implications of “publically owned property” closely related to Marx’s theory of “associated production”. Marx states: 68  Ibid., p. 162. 69  Paul Burkett, Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective, Macmillan Press LiD.1999. p. 224. 70  Ibid.

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From the standpoint of a higher economic form of society, private ownership of the globe by single individuals will appear quite as absurd as private ownership of one man by another. Even a whole society, a nation, or even all simultaneously existing societies taken together, are not the owners of the globe. They are only its possessors, its usufructuaries, and, like boni patres familias, they must hand it down to succeeding generations in an improved condition.71 Paul Burkett points out by quoting Marx’s words that the orientation of Marx’s “publically owned property” to land and nature is to use rather than own, that “associated production” reasonably administrates the exchanges of matter and energy between humans and nature, and the producers are the masters of their own organization of society. Paul Burkett notes that Marx insists that “man and nature are not two separate beings,” man and nature constitute a dialectical unity. Communism does not need to destroy or conquer the necessary unity of man and nature, but only to use nature to serve the sustainable development of the natural and social being of humans. Engels states that until then, people will not only feel but also know that they are consistent with nature. Human beings of a communist society assume management responsibility over nature. What is worth emphasizing is Paul Burkett’s analysis of the ecological implication of the communist conception of wealth in Marx. Paul Burkett notes that although some people think that the communist conception of wealth in Marx is anti-ecological, he thinks that under the conditions of communism, the ultimate purpose of growing production and the producers’ manner of utilizing nature already ensure that the communist conception of wealth is not anti-ecological. Whether or not the growing production and expanding reproduction under the conditions of communism is ecological ultimately hinges on the meaning of “practice” and on the nature of the needs that are satisfied.72 Under the conditions of communism, human needs mainly refer to the need of reducing constraints and the need of all-around development, but not the endless pursuit of consumption under capitalist conditions. The aim of socialism is enabling human beings to attain emancipation, the mark of humanity achieving emancipation is humanity’s all-around development, and the core of the all-around development of human being is human labor becoming a free and self-aware activity, that is in realizing the emancipation of human labor, labor is no longer simply a means of survival, but 71  Marx, Capital, vol. III, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2004, p. 878. 72  Paul Burkett, Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective, Macmillan Press LiD.1999. p. 252.

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becomes the end itself, and human beings gain infinite joy in labor. This requires people to shift their attention from sphere of consumption to the sphere of production. Once people focus on getting enjoyment from the sphere of production instead of from the sphere of consumption, the ecological crisis is fundamentally eliminated. This is why socialism can ensure the protection of the ecological environment. Among the ecological Marxists, the earliest and also most systematic exposition of the proposition that human being’s satisfaction is found in production rather than consumption is found in Leis, who insists that we can only change the idea of equating consumption with satisfaction and know that “the possibility of satisfaction would be primarily a function of the organization of productive activity, and not—as in our society today—primarily a function of consumption” under the socialist system.73 If people would understand the following fact that growing consumption is unlikely to compensate for the setbacks suffered in other areas of life, people would be able to achieve satisfaction and happiness in areas other than consumption. W. Leiss thinks that concentrating attention on the sphere of production rather than that of consumption is by no means just shifting the focus, but is rather creating an environment which fosters direct participation in activities related to the satisfaction of one’s own needs. The process of creating this environment is also the process of resolving the ecological crisis. Making humanity find satisfaction in the sphere of production is the most effective path to resolving the ecological crisis. The problem of the pressure that human demands have on the ecological environment has now reach such a degree that we must see the problem of human needs as an inextricable component of a much larger system of ecological interactions. Because of this, we must associate together reducing the demand of human consumption, changing the way of life of elevated consumption and filling the labor activities and free time activities of every person with rich meaning, and as far as possible make people rely on their own two hands to satisfy their own needs. He concludes that the key to why humankind can gain real satisfaction in the sphere of production is: one, gaining self-satisfaction through participating in directly productive activity makes people truly capable of living creatively, and this life is rich and colorful such that people will get enjoyment from such productive activities themselves; two, because this production is not carried out in order to support vicious consumption, and due to severing the direct link between production and consumption, and because this is production on the basis of reducing the productive capacity of capitalism, the result of this production is not the increasing opposition between production and nature but the building 73  William Leiss, The Limits to Satisfaction, Toronto, 1986, p. 105.

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of harmonious relationships with nature, and humankind will feel unparalleled satisfaction and happiness in these new relationships. This is the prospect of socialism that people are seeking. Humans are indeed faced with the harsh choice: either faithfully serve this god of “profit and production”, and endure the increasingly uncontrollable ecological and social crises; or reject this god of “profit and production,” and evolve toward the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature. The ultimate way to solve ecological problems is to change the capitalist model of production and way of life for the socialist model of production and way of life. This is the ecological Marxists’ conclusion. This conclusion is undoubtedly correct; the problem now is whether we have the courage to accept this conclusion. Ecological Marxists have repeatedly stated the argument that only socialism can fundamentally resolve ecological problems. The kind of socialism they are talking about here is not the Soviet model of socialism. Gorz emphasizes the point that what the Soviet model of socialism pursued was economic rationality, rather than ecological rationality, that is in the Soviet model of socialism, human behavior in general and social production in particular are controlled by the same economic rationality. As long as it is controlled by economic rationality, it does not matter whether plans or the market itself is used to regulate it, it will not give birth to genuine socialism. He stresses that the Soviet model of socialism only provided people with a laughable enlarged caricature of the basic features of capitalism, because it saw the pursuit of accumulation and economic growth as its main purposes. The only difference from capitalism consisted in the way it implemented such accumulation and growth, that is, it tried to use carefully planned, centralized, external and overall economic control of the market to replace external spontaneous mechanisms, and in all areas of behavior, it separated the functional behavior that the overall rationality of the system demanded from the rationality of the individual’s autonomous way of behaving. The Soviet model of socialism once implemented all kinds of reforms, but since the basic ideas behind these reforms were all based on consumerism, that is such reforms did not make the slightest change to the goal pursued, but simply adjusted the means of achieving this goal, such that the result of the reforms was moving closer to Western capitalism and away from real socialism. In his view, the essence of socialism is to make economic behavior serve the goals and values of society, and if you do not strive in this direction, the existing, traditional socialism cannot become true socialism, and cannot effectively protect the ecological environment. In O’Conner’s view, the key is in studying exactly what makes today’s socialist countries destroy the ecological environment, in studying whether the reason is essentially linked to the socialist system or not, in studying the causes that led to the ecological

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crisis in socialist countries. If there are differences from capitalist countries, where are they? He points out that socialist countries today import technology and systems of production from the West, and in this sense, the causes of environmental destruction in socialist countries are similar to those in capitalist countries. Moreover, in the former socialist camps, what were implemented were policies that gave economic growth the superior right to override everything else, and in this regard, there are no differences from capitalist society. Finally, because the socialist countries have effectively integrated into the global capitalist market, we can also say, “the same kind of forces of globalization” are at work in the East as well as in the West. At the same time, he states that because property and legal relations in the socialist countries differed from those in the capitalist world, for them, the causes and influences of environmental destruction were not the same. However, the causes and effects of environmental destruction were not the same. This can be also said about the two political systems and the corresponding differences in the relationship between civil society and the state.74 He stresses that we must not ignore the importance of the differences between production relations and the political system, and in fact, these differences play an important role in the process of ecological degradation and in the struggle to protect the environment. In his view, the ecological crisis is “endogenous” to capitalist society, that is it is inherently necessary, while it is “external” to socialist society, namely it is not necessary. This being the case, as long as it is a real socialist system, it remains possible to get out of the ecological crisis. 6 Since capital is essentially anti-ecological in accordance with its attributes of the principle of utility and the principle of proliferation, in order to protect the ecological environment, should human beings immediately bid farewell to capital, and establish a world without capital? Since socialism is not a society that is built in accordance with the logic of capital, and therefore is the best choice in essence for protecting the ecological environment, should those who have been living under the socialist system deny the role of capital across 74  James O’Connor, Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism, The Guilford Press, 1998, p. 258.

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the board? Are we saying that it is valuable that the ecological Marxists here not only demonstrate thoroughness in theory, that is make unequivocal arguments on the point that capital is essentially anti-ecological, and in another respect, present a clearly practical attitude as well, that is explain that when facing capital people should be realistic from the outset. They explain to us the complex relationship between capital and ecology, and the complexity of the relationship between human being and capital as well. Although they did not spare much ink on this matter, they still left us with further space to think. Human beings are facing an unprecedented ecological crisis, and the most important cause of the crisis (the culprit) is undoubtedly the logic of capital, but we cannot take up the attitude of a simple break with and abolition of capital, and even if it is a state that has already established a socialist system, it cannot completely condemn capital to the lower rungs of hell, but ultimately why? Examining the relevant expositions scattered throughout the writings of various ecological Marxists, we can roughly parse out these three reasons: First of all, capital is a social and historical category; the concept of capital not only contains the vicious side effects on humankind but also the “trend of civilization” that capital brings to humankind, and even though the ratio between the positive and negative effects are increasingly changing with the course of history, the positive effects are declining daily and the negative effects are rising daily. According to its inherent logic, capital must break through the constraints on the existing capacity and means of production. Capital must break through the constraints on the existing quantity of consumption, the range of consumption and the types of consumption. And this breakthrough process is obviously that of civilization and progress, and of course it is the process of capital executing its civilizing.75 Marx and Engels state in the Communist Manifesto: “The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together.”76 Here Marx and Engels speak of the role of the bourgeoisie in the creation of productive forces, but in fact, this means the role of capital in creating productivity. Marx also directly discusses the historical role of capital: Thus, capital creates the bourgeois society, and the universal appropriation of nature as well as of the social bond itself by the members of society. Hence the great civilizing influence of capital; its production

75  See Tong Shijun: Modernity in the Sino-Western Dialogue, Xuelin Press, 2010, p. 403. 76  Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 277.

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of a stage of society in comparison to which all earlier ones appear as mere local developments of humanity and as nature-idolatry.77 Marx makes it very clear here that the civilizing role of capital lies in its creation of such a historical stage—the second great form of society- the historical stage based on the market economy.78 The problem is that capital’s creation of productive forces, the historical mission to promote human “civilization” remains unaccomplished. It continues to fulfill its role. As long as capital still exists, it will bring us a variety of disasters, including the destruction of Nature, and this disaster unavoidably becomes people’s existential condition. However, capital is not such that you can just say cancel it and it is cancelled. As long as its historic mission remains, and as long as its function of civilizing humanity still exists, then it remains impossible to artificially cancel it.79 Secondly, the goal of human activity is not single, but multiple. This multiplicity determines that the activities of the social system are directed at an organic system of goals. In such an organic system of goals, people are often in “one or the other” type dilemmas while determining their own goals, that is in order to achieve a certain goal-specific objective, they are forced to abandon or reject other goals. In fact, this is very foolish. The smart approach is to integrate, balance and coordinate the variety of their goals, and then formulate their own reasonable course of action. For humankind today, eliminating the ecological crisis and constructing ecological civilization is certainly a goal to struggle for, and one could even say the main goal, but it is equally certain that in addition to this, human beings still have other goals. Human beings cannot give up other goals for a single goal. When this goal of eliminating the ecological crisis and constructing ecological civilization needs human beings to break decisively with the logic of capital, other goals may still also need the logic of capital to implement them. Specifically, aside from the urgent need to eliminate the ecological crisis, humankind still has the pre-established goals of continuing to develop productive forces, to increase social wealth and realize modernization, and in order to achieve these goals, reality tells people to choose the road of the market economy, and choosing the market economy in a sense means choosing the logic of capital, even if the economy operates according to the logic of capital. The predominant manifestation of the 77  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 46, People’s Publishing House, 1st Edition, Chinese, p. 393. 78  See Sun Chengshu: Capital and Social Harmony, Chongqing Publishing House, 2008, p. 34. 79  See Luo Qian: On Marx’s Critique of Modernity and Its Contemporary Significance, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 2007, p. 117.

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“civilizing trend” of capital is its productivity, that is it can promote the development of productive forces. In this case, humankind must maintain a balance between the protection of the ecological environment and the development of productive forces, and correspondingly, a balance must be struck between restricting capital and using capital. Finally, the key to the elimination of the ecological crisis and the construction of ecological civilization is in changing the capitalist mode of production, changing the logic of capital whose goal is profit, but this change does not happen overnight; it is a long and arduous process, and the following situation might still actually emerge: if one wanted to limit and eliminate capital’s destruction of ecology, one would still have to use capital, that is use the power of capital to limit and eliminate capital’s destruction of ecology. The destruction of the ecological environment that production unfolding around capital wages is in reality so serious that restoring the ecological environment has become extremely difficult. This restoration requires a significant investment of financial resources, which must be based on a certain amount of money as its physical basis. Then where do the financial resources of the restoration and protection of the ecological environment come from? In addition to wealth from the public, of course, it cannot do without all aspects of social support, which, of course, includes the support of the owners of the various types of capital. Undeniably, it is capital that brought about the destruction of the ecological environment, but it also cannot be denied that the restoration of the ecological environment, in a sense, also needs the power of capital. Since capital has brought about such serious effects on the ecological environment, the responsibility for these effects should, of course, land on the shoulders of capital. If we were to just blindly and simply hold a negative attitude toward capital in order to protect the ecological environment, this would in fact be going way too easy on capital,. We should eliminate the effects that it brought about. Precisely because capital is the culprit who has been destroying the ecological environment, it can simultaneously play a role in eliminating the ecological crisis. Some people regard capital as “neutral” on these grounds, making it seem that it is only a tool in people’s hands and that we should let people deal with it. This is a misunderstanding. Capital is absolutely not “neutral.” It is most certainly anti-ecological in essence. That people use it to repair and protect the ecological environment does not prove that its essence has changed. This is only letting something that is itself wicked play a certain historical role and that is all. Due to the existence of the three major reasons mentioned above, in the face of the increasingly deteriorating ecological environment, we should adopt a cautious, complex attitude in our struggle against capital—the “culprit”

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behind this situation. We critique capital and unfold the struggle against it; this attitude is distinct and unshakable, but as for how to critique, how to fight, we must adopt a pragmatic and scientific attitude. Ecological Marxists bring up the opposition between capital and ecology through the study of Marx’s ecological worldview, which enables us to truly find the main direction of attack in the process of eliminating the ecological crisis and constructing ecological civilization. This is logically fusing together the elimination of the ecological crisis, the construction of ecological civilization and the opposition to the logic of capital, but in concrete action, we must remain calm. It is based on such thinking that some ecological Marxists brought up the question of how to maintain the reasonable degree of tension between limiting and overcoming the logic of capital on one hand and exercising and implementing the logic of capital on the other. This is a good question. It provides us with a good idea of how to deal with capital realistically and correctly in the process of eliminating the ecological crisis and constructing ecological civilization. For those of us who have established the socialist system it seems the only correct choice is maintaining a reasonable tension between limiting and overcoming the logic of capital and exercising and implementing it, that is, capital should be utilized and restricted in order to make capital’s destruction of the natural environment through the pursuit of the maximization of profit drop to the lowest possible degree. In particular, we must find the point of integration between realizing modernization and protecting the ecological environment, that is it is necessary to make clear that the modernization we are going to implement is not traditional modernization but ecologically oriented modernization. The implementation of traditional modernization makes blind use of capital, but implementing ecologically oriented modernization cannot completely bow at the feet of capital, and while making use of capital, we should also limit the use of capital. Though we cannot change the essence of capital, we can adopt a variety of restrictive policies, for example, carrying through with ethical constraints on the workings of capital, and make capital’s destruction of nature drop to the lowest possible degree. Of course, in order to realize ecological civilization, merely restricting capital does not cut it. Capital must ultimately be transcended. As long as there is one day in which capital exists, its destruction of ecological civilization also exists on that day. Adopting restrictive policies is only in order to lower the degree of destruction, and cannot fundamentally uproot this destruction. The time when true ecological civilization is built is most likely the day that capital is transcended. So, in order to build ecological civilization, we not only need to integrate using capital with restricting capital, but also must tie using capital to transcending capital. What must be explained here is that

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the existence of capital in today’s China is not unreasonable, but we cannot think that it is best to just wait for the reasonableness of capital to completely disappear and only thereafter think about transcending capital. Just as the genesis of alienation and the overcoming of alienation is a historical process, the use of capital and the transcending of capital are the same historical process. Now that we have established the building of ecological civilization as the goal to struggle for today, we should put transcending capital at the top of the list. In accompaniment with the establishment of this basic attitude of both using and restricting capital, the attitude toward production must also be adjusted. Closely tied to the logic of capital is over-production. Capital’s destruction of Nature is achieved with the help of overproduction. In order to protect the ecological environment, we must change over-production. But in order to promote modernization, continuously expanding production and developing the economy is an established policy. So, we are facing the question of how to properly handle the relationship between changing production and expanding production. Just as we must maintain a reasonable tension between restricting and transcending the logic of capital and using and implementing it, we should likewise maintain a reasonable tension between changing production and expanding it, that is we must both expand and change production, and thereby make production truly capable of achieving the two goals of serving the satisfaction of the genuine needs of human beings and serving the satisfaction of the needs of development and survival of non-human species. Since we are now resolute on the issue of getting out of the traditional model of modernization and implementing ecologically oriented modernization, the original means of organizing production must change. In other words, in the process of implementing ecologically oriented modernization, we cannot simply expand production or develop production, but have to continuously change production and adjust production. What first needs to be changed and adjusted is the purpose of production. The production that is implemented in order to achieve ecologically oriented modernization cannot be production for the sake of production, and even less can it be production simply for the sake of “value and surplus value.” This production should very clearly be first and foremost for the sake of fulfilling the needs of human beings, and these needs should be true human needs, namely needs that are tied to the all-around development of human beings. Moreover, the production implemented in order to achieve ecologically oriented modernization still needs the standard of nature, that is it still ought to continue to fulfill the needs and interests of survival and development of non-human species. The key consists in the fact that the production implemented here must be confined to the scope of ecological carrying capacity. Of course, with respect to organizing production, in implementing ecologically oriented modernization what needs to change is not only

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the purpose of production, but also the form of production. The production we are engaging in must work toward consciously adjusting and coordinating in accordance with proportion, otherwise we cannot reach the intended goal of socialist production, and it would remain impossible to build ecological civilization. Implementing a socialist market economy is not equivalent to abandoning the government’s conscious regulation of production processes, nor does it mean that production does not need to be coordinated in accordance with proportion. Adding the qualifier “socialist” to the front of the market economy means that our model of the market economy is distinct from that extreme model of the market economy found in some capitalist nations. The difference is that we combine the market economy with socialism. One important aspect is that the principle of the market is combined with the socialist mode of production. The principle of the market is combined with the principle of “being adjusted purposefully and coordinated proportionally. Capital endlessly pursuing profit and the over-production that corresponds is based on the continuous manufacture and expansion of consumption. If there is no correct attitude to adopt toward consumption, there is no way to establish the correct attitude toward capital and production. Many people in China today look to the expansion of domestic demand to sustain economic development. This so-called expansion of domestic demand means stimulating people’s desire for material goods so that they consume as much as possible. Expanding domestic demand may well be an effective way to bolster economic growth. However, entrusting economic development predominantly to the stimulation and expansion of consumption is but embarking on the path of consumerism. The harm caused by consumerism not only leads to the distortion of human nature, but is also manifested in the destruction of the environment. Once a society arouses and stimulates human greed, it becomes a materialistic society and will necessarily race unthinkingly to the bottom line of the ecological carrying capacity. In such a society, there are no grounds to talk about ecological civilization. In this way, we exist in the dilemma of needing to stimulate consumption for the sake of developing the economy but needing to restrict consumption in order to avoid going down the path of consumerism. The correct attitude toward consumption can only be maintaining a reasonable tension between guiding consumption and stimulating consumption, that is both stimulating and guiding consumption is needed. We not only have to stimulate consumption and expand consumption to promote economic development, but also have to guide consumption, so that consumption does not go so far as breaking through the bottom line of ecological capacity. We must start with changing people’s patterns of consumption to eliminate the ecological crisis and construct ecological civilization. We must not hesitate to change those patterns of consumption which are incompatible with

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ecological civilization. Specifically, along with stimulating consumption we must also guide it according to the principles of ecological civilization. We must first start by encouraging people to satisfy all of their needs, particularly their spiritual and cultural needs. Consumption of cultural activities should expand in proportion with total consumption. In everyday life, cultural consumption constitutes an elevated form of activity which can help satisfy our spiritual and cultural needs, and meeting these needs is no less important than satisfying tangible physical needs through material consumption. Second, in the sphere of material consumption we must guide people to sever the link between “more” and “better” and instead guide them to associate “better” with “less”. As long as we produce more durable products and more things that do not destroy the environment or produce more things but things that everyone can get, then consuming less and less but living better and better is possible. As long as the consumer can truly sever the link between “more” and “better”, guiding consumption in accordance with the demands of ecological civilization is a revolution that alters the structure of human needs, that is we have to establish a structure of needs that puts quality of consumption and quality of life first. We have elaborated on the advantages of the socialist system with respect to eliminating the ecological crisis and building ecological civilization. Perhaps these advantages are expressed in this dialectical and scientific attitude of both using and restraining capital, both expanding and changing production and both stimulating and guiding consumption. This shows that the prospect ahead of us is that people can continue to enjoy the great achievements of modernization, but in another respect, will not fall into the abyss of ecological crisis without being able to escape. In this theoretical interpretation of the ecological Marxists’ research on the ecological crisis and the relationship between capital and ecology, we truly comprehend the theoretical contribution and real significance of ecological Marxism, and why it is so influential in today’s world, and some people even see this as a new stage and new form of the contemporary development of Marxism.

Part 1 John Bellamy Foster’s Research on the Ecological Crisis

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Among the many theorists of ecological Marxism, we choose to focus the analysis on the thought of John Bellamy Foster—Sociology Professor at Oregon State University, and chief editor of the magazine Monthly Review, because he is the world’s most active ecological Marxist, and his thought is the most systematic and influential. Today humankind is increasingly plagued by ecological crises. Humankind urgently needs a theory to guide itself out of the ecological crisis. Foster explicitly asserts that this theory can only be Marxism. Even though the ecological theory of Marxism is still not fully known to people, and in a sense, she is only “a potential source of inspiration” to solve ecological problems, we must not underestimate her value and meaning. Whether or not human beings can find their way out of ecological perplexity and enjoy better prospects depends on whether we can really use the flag of Marxism to guide ourselves through the resolution of ecological problems, and accordingly, under new historical conditions the vitality of Marxism mainly depends on whether she can exercise her function in guiding people through the resolution of ecological problems. The theoretical system of Marxism clearly envelops a profound ecological perspective, but people tend to neglect it. Foster believes that the reasons for this include misunderstanding the ecological crisis, that is seeing it as brought about by materialism, science, technology and modernity itself, as well as misunderstanding Marxism, that is misunderstanding Marxism to be an idealism opposed to natural science. To truly unearth and expose the ecological perspective inherent in Marxism, two conditions must be met: the root cause of the ecological crisis must be correctly grasped and Marxism must be correctly understood. The key to truly unearthing the ecological perspective that is hidden in the system of Marxian thought is in recovering the materialist nature of Marxian philosophy. Marxism’s great potential to deal with ecological problems is to be found in the materialism upon which Marxist social theory is based. Foster as an ecological Marxist attracted the whole world’s attention by virtue of making the following two judgments: first, only Marxist theory can truly become the guiding thought for people to overcome the ecological crisis and construct ecological civilization in today’s world, and Marxism offers humankind large quantities of resources of thought to resolve ecological problems; second, the ecological viewpoint of Marxism directly stems from Marx’s materialism, especially his materialist view of nature. To deny or obscure the materialist essence of Marxian philosophy is to overlook the substance and significance of Marx’s ecological theory. The first judgment confronts all of those in the world today who deny the contemporary value of Marxism, including those who deny the value that Marxism holds for the solution of ecological problems; the second judgment confronts all of those in the world today who

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do everything possible to obscure the materialist essence of Marxism in the effort to put Marxism under the spell of idealism. So where are the ecological implications of Marxist theory embodied? This is what Foster explains in detail. According to Foster, the exposition of Marx’s ecological viewpoint is complementary lock and key with the exposition of Marx’s materialism. In other words, in Foster’s view, clarifying the dominance of materialism in Marx’s philosophical ideas is equal to revealing the ecological perspective implied in Marx’s theory. In a certain sense, he turns the exposition of the implications and contemporary value of Marx’s ecological theory into the exposition of Marx’s materialism. Marx’s materialism includes two aspects, the materialist view of nature and the materialist view of history, and he first concentrates on demonstrating that Marx’s views of nature and history are materialist, on the basis of which he elaborates how Marx draws his ecological viewpoint from the materialist view of nature and history. By investigating the process of formation of Marx’s philosophical thought, Foster shows that Marx’s view of nature is materialist. In his view, early in his youth as a “left-wing Hegelian”, Marx began to ponder the conflict between philosophy and materialism, and tried to go beyond “left-wing Hegelian” idealism. So, Marx’s materialist view of nature already began to form early in his youth. After Foster argues that the philosophical theory that Marx’s doctoral thesis brought into form through the digestion and absorption of Epicurean theory is a materialist view of nature, he points out immediately that, after all, Marx’s doctoral thesis is a transitional work, and so, even though the materialist view of nature that Marx deduced through his doctoral thesis is very strong, and very thorough in comparison with the Epicurean point of view, it cannot be described as the mature materialist view of nature. In his eyes, the mature version of Marx’s materialist view of nature only took shape after Marx started to pay close attention to the political and economic situations in Germany, France and the United Kingdom, and particularly only after systematically working in contact with the philosophy of Feuerbach. In this way, Foster’s research on Marx’s materialist view of nature turned into research on the relationship between Marx and Feuerbach, namely research on how Marx’s materialism emerged through the absorption and digestion of Feuerbach’s humanism. In contrast to the mass majority of such research, Foster’s research on the relationship between Marx and Feuerbach does not focus on Marx’s critique and overcoming of Feuerbach, but on Marx’s digestion and absorption of Feuerbach. He stresses that truly understanding the core position that the materialist view of nature occupies in Marxist philosophy requires looking squarely at Marx’s absorption of Feuerbach. Since Foster resolutely insists that only materialism can provide the theoretical resources necessary to resolve the

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ecological crisis, in his view, making it clear that Marx’s philosophy is first and foremost a materialist view of nature is equal to making the account that Marx’s theoretical system contains a rich ecological theory. What an ecological theory first needs to answer is how we should look at the ecological environment around us, that is, how we should look at the external natural world. Foster believes that Marx’s ecological viewpoint is rooted in a correct understanding of the ecological environment and the external natural world, and this correct understanding stems from his materialist view of nature. Second, what an ecological theory needs to answer is how the human being should view her own being, because the human being may only come to know how to accurately face the external world of nature by first figuring out what she herself is. Foster believes that Marx proceeds from the materialist view of nature to present a range of opinions on the nature of human beings, which constitute important components of his ecological theory. What an ecological theory finally needs to answer is how we should treat the relationship between human beings and nature. Foster believes that Marx’s materialist view of nature provides humanity with the theoretical foundation to accurately perceive and handle the relationship between human beings and nature. On the basis of Marx’s materialist view of nature, Marx puts forward a series of basic guidelines for the accurate treatment of the relationship between human beings and nature, and human beings sooner or later have to return to these basic principles and use them as guidelines for eliminating ecological crises and constructing ecological civilization. Foster does not deny that there are ingredients in Marx’s ecological theory that seem on the surface to be incompatible with his understanding of Marx’s ecological viewpoint. For example, Marx wants people to “rule” nature through their own actions and practice, but he stresses that one should not forget that what Marx said is based on the premise of respecting the objectivity and limitations of nature. The “practice” about which Marx spoke is not some kind of free action that is divorced from all compliance with necessity. And, what Marx spoke of as “ruling nature” certainly does not mean the arbitrary domination of nature or indiscriminate destruction of it. Whether it is the meaning of “ruling” nature or the meaning of sustainable development, both are drawn from Marx’s materialism and express the essential meaning of Marx’s materialist theory. Foster thinks that Marx’s materialist view of history took shape throughout collisions with various trends of thought while Marx engaged in actual struggles. In his view, Marx’s critiquing and breaking with such trends of thought become moments with symbolic significance in the history of development of the materialist conception of history and materialist conception of nature in Marx. So, Marx’s critique of and break with such trends of thought offer us a

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perspective that may aid us in observing the emergence of this unique method of researching society known as historical materialism. What he speaks of as Marx’s critique of various trends of thought points mainly to: one, the critique of the Malthusian theories of population and land. In his view, through the critique of Malthusian theory, Marx gradually makes it clear that human beings and nature are not naturally opposed, and that human suffering is not due to the “natural” reason of overpopulation; he began to think about the role played by the law of man behind the law of nature; two, the critique of Feuerbach’s intuitive materialism. He believes that in the process of critiquing Feuerbach’s intuitive materialism and naturalism, Marx absolutely did not ignore the external kingdom of nature, Marx, however, tended to study nature only when nature was involved in human history. In this respect, the strength of Marx’s analysis is that he stressed the interaction between human beings and nature. Marx sees nature as “human nature” and “natural history” and truly unites the human and the natural, history and nature; three, the critique of the real socialism of Ludaofu Mengte. He believes that the boundary line dividing Marx’s theory from “real socialism” is that the latter, starting from the mystical view of nature, confuses people with other natural things, and that the alienation of nature can only be overcome with the support of some mysterious force contained in nature itself, while the former emphasizes that human beings are not exactly the same as other natural things, since human beings possess sociality, and human being can only overcome the alienation of nature by changing the mode of human activity. Marx’s critique of “the real socialists” is the critique of treating nature in an idealistic and sentimentalist way; Four, the critique of Proudhon’s “Promethean doctrine.” He believes that Marx elaborates the materialist view of history starting with material production or the human struggle to survive through his critique of Proudhon. Marx’s critique of Proudhon is precisely the critique of the “blind worship of the machine”. Foster appreciates Marx for seeing mechanical “Prometheanism,” which is mainly characterized by the “blind worship of the machine,” as a form of “objectification”, that is a way of transforming actual human relations into relations between objects. Foster believes that the process through which Marx formed his own materialist view of history via the critique of erroneous trends of thought is simultaneously the process through which he refined his ecological theory. Marx’s ecological worldview whose foundation is the materialist view of history is mainly embodied in his two books—Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and The Communist Manifesto. Foster points out that Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 are known for developing the concept of the alienation of labor, and tightly binding the alienation of nature to the alienation of labor, or one should say, tightly integrating the alienation of labor into

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the analysis of the alienation of nature is the starting point of Marx’s ecological worldview. Foster also points out that the most important core of Marx’s ecological worldview in Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts of 1844 is stressing that the alienation of nature is manmade, and concretely speaking, that it is brought about by the rule of private property and money. Foster also points out that an important aspect of Marx’s ecological worldview expressed in the Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts of 1844 is revealing the “universality” of the opposition between the institution of private property and nature, that is explaining that this opposition not only arises in agriculture and large areas of real estate, but also in big cities. Foster attaches great importance to Marx’s first introduction of the concepts of “association” and “associated producers” in his Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts of 1844. In his view, this is Marx’s profound discussion of how to eliminate the alienation of nature. Since the alienation of nature is brought about by the institution of private property, the elimination of alienation necessarily presupposes the elimination of private property. While Foster’s exposition of the ecological worldview that Marx expresses through the Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts of 1844 is predominantly positive, his exposition of the ecological worldview that Marx expresses through The Communist Manifesto is predominantly a refutation of those who regard The Communist Manifesto as “anti-ecological.” He points out that those accusations against The Communist Manifesto are accusations against modernism from the standpoint of postmodernism, which is to say, they harbor certain anti-modernist assumptions. He mainly analyzes Marx’s description of the “idiocy of rural life” and his praise of “the conquering of natural forces”. In his view, what is of pressing importance is that Marx and Engels’ description of the idiocy of rural life is not to be understood in the sense that they [rural people] believe Nature should be held in contempt; rather, it should be understood in the sense that they emphasize the antagonism between town and country as a major manifestation of the essence of the alienation of bourgeois civilization. Marx, in fact, regards the “idiocy of rural life” as an important mark of the estrangement from nature. As for Marx’s praise of “the conquering of natural forces, in Foster’s opinion, this only shows that Marx’s viewpoint here coincides with the following statement from Bacon: “Nature is only subdued by submission.” The conquering of natural forces that Marx is talking about here presupposes submitting to nature. What is extremely clear is that Marx praises conquering the forces of nature, but does not pray for a “mechanical Prometheanism”, that is, he does not praise mechanization and industrialization “without reservation” at the cost of sacrificing agriculture and ecology. Foster in all seriousness asserts that anyone who reads The Communist Manifesto should be aware that “the praise of bourgeois civilization occupying

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the opening part of this immortal work” is only meant to lead into the thought of the social contradictions that capitalism generates and that ultimately drive it to collapse, and among all of the contradictions of capitalism that arise in accompaniment with bourgeois civilization, which Marx exposes, there are also ecological contradictions. He is keenly aware that what accompanies “the characteristic of the capitalist creation of wealth is the growing majority of the population living in relative poverty”, and at the same time he understands that what follows “ ‘the conquering of the forces of nature’ is the alienation from nature and argues that this alienation from nature “exists in the urban/ rural separation as the core problem of capitalism”. In Foster’s opinion, Marx’s ecological worldview is most aptly reflected in the theory of “metabolism” that he presents in Capital and other works, so his research on Marx’s ecological worldview concentrates on Marx’s discussion of the theory of “metabolism.” In his view, the concept of “metabolism” is very important in Capital and other works, and it is by virtue of this concept that Marx’s study of capitalism delves deeper into the interrelation of man and nature, and thereby unfolds the profound critique of environmental destruction, and it is precisely this critique that foresaw much of today’s ecology thought. By means of examining all of Marx’s relevant works, and especially the usage of this concept of metabolism in Capital, he concludes that this concept in Marx has both a specific ecological sense and a broader social sense. Marx uses the concept of “metabolism” to describe the interrelation of man and nature, which is built upon the foundation of his early focus on the explanation of humanity’s relationship to nature from the philosophical perspective. Foster points out that the concept of “metabolic rift” is more important in Marx in comparison with the concept of “metabolism.” Marx’s ecological worldview and all of Marx’s ecological critiques of capitalism are founded on the concept of “metabolic rift”. Liebig deploys the concept of “metabolic rift” to expose the problems of depleting soil fertility and the increasing exhaustion of land. In Foster’s view, just like Liebig, Marx uses the concept of “metabolic rift” to describe the depletion of soil fertility in the context of large scale capitalist agriculture, that is, like Liebig, Marx stresses that the long-distance trade of food and clothing fibers make the separation of the component ingredients of land an “unfixable problem.” In his view, Marx’s major revision of Liebig’s concept of “metabolic rift” is that the concept is no longer restricted to the description of the depletion of soil fertility. Marx uses the concept of “metabolic rift” to express the conditions of humankind shaping its basis of survival in capitalist society which is what Marx called “the objective alienation” of the eternal natural conditions of human life. Another major amendment to Liebig’s concept of “metabolism rift” that Marx makes is that he did not consider this

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“rift” to occur solely in certain regions and countries, such as Europe’s United Kingdom, but stressed that this occurs throughout the entirety of the capitalist world, and even globally. Foster emphasizes that the key to studying Marx’s theory of “metabolism” consists in grasping what conclusions Marx draws from it. In his view, the first conclusion that Marx came to is that the “metabolic rift” is associated with the capitalist system, and that there is a sharp contradiction between ecology and the industrialized agriculture of capitalism. Foster believes that, in general Marx stresses that the capitalist system engenders the “metabolic rift”, but at different stages, he points the spear of the critique at different levels of the capitalist system. In the 1840’s and 1850’s, the “metabolic rift” that Marx was concerned with was mainly the depletion of soil fertility, so Marx tended more to emphasize the urban-rural separation in capitalist society and the long-distance trade of products that it brings about as the cause of the “metabolic rift.” By the 1850’s and 1860’s, Marx’s focus on “metabolic rift” in capitalist society extended from the depletion of soil fertility to the alienation of nature of the whole capitalist society, in other words, the concept of “metabolic rift” is generally used by Marx to demonstrate the ecological problems in capitalist society. In this case, Marx’s analysis of the source of “the metabolic rift” starts from the relatively straightforward and superficial separation of city and countryside and long-distance trade but deepens to the more profound level of the capitalist mode of production and the large scale private ownership of land. By the 1860’s and 1870’s, following Marx’s profound research into the interconnection between capitalist private ownership and “the metabolic rift,” his analysis of this interconnection no longer stopped at the level of general description and began to concretely expand. As a result, Marx discusses the influence of the principles of capital and the logic of capital upon “the metabolic rift” in capitalist society, which is to say, Marx uses this perspective of analyzing the effective role of the principles of capital and the logic of capital to make more profound and concrete people’s understanding of the impact of the capitalist mode of production and capitalist institution of private ownership upon “the metabolic rift”. Marx reveals the necessity of the conflict between the principles of capital, the logic of capital and normal “metabolism.” Foster believes the second conclusion that Marx came to was that human beings are entirely capable of resolving the problem of the “metabolic rift”. He states that according to Marx, capitalism by its nature is established on the basis of the metabolic rift between the city and the countryside and between humankind and the earth, but the seriousness of the rift today may have already exceeded his imagination. There is an irreversible environmental crisis in capitalist society at the planetary scale. However, in Marx’s view, it is not completely impossible to establish a sustainable relationship between human

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beings and the Earth. Foster believes that we can see the strong desire for the sustainable development of agriculture in Marx’s works, and in Marx’s view, land is the eternal property that humanity and all generations share, and as long as human beings consciously and rationally manage land as the inalienable condition of survival and reproduction then it “sustainably develops.” The valuable point of Marx’s research on the elimination of “the metabolic rift” and the realization of sustainable development is that he did not stop at the limited sphere of agriculture, but expanded into every sphere. Marx’s object is rather the issue of whether the sustainability of the entire ecosystem is possible or not. Marx’s answer is yes: This means that, in Marx’s view, not only in agriculture, but also in the entire sphere of humanity and production, it is entirely possible to establish “more thoroughly sustainable relations of development” on the basis of ecological laws rather than the laws of economics. Foster points out that when Marx speaks of eliminating the “metabolic rift” and realizing the all-around implementation of every measure of sustainable development, it is also the day of the founding of socialism. In Marx’s view, a humane, sustainable system should be socialism, and this socialism should be built on the solid foundation of ecological principles. Marx has a systematic and profound ecological worldview. Then what is this worldview’s greatest inspiration for humankind today? In Foster’s view, the core of Marx’s ecological worldview is the demonstration of the opposition between capital and ecology, and accordingly, the greatest inspiration of this ecological worldview for humankind today is in telling people that the source of the ecological crisis is the capitalist system, and that getting rid of the ecological crisis without touching the capitalist system can amount to nothing more than a dream. Marx’s ecological worldview clearly tells people: the capitalist system is the biggest obstacle to humankind’s elimination of the ecological crisis and establishment of genuine harmony between humanity and nature. The essence of capital is fundamentally opposed to nature, and as long as the logic of capital is working fluidly throughout the world without obstruction, humankind freeing itself from the ecological crisis amounts to empty words, nonsense like climbing trees to catch fish. Humanity opposes capitalism not only because it is a system that makes some cruelly exploit others, resulting in the inequality between human beings, but also because it is a system which prompts some people to ceaselessly exploit nature, resulting in the conflict between human beings and nature. He points out that the core thought with ecological content piercing through Marx’s three works of different periods, the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, The Communist Manifesto and Capital, is the exposition that capitalism is essentially antiecological. Foster is by no means satisfied with explaining the opposition

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between ecology and capitalism through the study of Marx’s Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts of 1844, The Communist Manifesto, Capital and other works; he goes further to concretely elucidate how this opposition between ecology and capital ultimately unfolds on the basis of Marx’s related discussion, that is, he goes into detail about how capitalism destroys the ecological environment according to its own internal logic. In his article entitled “Ecology Against Capitalism”, the paper clearly asks people to think seriously about “the problem of the potentially catastrophic conflict between global capitalism and the global environment” in accordance with Marx’s thought. He points out that those who loyally serve this Lord of “profit and production” constantly want us to turn our attention elsewhere, to reduce the degree of our concern, and obviously the existing economic system is the cause of environmental degradation, but they are still looking for ways to address environmental degradation in this very system. In another thesis entitled “Ecological Damage”, Foster asserts that as long as capitalism exists, the danger will always be there: “its destructive impulses” may turn into “uncontrolled destruction”, which is the fate of capitalism. And we must understand, what capitalism destroys is not only the conditions of production but also life itself. He stresses that what Marx spoke of as capitalism’s destructive loss of control, namely the destruction of the environment going out of control has become the obvious characteristic of the whole world’s capitalist economy, and, in general, has become characteristic of the entire planet. He once accepted an interview over the relationship between ecology and capitalism, and he clearly said to the interviewer, that he did not agree with the notion that we owe environmental destruction to “modernity” or “industrialism”. He also stresses that we must avoid the notion that ecological damage caused by the capitalist market economy simply boils down to personal responsibility. At face value, it is just the short-term interests of some wealthy investors that causes the ecological crisis, but it is essentially unfair to let them take all of the responsibility. He states that, to a certain extent, they should be held responsible for their own behavior, but these individual actions are in many cases not chosen out of total freedom, but are induced and compelled by the specific social structures in which we live, and to be thorough, one should say they are driven by the capitalist system. In his monograph, Ecology Against Capitalism, he warns people in the following way: a capitalist economy regards the pursuit of profit as the primary goal and pursues economic growth at all costs, including the exploitation and sacrifice of the interests of the majority of human beings in the world. This rapid growth means the rapid consumption of energy and raw materials under normal circumstances, but also means that more and more waste is dumped into the environment, which leads to a sharp deterioration of the environment. We

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are faced with the hard choice: either abandon the behavior which obstructs the harmonious development of nature and society as the fundamental object of establishing a just social order or accept the natural consequences, that is, accept irreparable and devastating consequences. There are statements everywhere in Foster’s work that are similar to the one that capitalism is essentially anti-ecological. Foster’s discourse explicates the antagonistic relationships between capital, profit, expansion, short-term investment behavior, markets, unlimited accumulation and ecology with great clarity. It is valuable that he elaborates on Marx’s attribution of the ecological crisis to the capitalist system on the basis of fact, which seems both realistic and convincing. To demonstrate the correctness of Marx’s theory that capital is essentially anti-ecological, and that the ultimate source of the ecological crisis is the capitalist system itself, Foster also analyzes the Bush administration’s attitude towards the Kyoto Protocol; he dissects the twists and turns of the “Global Summits” that were held several time with the aim of solving environmental problems; he parses through the “Let the Third World Swallow the Pollution” program proposed by the chief economist of the World Bank. He points out that, “ironically” even though the Kyoto Protocol takes a “very moderate”, “more than anything else symbolic” “small step” in curbing global warming, it also apathetically went down in failure due to opposition and obstruction from the United States under the Bush administration. To illustrate the thoroughly unilateral crookedness of the Bush administration with respect to obstructing the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol, Foster in particular reviews the before and after of President Bush’s speech in which he declared never to return to the Kyoto Protocol on June 11th, 2001. He points out that it becomes transparently visible through this process that the Bush Administration’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol was based on ignoring the conclusions of scientific studies. The Bush administration knew clearly that to do so would be to go against the science, and without hesitation. It had to show its true colors without anyway to reject the Kyoto Protocol in the name of “science.” The Bush Administration was forced to give the real reason behind the refusal, which is in its view was that the price the United States economy would pay for emissions reduction, particularly the price of reducing the emission of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, would be too high, unaffordable. He also shows that the Bush administration often promotes the reason why the United States refuses to implement the Kyoto Protocol, namely to safeguard the national interests of the United States, that is, in order to safeguard the interests of all the American people, even though in fact, the Bush administration is safeguarding the interests of U.S capitalist groups. Whether or not the Bush Administration would ratify the Kyoto agreement depended entirely upon large U.S. enterprises. That

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president Bush opposed the Kyoto Protocol represents not only one administration of the U.S. government but every administration of the U.S. government, which is not only representative of the U.S. Government but of the government of every major capitalist country. His actions reflect the sickness of the capitalist system itself; they are the symbol of “eco-imperialism”. In order to further demonstrate that today’s world is mainly the interests of capital preventing humanity from eliminating the ecological crisis, Foster also analyzes the context of the two “Earth Summits” to support his answer to the question of why the Bush administration strongly obstructs the implementation of “the Kyoto Protocol?” The two “Earth Summits” he mentions were the United Nations Conference on environment and development held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992 and the Conference on Sustainable Development in South Africa’s Johannesburg in 2002. At “The Rio de Janeiro Summit”, when most of the participants were positive in the hope that the Conference would achieve success, the United States President George Bush was already singing a different tune. The tone of his voice could not have formed more disharmony with the basic tune of the whole conference. George Bush simply refused to attend the Conference on sustainable development, held in Johannesburg, South Africa. While some representatives attending the meeting were passionately debating the ecological future of the world, the government under George W. Bush was gearing up to launch the Iraq war, whose true objective was to control the flow of oil even though the excuse given was to eliminate weapons of mass destruction. Foster predicts that since each citizen of the earth is fully aware of the fact that the deterioration of the ecological environment is increasingly serious, and that the topic of environmental justice is becoming the most urgent matter in every region, people will also hold a third and fourth “Earth Summit”, but since people don’t in any way place restrictions on “capitalist accumulation”, and since capital is still so lawless and exponentially expanding, even if such “Earth Summits” were to be held again, the results will end up far from any ideal. The events that followed unfortunately unfolded just as he predicted. For instance, the well-known world climate conference was held in Copenhagen in December 2009, but the meeting failed to reach practical legally-binding agreements; only a so-called memorandum was signed by five countries, the United States, China, India, South Africa and Brazil and the General Assembly did not adopt it overall. The result of this inaction is predictable, at least for him. Foster’s criticism of Bush and the other bourgeois politicians who opposed the “Kyoto Protocol” did not stop there. The direct consequences arising from the Bush Administration’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol and other acts include allowing the increase of emissions of carbon dioxide, and allowing all wanton human behavior destructive to the ecological environment. Of course,

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all life on the planet will suffer from the consequences of such damage to the ecological environment. The capitalists and the agents of capital protect the accumulation of capital at the cost of damaging the ecological environment, but they must eat what they sow, that is they will find it difficult to escape the punishment of backlash from the natural world. They are not living in a “vacuum.” The disastrous effect of global warming brought about by the destruction of the ecological environment threatens not just ordinary people, but them too. Foster shines light on it to say that capitalists and bourgeois politicians facing this situation like Bush display their selfish dog-eat-dog nature. While they manufacture pollution, they do everything possible to let the poor, the people of developing countries to “swallow the pollution”, that is to pass along as far as possible the ecological consequences caused by environmental destruction. Marx states that the conflict between the logic of capital on one hand and nature and ecology on the other is tightly bound to the resistance of the proletariat and the broad masses of working people, which has been verified again here. Foster points out that Marx’s assertion that the ecological crisis mainly arises from the capitalist system is clearly proven correct by evidence from the course of history, but most people in today’s world do everything possible to avoid touching the capitalist system and to solve ecological problems without touching the logic of capital. He critiques all kinds of fantasies of eliminating ecological crises in the world. He dissects these fantasies because instead of being based on the premise of touching the logic of capital, they are built on the basis of the capitalist system, which has had and will continue to have serious adverse consequences. These fantasies include: first, attempting to solve all environmental problems through the “dematerialization” of capitalist economies. So-called “dematerialization” means improving energy efficiency and reducing the amount of waste dumped into the environment. The capitalist economy is trying to “decouple” itself from the model of economic growth that is established on the basis of high input of energy and high output of waste. The essence of this approach is to reduce the impact of GDP growth on the environment per unit of currency. The problem is, under the premise of doing nothing to capitalism, can the capitalist economy be “dematerialized”, that is, can the capitalist economy be transformed into a low-carbon economy? Foster’s answer is categorical: No! He first points out that there are many who have announced that the capitalist economy has already “decoupled” itself from that economic model of high input of energy and high output of waste, but this does not fit the facts. He furthermore notes that the very fact that “dematerialization” in today’s capitalism has not been realized renders problematic the formulation that “dematerialization” is the natural result of capitalist development. Some people still claim that the capitalist system necessarily

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tends toward dematerialization on the basis of its own logic of development, but Foster disagrees with this. For him, the fact that the capitalist world did not achieve “dematerialization” proves that relying on capitalism itself to achieve “dematerialization” is unrealizable. Why can’t the capitalist economy rely on itself to dematerialize? For Foster, achieving “dematerialization” should have support, but the capitalist system is not sufficient to provide such support. The key is, as Marx’s ecological worldview argues, capitalism is a profit-oriented system, and under the premise of worshiping profit, it is impossible to develop in the direction of “dematerialization.” The second fantasy is attempting to solve all environmental problems through the development of science and technology. The rulers of capitalist society always propound this view: as long as technology can improve efficiency, especially energy efficiency, make use of more benign production methods, and remove the most serious pollutants, then all environmental problems can be solved. Foster, with the help of “the Jevons paradox,” gives the following answer. The U.K. economist, Jevons, pointed out: improving the utilization of natural resources will only increase rather than decrease the demand for this resource, because improvements in efficiency will lead to expansion of production scale. The problem is why does capitalist economic development generate “the Jevons paradox”? That is, why does improving the utilization of natural resources and technological innovation increase the demand for natural resources? Foster points out that it is impossible to answer Jevons precisely, he only shows “the Jevons paradox”, but claims it is impossible to conduct an in-depth study into the causes of the phenomenon. In Foster’s view, whether or not technological innovation can solve environmental problems depends entirely on the constraining role that the capitalist principles of accumulation and profit play in relation to technology. And this is actually the study of the problematic relationship between technology and accumulation, and the relationship between the two is that technology is subordinate to accumulation, and accumulation controls technology. And when technology is subordinate to capitalist accumulation, even if there are new technologies that improve the utilization of natural resources, it is impossible to reduce output in the amount of natural resources used. The third fantasy is the attempt to solve all environmental problems by marketing and capitalizing nature. In recent decades, a number of environmental scientists have repeatedly proposed solving all environmental problems by giving economic value to nature and incorporating the environment more fully into the market system. Foster notes that this approach is unfolded in the framework of traditional or neo-classical economics, and traditional or neo-classical economists are admirers of the market. Foster calls the idea of attempting to solve environmental problems by marketing and capitalizing nature the utopian myth built on the belief that the environment can and should become a

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self-regulating market system. He points out that this economic reductionism of reducing natural objects like land to economic functions implies three great errors; it downgrades the relationship between humankind and nature into a market product that is established on the foundation of personal interest above all else, and it must thoroughly sever links with historical precedent; only believing in the market price of nature is problematic, because in fact, nature has its own “intrinsic value; even though the inclusion of nature into the market system may have some function in the short term in solving ecological problems, it has absolutely no long-term function. In the same way that Foster exposes the other fantasies of eliminating the ecological crisis, he points to the principle of capitalist accumulation to expose the absurdity of using the capitalization of nature to solve environmental problems. The fourth fantasy is attempting to address all environmental problems through reforming ethics and establishing ecological ethics. Facing the challenge of the mounting global ecological crisis, some people are calling for a moral revolution that integrates ecological values into culture; they believe that saving the Earth, and eliminating the ecological crisis amounts to transforming people’s ideas. Foster points out that this appeal to new ecological and moral concepts is the essence of Green thinking. This appeal to moral reform often ignores the core institutions of our society, what Foster calls the global treadmill of production. The cause of the ecological crisis is the core system of our society, not someone’s ideas and moral qualities, and those calling for moral reform ignore the core system of our society while garnering focus entirely around people’s ideas and moral qualities. In fact, apart from reforming the core system of our society, it is impossible to achieve the goal of eliminating the ecological crisis by just sticking to our moral sphere, reforming this “inch of land.” Foster does not deny that there are all sorts of immoral ideas about the environment in the minds of ordinary people today, but he points out that people should not fixate on ordinary people’s immoral ideas about the environment, but should primarily focus on the “higher immorality”. The “higher immorality” he mentions refers to the structural immorality of authority in this society of ours. Since the immorality of common people is commanded by “a higher immorality”, if you want to engage in moral revolution, then the primary issue is overturning the command of the “higher immorality” rather than the command of common people’s unethical ideas about the environment. Because this “higher immorality” is determined by “the treadmill of production”, ultimately moral revolution means overturning the command of this “treadmill of production”. Whether it is Foster’s research on Marx’s ecological worldview, or his analysis of the status of the ecological environment in the contemporary world, the goal of exploration is humanity’s path out of the ecological crisis. Because he

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determines the malignant cause of today’s world falling into grave ecological crisis to be capitalism, or more precisely, the capitalist logic of the accumulation, he asserts that humanity’s way out of the ecological crisis is resisting the capitalist system, and specifically, confronting the capitalist logic of capital accumulation. Then how does humanity concretely carry out this resistance in the process of fighting the ecological crisis and constructing ecological civilization? In other words, with regard to which aspects should humanity begin this fight with the capitalist system in order to achieve the elimination of the ecological crisis and the construction of ecological civilization? This is precisely where Foster focuses his discussion. Foster proposes a series of concepts, propositions and judgments in the course of his discussion, and we may understand where his train of thought is heading with the help of these concepts, propositions and judgments. One, this requires a form of intellectual resistance. Foster points out that people are often seduced by those instigators loyal to the God of profit and production, who deflects our attention; on the one hand, it gives us the feeling that crisis is not so serious; on the other hand, it stops us from linking the root cause of the ecological crisis to the current economic system; on the contrary, it still regards the current economic system that is leading to the deterioration of the global environment as the locus of hope for solving all the problems that it brings about. In this case, to get out of the ecological crisis we should realistically describe the conflict between ecology and capitalism, that is, illuminate the anti-ecological nature of capitalism. And doing that requires a form of intellectual resistance, namely, mercilessly critiquing the existing means of production and ideas of production, which carry out the rapacious exploitation of the environment. Foster believes that what is most important for engaging in intellectual resistance is revealing the real source of the ecological crisis, and we must abandon the common practice of analyzing the causes of the ecological crisis from the biological, demographic and technological perspectives, and look outside of these factors to explain why today’s ecological crisis gains in intensity by the day, that is we should be pointing the spearhead at the contemporary mode of production, and especially the capitalist system. Second, go beyond the bottom line of the moneydriven economy. Foster believes that there is a “basic bottom line” in the contemporary capitalist mode of production, this is, everything is for the sake of seeking profit; he calls this “the bottom line of the money-driven economy.” In his view, only by going beyond the bottom line can we establish a new mode of production, and the new mode of production would be democratically organized on the basis of the needs of the immediate producers, and focused on systems of production that meet the whole of human needs. This new mode of production must be bound to the sustainable development of nature. So, there

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are two different modes of production before us, and accordingly, two different types of bottom line as well: one is the capitalist mode of production, whose bottom line is profit; the other is the socialist mode of production, whose bottom line is meeting the whole of human needs. Only by going beyond the first bottom line of production can we establish the second bottom line of production. This going beyond is in fact changing the purpose of production. In Foster’s view, in order to protect the ecological environment, the key today is changing the purpose of production, namely, changing the purpose of production from making profit to satisfying the whole of human needs. And this change is the changing of the logic of capital accumulation, the whole capitalist mode of production. Third, putting people first. Foster proposes the proposition of “putting people first” when discussing the establishment of the new mode of production for the sake of meeting the whole of human needs. In his view, in the fight to protect the environment, it is most important to continue putting people first. Putting people first stands in foremost opposition to “putting production first,” and even “putting the environment first.” In comparing people and production, people are the end, while production is the means. We cannot produce for the sake of producing, nor can we produce for the sake of making profit. Production should always revolve around the service of meeting the needs of people. Second, the term “people” specifically refers to the poor majority, the majority of people in the lower class. Since these people in poverty are most affected by ecological destruction, when committing to the struggle for environmental protection, we should first be concerned with the interests of these people in poverty. Finally, “putting people first” is based on human needs, but the needs spoken of here refer to the whole of basic, natural needs, not those “false needs” imposed on people by consumer society, like for example, the endless pursuit of money, the pursuit of material comforts. Four, we must construct a human relation to nature that is based on “freedom in general”. Foster believes that we live at a time when it is reasonable to speak of the possibility of complete ecological destruction, in virtually the same sense that critics of nuclear armaments have often referred to the possibility of complete nuclear destruction. However, in order to eliminate this danger, the corresponding social action that human beings are adopting is moving at an unusually slow pace. One of the reasons is that the idea in people’s brains of the sacred inviolability of freedom plays a role. Facing this situation, he believes it is necessary to revisit what kind of freedom it is that people are pursuing. In his view, the key reason why this idea of freedom is necessarily anti-ecological is that it is associated with extreme individualism, and the freedom spoken of here is purely personal freedom. In his view, revealing the incompatibility between the idea of freedom that is popular today and ecological

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protection is not for the sake of fundamentally denying the meaning of freedom, that is, it is not for the sake of arguing that freedom must be completely expelled from the relationship between human being and nature in order to protect the ecological environment. In order to protect the ecological environment what people must do today is get rid of this widely popular mechanistic idea about human freedom, and meanwhile, implement a “universal, holistic freedom,” and establish the relationship between human being and nature on the basis of this universal, holistic freedom. Five, what is important is “having enough, not having more.” Foster notes that the concept of “sustainable development” has entered wide circulation and has become widely familiar to the ear since the 1992 Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit. But if sustainable development is only understood as sustainable economic growth and sustainable growth of consumption, adding this qualifier “sustainable” in front of the word “development” still does not eliminate the serious destruction that development brings to the environment. The key is that sustainable economic development is not equivalent to the environmental coordination of sustainable development. He stresses that, first of all, one cannot understand development solely as economic development, and this development should be all-around development, that is, it should not be development in conflict with environmental protection. Second, even if it is economic development, it cannot be unrestricted development, and should be moderate. When developing the economy, we cannot follow the maxim of “the more, the better” and must follow the standard of “just enough and no more” to meet basic human needs and ensure long-term security. He stresses having enough, not having more. Six is the importance of putting land ethics into practice. Foster believes that an important feature of today’s society is people’s loss of “sense of place”. It is the exploitative model of the relationship between human being and nature that brings about the so-called “lack of ownership” of the Earth. What accompanies ecological imperialism is that destruction of people’s feeling of residing on Earth. Living as “residents” in the ecosystem has been replaced by the modern sense of the term “population.” Facing this scenario, Foster believes it is necessary to think about the issue of establishing the possibility of “land ethics.” He wants “to put ethics into practice” and humanity must build new ecological ethics, to replace the current amoral and even immoral practices of treating the environment. Today there is the illusion that people are just living in sites of consumption instead of sites of production, mistaking nature to be nothing more than the “external environment,” that is, the place where you get resources and dump waste. We can only dispel this illusion through the building of new ecological ethics, just as Marx refers to nature as our “external body,” as an integral part of humanity. Seven, the importance of the socialization of nature.

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Forster strongly criticizes the privatization of nature. In his view, equating sustainable development with “the pricing of the Earth” is the same as equivocally speaking of economic expansionism and nature in the same breath. It is impossible for humankind to internalize all environmental costs in the economic environment of profit creation, because it is impossible to internalize all social and environmental costs in the structure of the private market. Just imagine the following and it becomes perfectly clear: rising land costs have never stopped the building up of architecture and the hardening of the cement of the urban landscape. In opposition to the privatization of nature, Foster argues for the socialization of nature. In his famous book, the Fragile Planet, he calls for realizing the socialization of nature for the first time. The last chapter of his book is entitled “the socialization of nature.” He argues that the socialization of nature is essentially placing nature under public protection. He stresses that the more nature is placed under the people’s protection, the more effective environmental protection becomes, and on the contrary, if nature were given over to capital, it would necessarily result in ignoring the collective goal of sustainability, and provide the possibility for the private control and plunder of nature in all its forms. Eight is the notion that environmental revolution necessitates social revolution. Foster believes that human labor shapes the basis of the metabolic relationship between human beings and nature, so the socialization of nature can only be fully realized in accompaniment with the socialization of production. In this sense, the environmental revolution will lead to social revolution. Only through the democratic, organized, social management of production and nature, can the world gain the hope of being commonly cared for by humankind, gain the hope that the interests of our next generation can continue, and gain the hope that nature may not be indiscriminately developed by those individuals who are only out for short-term goals. Foster does not hesitate to say that ecological struggle is in fact class struggle. He stresses that reality mercilessly tells people: environmental crisis already exists in capitalist society all around the globe. To protect the ecological environment, beginning the desperate struggle against capitalism is already unavoidable. And now that ecological struggle is essentially class struggle, the ultimate culmination of the ecological struggle is the replacement of capitalism by socialism. He states that the eco-socialist struggle should unequivocally be the goal. The ecological struggle consists of changing the relations of production in the direction of socialism, which allows social production to seek not exchange value, not the goal of profit, but real, universal, natural needs.

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The Theoretical Basis of Ecological Civilization People are increasingly troubled by the ecological crisis. People regard the elimination of the ecological crisis and the construction of ecological civilization as the biggest problem that the world faces today. It is well known that if humankind cannot cross this threshold today, humankind’s prospects will be bleak. The problem is, what theory is capable of guiding humankind in the elimination of ecological crises and in the building of ecological civilization? Where are we going to discover the theoretical basis for the elimination of the ecological crisis and the construction of ecological civilization? At present, because the variety of popular “green” theories have tightly bound modernity, science and technology to the degradation of nature, such theories do not regard capitalism but modernity itself as the key to solving environmental problems, as can be seen in the advocates of “environmentalism” whose strong nostalgia and pessimism color the environmental movement, which others increasingly abandon and despise. It is against this background that many left-wing scholars from the West, and especially some Western theorists of “eco-Marxism,” persuasively show people that: the elimination of the ecological crisis and the construction of ecological civilization requires a theoretical basis which humanity can only find in Marxism, and Marx’s ecological theory is fully qualified to guide humankind through the elimination of the ecological crisis and the building of ecological civilization. An important aspect of the contemporary significance of Marxism is reflected in the value that it holds in the task of guiding people through the elimination of the ecological crisis and the building of ecological civilization. Among these Western left-wing scholars and theorists of “eco-Marxism,” John Bellamy Foster, a sociology professor at the University of Oregon and editor-in-chief of Monthly Review, is an outstanding representative.

Constructing a Marxist Theory of Ecology

As Forster points out, people hold the longstanding belief that Marx’s system of thought does not include an ecological theory, so it seems that Marx may at most hold directive significance for reforming human society, but with respect to reforming human being’s relation to nature, Marx not only appears to possess no positive meaning, but also seems to affect human being’s relation to © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004356009_004

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nature negatively. Those who hold this view are the radical Western ecologists, the theorists of the green movement, and some who call themselves Marxist as well. At the same time, Forster also notes that in recent years there has been some changes in the views of the international academic community as to whether there is any ecological theory in Marxian ideology. Foster sates, “even many of Marx’s most virulent critics have been forced to admit of late that his work contains numerous, remarkable ecological insights”.1 He quotes the Italian physicist M. Quaini’s words to illustrate this point, “Marx … denounced the spoliation of nature before a modern bourgeois ecological conscience was born”.2 However, in Foster’s view, the current international academic world’s acknowledgment of Marx’s ecological theory is extremely superficial and fragmented, and does not systematically grasp its fundamentals in depth. He parses out the current international academic world’s knowledge of Marx’s ecological theory into the following six points of view which have intrinsic logical connections to one another. First, the ecological statements in Marxian thought have no systematic relation to the main body of his works; they are only ‘illuminating asides’ that appear throughout Marx’s works, and for this reason they may be entirely neglected. Second, these ecological insights are said to arise disproportionately from his early critique of alienation, and are much less evident in his later works; Third, Marx, we are told, ultimately failed to address the exploitation of nature (neglecting to incorporate it into his theory of value), and adopted instead a “Promethean” (pro-technological, anti-ecological) view. Fourth, as a corollary to the “Promethean” argument, it is contended that, in Marx’s view, capitalist technology and economic development will solve all problems concerning ecological limits, and that the future society of associated producers will exist under conditions of abundance. It would not be necessary therefore, as economist Alex Nova writes while supposedly conveying Marx’s logic, “to take seriously the problem of the allocation of scarce resources” or to develop an “ecologically conscious” socialism. Fifth, Marx is said to have taken little interest in issues of science or in the effects of technology on the environment and hence had no real scientific basis for the analysis of ecological 1  See also J. B. Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 9 J. B. Foster’s work has been translated into Chinese, published by Higher Education Press in 2006. In the translation of J. B Foster’s original text, see the Chinese translation. 2  J. B. Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 9.

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issues; Sixth, Marx is said to have been “speciesist,” to have radically disconnected human beings from animals, and to have taken sides with the former over the latter.3 Foster certainly does not agree with all these arguments about Marx’s ecological thought. He states that he is going to resolutely critique all such arguments. He points out in opposition to them that “Marx’s world-view is deeply, and indeed systematically ecological”.4 The modifier “deeply” points to grasping the root of things, answering and resolving the ecological problems that humankind faces today in terms of their foundation; the modifier “systematically” points to the formation of a complete system, a comprehensive exposition of ecological problems. It is because Marx’s ecological theory is deep and systematic that his ecological theory may be taken up ready-made as a guiding ideology for humankind in the construction of ecological civilization. In an interview, where he points out that his view stands in contradiction with some of the assumptions now prevalent in relation to Marx and Marxist thought, he explicitly replies: Yes, my writings are the opposite of the understanding of Marx. He repeatedly stresses Here, Marx actually provides a lot of insights about regulating our relationship to the natural world, and about the ways in which environmental processes are intricately bound up with the development of society and social relations.5 Grounded in this basic judgment about Marxian thought, he disagrees with what some ecological socialists put forward for the sake of grafting popular strands of Western green theory onto Marx’s ecological theory. In his view, Marx’s ecological theory does not need green theory to complement and perfect it, because it is perfect by itself. Furthermore, the “grafting” of two things, which differ intrinsically, does not produce the “now required organic compounds.” He cites Bacon’s passage in the New Tool to demonstrate his viewpoint: We can look in vain for advancement in scientific knowledge from the super inducing and grafting of new things on old. A fresh start must be

3  Ibid., pp. 9–10. 4  Ibid., p. viii. 5  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 6.

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made, beginning from the very foundations, unless we want to go round for ever in a circle, making trifling, almost contemptible progress.6 At the same time, he does not agree with what some people argue that the Marxian standpoint is “green”, which would make it seem as if there is no ecological theory in Marx, and that Marxism therefore needs to be transformed in order to overcome this conflict with ecology. He stresses that a profound ecological theory is implied in Marxism, and that Marx not only systematically critiques the alienation of humankind and nature, but also makes a fruitful exploration of how this alienation is to be overcome; from the beginning, Marxism has always been a “red theory” with richly green content, and the revisionist interpretation of Marxism in light of green theory damages it.

Ecological Theory in Marx’s Work

Marx’s system of thought contains a profound and systematic ecological theory, but this theory exists only potentially in the writings of Marx and still needs to be excavated. For most people, this theory is only “an underappreciated source of inspiration;”7 this is Foster’s understanding of Marx’s ecological theory, and the main reason feuling his research as well. The mission he sets out for himself is “the reconstruction of Marx’s ecological thought”.8 If Marx’s system of thought obviously contains a profound and systematic ecological theory, then how is it possible that people ignore its existence rather than dig for it, let alone use it to guide the building of ecological civilization? This is what Foster explores in detail. In his view, two basic premises must be established in order to truly grasp Marx’s ecological theory and the value of this theory: First, one must have an accurate understanding of the essence and root causes of the ecological crisis that humankind faces today; Second, one must also have an accurate understanding of the purpose and essence of Marx’s system of thought. If one does not accurately understand the former, even if Marx’s ecological theory clearly exists, one will even go so far as mistaking Marxian theory to be anti-ecological, and look at it in inverted color; If Marx’s system of thought is not properly understood, even if the view of the current ecological crisis is accurate, there is no way to learn anything useful 6  J. B. Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. viii. 7  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 4. 8  J. B. Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 10.

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from Marx’s works. In his view, the sad thing about the current fate of Marxism is the whole human tragedy that some cannot correctly make judgments about the root causes of the ecological crisis, so they turn a blind eye to the value of Marx’s ecological theory, and others, even if they have a correct understanding of the root causes of the ecological crisis, cannot discover the existence of Marx’s ecological theory because they misinterpret Marxism. Here we turn to the specifics of his analysis: Foster is mainly pointing to some radical ecologists when he states that the misunderstanding of the essence and root cause of the ecological crisis leads to the degrading and even distorting of Marx’s ecological theory. He points out that a strong tendency in contemporary green theory has emerged, and this tendency is to attribute the whole process of ecological degradation to the scientific revolution pioneered by Francis Bacon. Francis Bacon is considered the initiator of the idea of “the domination of nature.” It is this concept of “the domination of nature” that breeds anthropocentrism, thus bringing about the crisis of nature in which humankind is lingering. He states: Today, it is often assumed that being ‘ecological’ means approaching the environment in a highly spiritualized and idealistic manner, and steering clear of the instrumental, reductive, and antagonistic attitude toward nature supposedly exemplified by science and the Enlightenment Accordingly, being an environmentalist means rejecting ‘anthropocentric’ ideals, cultivating a spiritual awareness of the inherent value of nature, and maybe even placing nature above human beings.9 These ecologists have attributed the ecological crisis that humankind faces today to science and technology, modern industrial civilization, modernity, materialism and the Enlightenment. Therefore, this crisis is the crisis of science and technology, industrial civilization, modernity, Materialism, and the enlightenment itself. From the seventeenth century to the twentieth almost all thinkers, with the exception of a few poets, artists and cultural critics, stand condemned in this view for adherence to anti-ecological values and the deification of progress.10

9   J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 5. 10   J.B. Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, pp. 11–12.

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Marx, of course, also stands amongst these thinkers. In the view of these ecologists, Marxian ideology is no doubt an inheritor of the Enlightenment tradition. Moreover, Marxist philosophy is a materialism that advocates science and progress, so Marx is as anti-ecological as any other Enlightenment thinker. From this analysis, Foster draws the conclusion that these ecologists call Marx an anti-ecological thinker because they link the ecological crisis to science and materialism. He remarks: “The failure to appreciate fully the contributions of Marx arises, in part, from the growing tendency to regard ecological values and forms of understanding as fundamentally at odds with scientific and materialist modes of thought.”11 Here, the key point is accusing Marx of advocating science and technology, “Hence, Marx is attacked for his supposed technological ‘Prometheanism’ ”, even though the strongest attack ever written against such “Promethean” views was leveled by Marx himself; the second point is criticizing Marx’s materialism, which runs into the most basic accusation that “Marx’s materialism is said to have led him to emphasize a kind of ‘Baconian’ domination of nature and economic development, rather than asserting ecological values”.12 Foster rightly points out that as long as these ecologists simply sum up ecological problems as a matter of values and ignore the much more difficult problem of the material relation between human being and nature, then they will never discover the ecological value of Marx’s thought. He points to those thinkers who write under the banner of Marxism, when he states that even if they do not attribute the root cause of the ecological crisis either to science, materialism, modernity or to Enlightenment itself, due to their inability to accurately grasp the essence of Marxian thought, they are still unable to reveal the ecological viewpoint deeply embedded in Marxian thought. He points out that Marx did transform the general materialism into practical materialism, “that in making materialism practical, Marx never abandoned his general commitment to a materialist conception of nature, that is, to materialism as both an ontological and an epistemological category”.13 He stresses that one cannot just ignore the fact that Marx holds to the ontological standpoint of “realism” (namely that Marx holds to the firm belief in the independent existence of the external physical world in relation to thought), because Marx’s materialism is practical materialism. In the field of social history, Marx fought resolutely against idealism’s reduction of reality to a priori ideas and abstract cultural concepts, and the powerful ideological weapon that 11  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 5. 12  J. B. Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 10. 13  Ibid., p. 6.

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he uses to carry out this struggle is historical materialism, but it must be noted that Marx’s historical materialism does not deny the “the natural-physical aspect of material existence” and thereby completely empty his own materialism of all content, and if Marx’s historical materialism does not contain materialist content, then even in the field of social history, Marx’s critique of idealism would be absolutely powerless. After this discussion, Foster further remarks that it is a great pity that the popular tendency of Marxist research today is stressing that Marxism’s materialism is practical materialism and historical materialism, and meanwhile, eliminating the essence of Marxism as ontological and epistemological materialism. They “have increasingly rejected realism and materialism, adopting the view that the social world was constructed in the entirety of its relations by human practice”. He believes that “within Marxism this represented a turn in an idealist direction”.14 Because of such a change, in Marxism, as if only Engels, and not Marx, held to Marxism’s materialist conception of nature. Foster stresses that in doing so they bring about “the tragic result” in Marxism that “the concept of materialism became increasingly abstract and indeed meaningless, a mere ‘verbal category’,” inseparable from a reified conception of the famous “base-superstructure” metaphor.15 While Marxism is said to lack materialism, Marxism is also pushed away from the natural sciences. Because, in fact, materialism and the natural sciences are closely linked in Marxism, Marx himself always consistently held the view that, “science that it be materialist, if it were to be scientific at all”.16 Because of this, while expounding his materialist point of view, Marx labored relentlessly, throughout his life, to keep abreast with developments in the natural sciences. Foster draws attention to the fact that among Marxian researchers the idea is very popular that only Engels holds to such a materialism, and that this has nothing to do with Marx. He emphasizes that “this view is wrong”.17 In Foster’s view, as long as it bears no relation with materialism and is isolated from the natural sciences, it is impossible for any doctrine to make a difference in the fight for ecological protection and in the transformation of human being’s relation to nature, and once these so-called Marxist thinkers forcibly turn Marxism into an anti-scientific idealism, the glory of Marx’s ecological theory indeed fades.

14  Ibid., p. 8. 15  Ibid. 16  Ibid., p. 9. 17  Ibid.

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The Essence of Marx’s Philosophical Materialism

Foster explicitly states that what he refers to as the second category includes, of course, the “Western Marxist” thinkers represented by Lukács. These “Western Marxist” thinkers (aside from the “Western Marxist” of the structuralist tradition) oppose the simple separation of superstructure and economic base, because they lack a thorough and comprehensive materialism, and so ultimately emphasize the interdependence of the two. He points out that these “Western Marxist” theorists simply do not understand Marx’s materialism as a thorough and comprehensive materialism, “which may only be produced by connecting it to real nature, physical conditions, and the sphere of sensation, and so to the much broader sphere of nature”.18 In his view, the “Western Marxist” thinkers are no worse than the other Marxian theorists who have turned Marxism into an anti-scientific idealism, and even though the trends of “Western Marxism” that they have created have made an immortal contribution to the “rectification of the name” of Marxism, they have committed grave mistakes in erasing the materialist essence of Marxism, and thereby have brought about pernicious consequences. In this way, we observe such a phenomenon, where some of the “Western Marxist” thinkers of today stand in serious opposition to ecocentrism on the question of the cause of the ecological crisis, resolutely opposing the classification of science and technology, materialism, and modernity as the enemies of ecological civilization, but when they make arguments to this effect, they often suffer from failing to find a direct basis in Marxist writings. In fact, it is not true that there is no such basis in the writings of Marxism; rather, it is just that Marxism has already fallen to their warped interpretations, so they simply cannot understand where the basis is to be found. Foster himself admits that for much of his life he did not realize that Marxian theory possesses an ecological viewpoint with great contemporary value, the main reason being that he had been following Lukács and other “Western Marxist” theorists. He states: My path to ecological materialism was blocked by the Marxism that I had learned over the years. My philosophical grounding had been in Hegel and the Hegelian Marxist revolt against positivist Marxism, which began in the 1920s in the work of Lukács, Korsch, and Gramsci, and which had carried over into the Frankfurt school and the New Left.19

18  Ibid. 19  Ibid., p. vii.

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“Western Marxism” committed itself to the critique of the positivist trend of Marxism, and the powerful means that were employed to carry out this critique was the Hegelianization of Marxism. Therefore, “Western Marxism” is a Hegelian Marxism. Foster admits that the Marxism he accepted was Hegelian. Hegelian Marxism is sometimes called practical materialism, a practical materialism mixed in with a variety of “historical and cultural” theories. It is clear that in such a “mixture”, there does not appear to be any room for a Marxist approach to the study of nature and natural-physical sciences. He recalls the process of his acceptance of Marxism, repeatedly stressing that their original knowledge of Marxist materialism was as a practical materialism, and that “This materialism involved Hegel’s idealism and the challenger of Feuerbach’s materialism, but ignored the wider range of materialism and history in philosophy and science.” Given their education, Lukács and the other “Western Marxist” theorists disregarded the most basic fact: Marx has always been a materialist, and his conception of ecology derives from his materialism. He states that “the theoretical legacy of Lukács and Korsch which I had internalized, denied the possibility of the application of dialectical modes of thinking to nature”.20 But truly being capable of revealing the value of Marx’s ecological viewpoint and applying Marx’s dialectical thought to the analysis of human being’s relation to nature requires breaking free of the theoretical heritage of “Western Marxism” and breaking out of the way of thought forged by Lukács, Gramsci and the others. He thinks that he already broke free from this way of thought under the influence of some true Marxian theorists who revolved around the Monthly Review magazine, and when the consciousness of Marx’s materialism rose to his mind, I also clearly see the intrinsic link between Marxism and the natural sciences, and see the existence of a living ecological point of view in Marxism. Foster stresses in a conversation that Marx in effect offers profound insights as regards regulating our relation to nature and the way that the environmental undertaking is closely bound to the development of society and social relations. Some Marxist researchers fail to recognize this point, and the key lies in the deviation that occurred in the understanding of the Marxist ideology. In his view, the Marxists who followed Marx did not actually follow the right direction in tracing back the origins of Marx and in understanding Marx, and thus the core of Marx’s ecological thinking was lost. Here, he specifically refers to two aspects of Marxist researchers, the anti-positivism of ‘Western Marxism’ often manifested itself in a simple neglect of or hostility toward science. In contrast, the ‘dialectical 20  Ibid.

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materialism’ coming out of the Soviet Union was overly positivistic and rested on a fetishized and distorted conception of science. The former is a hermeneutic, humanistic tradition that rejects science altogether, the latter is a mechanized science that doesn’t leave room for human beings. Neither of these two interpretations of Marxism which go in diametrically opposed directions are capable of revealing the value of the ecological viewpoint in Marxist theory. Foster states, What we need is a more rational materialism that squarely addresses ecological issues and incorporates a concern for ecological crises and he need for sustainability into its economic perspective, and Marx was one of the thinkers who first laid out the principles for this type of materialism.21

Insights from Marx’s Ecological Theory

We have reviewed some of Foster’s views on Marx’s ecological theory. Foster offers a comprehensive and profound study of Marx’s ecological theory, but his theoretical achievements go far beyond this. He is still in the prime of his life, and he continues to introduce the new results of his research on this issue. We intend to follow up on his research on the one hand, and on the other hand, explore other aspects of his theoretical achievements in greater depth. Here, what we would like to say is that with respect to these elements noted above, we already deeply appreciate the penetrating insight of his theoretical achievements. His theory has produced a stunning effect on us. We believe that the above-mentioned views on Marx’s ecological theory give us profound inspiration at least in the following areas: First, in order to get rid of the ecological crisis and build an ecological civilization, we must take guidance from the correct theory. This theory can only be Marxism. Although Marxian ecological theory still awaits more adequate realization, and although in some sense, it is just a potential source of inspiration for solving ecological problems, we must not underestimate its value and significance. Whether humankind can finally get out of ecological dilemmas and obtain a better life to a large extent depends on whether we can truly bring the banner of Marxism to guide us in the solution of ecological problems. Accordingly, whether or not Marxism can gain new vitality under the 21  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 6.

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new historical conditions depends mainly on whether or not it can exercise its function in guiding people in the solution of ecological problems. The theoretical system of Marxism clearly envelops a deep-seated ecological perspective, but people tend to turn a blind eye to it. The reason behind this consists not only in misunderstanding the cause of the ecological crisis, namely seeing it as brought about by materialism, science and technology and modernity itself, but even more so in inaccurately understanding Marxism, namely in turning Marxism into anti-scientific idealism. To truly uncover and show the ecological perspective inherent in Marxism, two conditions must be met: correctly grasping the root cause of the ecological crisis and correctly understanding Marxism. Thirdly, the “Western Marxist” theorists, represented by Lukács, bear undeniable responsibility in hindering the excavation and development of Marx’s ecological viewpoint. Despite their contributions to the fight against the positivist trends of Marxism, at the same time they forged a Hegelianism within Marxism itself. Their study of Marxism influenced an entire generation. They reduced Marxist philosophy to practical materialism, and denied that Marxist philosophy is ontological and epistemological materialism, which hollowed out the materialist content from Marxian philosophy and brought about pernicious theoretical consequences. It is necessary to re-evaluate the historical role of “Western Marxism” pioneered by Lukács and others. Fourth, to truly uncover the hidden ecological perspective in Marxian ideology, it is crucial to revive the materialist essence of Marxian philosophy. Marxism’s great potential to deal with ecological problems comes from its materialism, which is the basis of Marxian social theory. Marx’s ecological point of view is directly based on the materialist essence of his conception of nature and history. Marx’s ecological worldview is inseparably and intrinsically linked to his materialist conception of nature and history. Without the latter, there is no way to resolve problems in the former. Fifth, Marx’s ecological viewpoint is formed on the basis of summarizing and absorbing the theoretical achievements of predecessors and contemporaries, among which Epicurus, Darwin and Liebig have made great contributions to the formation of Marx’s ecological viewpoint. Therefore, the study of Marx’s ecological point of view must start from the study of Marx’s relationship with these three individuals. By studying the real connection between Marx and Epicurus, one comes to understand that Marx’s practical materialism has never been separated from the deep materialist view of nature inherent in his thought. By studying the real connection between Marx and Darwin, one discovers how Marx establishes the basic principle of human being’s relation to nature. By studying the real connection between Marx and Liebig, one

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discovers how Marx exposes the essence of the ecological crisis with the concept of “the metabolic rift”. Sixth, the core of Marx’s ecological viewpoint is explaining that we cannot observe ecological problems without bringing up the capitalist mode of production. Contradictions between human beings must be revealed through shedding light on the conflicts between human being and nature. As long as the rule of capitalist profit is still dominant, solving ecological problems remains a pipe dream. Human beings indeed face the harsh choice: either faithfully serve the God of production for profit and endure ecological and social crises that will become increasingly uncontrollable, or reject the God of production for profit in the fight for harmonious coevolution of nature and human society. The ultimate way to solve ecological problems is to transform the capitalist mode of production and way of life into the socialist mode of production and way of life.

CHAPTER 2

The Ecological Implications of Marx’s Materialist View of Nature Foster stresses: “A thoroughgoing ecological analysis requires a standpoint that is both materialist and dialectical.”1 What he means is, only materialism and dialectics can provide weapons of thought to the fight for understanding and solving ecological problems. Whether humanity can ultimately get out of the ecological predicament completely depends on the historical fate of materialism and dialectics, which is to say that if materialism and dialectics succeed in becoming humanity’s predominant method of thought, the resolution of ecological problems will come about sooner or later, and with wind in our sails, but if materialism and dialectics are spit out by humanity, and humanity drifts further and further away from materialism and dialectics, resolving ecological problems will forever remain one of humanity’s dreams, and humanity will forever be more than willing but lacking in power to struggle in the face of ecological predicaments. Grounded in this basic understanding, Foster also emphasizes that the progress made by humanity with respect to ecology is synchronous with humanity’s achievement in philosophical materialism and dialectics. The development of ecology predominantly manifests itself as the progression of the theories of materialism and dialectics. He thus argues: In fact, the greatest developments in the evolution of ecological thought up through the nineteenth century were results of the rise to prominence of materialist conceptions of nature, interacting with changing historical conditions.2 Because materialism, dialectics and ecology are so closely linked together in Foster’s view, his exposition of Marx’s ecological viewpoint and his explication of Marx’s materialist and dialectical theory are complementary and interdependent. This is to say that in Foster’s view, as long as we make it clear that materialism and dialectics hold dominant positions in Marx’s philosophical ideas, this is equivalent to revealing the ecological implications of Marxian theory. In a certain sense, he transforms the exposition of the implications of Marx’s 1  J. B. Foster, Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 15. 2  Ibid., p. 13.

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ecological theory and contemporary values into the exposition of Marx’s materialism and dialectics. Also, in light of the fact that people might not hold any significant objections to Marx’s dialectical method, and yet many disagree with respect to whether or not Marx is a materialist even among researchers of Marxism, he mainly focuses on the study of the problem as to whether Marx’s philosophical viewpoint is materialist or not. He believes that Marx’s materialism includes both the materialist conception of nature and the materialist conception of history. Let us first take a look at how he proves that Marx’s conception of nature is materialist and how he proves that Marx deduces his ecological viewpoint from the materialist conception of nature.

Marx’s Materialist Conception of Nature in his Doctoral Thesis

In Foster’s view, early in his youth as a “left-wing Hegelian,” Marx began to ponder the conflict between philosophy and materialism, and tried to go beyond “left-wing Hegelian” idealism. Because of this, Marx’s materialist conception of nature actually began to form early in his youth. We should first study the materialist viewpoint of his younger period to research Marx’s materialist conception of nature. Concretely speaking, we should first study Marx’s doctoral thesis “Difference of Natural Philosophy between Democritus and Epicurus”. Why did Marx have a special love for Epicurus among so many philosophers in ancient Greece and even call Epicurus “the greatest enlightenment thinker of ancient Greece”? Foster believes the reason is Epicurus is the greatest materialist thinker of ancient Greece, and it was precisely the materialist theory of Epicurus that caught Marx’s attention. This clearly suggests that Marx gravitated toward materialism the moment he stepped onto the philosophical stage. He strongly opposes those who see Marx’s doctoral dissertation as the description of Epicurus’s self-consciousness with Hegel’s terminology, and who thereby erase the link between Epicureanism and the materialism of the British and French enlightenment. He stresses that Marx’s doctoral thesis is not merely an anomaly left over from his Hegelian period, and moreover that it went beyond Hegel’s viewpoint and came to terms with the materialist dialectic of Epicurus. Furthermore, Marx’s doctoral thesis, by an “indirect attempt,” “comes to grip with the problem that the materialist tradition of the English and French Enlightenments—drew heavily upon Epicurus for his inspiration”.3 Foster uses the following two points as grounds to prove that what Marx’s doctoral thesis states is that the materialist view of nature is extremely convincing. 3  Ibid., pp. 32–33.

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First, Marx highly appreciates the Epicurean critique and denial of teleology. Foster critiques those who research Marx’s doctoral thesis for neglecting and even ignoring Marx’s appreciation for Epicurus’ opposition to religious teleology. Actually, the historical development of Marx’s philosophy begins precisely with his appreciation of Epicurus’s opposition to religious teleology. Getting to know the philosophical viewpoint of young Marx begins with analyzing Marx’s appreciation of Epicurus’s opposition to religious teleology. He thinks that Marx critiques religion for the first time in his doctoral dissertation under the influence of Epicurus, and called for driving out every supernatural and teleological principle from nature. Marx even sees opposition to religious teleology as the salient feature of Epicurean philosophy. Marx points out that according to Epicurus, it is “in fear, and specifically in an inner fear that cannot be extinguished,” “man is determined as an animal,” “short of all self-determination”, and this fear is brought about by religion, and making man passive like an animal is the greatest sin of religion. It is precisely because Epicurean philosophy is opposed to religion as Marx shows that “Epicurus makes God disappear from the world”,4 and this is why every supporter of the Christian faith hates Epicurus so much to the point of calling him “swine”. Marx and Engels show this point in the German Ideology: Lucretius praised Epicurus as the hero who was the first to overthrow the gods and trample religion underfoot; for this reason, among all church fathers, from Plutarch to Luther, Epicurus has always had the reputation of being the atheist philosopher par excellence, and was called a swine. for which reason, too, Clement of Alexandria says that when Paul takes up arms against philosophy he has in mind Epicurean philosophy alone.5 The point Foster is trying to make is that in the process of appreciating Epicurus’s opposition to religious teleology Marx gradually gave shape to his own materialist conception of nature. Here, Marx sees the essence of Epicurean materialism as the idea of the death of the human universe. In his view, this is Marx’s key to studying Epicurus. Epicurus drives God out of nature and this deeply influences Marx to the point of becoming the cornerstone of Marx’s view of nature. He believes that Marx’s following discourse explains the problem quite clearly:

4  Ibid., p. 58. 5  See Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3, People’s Publishing House, First Edition, p. 147.

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Philosophy, as long as a drop of blood shall pulse in its world-subduing and absolutely free heart, will never grow tired of answering its adversaries with the cry of Epicurus: ‘Not the man who denies the gods worshipped by the multitude, but he who affirms of the gods what the multitude believes about them, is truly impious.’6 According to Foster, What Marx values is precisely the light and enlightenment of materialism that Epicurus gives to humanity in the process of opposing religious teleology. He thus states: For Marx, Epicurus represented the bringing of light or enlightenment, which was rejection of the religious view of nature—a materialism which was also a form of naturalism and humanism. Epicurus’ philosophy emphasized the sensational and empirical world, and yet recognized the role of reason in interpreting that world, and thus had no need in its interpretation of the world for the gods, who dwelt simply in the spaces between the worlds.7 Foster, of course, also notices that Marx was still a member of the young Hegelians when he affirmed Epicurus’s opposition to religious teleology, and Marx’s doctoral thesis declaring that he affirms Epicurus’s opposition to religious teleology is still just a “transitional work.” But in his view, this does not mean that Marx’s viewpoint at that time was unrelated to materialism. The key to all of this is that Marx saw Hegelianism as a revolutionary philosophy like all the other young Hegelians, and along with them, insisted that the revolutionary nature of Hegelian philosophy is manifested in its anti-religious essence and its integration of the ideal state of reason into radical enlightenment thought. It is precisely because of this that Marx as a young Hegelian fell for Epicurus’s opposition to religious teleology, and thus embarked on the path of materialism. He points out that it is precisely because the transcendent nature of Hegel’s theory swallows up every previous philosophical system and turns them into parts of the development of his own, that “it was possible for Marx to identify to a considerable extent with the revolutionary self-consciousness of Epicurus and the British and French materialists”. Marx’s critique of religion takes on the form of critiquing the philosophy of nature in the German ideology, and at the same time, enthusiastically absorbs the naturalism and materialism of such thinkers as Epicurus. In a fully affirmative tone, he states: 6  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, Second Edition, p. 12. 7  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 59.

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in reality, the antinomy between materialism and speculative philosophy was not so easily resolved, and Marx had already moved decisively in a materialist direction, so decisively that although his ideas were speculative (or idealist) in their outer form, they were increasingly materialist in essence.8 Foster also insists that Marx demonstrating materialism by means of affirming Epicurus’s critique of religious teleology does not stop with his doctoral thesis. In fact, Marx continues with Engels to make contributions to materialism with the aid of Epicurus’s critique of religious teleology in his later works The Holy Family and The German Ideology. In these works, Marx and Engels distinctly assert that it is because Epicurean materialism is more capable of shaping up into a powerful force in the material world in comparison with pure atomism, and thus has more power to destroy religious teleology. Furthermore, more positively speaking, it represents the true self-conscious development of naturalism and humanism in ancient society. Foster believes that throughout Marx’s doctoral dissertation and subsequent works, we can clearly see that Marx “had embraced an anti-teleological view as the core of materialism” and was obviously “inspired by Epicurus’ criticism of religious teleology”.9 Second, Marx dialectically analyzes Epicurus’ overcoming of mechanistic theory. Foster thinks that it would be unlikely to incite any major disagreement that Marx gradually forms his own materialist conception of nature by means of affirming Epicurus’ critique of religious teleology. The fact is perfectly clear that Marx is analyzing Epicurus’s critique of religious teleology from the standpoint of materialism. The problem is that Marx’s thesis topic is analyzing the differences between the natural philosophy of Epicurus and the atomism of Democritus, showing how Epicurus’s natural philosophy goes beyond atomism’s mechanistic and deterministic tendencies. Democritus’s atomism represents the materialism of ancient society, or rather it is the materialism typical of ancient society. But, does Epicurus transcending this kind of materialism mean what so many understand it to mean, namely that Epicurus departs from materialism as such? By the same token, does Marx affirming Epicurus’s overcoming here mean what so many understand it to mean, namely that Marx’s standpoint is also not that of pure materialism? That’s what Foster focuses on explaining. He insists that Marx, in effect, dialectically analyzes Epicurus’s overcoming of the atomism of Democritus to point out that Epicurus’s overcoming of the atomism of Democritus is an overcoming of its mechanistic 8  Ibid., p. 60. 9  Ibid., p. 63.

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and deterministic tendency, not an overcoming of its entire materialist view of nature. So, the philosophical view that Marx forms through analyzing the difference between the natural philosophy of Epicurus and the atomism of Democritus and through explaining Epicurean natural philosophy’s overcoming of the atomism of Democritus is not idealist but materialist. He insists that Marx follows Epicurus’s overcoming of mechanism and determinism, and gradually develops toward dialectical materialism, which you could call “practical materialism.” But we must notice that since Marx follows Epicurus overcome mechanism and determinism on the basis of correctly understanding this overcoming, that is, Marx did not see this overcoming as back peddling from the standpoint of materialism, so the materialism that Marx himself puts together through this analysis although distinct from mechanistic materialism is still grounded in “realist ontology” or “natural materialism.”10 Foster illustrates his point with the help of the research results of others. First, he uses the work of the famous British scholar, Cyril Bailey, who studies Epicurus. Cyril Bailey pointed out that people will shockingly discover through examining Marx’s works that as one of the pioneers of Epicurean studies, Marx was surprisingly able to reject the traditional view passed on since ancient times that Epicurus completely replicates the atomism of Democritus, revising it here and there at his own whim and even making it cruder. Marx, according to Bailey, was “probably the first to perceive the true distinction between the Democritean and Epicurean systems”.11 Second, he uses the research results of Benjamin Farmington. Benjamin Farmington insists that Marx flips the roles between Democritus and Epicurus, making Epicurus the more profound of the two in comparison with Democritus. Marx labored to find room in his system both for animate and inanimate being, both for nature and society, both for the phenomena of the external world and the demands of the moral consciousness”, “Epicurus based his philosophy upon materialism, rejecting only the theory of mechanical determinism.12 It is indeed true as Foster points out that the predominant explanation of Epicurus prior to Marx took Epicurus to be solely the imitator of Democritus. Marx’s contribution is to reveal the difference between the two, and so people 10  Ibid., p. 64. 11  See J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review press, 2000, pp. 52, 53. 12  Ibid., p. 53.

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concentrating on how Marx reveals the distinction between the two is excusable. Concretely speaking, he states: In contrast to the dominant interpretation of Epicurus within German Romantic philosophy which saw him as a poor imitator of Democritus, who only introduced ‘arbitrary vagaries’ into the system of the former. Marx argued that the philosophical system of Epicurus broke with that of the more skeptical Democritus, by positing the empirical world as the ‘objective appearance’ of the world of the atom, rather than a mere ‘subjective semblance’ as in Democritus.13 Foster points out that Marx’s contribution is not only found in revealing the distinction between the natural philosophy of Epicurus and the atomism of Democritus, but even more so in pointing out that this distinction is found in Epicurus going beyond the mechanistic and deterministic tendency of Democritus’s atomism. According to Foster, Implicit in Epicurus’ philosophy was the notion that knowledge both of the world of the atom (imperceptible to the sense) and of sensuous reality arose from the inner necessity of human reason embodied in abstract individuality and freedom (self-determination), In Epicurus, Marx contended, the one-sided determinism of Democritus is transcended. For Democritus, necessity is everything, but Epicurus also recognizes chance, contingency, and the possibility of freedom.14 Foster believes that Marx’s exposition commences with the declination of the atom, showing that he already saw where the main distinction lies between the philosophy of Epicurus and that of Democritus. Marx establishes that the stress that Epicurus puts on “the swerve of the atom” already makes him create the kingdom of chance and the possibility of escaping determinism. Marx most certainly became fascinated with the swerve of the atom in Epicurus, and became fascinated with Epicurean philosophy swerving from every limited mode of being, which describes a world of freedom and self-determination. In Epicurus “the law of the atom” is “repulsion,” the collision between atoms; it is completely without any form of the 13  Ibid., p. 54. 14  Ibid.

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fixed and unchanging. This thought deeply attracted Marx, who concluded that Epicurus was “the first to grasp the essence of repulsion”, and that the Epicurean “swerve” “breaks the fati foedera (the bonds of fate)”.15 Foster thinks that Epicurus thus overcomes a grave defect of ancient materialism due to overcoming the mechanistic theory of atomism, and this is one of Marx’s great discoveries. Ancient materialism always reduces thought to “passive sensation”, which is itself merely a product of ungraspable forces. Thanks to the flaw of ancient materialism, idealism, in contrast, is usually credited with having provided the ‘active’ side to the ‘dialectic of perception’. Yet Marx clearly saw that this active side is already present in Epicurus’ materialism, with its concept of sensation as related to change and “passing away”. According to Marx’s study, Epicurus’ philosophy as a whole is to think of consciousness as a temporary process. Marx thinks that “Epicurus was the first to grasp appearance as appearance, that is, as alienation of the essence, activating itself in its reality as such an alienation.”16 Marx believes that in Epicurus already there is an understanding of the existence of alienated self- consciousness, and of knowledge as involving both sensation and intellectual abstraction, and one can still find the following conception: our consciousness of the world (for example, our language) develops in relation to the evolution of the material conditions governing existence. It is this complex relation that Marx refers to in his notes on Epicurus as “the dialectic of sense certainty,” a phrasing that Foster highly praises. Foster believes that Marx’s affirmation of Epicurus overcoming mechanism and determinism is at bottom the affirmation of freedom. “Central to Epicurus’ philosophy, in Marx’s view, was his emphasis on freedom that knows no final constraints.”17 He explains Marx’s viewpoint by quoting Seneca in his Epistles, ‘that it is wrong to live under constraint; but no man is constrained to live under constraint.’ of course not. On all sides lie many short and simple paths to freedom; and let us thank God that no man can be kept in life. We may spurn the very constraints that hole us. ‘Epicurus’ you reply ‘uttered these words’.18

15  Ibid., p. 55. 16  See Ibid. 17  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 56. 18  See Ibid.

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Foster thinks that Marx proves the necessity and possibility of human freedom on the basis of Epicurean philosophy, and Marx seeing freedom as the core of Epicurean philosophy is correct. As Marx put it, Epicurus once said, “dedicating one’s life to philosophy” is “the search for true freedom.” In recent years, the recovery of portions of Epicurus’ great work On Nature has provided powerful and direct confirmation of Marx’s interpretation. Epicurus firmly argues in this book that the things that human being does are the product of human freedom. Actually, Foster dedicates quite a bit of space to explain how Marx affirms Epicurean philosophy’s overcoming of the mechanistic and deterministic tendency found in Democritus’ atomism, but this is by no means Foster’s main goal. What he wants to focus on proving is that Marx’s greatness and brilliance is in affirming this point of Epicurus’, and simultaneously in stressing that this overcoming is overcoming on the basis of firmly upholding materialism. In his view, the illustration of the importance and actual significance of the latter aspect is just as essential as the illustration of the prior aspect, because from the perspective of the present situation, what is most dangerous is not so much failing to notice Marx’s affirmation of Epicurus overcoming mechanistic determinism, but failing to recognize Marx’s affirmation of Epicurus firmly upholding the materialist standpoint when undertaking this overcoming. Foster thinks that Marx deeply understood that transcending the mechanistic and deterministic tendency of the old materialism could run in two directions: one is to run toward idealism through this transcendence; the second is transcendence on the basis of firmly holding to materialism. What Marx wants to show is that Epicurus’s overcoming on the whole belongs to the latter. Here Marx offers three main grounds: first, Epicurus opposes mechanism and determinism, and of course stresses contingency. But, while Epicurus emphasizes contingency, he does not deny necessity. Epicurus sees the things that human being does as the product of human freedom, but stresses that this freedom is not only an accidental event, but also a necessary event. Epicurus is against all rigid determinism, because if we hold to determinism, life itself becomes meaningless, but at the same time Epicurus “defends materialism”. Epicurus of course never sought to deny necessity altogether, but simply emphasized the possibility of freedom, breaking the bounds of such necessity”, “which would mean, as he said, that everything could come from anything.19 19  Ibid.

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Second, Epicurus proposed the “the swerve of the atom,” insisting that “the swerve of the atom” gives the atom freedom. If from the freedom of the atom we can further deduce that the atom has a soul, then this would add a certain degree of the spiritual factor, but we have gained nothing from this but the addition of a word and the introduction of non-materialist principles. Although Epicurus emphasized the swerve and freedom of the atom, he does not further assert that atoms have souls, that atoms are spiritual things. In Marx’s view, only those who insist that the swerve of the atom “has no explainable cause” will believe that those who hold to determinism are illogical, “because the atom itself is uncaused,” and Epicurus is by no means of this sort.20 Third, while Epicurus opposes mechanism and determinism, he also opposes religious teleology. One must integrate the whole theory of his critique of religious teleology to understand his overcoming of mechanism and determinism. Epicurus’ philosophy derived much of its distinctive character, Marx stressed, from the fact that it was opposed both to the determinism of Democritus’ physics and to the teleological principles of religion.21 As long as these two oppositions are explored in connection with one another, you can know that Epicurus’s overcoming of mechanism and determinism does not run in the direction of religious teleology and idealism, but is rather overcoming on the premise of holding firmly to materialism. What Foster focuses on proving is, Marx so adamantly insists that Epicurus transcends mechanism and determinism on the ground of holding firmly to materialism for the sake of proving that Epicurus is a materialist. Yet, in the process of affirming that Epicurus is a materialist, Marx also forms his own materialism. Marx’s materialism internalizes that of Epicurus. Marx “seems to have internalized Epicurean materialism (like much else—for example, Hegel’s dialectic) within his own thinking”.22 Foster thinks that by the time, Marx finished his doctoral thesis he had arrived at a position that was materialist in orientation, though distinguished from that of the French materialists of the eighteenth century by its non-mechanistic, non-deterministic, and anti-teleological character.

20  Ibid., p. 54. 21  Ibid., p. 56. 22  Ibid., p. 61.

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Apparently this is thanks to the study of the philosophy of Epicurus, and especially thanks to the dialectical analysis of Epicurus’s overcoming of mechanism and determinism. Foster states it thus: “his (of a Marx—note) encounter with Epicurus and British and French materialists had brought him face to face with what Engels was later to call “the materialist conception of nature.”23 Foster believes that Marx’s materialist conception of nature comes from the philosophy of Epicurus, but even then, Marx’s materialist conception of nature was more thorough than that of Epicurus. This manifests itself in Marx’s criticism that when Epicurus transcends mechanism and determinism, he occasionally goes over the top, which gives off the impression that he departs from materialism. As mentioned, Epicurus on the whole transcends mechanism and determinism on the premise of adhering to materialism, but sometimes Epicurus appears a tad shaky and unclear. Foster thinks that it is precisely because Marx is unambiguous with respect to holding firmly to the materialist conception of nature that he becomes completely intolerant of Epicurus’s shakiness and ambiguity in this respect, and never let’s go of it. What he is mainly pointing to here is Marx’s critique of Epicurus opposing “real possibility” in his doctoral thesis. Marx states that Epicurus was a materialist, and if he has done anything wrong, it was rendering possibility abstract; this kind of abstract possibility exaggerates chance and free will, and thereby opposes “real possibility”, which recognizes necessity. In this way, Epicurus, sometimes disdains empirical science and derides empiricism, which obviously generates conflicts with his materialism. In Foster’s view, we may now comprehend just how firm Marx held to the materialist conception of nature from his critique of Epicurus!

Marx’s Materialist Conception of Nature in his Relationship with Feuerbach

After Foster argues that the philosophical view which Marx’s doctoral thesis forms through digesting and absorbing Epicurean theory is a materialist conception of nature, he immediately points out that Marx’s doctoral thesis is after all a transitional work, and thus even though the materialist conception of nature that Marx launches in his doctoral thesis is so strong, and in comparison with Epicurus, so much more thoroughgoing, it still cannot be said to be a mature version of the materialist conception of nature. He thinks that the mature version of Marx’s materialist conception of nature only took shape after 23  Ibid., p. 63.

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Marx began paying close attention to the political and economic conditions of Germany, France and the United Kingdom, and especially after systematically working in close contact with the philosophy of Ludwig Feuerbach. In this way, Foster’s exposition of and research on Marx’s materialist conception of nature turns into the study of Marx’s relationship to Feuerbach, namely, the study of how Marx “resolutely turned toward materialism and deduced the more profound conclusion of historical materialism”24 by means of absorbing and digesting Feuerbach’s humanist materialism. Unlike the majority, Foster’s research on the relationship between Marx and Feuerbach does not focus on Marx’s critique and overcoming of Feuerbach, but on Marx’s digestion and absorption of Feuerbach. We know that Feuerbach’s influence marks an important step on the path of development of Marxist philosophy. But the average researcher always focuses on Marx’s critique and overcoming of Feuerbach, which makes it seems like Marx’s relationship to Feuerbach is chiefly one of critique and overcoming. Foster disagrees. In his view, the relationship between the two is mainly manifested in Marx’s absorption and inheritance of Feuerbach’s philosophy. People render Marxist philosophy idealist, because they neglect or even deny that Marx absorbed and inherited Feuerbach’s philosophy, and one-sidedly highlight Marx’s critiquing and overcoming of Feuerbach’s philosophy. Foster stresses that you must face Marx’s absorption and inheritance of Feuerbach’s philosophy to really understand the central position that the materialist conception of nature occupies in Marxist philosophy. If you want to distort Marxism, that is, skew Marxist philosophy toward idealism, then write articles on Marx’s critique and surpassing of Feuerbach’s philosophy; if you look squarely at the materialist essence of Marxist philosophy, that is, restore Marxist philosophy back to the original materialism that it was, then write on Marx’s critique and surpassing of Feuerbach’s philosophy. Foster thinks that before Marx genuinely took up the study of political economy in earnest, he had to make a more decisive philosophical break with Hegel’s system, and for Marx, this break was largely accomplished through researching Feuerbach. Marx’s break with Hegel’s system is mainly the break with the philosophical thought which had treated the development of history as a reflection of the development of mind, but without the help of the materialist theory of Feuerbach, Marx would not have accomplished this break. It is ordinarily thought that The Essence of Christianity which Feuerbach published in 1841 is his major work, “in which he argued that the idea of god was simply an inversion of real, genuine human sensibility; that humanity had 24  Ibid., p. 65.

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created God in its own image”. It is again ordinarily thought that Feuerbach’s influence on Marx most strongly took place through this work. Foster does not see it this way. In his view, first of all this famous masterpiece of his is not really his major work; second, Feuerbach’s influence on Marx also did not chiefly happen through this work. He insists that “for Marx, Feuerbach’s argument in The Essence of Christianity was anything but startling, since it had already been anticipated by others among the Young Hegelians”.25 He also points out that Marx puts forward a critique of the essence of religion that is at least commensurable to Feuerbach’s in terms of depth and sharpness by means of absorbing and digesting Epicurus’s exposition of teleology in his doctoral dissertation. Foster thinks that Provisional Theses on the Reform of Philosophy which Feuerbach published in 1842 is finally his chief work, and what influenced Marx most greatly and consequently made him firmly establish a materialist conception of nature was also precisely this work. So, what kind of philosophical viewpoint at bottom does Feuerbach contribute to humankind in this work? Foster believes that it is the natural philosophy of materialism, or the materialist understanding of nature. Foster thinks that Feuerbach finds the weakest part of Hegel’s philosophical system in this work, namely the systematic part on the philosophy of nature, and accomplishes a decisive break with Hegel there. In Hegel’s philosophy, nature does not contain in itself any method for its own self-determination, which is to say, nature cannot undertake any meaningful action of its own. Nature is only a being of spirit, and prior to fully becoming a being of spirit, nature is only the separation that thought is compelled to pass through from abstract to general form. Hegel believes that nature separates from spirit and degenerates into crude materialism. Foster quotes a passage from Hegel’s Philosophy of Nature to explain exactly how he sees nature: “The purpose of nature,” is to extinguish itself, and to break through its rind of immediate and sensuous being, to consume itself like a Phoenix in order to emerge from this externality rejuvenated as spirit.26 Foster thinks that while Hegel’s view of nature here regards nature as the nonobjective being of spirit, it also regards human being as the non-objective 25  Ibid., p. 68. 26  See Ibid., p. 75.

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being of spirit. In Hegel’s system, according to Marx nature “is shorn of its reality in favor of human will” or spirit, which alone gives it meaning”.27 Foster notes that Feuerbach wants to break decisively with this conception of nature “by insisting that the material world itself really exists, including human being and her sensation of the world”.28 Feuerbach completely destroys Hegel’s idealist conception of nature with his materialist understanding of nature. For Hegel, this critique that Feuerbach wages against him is indeed devastating. Foster puts it this way: it was here that Feuerbach’s critique was most devastating, since it served to highlight this outlandish philosophy of nature, leaving the emperor without any clothes. It was precisely in his inability to develop a genuine naturalism, and the make shift fashion in which he tried to subsume external nature (conceived mechanically) under the absolute idea, that Hegel’s speculative philosophy—his dialectic—failed most spectacularly. Foster furthermore thinks that Feuerbach’s decisive break with Hegel is effectively a break with the young Hegelians at the same time. The young Hegelians held that the intrinsic essence of Hegel’s speculative philosophy is antiteleological, but Feuerbach thought that speculative philosophy not only fails to constitute a critique of theology, on the contrary it in fact rather becomes the last theoretical pillar of teleology. In Foster’s view, Feuerbach’s critique of Hegel and the young Hegelians here had decisive significance for Marx. Feuerbach makes Marx see clearly that Hegel’s speculative philosophy (including the idealist conception of nature within it) is the rational defense of the theological worldview. With the aid of Feuerbach’s critique, Marx truly feels that the speculative philosophical model must be replaced by the more materialist method of analysis. As Foster sees it, what Marx draws from Feuerbach is precisely the perceptual characteristic and insistence on naturalism in Feuerbach’s materialism. Feuerbach’s thought here “was of paramount importance for Marx”.29 In the process of opposing Hegel’s speculative philosophy, Feuerbach “provides a framework for the materialist conception of nature. Feuerbach finds the ground of nature in matter itself. “Matter” he declared, “is an essential object for reason. If there were no matter, reason would have no stimulus and no

27  See Ibid. 28  Ibid., p. 69. 29  Ibid., pp. 70–71.

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material for thought, and, hence, no content.”30 Feuerbach recognizes that the real world is finite, and the finite world cannot integrate into absolute spirit, which is to say the finite cannot become the infinite. Foster points out that “Marx responded enthusiastically to this construction of a humanist materialism, rooted in a sensationalist epistemology”.31 A remarkable feature of Epicurean materialism is insisting on the reality of sensation, which Marx fully absorbed, and Feuerbach similarly insisted on sensationalism, and moreover avoided the mechanistic tendency, which Marx of course absorbed as well. Marx recognizes that “although Feuerbach’s materialism was essentially an anthropological materialism, this emphasis on human sensibility did not negate the rest of nature”.32 So, in his Holy Family and other works, Marx fuses the relevant theories of Epicurus, Locke and Feuerbach together, and put forward his own “materialism arising from sense experience.” Foster believes that ever since Feuerbach, the one who truly holds the great banner of the materialist conception of nature is none other than Marx. “In Marx’s view, following Feuerbach, it is essential to posit the existence of an objective world and human beings as objective beings, that is, genuine realism and naturalism.”33 He thinks that there is nothing better than the following passage that describes more clearly the thoroughness of Marx’s materialist conception of nature: Sense perception (see Feuerbach) must be the basis of all science. Only when science starts out from sense perception in the dual form of sensuous consciousness and sensuous need—i.e. only when science starts out from nature—is it real science.34 Marx differs from Feuerbach in that he more consciously demonstrates the consistency of naturalism, humanism and materialism. In one respect, he stresses that human being is immediately a natural being, human being possesses the power of nature, and in another respect, as a natural corporeal, sensuous, objective being, man like animals and plants is passive, constrained and

30  See Ibid. 31  Ibid. 32  Ibid., p. 71. 33  Ibid., p. 77. 34  Ibid.

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limited being, which is to say that the object of his desire exists outside of him as an object that does not depend on him. Of course, although Marx asserts that the object of human being’s desire is an objective being that exists outside of herself, he also points out that the object of human desire is realized in human history in a way that differs from the human way. The point is that Marx does not mean by saying this that he doubts the objective existence of the object of human being’s desire, because Marx even sees human history as “real natural history.” We must not forget that Marx argues “Only naturalism can understand the actions of world history”. Foster thinks that with respect to Marx’s materialist conception of nature, the key is to understand the following two points: first, “his recognition of the objectivity of humanity and the world (that is, its ontological basis); second, his recognition of natural history and human history as interconnected”.35 Concretely speaking, first Marx insists that human society is objective being, but as the ontological ground of human society, the natural world is also objective being; Second, Marx tightly binds natural history to human history. Foster concludes, “Marx has freed himself completely in this way, via Feuerbach, from Hegel’s idealism”.36 He also specifically concludes that in Marx’s view, Feuerbach was to be commended for breaking with the Hegelian system in three ways: first, he argues that Hegel’s speculative philosophy far from supplanting spiritualism (in philosophical terms, theology) merely recovers spiritualism at the end of the day; second, he founds “true materialism and real science, because of making the social relation of ‘man to man’ the basic principle of his theory;” third, he opposes Hegel’s principle of the negation of negation, which “through what Hegel himself had called ‘revelation’— the creation of nature as the mind’s being” describes uncritical positivism and equally uncritical idealism. Foster asserts that Marx only succeeds in breaking completely with Hegel’s system through the detour of Feuerbach’s break with Hegel’s system. No matter what, Feuerbach’s influence on Marx cannot be underestimated, and even though Marx later begins with the materialist conception of nature to furthermore create the materialist conception of history, we can still see that “Feuerbach’s naturalistic materialism continued to resonate within Marx’s mature historical materialism”.37 Foster acknowledges that even though Marx breaks completely with Hegel’s philosophical system it would still be incorrect to say that Hegel did not affect Marx or that Marx did not 35  Ibid. 36  Ibid., p. 78. 37  Ibid., p. 80.

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inherit anything from Hegel. More directly, he acknowledges that “Taking over the activist element in the Hegelian philosophy and dialectic, Marx developed a practical materialism rooted in the concept of praxis”. But at the same time, he stressed that, even so, in Marx’s works, “this materialism was never divorced at any point in a deeper materialist conception of nature remained implicit in his thinking”.38 In other words, Foster sees the materialist conception of nature that Marx forms by transforming and absorbing Epicurus, Feuerbach and others as the “intrinsic thought” that Marx firmly held to his entire life. Even though he later comes to develop materialism into practical materialism and historical materialism, the ground of these is still his materialist conception of nature.

Marx’s Materialism as a Foundation for his Views on Ecology

We already pointed out at the beginning of this section that since Foster insists that only materialism can provide the theoretical resources to resolve the ecological crisis, in his view, clarifying that Marx’s philosophy is first and foremost a materialist conception of nature is equal to making the account that Marx’s theoretical system contains rich ecological theory. Showing Marx’s materialist conception of nature is identical to demonstrating Marx’s ecological theory. A basic point of view that he repeatedly stresses is: that Marx’s world-view was deeply, and indeed systematically, ecological (in all positive senses in which that terms is used today), and that this ecological perspective derived from his materialism.39 Here we specifically look at how he discusses Marx’s deduction of the ecological viewpoint beginning with the materialist conception of nature. What an ecological theory first needs to answer is how to look at the ecological environment around us, that is, how to look at the external natural world. Foster believes that Marx’s ecological viewpoint is based on his correct understanding of the ecological environment, the external natural world, which he derives directly from his materialist conception of nature. Marx’s philosophy is the materialist conception of nature, which insists on the objective being of the natural world, that is insists that the natural world does not change as a function of human being’s subjective desire. When Marx wants humanity 38  Ibid., p. 15. 39  Ibid., p. viii.

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to face the natural world, he holds firmly to the true viewpoints of realism and naturalism to keep in mind that “A being which does not have its nature outside itself is not a natural being and plays no part in the system of nature”; “the objects of his drives exist outside him as objects independent of him”.40 He states: “In this regard Marx took what would now be considered a ‘realist’ ontological stance, emphasizing the existence of the external, physical world, independent of thought.”41 Respecting the objective existence of nature is the cornerstone of Marx’s ecological theory. Foster also points out that Marx’s ecological theory links respecting the objective existence of nature to respecting the finitude of nature, because, according to Marx’s materialist view of nature, nature is both objective being and finite being. Marx’s materialist view of nature derives from the materialism of Epicurus and Feuerbach. Epicurean materialism emphasizes the finitude of nature, and stresses the temporary nature of all life and every being, believing the basic principle of nature to be the impossibility of producing “something” from “nothing.” The death of nature is necessary, and only this “death” is finally the undying substance of nature, and the undying life of nature will be stolen away by the undying death. Feuerbach even more strongly believes that the real world is finite, and that the finite cannot become the infinite. Precisely because what Marx’s materialist view of nature highlights is the finitude of nature, he demands that humanity must think about the finitude and temporariness of nature when facing it at all times and places, insisting that this should become a basic principle of interaction with nature. Second, what an ecological theory has to answer is how to look at oneself, because we can only know how to correctly face the external nature world once we understand clearly what human being herself is. Foster thinks that Marx presents a range of views on human being from the starting point of his materialistic conception of nature, and these views constitute important components of his ecological theory. Marx’s materialist conception of nature views nature as an objective being, but what he calls nature includes both the external natural world and the internal nature of human being, that is including oneself. Everything of human being, including the body, flesh, blood and brain, etc. all belong to nature, or rather are all parts of nature. Human being always exists inside of nature, and does not exist outside of nature. The core of Marx’s ecological theory about human being is understanding human being as being a part of nature, not only “directly” as naturally existing thing but also as the natural existence of human being. Since human being is a component part of nature, human being possesses the common characteristic of natural beings in 40  Ibid., p. 77. 41  Ibid., p. 6.

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general. Concretely speaking, such a natural being as human being is also an objective being. Foster thinks that forgetting that oneself is also a component part of nature and moreover forgetting that oneself objectively exists like other nature beings—this is a mistake that people often make when dealing with the natural world, and this is precisely the stress point that Marx’s ecological theory inflects. Foster also notices that when Marx looks at human being as natural being that objectively exists, he does not go so far as to equate the kind of natural being that human being is with other natural beings. Marx underscores the vitality of human being as natural being, stressing that human being is “active” natural being. Even though human being is a family member of nature, she does not exist for the sake of the being of other natural beings, but exists for the sake of her own being. After pointing this out, Foster insists that when we notice Marx highlight the particularity of human being as natural being, we must avoid warping Marx’s viewpoint, that is we cannot one-sidedly understand this particularity without considering the universality of natural beings. What he means is Marx is elucidating human being’s particularity under the premise of affirming that human being as natural being is also an objective being, and we cannot mistakenly think that Marx is like the idealists who deny that human being is a component part of nature and furthermore deny human being’s objective reality because Marx asserts that human being is a sensuous being and possesses activity. Foster points out that Marx like Feuerbach stresses “human sensation,” but “does not therefore deny the objective reality of human being”.42 In addition to having the characteristic of objective reality, natural beings in general also have the characteristic of finitude. Human being as natural being is no exception to this, being finite as well. Foster thinks that Marx draws the conclusion that “human being is finite” from the materialist conception of nature, which is of particularly enlightening significance for humankind today in the construction of ecological civilization. To say that “human being is finite,” does not merely say that the biological life of human being like other natural beings is temporary, and that human being moves toward death necessarily; it also states that human activity is always grounded in certain material conditions, which exist as the precondition of human activity, always constrain human activity, and hence human activity cannot possibly be completely free; human freedom is relative.43 When we point out that human being is an objectively existing natural being, this is effectively equal to acknowledging that human being will be constrained by objective necessity. Marx’s materialist conception of nature stresses the objective reality and finitude of every natural being, including human being to make people fully 42  Ibid., p. 71. 43  Ibid., p. 15.

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understand that they are under the dominion of external objective necessity, and human activity is finite in both time and space. If humanity disregards this objective necessity and finitude, humanity will collide with violent death. What an ecological theory finally needs to answer is how to treat human being’s relationship with nature. Foster believes that Marx’s materialist view of nature provides the theoretical basis for human beings to perceive and correctly handle the relationship between humanity and nature. On the basis of the materialist view of nature, Marx puts forward a series of basic guidelines to properly treat and handle the relationship between humanity and nature, and human beings sooner or later have to return to these basic criteria, and follow them to eliminate the ecological crisis and build ecological civilization. Foster thinks that since in Marx in one respect humanity belongs to a part of the material world and human being is also a natural being, but in another respect the whole of nature first as human being’s direct subsistence of life and second as the materials of human being’s life activity becomes human being’s “inorganic body,” and thereby the two not only do not conflict but share an inseparable intrinsic bond. The great discovery of Epicurus, Feuerbach and even more so Marx was that “The human relation to nature was, phenomenon of natural history”, “of the interdependence of human beings with the earth over the entire course of material evolution”.44 The relationship between human being and the other beings in the natural world is one of partnership, and there is complete equality between them. According to Marx’s materialist conception of nature, humanity is no longer postulated as completely occupying the position of the ruler, and no longer stands fixed in between the lower organisms and the highest angels in the great chain of being.45 There is no hierarchical order in nature, and there is no insurmountable gap between humans and other animals.” Foster thinks that today there is the battle between ecocentrism and anthropocentrism, where both sides of the debate diametrically oppose humanity and external nature, and neither of them understand Marx’s ecological view of the interdependence and unity of humanity and nature. On one hand, seeing human being as the master of nature, and thinking that human being possesses absolute power of control over nature is erroneous; on the other hand, abstractly and separately 44  Ibid., p. 13. 45  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology in Historical Perspective, contained International Socialism, Summer 2002. Chinese translation contains Foreign Theoretical Trends, 2004, No. 2 p. 35.

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understood to be fixed as nature in separation from humanity is nothing for human being. Foster thinks that when Marx discusses the interrelationship of human being and nature, he specifically insists on the following point, and this point is precisely what cannot be forgotten when constructing ecological civilization: human being must depend on nature to live, and therefore human being must “possess” and “reproduce” nature, but “possessing” and “reproducing” nature is not equivalent to saying human being may be the full “owner” of nature. Marx explicitly remarks that man not only comes from nature, but also “depends on nature to live”.46 “human life is inseparable from nature”—this is what Marx calls the most basic relationship of human being and nature. When Marx calls nature “human being’s inorganic body”, he is simply explaining that nature “is his body, and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die”. Human life includes two aspects: material life and spiritual life. According to Marx’s elucidation, not only is human being’s material life inseparable from nature, that is needs the means of life and means of production that nature provides, but human being’s spiritual life also must rely on the gifts of nature, because “plants, animals, stones, air, light, etc.” are the “grain of the human spirit,” the spiritual grain that human being must beforehand refine in order to enjoy and digest. Human life is inseparable from nature, but nature does not give human being the means of life ready-made, but rather needs human being to proactively “claim it,” “possess it” and “transform it.” The real natural world becomes manmade nature, humanized nature, the product of human labor, the product of history. This naturally generates an illusion for human being: it seems human being can become the “owner” of nature. Foster believes that Marx deduces the ecological theory from his materialist conception of nature to dispel that illusion. Because Marx’s view of nature is a materialist one, Marx adamantly insists that even though nature may be “transformed” or even “possessed” by human being, it always objectively exists, and it always moves according to its own laws, it cannot possibly allow human being to become its “owner” who freely dispose of it as she sees fit. In Marx’s theory concerning ecology, there are indeed a large number of accounts like those that demand humanity to follow the objective necessity of nature and comply with nature, but it is undeniable that there is also quite a bit of content that urges humanity to fully exercise subjective activity to “conquer” nature in Marx’s ecological theory. Precisely because of this, some Western eco-centrists fiercely criticize Marx’s so-called “anti-ecological” stance. Then how do we deal with these seemingly self-contradictory parts in 46  See J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 72.

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Marx’s ecological theory? Well, for the sake of stressing that Marx’s ecological theory mainly demands people to respect the objective necessity of nature and comply with nature, you can never dismiss and even erase the accounts where Marx urges humanity to “conquer” nature! Foster does not do this, but gives his own explanation of this. He does not deny that the following also constitutes important parts of Marx’s ecological theory: Marx’s materialism is practical materialism, which requires human beings to actively “practice” and “act”, including active “practice” and “action” in the face of nature. Especially when humanity and nature stand in opposition and nature becomes an “alienated” nature, humanity should even more so overcome the “alienation from nature through active practice. Foster puts it this way: According to Marx, we transform our relation to the world and transcend our alienation from it—creating our own distinctly humannature relations—by acting, that is, through our material praxis.47 Marx is by no means a fatalist or a pessimist. He constantly urges people to strive for a better future through their own efforts, and of course, such efforts include changing humanity’s relationship with nature. As mentioned earlier, Marx believes that human being is a finite and therefore “suffering” being, and she discovers the object outside of herself. But Marx demands that humanity cannot submit to the present condition and simply be limited by nature; rather as Epicurus said, human beings may change their relationship with nature through their own inventions. Marx firmly insists the solution to the alienation of human beings from nature, was to be discovered only in the realm of practice, in human history. The selfalienation of human beings both from human species-being and from nature, which constituted so much of human history, also found its necessary resolution, in that same human history, through the struggle to transcend this human self-alienation.48 47  Ibid., p. 5. 48  Ibid., p. 78.

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Marx does indeed propose such a view: “Human beings, according to this conception, produce their own historical relation to nature in large part by producing their means of subsistence. Nature thus takes on practical meaning for humanity as a result of life-activity, the production of means of life., and in this case, Marx as a matter of natural course demands human beings to actively establish historical connections with nature through their own practical activity. In line with this insistence on action and practice, Marx similarly does not deny the necessity of “ruling” nature, and indeed, there are many places in Marx’s works where such statements about “ruling” nature can be found. The idea of “ruling” nature has become a constant theme in Western thought, and Marx’s theory does not veer far from this topic. Moreover, in Epicurus is found even the view that our consciousness of the world (for example, our language) develops in relation to the evolution of the material conditions governing subsistence.49 Marx completely accepts this thought, and repeatedly stresses that humanity’s knowledge of nature is only achieved through humanity’s “ruling” of nature. Because humanity’s “rule” over nature is often carried out with the aid of “natural science”, Marx likewise does not deny the role of the natural sciences. What Marx stresses is Natural science, he argued, has served to transform the human relation to nature in a practical way by altering industry itself, and in this sense natural science has prepared the conditions for human emancipation.50 In Epicurus and also in Marx, to insist on materialism is to insist on science, “It is here that materialism and science were to coincide.”51 In Marx’s day, that modern science originated from materialism had already been widely accepted, which became deeply imprinted in Marx’s brain. When Foster made the account above, that is after listing the many ingredients in Marx’s ecological theory that seem incompatible with his understanding of Marx’s ecological point of view on the surface, he immediately explains: Just as Marx’s materialism is expressed as practical materialism we must not forget that Marx’s practical materialism is still based on materialist ontology, and when we notice that Marx’s theory of ecology demands people to “rule” nature 49  Ibid., p. 55. 50  Ibid., p. 78. 51  Ibid., p. 3.

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through their own actions and practice, we should also not forget that these statements in Marx are made on the premise of respecting and complying with the objectivity and finitude of nature. What Marx calls practice is not absolute freedom of movement divorced from compliance with necessity. What Marx calls ruling nature certainly does not mean the arbitrary dominating and damaging of nature. Foster points out that in Marx’s perspective, the concept of “rule over nature”, “does not necessarily refer to extreme indifference to nature or natural laws.” Bacon himself once made the argument that the thought of rule over nature is rooted in the understanding of and compliance with natural laws, which is Marx’s basic argument.52 We can not just see Marx teaching people to “dominate” nature. We should still look at what sense in which Marx uses the word “rule.” What Marx states is that “ruling” nature actually refers to human being’s “understanding and correct use” of nature, and in a certain sense, it also includes human being’s responsibility and obligation to nature. If we understand what Marx means by “ruling” nature in this way, then the accounts of “ruling” nature in Marx’s works do not contradict Marx’s other ecological views, such as on “sustainable development,” etc. He states that once we recognize, that there is no necessary fundamental contradiction between the mere idea of the ‘mastery of nature’ and the concept of sustainability, it will come as no surprise that the notions of ‘mastery’ and ‘sustainability’ arose together in the very same Baconian tradition.53 He is saying that whether it is the thought of ruling over nature or the idea of “sustainable development” all are drawn from Epicurus, Bacon, Feuerbach and Marx’s materialism, and express precisely the meaning that materialism should have, so there is no fundamental conflict between the two. Foster points out that none of this is difficult to understand in the context of Marx’s materialist view of nature, and we can only grasp the essence and meaning of Marx’s materialist conception of nature when Marx’s ecological theory is framed within it. As an ecological Marxist, Foster attracted the attention of the entire world due to putting forward the following two claims: first, only the theory of Marxism can truly become the guiding thought of humanity’s overcoming of the ecological crisis and construction of ecological civilization in today’s world. Marxism provides large amounts of theoretical resources for humanity to resolve ecological problems; second, Marxism’s ecological views directly 52  Ibid., p. 2. 53  Ibid., p. 12.

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stem from Marx’s materialism, especially his materialist conception of nature, and to deny or obscure the materialist essence of Marxist philosophy is to ignore the essence and significance of Marx’s ecological theory. The first claim opposes everyone in today’s world who deny the contemporary value of Marxism and deny the value of Marxism for the resolution of ecological problems; the second claim fights back against everyone in today’s world who do everything possible to dispel the materialist essence of Marxism, and who deploy a variety of tactics to render Marxism idealist. We analyzed in greater detail how he proves that Marxist philosophy is a materialist conception of nature, and how he proves that Marx deduces his ecological theory from that materialist conception of nature. Both arguments are extremely convincing, and even though we cannot yet accept some of the details of his argument, his views truly move us, and give us inspiration. Of course, his explication of the ecological implications and contemporary value of Marxism does not stop here. In his view, when Marx formed his materialist conception of history, particularly after Marx unfolded the systematic critique of capital in such works as Capital, his ecological theory became even deeper and more systematic.

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The Ecological Implications of Marx’s Materialist Conception of History Foster believes that Marx’s materialist theory implies a profound ecological point of view, and that humankind can only get out of the ecological crisis that it faces today under the guidance of Marx’s ecological point of view. Marx’s materialist theory includes two parts: the materialist conception of nature and the materialist conception of history. He closely binds the elucidation of Marx’s materialist view of nature and history to the elucidation of Marx’s ecological worldview. In the last chapter, we explored how Foster elucidates Marx’s ecological worldview through his study on Marx’s materialist conception of nature. Here, we will take a closer look at how he discusses the formative process of Marx’s materialist conception of history and essence, as well as how he launches his own ecological viewpoint on the basis of his analysis of Marx and his materialist conception of history. Foster believes that Marx’s materialist view of history took shape through collisions with various other trends of thought which Marx fought against. In his view, Marx’s critique of and break with these trends of thought “became defining moments in the development of both Marx’s materialist conception of history and his materialist conception of nature”, and therefore it is possible “to observe historical materialism as a distinctive approach to society”1 with the aid of Marx’s critique of and break with these trends of thought.

Ecological Theory in Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

The process through which Marx formed his own materialist conception of history while critiquing different erroneous trends of thought is also the process through which he perfected his ecological theory. Marx made a unique contribution to the ecological field by discussing ecological problems on the basis of his materialist conception of nature, especially his materialist conception of history. Foster believes that Marx’s materialist history-based ecological worldview is mainly embodied in his two books—The Economic and Philosophic 1  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 105.

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Manuscripts of 1844 and the Communist Manifesto. Foster also reveals the main content of Marx’s materialist history-based ecological worldview by analyzing these two works. Next, we will look further at how he managed to carry out this analysis: Foster points out that The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 are best known for the development of the concept of the alienation of labor. Marx here brings up four contents of the alienation of labor: First, alienation from the object of his/her labor; Second, alienation from the process of labor; Third, alienation from the human species-being (that is, the transformative, creative activity that defines human beings as a given species); and fourth, alienation from one another. He goes on to point out, these “which together constituted Marx’s concept of the alienation of labor” are “inseparable from the alienation of human beings from nature”.2 In Foster’s view, closely binding the alienation of nature to the alienation of labor, or should we say, analyzing the alienation from nature by tightly integrating it with the alienation of labor constitutes the starting point of Marx’s ecological worldview. The reason why alienation from nature is closely related to the alienation of labor is determined by the nature of nature. Foster points out that starting from The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 onward Marx always emphasizes that nature comes directly into human history through the products of labor, and it is in this sense that Marx always views nature as the self-extension of human being, stating that nature is the “inorganic human body”. Marx’s basic idea is that human being’s relation to nature not only can be regulated by production, but also can be regulated more directly by productive tools. Human beings, according to this conception, produce their own historical relation to nature in large part by producing their means of subsistence. Nature thus takes on practical meaning for humanity as a result of life-activity, the production of means of life.3 Thus, when Marx talks about alienation, he brings not only the alienation of labor but also the alienation from nature into the discussion. Forster argues that the alienation that Marx speaks of is the alienation of human being from her own labor as well as alienation from human being’s own active role in transforming nature. Marx’s original words are such that it estranges from man his own body, as well as external nature and his spiritual aspect, his 2  Ibid., p. 72. 3  Ibid., p. 73.

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human aspect.” Marx states very clearly that alienation involves the estranging of the natural external world from human being. There is another passage in Marx’s words: “Every self-estrangement of man, from himself and from nature, appears in the relation in which he places himself and nature to men other than and differentiated from himself.”4 Foster points out that “Marx’s notion of the alienation of nature, which he saw arising out of human practical life, was no more abstract at its core than his notion of the alienation of labor”.5 Foster believes that Marx’s concept of alienation creatively transforms Hegel’s concept of alienation, and one major improvement is the inclusion of the alienation from nature under the scope of the concept. Marx regards Hegel as the first to develop the concept of the alienation of labor, but believes he develops it in the direction of idealism, whose main expression is Hegel’s view that alienation is only alienation of the labor power of the mind; Hegel fails to recognize that the self-alienation of human practical activity is the basis of the alienation of human being, which includes not only the alienation of human beings from themselves but also from their real, sensuous existence, their relation to nature. Hegel also talks about the problem of nature, but thinks this is engendered by nature itself, stating “nature’s goal is to destroy itself”. In Foster’s view, because Marx differs from Hegel, he regards the self-alienation of human practice as the basis of alienation, that is, all human alienation arises from it, so Marx includes the alienation of human being and human being’s relation to nature under the scope of alienation, which fundamentally transforms the Hegelian concept of alienation. People previously have only recognized the [broad] distinction between Marx’s concept of alienation and Hegel’s concept of alienation, that is, alienation in Hegel is only that of spiritual activity, while in Marx alienation is that of the real sensual activity of human being. But in fact, this broad distinction is not enough, because one of the biggest dichotomies between the two is seeing or not seeing the alienation from nature as a content of the alienation of human being. If you want to know how Marx looks at the alienation of nature, it becomes clear when you look at Marx’s analysis of the alienation of land, because the alienation of land is a typical example of the alienation from nature. Foster focuses on Marx’s analysis of the alienation of land, in accordance with which the alienation of land reflects a change in human being’s relation to land through “primitive accumulation” which Adam Smith brought up; this includes the movement of land enclosure, the emergence of large estates, as well as the displacement of the peasantry. Foster argues that according to Marx’s 4  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, People’s Publishing House, First Edition, pp. 195–197. 5  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 73.

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concept of the alienation of land, it meant both the domination of the earth by those who monopolized land and the elemental power of nature as well as the domination of the earth and of dead matter over the vast majority of human beings. That is, the alienation of land not only refers to the rule of those who monopolize land, but also to the rule of land and dead matter over the majority of human beings. Moreover, these two parts are linked together: the former is the foundation of the latter, and the latter is the inevitable result of the former. Marx believes that this alienation of land emerged in feudal society before the advent of capitalism, and that feudal property is one kind of alienation of land. Feudal lords became the owners of the land and used land to rule the peasants, and feudal land possession already contained land as a kind of alienating power to rule people. Marx thinks that this alienation of land is perfected daily in capitalist society. The bourgeoisie, who were opposed to the real estate system on the surface, relied on the real estate system at a critical period of its development. The bourgeoisie strengthened its rule over humankind through the domination of land. While “Real estate” is pushing the vast majority of the population into the embrace of industry, it squeezes its own workers to the point of total abject poverty. Foster believes that according to Marx’s theory, the role of large estates in the process of monopolizing land in capitalist society, that is, the role of land in the process of alienation is similar to the ruling role of capital over money, that is, the rule of “dead matter” over the vast majority of people. While feudal lords became the owners of the land and used land to rule the peasants, in fact, the feudal possession of land already contained land as a kind of alienating power to rule over people. Marx gets straight to the point: the alienation of land demonstrates that “the land should likewise sink to the status of a commercial value, like man.”6 The alienation of land is the same as the alienation of other natural things. In Foster’s view, the core of Marx’s ecological worldview is insisting that the alienation of nature is manmade, and concretely speaking, made by the rule of private property and money. To illustrate his point, Foster quotes a passage from Marx in On the Question of Judah: The view of nature attained under the domination of private property and money is a real contempt for, and practical debasement of, nature; It is in this sense that Thomas Münzer declares it intolerable that all creatures have been turned into property, ‘the fishes in the water, the birds in the air, the plants on the earth; the creatures, too, must become free.’7 6  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, People’s Publishing House, 1st Edition, p. 85. 7  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3, People’s Publishing House, 1st Edition, p. 195.

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Forster believes that Marx was inspired by the revolutionary leaders of the great peasant wars of the early 16th century, during which time, these leaders regarded the transformation of species into such a wide variety of forms of property as a blow to humanity and nature. Marx also stresses that natural materials are transformed into private property, which is the real source of not only the alienation of human being but that of nature as well. He continues to quote Thomas Münzer to attack the evils of private property: “Open your eyes! What is the evil brew from which all usury, theft and robbery springs but the assumption of our lords and princes that all creatures are their property?”8 The system of private property is a system of money-worship, and it is precisely the worship of money that makes money an independent entity, and makes money become “the universal value” of all beings, stripping human being of her own intrinsic value. Foster points out that for Marx, the alienation from nature as described by Münzer is “manifested by the worship of money”, which “transforms money into ‘the essence of alienation’ ”. Foster believes that an important aspect of Marx’s ecological worldview expressed in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 reveals the universality “of opposition between the institution of private property and nature, which explains that this opposition not only occurs in the spheres of agriculture and large real estate, but also in large cities. The following description of the “universal pollution found in large cities” of which Marx speaks is indeed enlightening: even the need for fresh air ceases to be a need for the worker. Man returns to a cave dwelling, which is now, however, contaminated with the pestilential breath of civilization. and which he continues to occupy only precariously, it being for him an alien habitation which can be withdrawn from him any day—a place from which, if he does ||XV| not pay, he can be thrown out any day. For this mortuary, he has to pay. A dwelling in the light, which Prometheus in Aeschylus designated as one of the greatest boons, by means of which he made the savage into a human being, ceases to exist for the worker. Light, air, etc.—the simplest animal cleanliness— ceases to be a need for man. Filth, this stagnation and putrefaction of man—the sewage of civilization (speaking quite literally)—comes to be the element of life—for him.9

8  See also J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 74. 9  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, People’s Publishing House, 1st Edition, pp. 133–134.

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Forster points out that according to Marx’s description, the alienation of the workers in the large towns had thus reached the point where light, air and sanitation were no longer parts of their existence, whose material environment on the contrary came to consist of darkness, polluted air, and raw, untreated sewage. We can ascertain from this description found in Marx that not only creative work but also the essential elements of life were themselves forfeited as a result of this alienation from nature. Forster argues that another important aspect of the ecological worldview of Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 is the conclusion that the alienation from nature brings about the grave consequence of depriving people of the essential elements of life. Foster attaches great importance to Marx’s first introduction of the concept of “association” and “associated producers” in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. In his view, this is where Marx goes into great depth discussing how to put an end to the alienation from nature. Since the alienation from nature is brought about by the institution of private property, putting an end to the alienation from nature presupposes the elimination of the institution of private property. How could the institution of private property be eliminated? Here, Marx proposes to achieve this through “association”. Marx specifically studies how to make this “association” apply to land, namely, the implementation of “association” in agricultural production. Marx points out, Association, applied to land, shares the economic advantage of largescale landed property, and first brings to realization the original tendency inherent in [land] division, namely, equality. In the same way association also re-establishes, now on a rational basis, no longer mediated by serfdom, overlordship and the silly mysticism of property, the intimate ties of man with the earth, since the earth ceases to be an object of huckstering, and through free labor and free enjoyment becomes once more a true personal property of man.10 Marx expresses very clearly here that to restore the tenderness of the relationship with the land, that is, to eliminate the alienation of land with the help of “serfdom, overlordship and the silly mysticism of property” is wishful thinking, the only feasible way to accomplish this is through “association,” because only by doing so may “the earth cease to be an object of huckstering”, in order to allow the workers to have “free labor and free enjoyment” on land, and in order to make the land “become once more a true personal property of man.” Foster 10  Ibid., pp. 85–86.

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believes that eliminating private ownership through “association” and hence putting an end to the alienation from nature constitutes another important aspect of Marx’s ecological view of the world in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, which is profoundly enlightening. A society that eliminates the alienation from nature through “association” is a communist society. Communism in Marx is not only a humanist society, but also a naturalist society. Foster believes that to make naturalism a major feature of communism is to emphasize that communism is the organic integration of humanism and naturalism, which is the most fundamental part of Marx’s ecological view of the world in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Marx explicitly states that this positive kind of communism, “as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man—the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species”. Society under communism is no longer alienated due to the imposition of the institution of private property and the accumulation of wealth as the driving forces of industry, “thus society is the complete unity of man with nature—the true resurrection of nature—the consistent naturalism of man and the consistent humanism of nature”.11 Foster believes that Marx’s account of communism contrasts perfectly with the “universal prostitution of workers” in the societies that he examines and the “universal pollution” in big cities, namely the “dead matter” that governs the demands of human beings and their own development in the form of money. He insists that Marx’s description of communism, and even his ecological view of the world shown in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, that is, his world view of naturalism and humanism is itself an overcoming of history, namely the conquering of social alienation.12

Ecological Theory of The Communist Manifesto

Forster thinks that another of Marx’s works that systematically discusses an ecological worldview on the basis of the materialist conception of history is The Communist Manifesto. In one respect, The Communist Manifesto put forward the materialist conception of history in the form of a revolutionary declaration for the first time through the critique of Malthusian population 11  Ibid., pp. 120, 122. 12  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 74.

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theory and Proudhon’s “Promethean doctrine”, and in another respect, it systematically discusses an ecological view of the world. Unlike the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, the ecological worldview that is expressed in The Communist Manifesto is often misunderstood and criticized. He argues: the Manifesto, despite its popular, polemical intent, already contained implicitly within it an understanding of the relationship between the materialist conception of nature and the materialist conception of history, as well as important ingredients of an ecological perspective-opposed to the mechanistic Prometheanism of the later Proudhon-that emphasized the necessary unity of human and natural existence.13 The Communist Manifesto is often misunderstood as being “anti-ecological”. Foster cites many comments to this effect. Some say that Marx’s viewpoint is a “productionist’s” “Promethean view of history;” others comment that “the basic premise of Marx is the Promethean conquering of nature”; others argue that “Marx’s attitude to the world always maintained the same impulse as Prometheus, the human is proud of the conquest of nature”; others say that “Marx’s ‘Promethean attitude’ to the relationship between human and nature runs through all of its works”, which shows that Marx’s concern about changing the exploitative relations of human society in the class system did not extend to the exploitation of nature; still others claim that “Marx has adopted an optimistic, ‘Prometheanism’ attitude towards the infinite development of productive forces. From the standpoint where the planet’s ecological balance is threatened, Marx’s view is simply impossible to justify. Among these are radical ecologists and revolutionary socialists. Forster argues that the social ecologist John Clark is most representative of Marx’s following accusations: Marx’s Promethean … ‘man’ is a being who is not at home in nature, who does not see the earth as the ‘household’ of ecology. He is an indominable spirit who must subject nature in his quest for self-realization…. For such a being, the forces of nature, whether in the form of his own unmastered internal nature or the menacing powers of external nature, must be subdued.14

13  Ibid., p. 136. 14  See J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 134.

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Foster certainly does not agree with all these accusations against Marx and Engels. While his demonstration of the ecological worldview in Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 is mainly positive, his exposition of the ecological worldview in The Communist Manifesto is achieved mainly by refuting such accusations. Foster first points out that such accusations against The Communist Manifesto adopt the postmodernist stance against modernism, namely that it “implies certain assumptions against modernism”, and this postmodernist assumption “became sacred and inviolable in many green theories”. For those popular currents of environmental protectionism today, it would seem that abandoning modernity is all that needs to be done for environmental protection. So, their criticism of Marx is also very simple, sticking the label of modernist on Marx is all that is needed. He states: the charge of Prometheanism is thus a roundabout way of branding Marx’s work and Marxism as a whole as an extreme version of modernism, more easily condemned in this respect than liberalism itself.15 Foster further emphasizes that the basic way in which these men attack The Communist Manifesto is to attribute notions to Marx that do not belong to him. He quotes Sartre: “an ‘anti-Marxist’ argument is only the apparent rejuvenation of a pre-Marxist idea.”16 Sartre exposed those who critiqued Marx in those years, arguing that the viewpoint that they are criticizing does not actually belong to Marx, but simply to “pre-Marxist” thinking. Those accusers of today are no different. Foster states, nothing is more common among critics of Marx-ironic as this may seemthan to attribute to him the views of other radical thinkers (Proudhon, Blanqui, Lasalle, and so on) that he sought to transcend.17 He specifically mentions that these people lump under Marx Proudhon’s viewpoint, a viewpoint which Marx himself critiqued and overcame. Marx sharply critiqued Proudhon’s “Mythology of the Analysis of Machines and Modernity-the Basis of Religion,” but now these people somehow switch Proudhon’s praise of the machine, which Marx criticized into Marx’s own viewpoint. So, Marx’s critique of Proudhon somehow becomes a critique of 15  Ibid., p. 135. 16  See ibid. 17  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 135.

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himself. He also points out that Marx had indeed praised Prometheus, but what Marx admires in Aeschylus’s Prometheus Bound is Prometheus playing a revolutionary mythological figure, because he “despised the gods on Mount Olympus to the fire (light, enlightenment) to the world.” In other words, Marx’s praise of Prometheus is the praise of the Enlightenment, which is similar to Bacon, who groups Prometheus, science and materialism together, and praises Prometheus as the embodiment of science and materialism. Foster believes that the Prometheus whom Marx praises differs entirely from the “mechanical Prometheanism that Proudhon praises. The latter not only does not appear in the works of Marx in a positive light, Marx himself also critiques it. Those who criticize the anti-ecological bent of The Communist Manifesto cherry pick a few words of Marx and Engels and make much ado about nothing. Foster does not deny that such words can be found in The Communist Manifesto, he focuses on counterattacking the distorting assault waged by those against Marx by analyzing the true meaning of the words in Marx and Engels, and in the meantime, he reveals the ecological implications of Marx’s worldview. He mainly analyzes the description that Marx and Engels give to “the idiocy of rural life” and the praise that they give to the “Conquering of the forces of Nature”, and the “clearing of whole continents for cultivation”. In the view of Marx’s critics, this is “irrefutable evidence” of Marx’s anti-ecological [essence], because the description of “the idiocy of rural life” disdains the mutually harmonious environment between rural people and nature, and the commendation of the “clearing of whole continents for cultivation” in effect affirms the destruction of the natural environment. Foster analyzes the context of Marx and Engels’ description of “the idiocy of rural life.” The first part of The Communist Manifesto contains Marx and Engels’ famous tribute to the bourgeoisie, and brings up the revolutionary achievement of the bourgeoisie in making all levels of fixed things vanish. While praising the revolutionary achievement of the bourgeoisie, Marx and Engels also point out that it brought about a cyclical economic crisis and the birth of the proletariat as its legal heir. It is in this context that Marx and Engels describe such a fact: The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian

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countries dependent on the civilized ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.18 Foster points out that it is simply because Marx and Engels use such a phrase as “the idiocy of rural life” that they are portrayed as anti-ecological, but the crucial issue concerns how “idiocy” should be understood here. In his view, we must pay attention to the following two points with respect to understanding this term: First, Marx received a classical education, and he knew very well that in ancient Athens, the meaning of the word from which [the German] “idiotismus” derived came from another word “idiotes”, which refers to citizens who have withdrawn from public life, and unlike the people who take part in public life, they tend to view public life from a narrow standpoint, as if from an idiotic stupor. We can see that the word “idiocy” is not entirely derogatory, but rather neutral. Second, Marx and Engels here only use the word to reveal the separation of urban and rural areas. In fact, they give more description to this in the German Ideology. They proposed there “the greatest division of material and mental labor is the separation of town and country”, “a subjection which makes one man into a restricted town-animal, the other into a restricted country-animal”.19 In his view, the most important thing is not to understand Marx and Engels’ description of “the idiocy of rural life” in the sense that they felt that nature was to be despised, but rather in the sense that the antagonism between town and country was one of the chief manifestations of the alienated nature of bourgeois civilization.20 Marx and Engels are shedding light on the poor living environment (including the ecological situation) of the proletariat and the peasants under the antagonism between urban and rural areas. Marx always believed that, while the proletariat was deprived of clean air and real material means of subsistence, rural farmers under the capitalist system were deprived of all links to the world civilization. This means that some of the exploited have entered the world of social interaction, but lack physical health and welfare, while others despite having access to fresh air, lack contact with the world civilization.

18  Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995, pp. 276–277. 19  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3, People’s Publishing House, 1st Edition, pp. 56, 57. 20  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 137.

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Society was increasingly divided into “clownish boors” and “emasculated dwarfs” as a result of the extreme division between rural and urban existence, which deprived one part of the working population of intellectual sustenance, the other of material sustenance. Foster argues that Marx and Engels emphasize that the conflicting urban-rural dynamic brought tragedy to the lives of the proletariat and the peasantry, while stressing that this was brought about entirely by bourgeois civilization. “One of the first tasks of any revolution against capitalism, Marx and Engels insisted, must therefore be the abolition of the antagonistic division between town and country”.21 Foster believes that Marx and Engels, in fact, regard the “idiocy of rural life” as an important mark of the alienation of nature, so they bring this up in order to save the proletariat from the “idiocy of rural life”. Because they attribute the emergence of this circumstance to an effect of the workings of the capitalist mode of production, they necessarily tie changing this condition to changing the capitalist mode of production. In the second part of The Communist Manifesto, they put forward the need to “progressively eliminate urban-rural division by distributing the population evenly across the country”, and to achieve the equitable distribution of population across the country, what must first be implemented is the “combination of industry and agriculture,” along with associated labor under a “common plan”. Foster argues that this approach Marx and Engels are proposing stands in sharp contrast to Malthus, who while proposing to sweep the peasants from the land so that the number of workers would increase, Marx and Engels propose dispersing the population and overcoming the antagonism between town and country that they saw as constitutive of the bourgeois order. All the methods that Marx and Engels propose, such as the “more equitable distribution of population over the country”, the combination of agricultural and manufacturing industries”, “the bringing into cultivation of all waste lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan” are all directed at the capitalist mode of production, what Marx was later to call the “human metabolism with nature”. Foster concludes that Marx and Engels’ ecological view of “the idiocy of rural life” is not the 21  Ibid., p. 137.

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view that nature should be left untouched by human beings. Marx and Engels had already rejected purely ‘sentimental’ notions of nature based on the illusion that nature was still in a pristine condition and could be left untouched.22 Like nearly all other individuals in their time, they decried the existence of “waste lands” where food supply was still a question. What Marx and Engels object to is the capitalistic development of nature, believing that the alienation of nature is caused by the development of capitalism. According to Foster, the basic position of Marx and Engels is “Their position-which became clearer as their writings evolved-was rather that of encouraging a sustainable relation between human beings and nature through the organization of production in ways that took into account the metabolic relation between human beings and the earth”.23 This is to say that the position that Marx and Engels take with increasing clarity is the [necessity of] establishing an “organization of production” which corresponds to “the metabolic relation between human beings and the earth”, namely a new mode of production that differs significantly from the capitalist mode of production in order to make human being’s relationship to nature become a sustainable one. Here we take a look at Foster’s analysis of the praise that Marx and Engels give to the “Subjection of Nature’s forces” and “clearing of whole continents for cultivation”. It is when Marx and Engels praise the achievements of the bourgeoisie that they show appreciation for the “Subjection of Nature’s forces” and the “clearing of whole continents for cultivation”. Their wording goes like this: The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Nature’s forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalization of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground— what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labor?”24 As Foster notes that we do indeed find such words as “the Subjection of Nature’s forces” and the “clearing of whole continents for cultivation”, and indeed the 22  Ibid., p. 138. 23  Ibid. 24  Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 277.

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spirit behind the letters is clearly their belief that the “Subjection of Nature’s forces”, “clearing of whole contines fntor cultivation are good things”. They will associate this with the development of science and civilization. In this sense, they are “full Baconists.” The problem is that praising the “Subjection of Nature’s forces” and the “clearing of whole continents for cultivation” in this way shows that they ignore the ecological contradictions in capitalist production and ignore the “sustainability of the whole development.” Are they for this reason anti-ecological? Foster believes that we must have an accurate understanding of the two phrases “Subjection of Nature’s forces” and the “clearing of whole continents for cultivation”. “Subjection of Nature’s forces” can be interpreted in many ways. What Marx and Engels mean here apparently coincides with Bacon’s statement that “only by nature can we drive nature”, and the Subjection of Nature that Marx mentions here is based on the precondition of the obedience of nature. As to the “clearing of whole continents for cultivation”, Marx and Engels do say this in a truly appreciatory tone, because in their opinion it is a good thing, and “famine”—Malthus’s “spectre” had already been driven back in this or that way by bourgeois production, and they had no reason to be unhappy with it. It is clear that Marx and Engels praise the “Subjection of Nature’s forces” and the “clearing of whole continents for cultivation”, but we do not see them praying for “Mechanical Prometheanism”, that is, they do not applaud mechanization and industrialization “without reservation” at the expense of agriculture and ecology. Foster solemnly suggests that anyone who has read the Communist Manifesto has to be aware that the panegyric to bourgeois civilization that dominates the opening section of this work is merely a lead-in to a consideration of the social contradictions that capitalism has engendered and that all eventually lead to its downfall”, “no one would say that Marx in presenting the capitalist as a heroic figure, or in celebrating the advances in the division of labor, competition, globalization, and so on, in Part One of the Manifesto, simply dispensed with all critical perspective.25 Foster emphasizes that Marx and Engels’ praise of bourgeois civilization in the first part of The Communist Manifesto is not the abandonment of a critical stance towards capitalism, but on the contrary a transition into deeper reflection on the contradictions of capitalism. In fact, Marx and Engels stop praising 25  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 139.

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bourgeois civilization at the end of the first part of The Communist Manifesto, stating: capitalism, with its huge means of production and means of exchange, “like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.” This involves a series of contradictions brought about by the one-sided essence of capitalist civilization. Foster thinks that there are ecological contradictions among the variety of contradictions that capitalism generates in accompaniment with bourgeois civilization which Marx and Engels reveal. He is keenly aware that The wealth-generating characteristics of capitalism were accompanied by an increase in relative poverty for the greater portion of the population, so they understood that the” Subjection of Nature’s forces to man “had been accompanied by the alienation of Nature, manifested in the division between town and country, which they saw as central to capitalism.26 Foster believes that in the second part of the Communist Manifesto, particularly in the “ten-point plan,” Marx and Engels make a brief but profound demonstration of ecological contradictions. For example, in their proposal on how to build a society in which workers are united, they emphasize “ecological factors that can be called.” In their later works, they undertake increasingly systematic thought on ecological contradictions, and fold it into the “criticism of modern civilization, especially the core of capitalist society” Foster acknowledges that in their analysis of ecological contradictions in The Communist Manifesto Marx and Engels do not regard the resolution of the problem of ecological destruction as a major factor in the revolutionary movement against capitalism which they saw as imminent. “Where they emphasized ecological contradictions, they did not seem to believe that they were developed to such an extent that they were to play a central role in the transition to socialism”. But at the same time, he points out that it is in The Communist Manifesto, where Marx and Engels give “considerations with regard to the creation of a sustainable relation to nature were major part of the construction of communism.”27 Foster emphasizes that some of the core theories of Marx’s ecological worldview took shape in The Communist Manifesto, and these are: all ecological problems are engendered by the capitalist mode of production. The resolution of the contradiction between town and country is the key factor behind 26  Ibid. 27  Ibid., p. 140.

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humankind’s overcoming of the alienation from nature, but to eliminate the contradiction between town and country is necessarily to change the capitalist mode of production. “They tended to see the ecological problems in terms that transcended the horizons of bourgeois society and the immediate objective of the proletarian movement.” He states that with respect to ecological problems, The Communist Manifesto on one hand conscientiously avoids falling into the trap of the utopian socialists, who devise blueprints for the future society distantly separated from the real movement, and on the other hand, it emphasizes solving the problem of alienation from nature through action in order to create a sustainable society. The term “action” points to the revolutionary proletarian movement against capitalism, while the term “sustainable society” points to a socialist and communist society. In his view, these elements of Marx and Engels’ ecological worldview radiate not only from the depths of their materialist conception of nature, but from the depths of their materialist conception of history as well. The ecological point of view that Marx and Engels demonstrate in the Communist Manifesto lays the foundation for their increasingly mature and systematic ecological theory, namely, the theory of the metabolic interaction of nature and society that Marx proposes in Capital and other works.28 28  Ibid.

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The Ecological Implications of Marx’s Theory of “Metabolism” Today, humanity faces a serious ecological crisis, and we must have the correct theoretical guidance to get out of it. The famous American ecological Marxist John Bellamy Foster thinks that only Marxism could serve as such a theory. He dedicates himself to revealing the ecological implications and contemporary meaning of Marxist theory. In his view, the “metabolic”1 theory that Marx proposes in works such as Capital contains a rich ecological point of view, so his study of Marx’s ecological worldview concentrates on the elucidation of Marx’s theory of “metabolism.” Here, we analyze how he elaborates Marx’s ecological worldview through the elucidation of Marx’s theory of “metabolism.”

The Theory of “Metabolism” in Capital

In Foster’s view, the concept of “metabolism” plays an extremely important role in such works as Capital, because it allows Marx to integrate his critique of the following three aspects of bourgeois political economy into one: the critique of the exploitation of the direct producer’s surplus products; the critique of capitalist theory of ground rent; and the critique of Malthusian theory of population. It is also precisely with the help of this concept that Marx’s research on capitalism goes deeper into the sphere of humanity’s relationship with nature, thereby enabling him to unfold the profound critique of “the worsening of the environment” “that anticipated much of present-day ecological thought”.2 Now let us take a look at Foster’s account of the notion of “metabolism” in Marx’s work.

1  “Metabolism” (German: Stoffwechsel, English: metabolism), In the Chinese version of Collected Works it is respectively translated as “metabolism” and “material exchange.” 2  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, pp. 141–142.

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Foster notes that Marx did not create the concept of “metabolism.” This concept first appeared in 1815 and was adopted by German physiologists in the 1830s and 1840s, when the concept was used to denote “the material exchange within the body associated with respiration.” In 1842, the German agricultural chemist Liebig published the book Animal Chemistry, putting the concept into more extensive application, thereby making it even more popular. In Liebig, this concept possessed agrochemical and physiological connotations, and it could be used at the cellular level as well as in the analysis of the entire organism. This concept was used to explain the matter between inorganic matter and organic living matter in nature and the link between the entire inorganic and organic worlds. When Liebig uses this concept, he often does so interchangeably with the concept “vital force.” Forster argues that the employment of the concept of “metabolism” as established by Liebig from the 1840s to the present day became the most key method among systems method used by the biological and philological fields to “research the interaction of organisms to their environments.” It is this concept that captures “the complex biochemical process of metabolic exchange”, “through which an organism draws upon materials and energy from its environment and converts these by way of various metabolic reactions into the building blocks of growth.” This concept has been widely used to indicate a specific regulatory process, which “governs the complex interchange between organisms and their environments.”3 Foster argues that though Marx’s concept of “metabolism” is derived from Liebig et al., he uses it in an entirely new sense. In his view, Marx adopted the concept of metabolism, which had been introduced by biologists and chemists, including Liebig, and applied it to “socio-ecological relations”.4 He also points out that Marx used the concept of metabolism to explain the relation of human labor to its environment.”5 He studied Marx’s Capital, believing that in the analysis of the labor process, Capital put the concept of “metabolism” into the center of his whole system of analysis, which is to say that the understanding of the labor process is rooted in this concept. Marx explicitly defined the labor process as the metabolic interaction between man and nature.6 He further points out that what is most important is that he discovered through his research on Capital that Marx used the concept of “metabolism” to define the labor process, and utilizes this 3  Ibid., p. 160. 4  J. B. Foster: The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 10. 5  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 160. 6  J. B. Foster: The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 10.

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concept to describe man’s relationship to nature through labor, and it is precisely this point that makes this concept have ecological implications. As for how Marx uses the concept of “metabolism” to define the labor process in Capital, and at the same time to describe man’s relationship to nature through labor, he cites the following passage from Marx: The labor-process, resolved as above into its simple elementary factors, is human action with a view to the production of use-values, appropriation of natural substances to human requirements; it is the necessary condition for effecting exchange of matter between man and Nature; Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material re-actions between himself and Nature.7 He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. The labour-process, resolved as above into its simple elementary factors, is human action with a view to the production of use-values, appropriation of natural substances to human requirements; it is the necessary condition for effecting exchange of matter between man and Nature; it is the everlasting Nature-imposed condition of human existence, and therefore is independent of every social phase of that existence, or rather, is common to every such phase.8 In Foster’s view, Marx here explicitly points out that labor is “the process by which man and his own activities cause, regulate, and control the material transformation between man and nature.” The labor process is “the general condition of material transformation between man and nature, the eternal natural condition of human life”, which is significant in, on the one hand, using the concept of “metabolism” to explain the essence of labor, and on the other hand, using this concept to reveal the true relationship between human being and nature. Foster argues that Marx not only uses the concept of “metabolism” that Liebig employed to explain the interrelation between human being and nature in Capital, but also does so in other writings. For example, a few years earlier than Capital in Economic Manuscripts of 1861–1863 Marx points out: “Since 7  We have done the above account, here the “material exchange” is the “metabolism”. 8  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 23, People’s Publishing House, 1st edition. pp. 201, 208.

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actual labor is the appropriation of nature for the satisfaction of human needs, [26] the activity through which the metabolism between man and nature is mediated.” Marx then quickly follows, saying that actual labor activity is never independent of the natural potential to create wealth, “since material wealth, the world of use values, exclusively consists of natural materials modified by labor.”9 Foster even suggests that the concept of “metabolism” runs through all of Marx’s mature works. For example, in his last economic work Notes on Wagner in 1880, Marx insists that the notion of “metabolism” held central status during his comprehensive account of political economics. Marx explicitly points out that “I also used the word in the “natural” process of production for the exchange of matter between man and nature.” In correspondence with this, Marx insists that in the circulation of commodities, “interruptions in the exchange of form, [are] later also termed interruptions in the exchange of matter.” Foster thinks that in this note, according to Marx’s analysis, the economic cycle is tied to the exchange of matter, which in turn is inseparable from the metabolic interaction between man and nature. Marx even puts it in the following way: “in the chemical process, in the exchange of matter regulated by labor, it is always the (natural) exchange of equivalents.” Marx emphasizes that, in the context of the universality of this exchange of matter, the formal exchange of normal economic equivalents in the capitalist economy is nothing more than a manifestation of alienation. Forster argues that Marx’s ideas set forth here are in line with his related accounts in Critique of Political Economy (1857–1858), in which Marx also mentions “a system of general social metabolism, of universal relations, of all-round needs and universal capacities … formed for the first time “under generalized commodity production.”10 Foster draws the conclusion by examining all of the relevant writings where Marx employs this concept of “metabolism,” especially in Capital. This concept has two meanings in Marx: one refers to “the actual metabolic interaction between nature and society through labor”, which is the narrow sense of the concept; the second is the broader sense in which Marx uses this concept to describe “a series of complex, dynamic, interdependent demands and relations that have been formed but are always alienated under capitalist conditions, and the resulting problems of human liberty,” and all this can be seen as associated with the metabolic relation between human being and nature, which manifests itself in the concrete forms of organization of human labor. By combining the two meanings of Marx’s concept of “metabolism”, we can see

9   Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 47, People’s Publishing House, 1st edition, p. 267. 10  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 19, People’s Publishing House, 1st edition, p. 422.

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that “the concept of metabolism thus took on both a specific ecological meaning and a wider social meaning”.11 It is widely known that in Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 and his other early works, Marx tried to explain the complex interdependence between human being and nature directly in philosophical terms. According to Foster, Marx’s usage of the concept of “metabolism” to describe the interrelation between human being and nature is established on the basis of his early focus on philosophically explaining the interrelationship between humans and nature, which Marx illustrates in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, man lives on nature,—means that nature is his body, with which he must remain in continuous interchange if he is not to die. That man’s physical and spiritual life is linked to nature means simply that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature”.12 Foster believes that Marx’s description of the interrelationship between human being and nature became much more scientific and complete once Marx used the concept of “metabolism,” which, with its attendant notions of material exchanges and regulatory action, allowed him to express the human relation to nature as one that encompassed both ‘nature-imposed conditions’ and the capacity of human beings to affect this process.13 In other words, the relationship between human being and nature has both “natural” and “manmade” aspects. The concept of alienation from nature was once the core of some of Marx’s early works, where he tried to explain it clearly. According to Foster, because Marx’s accounts of the alienation from nature in these early works are just confined to formulations in philosophical terms, they appear abstract and incomprehensible, and this abstraction is only eliminated once Marx starts to explicitly use the concept of “metabolism.” The concept of metabolism provided Marx with a concrete way of expressing the notion of the alienation of

11  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 158. 12  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, People’s Publishing House, 1st edition, p. 95. 13  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 158.

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nature.14 The following passage from Marx uses the concept of “metabolism” to describe the alienation of nature: It is not the unity of living and active humanity with the natural, inorganic conditions of their metabolic exchange with nature, and hence their appropriation of nature, which requires explanation or is the result of a historic process, but rather the separation between these inorganic conditions of human existence and this active existence, a separation which is completely posited only in the relation of wage labor and capital.15 Foster argues that Marx uses the concept of “metabolism” to express the alienation of nature, which “contained the essence of Marx’s entire critique of the alienated character of bourgeois society.”16 Marx not only uses the concept of “metabolism” to express the alienation of nature, but also uses it to envisage the future communist society. In Foster’s view, it was also precisely due to Marx’s use of this concept to describe the future communist society that people were able to have a vivid and true understanding of what communist society is. He states: Given the centrality that he assigned to the concept of metabolism constituting the complex, interdependent process linking human beings to nature through labor-it should not surprise us that this concept also plays a central role in Marx vision of a future society of associated producers.17 Foster argues that in the following passage from the third volume of Capital Marx uses the concept of “metabolism” to envisage the future communist society: Freedom in this field can only consist in socialized man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature; and achieving this with the least expenditure of energy

14  Ibid. 15  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 46, People’s Publishing House, 1st edition, p. 488. 16  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 158. 17  Ibid., p. 159.

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and under conditions most favourable to, and worthy of, their human nature.18 Foster also cites T. Hayward’s assessment of Marx’s concept of “metabolism” to illustrate the position of the concept in Marx’s thought. According to T. Hayward, Marx’s concept of “metabolism” captures the fundamental aspects of human’s existence as both natural and physical beings: these include the energetic and material exchanges which occur between human beings and their natural environment, this metabolism is regulated from the side of nature by natural laws governing the various physical processes involved, and from the side of society by institutionalized norms governing the division of labor and distribution of wealth etc.19

The “Metabolic Rift” in Capital

This concept of “metabolism” indeed occupies a central position in Marx’s theory of “metabolism,” but if we look at Marx’s theory of “metabolism” as the ecological critique of capitalism, the concept of “metabolic rift” becomes even more important. Foster points out: “Marx’s concept of ‘metabolic rift’ is the core element of his ecological critique of capitalism.”20 Marx’s ecological worldview, and all ecological critique of capitalism in Marx is founded on the concept of “metabolic rift”. Foster’s research on Marx’s theory of “metabolism” also focuses on the concept of “metabolic rift.” In his view, the reason why we must first study Marx’s concept of “metabolism” is to better understand Marx’s concept of “metabolic rift.” Next, let us follow Foster’s train of thought, and see how he explores Marx’s concept of “metabolic rift”. Foster points out that Marx’s usage of the concept of metabolism is borrowed from Liebig just like the concept itself originated from Liebig. He states: “it was when I was studying the relationship between Liebig and Marx that I

18   Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 25, People’s Publishing House, 1st edition, pp. 926–927. 19  See J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 159. 20  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology in Historical Perspective, contained International Socialism, Summer 2002. Chinese translation contains Foreign Theoretical Trends, 2004, No. 2, p. 35.

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strongly felt that Marx’s view on ecological issues is unique and profound.”21 What he refers to as “the relationship between Liebig and Marx” is precisely Marx’s borrowing of Liebig’ s concept of “metabolic rift” and his absorption of Liebig’s thought about this concept. As previously mentioned, Liebig uses the concept of “metabolism” to explain matter in the natural world between the inorganic and organic worlds of matter and the link between the entire inorganic world and the organic world, but in fact he described such links with some worry at the time, insofar as he was much rather speaking of this link as the “metabolic rift”. Foster thinks that if you truly want to understand Liebig’s concept of “metabolic rift”, you have to understand the historical context in which he uses this concept, and to understand the historical background of Liebig’s use of this concept, we first have to have some knowledge of the progression of the agricultural revolution. In his view, there have been three agricultural revolutions up to the present day. The first revolution was a gradual process that took place over several centuries, a process which was tied not only to the movement of enclosure and the increasing centrality of the market, but also to technological transformations like the improvement of fertilizer, crop rotation, drainage systems and livestock management; The second agricultural revolution took place over a shorter period–1830 to 1880, and was characterized by the growth of the fertilizer industry and the development of soil chemistry; The third agricultural revolution took place still later, in the twentieth century, and involved the replacement of animal traction with machine traction on the farm, followed by the concentration of animals in massive feedlots, coupled with the genetic alteration of plants and the more intensive use of chemical inputs—such as fertilizers and pesticides. Foster believes that the historical context in which Liebig uses the concept of “metabolic rift” is the second agricultural revolution, which was “associated in particular with the work of Liebig.”22 It is in the context of the second agricultural revolution that Liebig expressed his deep concern for “the degradation of the land”. The second agricultural revolution was also a revolution in the capitalist industrialization of agriculture. Liebig discusses the contradiction between ecology and the capitalist industrialization of agriculture. In his view, Britain had the most developed form of industrialized agriculture in the 19th 21  Ibid., p. 34. 22   J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, pp. 148–149.

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century. It is a form of looting that depletes soil fertility. Liebig also pointed out that although “cultivation methods of wide application of chemical fertilizer” are not the farm owner’s institution of open robbery, it is a “more refined species of spoliation which at first glance does not look like robbery.” Food and fiber trek over hundreds or even thousands of miles of transportation from countryside to city, which means that the basic nutrients in the soil—nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium are also transported away, whose result is fertility not returning to the soil, among other things. The natural conditions of reproduction of the soil are thus destroyed. His original words put it like this: “the constituent elements of the soil were therefore shipped to locations distant from their points of origin, making the reproduction of soil fertility that much more difficult.” Of the restoration of the elementary constituents of the soil, which had been withdrawn from it by the marketing over long distance of food and fiber and by the removal of cattle.23 Liebig used the concept of “metabolic rift” to describe all of this. That is: there is an irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism, whereby the conditions for the necessary reproduction of the soil were continually severed, breaking the metabolic cycle.24 Foster argues that Liebig did use the concept of “metabolic rift” to reveal the loss of soil fertility and the increasing depletion of land. Liebig gave full estimates as to the seriousness of the problem, and he spoke out loudly about it. The appeal of Liebig had indeed stirred up the sense of crisis in the farmer and the ruler alike. Hence, Liebig’s discoveries at first only intensified the sense of crisis within capitalist agriculture, making farmers more aware of the depletion of soil minerals and the paucity of fertilizers.25 They tried to alleviate and even resolve the problem. Their approach was to dig up Napoleon’s battlefields and the underground European tombs, pulverize 23  See Ibid., pp. 153–154. 24  J. B. Foster: The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 10. 25  J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 156.

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the ulnas, so as to add fertility back to the rural lands. They also imported large amounts of seabird excrement, and finally dispatched a fleet of boats across the major seas in the search for mass sums of it. In the last ten years of his life, Liebig had observed that British and American vessels have searched all the oceans, and that not one single island or coast could escape their search for seabird excrement. But Liebig realized that the bird droppings empire had not succeeded in providing them with the necessary natural fertilizers in terms of quality and quantity. He then let out the following sigh: what we need is to discover the reserves of bird droppings that are as big as the British coalfields, but is it possible?26 Foster points out that the ecological problems covered by Liebig’s concept of “metabolic rift” include not only the loss of soil fertility and the increasing depletion of land, but also the continuous pollution of the city. According to Liebig, the problem of soil failure is closely associated with the urban pollution caused by human and animal excrement. Food and fiber trek over hundreds or even thousands of miles of transportation from countryside to city, which means that the basic nutrients in the soil—nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium—are also transported away, and fertility cannot be recovered, but it also means that the basic nutrients of the soil pollute the city. Humans and animals necessarily have to excrete waste after eating, but the feces can no longer return to the original soil as nutrients, so they could only remain in the city, and the Thames became unspeakably contaminated. A man named E. Chadwick wrote in his Report on the Sanitary Condition of the Laboring Population of Great Britain as early as 1842, in which he cites Liebig’s discussion of the interrelationship between the cycle of soil nutrition and the problem of urban excrement. Liebig called the inability to effectively turn excrement from major cities into soil nutrition “metabolic rift”. Liebig also tried to urge people to pay closer attention to the problem, the organic cycle of making the nutrients that exist in urban sewer water return to the soil, about which he once wrote: “if it were practicable to collect, without the least loss, all the solid and fluid excrements of the inhabitants of towns,” he wrote, and to return to each farmer the portion arising from produce originally supplied by him to the town, the productiveness of his land might be maintained almost unimpaired for ages to come, and the existing store of

26  See J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 154.

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mineral elements in every fertile field would be amply sufficient for the wants of the increasing populations.27 Regrettably, the rulers turned a deaf ear to him, and as Liebig suggested, the depletion of soil fertility and urban pollution continued to intensify. Forster argues that Marx unfolded thorough research on the soil fertility crisis in light of Liebig’s accounts, remarking that the central figure of the soil fertility crisis is the German chemist Liebig, but it is Marx who did the analysis of its deeper and broader social significance.28 Drawing from Liebig’s account, Marx concludes, there is “an irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism, whereby the conditions for the necessary reproduction of the soil were continually severed, breaking the metabolic cycle.”29 He first cites “the production of capitalist ground rent” in Capital Vol. 3 to explain: large landed property reduces the agricultural population to a constantly falling minimum, and confronts it with a constantly growing industrial population crowded together in large cities. It thereby creates conditions which cause an irreparable break in the coherence of social interchange prescribed by the natural laws of life. As a result, the vitality of the soil is squandered, and this prodigality is carried by commerce far beyond the borders of a particular state (Liebig)…. Large-scale industry and largescale mechanized agriculture work together. If originally distinguished by the fact that the former lays waste and destroys principally laborpower, hence the natural force of human beings, whereas the latter more directly exhausts the natural vitality of the soil, they join hands in the further course of development in that the industrial system in the countryside also enervates the laborers, and industry and commerce on their part supply agriculture with the means for exhausting the soil.30 Second, he also cites Marx’s view on capitalist agriculture from his account of “large-scale industry and agriculture” in Capital vol. 1:

27  Ibid. 28  J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 154. 29  See J. B. Foster: The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 10. 30   Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 25, People’s Publishing House, 1st edition, pp. 916–917.

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Capitalist production, by collecting the population in great centers, and causing an ever-increasing preponderance of town population, on the one hand concentrates the historical motive power of society; on the other hand, it disturbs the circulation of matter between man and the soil, i.e., prevents the return to the soil of its elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; it therefore violates the conditions necessary to lasting fertility of the soil. But while upsetting the naturally grown conditions for the maintenance of that circulation of matter, it imperiously calls for its restoration as a system, as a regulating law of social production, and under a form appropriate to the full development of the human race…… all progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the 475 or p 508 in MECW v. 35labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility…… Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth—the soil and the laborer.31 Foster points out that what is common to both of these passages—the first conluding his discussion of capitalist ground rent in volume 3 and the second concluding his treatment of large-scale agriculture and industry in volume 1— is the central theoretical concept of a “rift” in the “metabolic interaction between man and the earth,” that is, the “social metabolism prescribed by the natural laws of life,” through the “robbing of the soil of its constituent elements, requiring its “systematic restoration.”32 Like Liebig, Marx uses the concept of “metabolic rift” to describe soil fertility depletion in the large-scale agriculture under capitalism, that is, like Liebig, Marx argued that the long-distance trade in food and fiber for clothing made the problem of the alienation of the constituent elements of the soil that much more of an “irreparable rift”. In Foster view, Marx majorly revises Liebig’s concept of “metabolic rift” so that it is no longer limited to the description of the failure of soil fertility. As previously mentioned, Liebig included urban sewage under the scope of “the metabolic rift”, but did not focus his research on it. Unlike Liebig, Marx focuses on 31   Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 23 People’s Publishing House, 1st edition, pp. 552–553. 32  J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 156.

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urban pollution while addressing soil fertility loss. Liebig’s accounts of urban pollution greatly spurred Marx’s interest, and we can see similar accounts in Marx’s writings from time to time: “In London … they can do nothing better with the excrement produced by 4.5 million people than pollute the Thames with it, at monstrous expense.”33 Marx actually treated urban pollution and soil failure as equally serious facets of the problem of “metabolic rift,” which he displayed evenly before people to see. In Foster’s view, as the core concept of Marx’s ecological critique of capitalism, the “metabolic rift” became the term that Marx used universally to illustrate all of the ecological problems in capitalist society such as deforestation, land desertification, climate change, the disappearance of deer in the forest, commercialization of species, pollution, industrial pollution, pollution of hazardous substances, recycling, coal mine depletion, disease, overpopulation, species evolution, and so on.34 Foster believes that Marx actually used the concept of “metabolic rift” to refer to the entirety of capitalist society’s “alienation of nature” and “alienation of matter.” He argues that Marx uses the concept of “metabolic rift” to express “the alienation of human beings within capitalist society from the natural conditions which formed the basis for their existence”, what he called “the everlasting natureimposed condition[s] of human existence”.35 Another major revision that Marx gave to Liebig’s concept of “metabolic rift” is that he didn’t think of this “rift” as only occuring in certain regions and countries, such as the United Kingdom, stressing that this rift occurs across the entirety of the capitalist world and even the entire globe. Foster states: “Marx saw this rift not simply in national terms but as related to imperialism as well.”36 In Capital vol. 1, Marx exposed that “the same blind eagerness for plunder” caused the exhaustion of British soil, but this fact could also be observed daily in the spreading of “guano over the English fields” which must be imported from Peru.37 Seeds, seabird excrement, must be imported from a distant country, which itself shows that the “metabolic rift” caused by the “blind eagerness for plunder” cannot be confined to one region, namely it must be global. The United States is an emerging capitalist country. Is it free from this “metabolic rift”? Marx deduced that it would be impossible for the United States to become free of it. 33  See Ibid., p. 161. 34  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology in Historical Perspective, contained International Socialism, Summer 2002. Chinese translation contains Foreign Theoretical Trends, 2004, No. 2, p. 35. 35  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 163. 36  J. B. Foster: The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 10. 37  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 23 People’s Publishing House, 1st edition, p. 267.

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In 1850 the Scottish agricultural chemist Professor James F. W. Johnston traveled to North America, and in his influential work Notes on North America documented the loss of natural soil fertility, demonstrating in particular the depleted condition of the soil in New York as compared to the more fertile farmlands to the West.38 J. Johnston’s account on the equally serious state of “the metabolic rift” in North America not only attracted the attention of Liebig but also caught the attention Marx, who cited it to prove that the metabolic rift is a global phenomenon. Marx named J. Johnston “the English Liebig.” Foster points out that Marx specifically noticed the equal seriousness of the metabolic rift both in colonial countries and capitalist fatherland alike. For Marx, evidence of a metabolic rift tied to the division of labor opposing city and countryside at the colonial level is also evidence of a “metabolic rift” at the global level, especially at the level of colonial countries: all colonial countries saw their territory, resources and soil plundered in support of the industrialization managed by the colonial powers. Marx once attacked the English colonialists: “England has indirectly exported the soil of Ireland, without as much as allowing its cultivators the means for making up the constituents of the soil that had been exhausted.”39

On the Cause of the “Metabolic Rift”

We have taken the first step in revealing the ecological implications of Marx’s “metabolic” theory through the discussion of “metabolism” and “metabolic rift.” However, Foster’s argument does not stop there. He elaborates further on what kind of conclusions Marx drew from the analysis of “metabolism” in general and “metabolic rift” in particular. In his view, the necessary precondition of truly grasping the ecological implications of Marx’s “metabolic” theory is truly understanding these conclusions. He sums up the conclusion that Marx draws from his analysis of metabolism and the metabolic rift into the following eight aspects: 1. capitalism gives birth to the “irreparable rift” in the metabolic relationship between humanity and the earth, which is originally the permanent condition of production that nature gives to humanity; 2. this then demands “the systematic recovery” of the metabolism as “the inherent law of social production”; 3. however, large-scale agriculture and long-distance trade under the capitalist system exacerbated 38  See J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 158. 39  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 23, People’s Publishing House, 1st edition, p. 769.

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and expanded this metabolic rift; 4. the wasting of soil nutrients reflected in urban pollution and emissions; 5. large-scale industrial and mechanized agriculture participate in the destruction of agriculture; 6. all of which are the portrayal of the urban/rural opposition in the capitalist system; 7. rational agriculture requires independent small-scale owners or a combination of large producers to operate their own production activities, which is simply impossible under the conditions of capitalism; 8. present conditions require the restructuring of the metabolic relation between humanity and earth, which thus points beyond the capitalist system to socialism and communism.40 These eight aspects of Marx’s conclusion may furthermore be reduced to two major types of problems: First, what ultimately causes the metabolic rift including soil failure and urban pollution? Where is the source? Second, can this “metabolic rift” be changed? If it can be changed, then how? Foster comprehensively unfolds the ecological implications of Marx’s “metabolic” theory precisely around these two problems. Let’s take a look at the first problem around which Foster unravels the ecological implications of Marx’s “metabolic” theory. In Foster’s view, “a strong ecological critique of capitalist development” was launched when the original focal point of Liebig’s account shifted from “metabolism” to “the metabolic rift.”41 Liebig observed many kinds of “metabolic rift” happening, and envisioned a number technical measures for farmers and governments to alter this phenomenon. For instance, the specialized branch of “soil chemistry” that he designed aimed at providing farmers and governments with technical measures to tackle such phenomena. But the facts mercilessly told him that technology alone would be unable to solve the problem of the metabolic rift, because “the ability of capital to make use of these great achievements in soil chemistry is constrained by the development of the division of labor within the capitalist system, especially the constraints of increasing antagonism between urban and rural areas”. The growing sense of crisis over the plummeting of soil fertility did not disappear in accompaniment with the great achievement of soil chemistry. On the contrary, it still exacerbated in proportion to the development of capitalism’s large-scale agriculture. This suggests that there were “extra” driving forces behind the metabolic rift, which happened to be capitalism’s large-scale agriculture itself. In Letters on Modern Agriculture (1859) Liebig finally asserted that “every system of farming based on the spoliation of the land leads to poverty.” He called capitalist agriculture “the spoliation system of farming”, thinking that in this system, “a field 40  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology in Historical Perspective, in International Socialism, Summer 2002. The Chinese translation appears in Foreign Theoretical Trends, 2004, No. 2 pp. 34–35. 41  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 151.

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from which something is permanently taken away cannot possibly increase or even continue in its productive power.”42 In the famous introduction to the 1862 edition of his Agricultural Chemistry, he warns If we do not succeed in making the farmer better aware of the conditions under which he produces and in giving him the means necessary for the increase of his output, wars, emigration, famines and epidemics will of necessity create the conditions of a new equilibrium which will undermine the welfare of everyone and finally lead to the ruin of agriculture43 Liebig here not only links the depletion of land fertility and the increasing exhaustion of land to war, famine, exile, poverty and epidemics as well as to the decline of nations and the bankruptcy of agriculture, he also stresses that the resolution of this problem requires changing the ideas in the minds of the farm owners, and even changing the whole system. Foster thinks that Liebig’s thought of linking the “metabolic rift” to the capitalist system deeply affected Marx, who while adopting Liebig’s concept of metabolic rift, fully embraced his thought of connecting it to the capitalist system as well. Foster points out that Liebig was not the only one to catalyze Marx’s profound insight that there is a sharp contradiction between ecology and capitalist industrialized agriculture. Liebig aside, there were still many other natural scientists and social scientists nearly contemporaneous with Marx. The American political economist H. Carey was one of them. H. Carey published The Slave Trade Domestic and Foreign in 1853, a work that he sent to Marx. He wrote in the book: It is singular that all of the political economists of England have overlooked the fact that man is a mere borrower from the earth, and that when he does not pay his debts, she does as do all other creditors, that is, she expels him from his holding.44 H. Carey means that the current social system just wants to “borrow land” without wanting to compensate for it in return, and in such a system, human beings will eventually pay a heavy price for their actions. In an important essay, Letters to the President, on the Foreign and Domestic Policy of the Union (1858)

42  See Ibid., p. 153. 43  See Ibid., p. 154. 44  Ibid., p. 152.

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H. Carey borrows a quotation from a speech by an “eminent agriculturist” and “advocator of the urban nature protection movement,” G. Waring: [W]hat with our earth-butchery and prodigality, we are each year losing the intrinsic essence of our vitality. The question of the economy should be, not how much do we annually produce, but how much of our annual production is saved to the soil. Labor employed in robbing the earth of its capital stock of fertilizing matter, is worse than labor thrown away. In the latter case, it is a loss to the present generation; in the former it becomes an inheritance of poverty for our successors. Man, is but a tenant of the soil, and he is guilty of a crime when he reduces its value for other tenants who are to come after him.45 G. Waring and of course H. Carey who quotes him here point the spearhead of the critique at the social system of not making people become land tenants, but making people become masters of the land. That very social system especially refers to the capitalist system of wage labor. H. Carey also makes an even more straightforward statement in The Principles of the Social Sciences: “It is not surprising that all the energy of the country, which is used to expand the power of businessmen, is everywhere that people are hired to ‘plunder’ the land’s share of capital.”46 H. Carey makes it clear here that as long as the country’s energy is owned by businessmen and is used to expand their power, the metabolic rift which includes the plundering of land remains unavoidable. Foster states that Carey had in fact been stressing the following fact throughout the late 1840s and 1850s: “long- distance trade arising from the separation of town and country was a major factor in the net loss of soil nutrients and the growing crisis in agriculture.”47 H. Carey’s stance and viewpoint not only influenced Liebig, but also attracted the close attention of Marx. Foster also points out that the study of Marx’s theory about the root of the metabolic rift in capitalism cannot overlook the role that J. Anderson, a Scottish agricultural economist contemporaneous with Adam Smith, played in the formation of Marx’s viewpoint. J. Anderson concluded as early as the 1780s and 1790s that: the general problem of fertility in agriculture is brought about by the failure to adopt rational and sustainable agricultural practices. He analyzes this in the following way: the owners of the land in England are landed gentry and those farming it are tenant farmers, and this fact sets up obstacles for 45  Ibid., p. 153. 46  See J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 152. 47  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 153.

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rational agriculture. Under these circumstances, the tenant farmer will tend to avoid any crop improvements, the reason being that such improvements could not possibly yield any return within the period of the land’s lease. Here he in fact broaches the problem of ownership, and ties the private ownership of land to the exhaustion of soil fertility. Anderson contended that the separating of town and countryside in one respect brings about the loss of natural sources of fertilizer and in another respect, leads to urban pollution. “Every person who has but heard of agriculture” he wrote, “knows that animal manure, when applied to the soil tends to add to its fertility; of course, he must be sensible that every circumstance that tends to deprive the soil of that manure ought to be accounted an uneconomical waste highly deserving of blame.” Yet London, with its gargantuan waste of such natural sources of fertility, “which is daily carried to the Thames, in its passage to which it subjects the people in the lower part of the city to the most offensive effluvia,” was an indication of how far society had moved from a sustainable agricultural economy.48 On the one hand, Marx utilizes Anderson’s argument to refute Malthus’s view that agricultural and social crises could be traced back to the “rising human population and its pressures on a limited supply of land.” On the other hand, Marx argues with the aid of Anderson that the “metabolic rift” is ultimately rooted in the capitalist system. Foster argues that Marx’s analysis of the root causes of the “metabolic rift” and the corresponding ecological critique of capitalism that it made was propelled by absorbing the viewpoint of Anderson from the preceding decade and was established on the basis of the research results of his contemporaries Liebig and H. Carey. Marx finally came to the following basic conclusion: the logic of capitalist accumulation ruthlessly manufactures the metabolic fault line between society and nature, halting the basic course of the reproduction of natural resources. As Foster sees it, the two paragraphs cited from Capital above, namely Marx’s discussion of capitalist ground rent “ending in” Capital Vol. 3 and the two paragraph account of agriculture and industry “ending in” Capital Vol. 1 not only articulate how Marx uses the concept of “metabolic rift” to describe the ecological problems occuring in capitalist society, but also reflect how Marx stresses that this rift is rooted in the capitalist mode of production. In the previous paragraph, Marx explicitly asserts that it is the capitalist system of large land ownership and the variety of conditions of ownership that 48  See J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 160.

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cause an irreparable split in the process of material exchange determined by the laws of life in society. Here Marx still insists that it is precisely large-scale capitalist industry and large-scale agriculture operating according to industrial methods that “hand in hand” bring about such a severe “metabolic rift.” The former abuses and destroys labor power, that is “the natural power of humanity,” while the latter more directly abuses and destroys the natural power of the land. In the last paragraph of the text, Marx aims the spearhead of the critique at “capitalist production,” believing that it is “capitalist production” that “undermines the material exchange between mankind and land”, “[i]t has destroyed the eternal natural conditions of the enduring fertility of the land.” Marx here also suggests that “any progress in capitalist agriculture” is not only the advancement of the skills of plundering laborers, but also the advancement of land-grabbing techniques, and capitalist production develops the technology and integration of the social production process, which at the same time destroys the source of all wealth—land and workers. Foster thinks that, generally speaking, Marx stresses that it is the capitalist system that results in the metabolic rift, but at varying phases he directs the critique at different levels of the capitalist system, to which Foster dedicates an exhaustively detailed analysis. In the 1840’s and 1850’s, the metabolic rift that concerned Marx was mainly the exhaustion of soil fertility, so Marx put more emphasis on the urbanrural separation in capitalist society and the resulting long distance trade of products as the causes of the metabolic rift. In Liebig, the study of soil fertility depletion is often tied to the study of long-distance trade as the result of the urban-rural divide. As mentioned earlier, Liebig put forward “the law of return”, that is he thought that on a piece of land, if some of the ingredients are permanently taken away, this piece of land might not grow again or even maintain its productivity. In the case of cereal-growing centers that are hundreds of miles or thousands of miles away from the site of their consumption, constituents in the soil have been transported away from their “birthplace,” and they can no longer return. In this way, Liebig naturally attributes the main cause of what he termed the metabolic rift of soil failure to the long-distance trade brought about by the urban-rural antithesis. At the time when Marx embraced Liebig’s concept of metabolic rift, he meanwhile also accepted Liebig’s view of attributing its source to the long-distance trade brought about by the opposed orientations of city and countryside. Thus, Marx’s critique of the metabolic rift in capitalist society also focused on the critique of the urban-rural antagonism, long-distance trade, and the globalization of the market in capitalist society. Works like Marx’s Communist Manifesto very clearly reflect this point. People who have read Communist Manifesto must feel the deep imprint left over from

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Marx’s point that “[t]he bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country” such that the components of the land consumed in the form of food and clothing cannot return to the land. By the 1850’s and 1860’s, Marx’s focus on the metabolic rift in capitalist society had expanded from soil fertility depletion to the alienation from nature of the whole capitalist society, which is to say that Marx had generally used the concept of metabolic rift to demonstrate the ecological problems in capitalist society. In this case, Marx’s analysis of the root causes of the metabolic rift advanced from the relatively straightforward and superficial urban/rural split and the resulting long-distance trade into the deeper recesses of the capitalist mode of production and the private ownership of land. Using the urban/rural split and long-distance trade to explain the metabolic rift of soil fertility depletion is convincing, but using it to explain the other “metabolic phenomena” is more far-fetched. Because of this, later Liebig began exploring the capitalist mode of production, namely the causal link between the private ownership of land and the metabolic rift, but unfortunately, he did not and could not make an in-depth analysis of this at the time. Only Marx began to touch the essence of capitalism in the capitalist mode of production and its institution of private ownership. Marx recognized that the urban-rural separation and longdistance trade were only the superficial causes of the metabolic rift and that there were deeper reasons hidden beneath this surface, which through dissection he discovered were ultimately the capitalist mode of production and capitalist institution of private property. Moreover, the superficial causes of urban-rural separation and long-distance trade are also determined by the underlying causes of the capitalist mode of production and institution of private ownership. Foster analyzes that, for Marx, the separation of the urban population from the rural population in capitalist society presupposes the same degree of separation between land and people, and the so-called separation of human being from land is the necessary consequence of the capitalist institution of private ownership, including the private ownership of large estates. The emergence of the capitalist system of private ownership of large estates is undoubtedly aided by the use of coercive power to cut off any direct connection between the majority of people and the land. This robbing of peasant land began with the “enclosure movement.” The religious reform movement as well as the theft of church property played the role of fueling the stripping of land from peasants. By the eighteenth century, countless parliamentary bills of ownership of public land were submitted to legalize the theft of public lands. In the 19th century, people naturally even forgot the connection between peasants and publicly owned land. Marx thought the intensification of the metabolic

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rift would accompany this process. For Marx, all of the ecological problems in capitalist society, which could be described in terms of the metabolic rift were inseparable from and indeed “a logical outgrowth” of what he called the “differentia specific” of the capitalist system of private property.49 On to the 1860’s and 1870’s, following the deepening of Marx’s research into the interconnection between the capitalist system of private ownership and the metabolic rift, Marx’s analysis of this relationship begins to unfold beyond the scope of general descriptions into specifics. As a result, Marx discusses the effect of the principles of capital and the logic of capital upon the metabolic rift in capitalist society, that is, Marx makes people more keenly and profoundly aware of the impact that the capitalist mode of production and institution of private ownership has on the metabolic rift with the help of this new perspective of analyzing the role of the principles of capital and the logic of capital. Marx points out that it is precisely under the rule of the principles of capital that capital does not serve the real, universal and natural needs of humanity, but blindly pursues exchange value, that is profit, which necessarily results in the alienation from nature and the metabolic rift. Marx reveals the necessary conflict between the principles of capital, the logic of capital and normal “metabolism.” Foster points out that, for Marx, the real existence of capital presupposes a process of history which dissolves the various forms in which the worker is a proprietor, or in which the proprietor works. Thus, above all (1) Dissolution of the relation to the earth—land and soil—as natural condition of production—to which he relates as to his own inorganic being…… (2) Dissolution of the relations in which he appears as proprietor of the instrument. The dismemberment of this organic relationship between human labor and land formed what the classical economists, including Marx, called the “initial”, “primary” or “primitive” accumulation. In this process a capitalist system was created.50 In this sense, the existence of capital is “the dismembering of the organic relations between human labor and land,” which is necessarily the birth of the metabolic rift as well.

49  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 174. 50  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 46, People’s Publishing House, 1st edition, pp. 24, 471, 498.

CHAPTER 5

The Revelation of Marx’s Ecological Theory: Antagonism between Capital and Ecology What at bottom is the source of humanity’s difficulty with respect to environmental protection? The aim of Foster’s exposition of the ecological implications of Marx’s materialist conceptions of nature and history and his research on Marx’s “metabolic” theory is to give correct answers to this question with the help of Marxism. In Foster’s view, “Marx’s worldview was deeply, and indeed systematically, ecological.”1 This ecological worldview has already produced profound analyses of the reasons why humanity cannot effectively get rid of the ecological crisis. Marx’s ecological worldview clearly tells people: the capitalist system is the biggest obstacle to humanity’s goal of eliminating the ecological crisis and establishing a truly harmonious relationship between humanity and nature. The essence of capital is fundamentally opposed to nature, and as long as the logic of capital operates unimpeded throughout the world, speaking of humanity getting out of the ecological crisis amounts to total nonsense. He insists that the greatest revelation that Marx’s ecological worldview gives to today’s humanity is that getting rid of the ecological crisis remains just a dream if we do not take on the capitalist system. Humanity opposes capitalism not only because it is a system that spurs some to cruelly exploit others and engenders inequality between people, but also because this is a system that prompts some to endlessly exploit nature and engenders conflict between humanity and nature. Here we first take a look at Foster’s argument that the key to eliminating the ecological crisis in light of Marx’s point of view is opposing the capitalist system, and then we look at how he proves that Marx’s viewpoint is correct based on facts happening around the world today, and finally we take a look at how he advises people to carry out the construction of ecological civilization under the banner of Marxism.

1  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. viii.

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Marx’s View of the Opposition between Capital and Ecology

The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, The Communist Manifesto and Capital are Marx’s three major works from different periods. In Foster’s view, these three works of Marx focus on Marx’s ecological worldview, and he gives an account of how Marx’s proves that the capitalist system is essentially anti-ecological precisely through the study of these three works. Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 are famous for developing the concept of the alienation of labor, but Foster points out that Marx’s theory of the alienation of labor is integrated with his account of the alienation from nature. This is to say that when Marx talks about alienation, the word envelops both the alienation of labor and the alienation from nature. Foster argues that what Marx calls alienation is both human being’s alienation from her own labor and the active alienation of humanity itself transforming nature. Marx’s original words go as follows: “It estranges from man his own body, as well as external nature and his spiritual aspect, his human aspect.” Marx states explicitly that alienation involves human being’s estrangement from the external natural world. Foster thinks that Marx’s concept of alienation is put forward as a revision of Hegel’s concept of alienation, and one major improvement is the inclusion of the alienation from nature under the scope of alienation. Marx regards Hegel as the first to develop the concept of the alienation of labor, but thinks that he develops this concept in the sphere of idealism, which mainly expresses itself in Hegel seeing alienation solely as the alienation of the mind’s labor, thereby failing to recognize that the foundation of human alienation is the self-alienation of human practical activity, which includes not only human being’s alienation from her own self, but also human being’s alienation from her own real sensuous being, that is human being’s alienation from her relationship to nature. Even though Hegel did also speak of the alienation of nature, he thinks this is brought about by nature itself, stating “nature’s goal is to destroy itself.” In Foster’s view, since Marx and Hegel are different, he sees the self-alienation of human practical activity as the ground of alienation, that is every form of human alienation arises from it, so Marx quite naturally includes human being’s alienation from her relation to nature under the scope of alienation, which fundamentally transforms Hegel’s concept of alienation. If you want to know how Marx understands the alienation of labor, just look at Marx’s analysis of the alienation of land. Foster states that according to Marx’s concept of the alienation of land,

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it meant both the domination of the earth by those who monopolized land and hence the elemental power of nature, and the domination of the earth and of dead matter over the vast majority of human beings.2 This is to say that the alienation of land not only refers to those monopolists who rule the land, but also to the rule of the earth and dead matter over the majority of human beings. Moreover, the two parts are linked together, the former is the foundation of the latter, and the latter the necessary result of the former. Marx thinks that this alienation of land emerged in feudal society before the advent of capitalism, and that feudal property is a form of alienation of land. Feudal lords became the owners of the land and used the land to rule the peasants, but in fact, feudal land possession already contained land as a kind of alienating power to rule people. Marx thinks that this alienation of land is perfected day by day in capitalist society, and while the bourgeoisie seem opposed to the real estate system on the surface, they rely on the real estate system at a critical period of its development, and so the bourgeoisie rules over humankind through the domination of the land with even greater intensity. While “real estate” is pushing the vast majority of the population into the embrace of industry, it squeezes its own workers to the point of total abject poverty. Foster thinks that according to Marx’s theory, in capitalist society, the role of real estate in the monopolization of land, namely its role in the alienation of land is similar to capital’s role in dominating money, that is, dead matter dominates the majority of human beings. People commonly use the phrase “money has no master” to illustrate dead matter’s complete dominion over humankind, but we could similarly say “land has no master” to express dead matter’s complete dominion over humankind: “and that the land should likewise sink to the status of a commercial value, like man”.3 The alienation of land is just like the alienation of other natural things. Foster thinks that to insist that alienation from nature is manmade, concretely speaking, is to insist that it is caused by the rule of private property and money, which is the core content of Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. Forster argues that Marx was inspired by the revolutionary leaders of the great peasant wars of the early 16th century, during which time, these leaders considered the transformation of species into such a wide variety of forms of property to be an assault on humanity and nature. Marx similarly asserts that 2  Ibid., p. 74. 3  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, People’s Publishing House, 1st Edition, p. 85.

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turning natural things into private property is the true source of human alienation and alienation from nature. The institution of private property is an institution of money-worship, and it is the worship of money that turns money into an independent thing and the universal value of all things, such that humanity is stripped of its own value and nature is also stripped of its own value. Forster argues that what is striking here is that Marx reveals the universality of the opposition between the institution of private property and nature, which shows that this opposition not only occurs in agriculture and real estate, but in large cities as well. The following description that Marx gives about the universal pollution found in large cities is indeed enlightening: Even the need for fresh air ceases to be a need for the worker. Man returns to a cave dwelling, which is now, however, contaminated with the pestilential breath of civilization. and which he continues to occupy only precariously, it being for him an alien habitation which can be withdrawn from him any day—a place from which, if he does ||XV| not pay, he can be thrown out any day. For this mortuary, he has to pay. A dwelling in the light, which Prometheus in Aeschylus designated as one of the greatest boons, by means of which he made the savage into a human being, ceases to exist for the worker. Light, air, etc.—the simplest animal cleanliness— ceases to be a need for man. Filth, this stagnation and putrefaction of man—the sewage of civilization (speaking quite literally)—comes to be the element of life—for him.4 Foster points out that according to Marx’s description, the environmental degradation in large cities already pushed the alienation of workers to the point where light, air, cleanliness, were no longer part of their existence, but rather darkness, polluted air, and raw, untreated sewage constituted their material environment. It is understandable from Marx’s description that not only creative work but also the basic elements of life were themselves forfeited as a result of this alienation from nature. Foster attaches great importance to Marx’s first introduction of the concepts of “association” and “associated producers” in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. In his view, this is Marx’s profound account of how to put an end to the alienation from nature. Since the alienation from nature is brought about by the institution of private property, the precondition of eliminating alienation must be the elimination of private property. How is the institution of private property eliminated? Marx proposes that this is to be realized 4  Ibid., pp. 133–134.

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through “association.” Marx specifically studies how to make this “association” “apply to land”, that is, how to implement this “association” in agricultural production. Marx points out, Association also re-establishes, now on a rational basis, no longer mediated by serfdom, overlordship and the silly mysticism of property, the intimate ties of man with the earth, since the earth ceases to be an object of huckstering, and through free labor and free enjoyment becomes once more a true personal property of man.5 Foster thinks that the society which eliminates private ownership and thus alienation from nature through “association” is communist society. Communism in Marx is not only a humanist society, but also a naturalist society. Marx explicitly states that this positive communism as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man—the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Society under communism is no longer alienated due to having the institution of private property and the accumulation of wealth as the driving forces of industry. “Thus, society is the complete unity of man with nature—the true resurrection of nature—the consistent naturalism of man and the consistent humanism of nature.”6 Some speak of The Communist Manifesto as “anti-ecological.” Foster points out that such accusations of Marx and Engels’s Communist Manifesto come from postmodernism’s opposition to modernism, and that it “implies certain assumptions against modernism,” which “became sacred and inviolable in many green theories.” He thinks that this basic sleight-of-hand attack that these people pull off against Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto involves on one hand stubbornly misconstruing thoughts that originally do not belong to Marx as Marx’s viewpoint, for instance, when they somehow misconstrue Proudhon’s glorification of the machine as Marx’s point of view, even though Marx himself critiqued it, and on the other hand, they often write large essays 5  Ibid., pp. 85–86. 6  Ibid., pp. 118–119.

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about a few words that they managed to seize from Marx and Engels, and in the process, recklessly distort them. He does not deny that Marx and Engels once described “idiocy of rural life” in the Communist Manifesto, but he points out that “the point was not that nature was to be despised but rather that the antagonism between town and country was one of the chief manifestations of the alienated nature of bourgeois civilization.”7 Marx and Engels here profoundly exposed the harsh ecological environments and miserable living conditions where the proletariat and peasants respectively lived in the opposition between city and countryside. Marx always thought that whereas the proletariat was deprived of access to fresh air, cleanliness and material means of subsistence, rural farmers under the capitalist system were deprived of all links to world civilization. Foster also does not deny that we can find words of praise in the Communist Manifesto for the conquest of natural forces and the reclamation of the entire continent for cultivation, but he insists that such words of praise do not amount to calls for “mechanistic Prometheanism”, that is they do not by any means champion mechanization and industrialization “without reservation” at the cost of sacrificing agriculture and ecology. Foster asserts in all seriousness that anyone who has read the Communist Manifesto has to be aware that the panegyric to bourgeois civilization that dominates the opening section of this work is merely a lead-in to a consideration of the social contradictions that capitalism has engendered and that all eventually lead to its downfall”, “no one would say that Marx in presenting the capitalist as a heroic figure, or in celebrating the advances in the division of labor, competition, globalization, and so on, in Part One of the Manifesto, simply dispensed with all critical perspective.8 Foster insists that Marx and Engels’ praise of bourgeois civilization in Part One of the Manifesto—far from signaling the abandonment of the critique of capitalism—is but a segue into deeper reflection on the contradictions of capitalism. In fact, Marx and Engels end this praise of bourgeois civilization at the end of Part One of The Manifesto with the statement that bourgeois society with its gigantic means of production and exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. This touches on a series of contradictions that the one-sided aspect of capitalist civilization engenders. 7  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 137. 8  Ibid., p. 139.

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Foster believes that Marx and Engels expose the existence of the ecological contradiction there among the host of contradictions of capitalism that arise in accompaniment with bourgeois civilization. They are intensely aware that the wealth-generating characteristics of capitalism were accompanied by an increase in relative poverty for the greater portion of the population, so they understood that the Subjection of Nature’s forces to man had been accompanied by the alienation of Nature, manifested in the division between town and country, which they saw as central to capitalism.9 Foster thinks that Marx and Engels give a brief but profound exposition of the ecological contradiction in Part Two of The Manifesto, particularly in the “ten-point plan.” For example, in their proposal on how to build a society of an association of workers, they emphasize ecological factors, and in their later works, they even more systematically consider ecological contradictions, and furthermore include them among the core contents of the critique of modern civilization and especially capitalist society. Foster acknowledges that Marx and Engels’ analysis of ecological contradictions in The Communist Manifesto did not regard the solution to the problem of ecological damage as a major factor in the revolutionary movement against capitalism that as they saw was imminent: where they emphasized ecological contradictions, they did not seem to believe that they were developed to such an extent that they were to play a central role in the transition to socialism. But at the same time, he points out that it is in the Communist Manifesto, where Marx and Engels put forward “considerations with regard to the creation of a sustainable relation to nature were major part of the construction of communism.10 Foster insists that some of the core theories of Marx’s ecological worldview took shape in The Communist Manifesto, namely: that all ecological problems arise from the capitalist mode of production. The solution to the contradiction between town and country is the key factor in overcoming humanity’s alienation from nature, but to eliminate the contradiction between town and country we must change the capitalist mode of production. “They tended to see the ecological problems in terms that transcended the horizons of bourgeois society and the immediate objective of the proletarian movement.” Foster 9   Ibid. 10  Ibid. p. 140.

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argues that in The Communist Manifesto, when Marx and Engels touch on the issue of ecology, they conscientiously avoid falling into the traps of the utopian socialists who devise blueprints for a future society distantly separated from the real movement, and on the other hand, they insist on solving the problem of alienation from nature through action, in order to create a sustainable society. The term “movement” refers to the proletarian revolutionary movement against capitalism, the term “sustainable society” refers to socialist and communist society. Capital is widely recognized as Marx’s most important work, but people tend to overlook the theory of “metabolism” that Marx puts forward in this work. Foster believes that, in fact, the theory of “metabolism” is extremely important in Marx’s system of thought, because it allows Marx to tie together his critique of the following three aspects of the political economy of capitalism: the critique of the exploitation of the direct producer’s surplus products; the critique of the theory of capitalist ground rent; and the critique of the Malthusian theory of population. It is also by means of this theory that Marx’s study of capitalism is able to delve far deeper into the dimension of humanity’s relationship to nature, thereby enabling him to develop a critique of “environmental degradation” “that anticipated much of present-day ecological thought.”11 In Foster’s view, to study Marx’s theory of “metabolism” one must first understand the sense of Marx’s concept of “metabolism,” which is to say that one must understand that Marx’s concept of “metabolism” refers to the actual metabolic interaction between nature and society through labor; Second, one must understand the meaning of what Marx calls the “metabolic rift”, that is one must understand how Marx uses the concept of metabolic rift to describe the fact that “[i]t produces conditions that provoke an irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism, a metabolism prescribed by the natural laws of life itself. The result of this is a squandering of the vitality of the soil, which is carried by trade far beyond the bounds of a single country.”12 Marx’s concepts of “Metabolism” and “metabolic rift” come mainly from the agricultural chemist Liebig, but Marx majorly revised it. For instance, Marx revised the concept of metabolic rift in two respects: one, he no longer limits this concept to describing the depletion of soil fertility, but uses this concept rather to refer to the entirety of capitalist society’s alienation of nature and alienation of matter; Second, he does not think that this “rift” occurs only in certain regions and countries, such as the United Kingdom of Europe, and stresses rather that this is the entire capitalist world, and even the entire globe. 11  Ibid., p. 141–142. 12  See J. B. Foster: The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 10.

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Foster thinks that what is most important in studying Marx’s theory of “metabolism” is understanding Marx’s analysis of the cause of the “metabolic rift.” He thinks that we can draw the following eight conclusions from Marx’s causal analysis of the metabolic rift: 1. Capitalism catalyzes an irreparable fracture in the metabolic relationship between humankind and the earth, and the earth is originally the permanent condition of production that nature gives to humankind; 2. This demands the “systematic restoration” of the metabolism as “the natural law of social production;” 3. However, under the capitalist system, large-scale agriculture and long-distance trade intensifies and extends this metabolic fracture; 4. The wasting of soil nutrients is reflected in the city’s pollution and emissions; 5. Large-scale industrial and mechanized agriculture collectively participate in the destruction of agriculture; 6. All of these portray the urban and rural opposition in the capitalist system; 7. Rational agriculture needs independent small landholders or joint large manufacturers to autonomously operate their production activities, which is fundamentally impossible under the conditions of capitalism; 8. The present condition needs the metabolic relation between humanity and the Earth to be structured, thereby pointing beyond the capitalist system toward socialism and communism.13 The most central facet of the eight conclusions is the attributing of the root cause of such metabolic rifts as soil failure, urban pollution and so on to the capitalist system. Foster quotes Marx’s passage at the end of Volume 3 of Capital on the “Genesis of Capitalist Ground-Rent” to explain the link between the capitalist system and the metabolic rift: Large landed property reduces the agricultural population to a constantly falling minimum, and confronts it with a constantly growing industrial population crowded together in large cities. It thereby creates conditions which cause an irreparable break in the coherence of social interchange prescribed by the natural laws of life. As a result, the vitality of the soil is squandered, and this prodigality is carried by commerce far beyond the borders of a particular state (Liebig) ……. Large-scale industry and large-scale mechanized agriculture work together. If originally distinguished by the fact that the former lays waste and destroys principally labor-power, hence the natural force of human beings, whereas the latter more directly exhausts the natural vitality of the soil, they join hands in 13  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology in Historical Perspective, contained International Socialism, Summer 2002. Chinese translation contains Foreign Theoretical Trends, 2004, No. 2 pp. 34–35.

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the further course of development in that the industrial system in the countryside also enervates the laborers, and industry and commerce on their part supply agriculture with the means for exhausting the soil.14 In Foster’s view, Marx here explicitly asserts that it is precisely the large landed property of capitalism and the “conditions” that this property generates, “which cause an irreparable break in the coherence of social interchange prescribed by the natural laws of life.” Here Marx also insists that it is capitalism’s large-scale industry and large-scale mechanized agriculture that “join hands” and “work together” in bringing about such a serious “metabolic rift.” “The former lays waste and destroys principally labor-power, hence the natural forces of human beings, whereas the latter more directly exhausts the natural vitality of the soil” He also quotes Marx in Capital Vol. I, when he discusses “large-scale industry and agriculture” and unfolds the critique of capitalist agriculture to prove that Marx always analyzes the metabolic rift in connection with the capitalist system: Capitalist production, by collecting the population in great centers, and causing an ever-increasing preponderance of town population, on the one hand concentrates the historical motive power of society; on the other hand, it disturbs the circulation of matter between man and the soil, i.e., prevents the return to the soil of its elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; it therefore violates the conditions necessary to lasting fertility of the soil. But while upsetting the naturally grown conditions for the maintenance of that circulation of matter, it imperiously calls for its restoration as a system, as a regulating law of social production, and under a form appropriate to the full development of the human race. All progress in capitalistic agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the 475 or p 508 in MECW v. 35labourer, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time, is a progress towards ruining the lasting sources of that fertility. Capitalist production, therefore, develops technology, and the combining together of various processes into a social whole, only by sapping the original sources of all wealth—the soil and the labourer.”15 14   Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 25, People’s Publishing House, 1st Edition, pp. 916–917. 15   Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 23, People’s Publishing House, 1st Edition, pp. 552–553.

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Foster thinks that when reading Capital and especially when studying the theory of “metabolism” which Marx proposes in this work, we can never forget the following warning that Marx gives: “that the logic of capital accumulation inexorably creates a rift in the metabolism between society and nature, severing basic processes of natural reproduction.”16 Whereas Marx’s thought on the “metabolic rift” during the 1840s and 1850s mainly concerned the depletion of soil fertility, and thereby blamed the cause of the metabolic rift on the split between city and countryside in capitalist society as well as the long distance trade of goods that this division brings about, in the 1860’s and 70’s, Marx’s analysis of the source of the metabolic rift plunged much deeper than the rather direct and superficial urban/rural split into capitalism’s mode of production and large landed property in accompaniment with Marx’s concern about the metabolic rift in capitalist society broadening from the depletion of soil fertility to the entirety of capitalist society’s alienation from nature; this is to say that Marx universally used this concept of metabolic rift to illustrate all of the ecological problems in capitalist society. For Marx, all of the ecological problems of capitalist society that could be described by the metabolic rift are inseparable from, and are indeed “a logical outgrowth of, what he calls the ‘differentia specific’ of the capitalist system of private property”.17

The Conflict between Capital and Ecology in Today’s World

Foster is not satisfied with generally explaining the opposition of ecology and capitalism through the study of such works as Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, The Communist Manifesto, and Capital; rather, he concretely explains how the opposition of ecology and capitalism ultimately unfolds on the basis of Marx’s relevant accounts, which is to say that he gives an exhaustive account of how capitalism destroys the environment according to its own intrinsic logic. In this respect, he has produced a lot of material. We will extract several parts of it for analysis. In a paper entitled Ecology Against Capitalism, Foster explicitly asks people to think critically following Marx’s train of thought about the “potentially catastrophic conflict between global capitalism and the global environment.” He thinks that since the 1970s there have been significant numbers of people, especially young people who have been exploring whether or not there is a limit to growth, and even though this exploration is one-sided, in any case it reveals 16  J. B. Foster: The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 9. 17  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 174.

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the self-evident reason that bourgeois economists are often unwilling to face up to, that is, unlimited growth within the limited environment is a contradiction. Pursuing profit and unlimited growth is the essence of capitalism. But, the key is that Capitalist economies are geared first and foremost to the growth of profits, and hence to economic growth at virtually any cost, this rush to grow generally means rapid absorption of energy and materials and the dumping of more and more wastes into the environment—hence widening environmental degradation.18 Here he also argues that what accompanies capitalism carelessly pursuing expansion at all costs is the short-sighted behavior of capitalism in terms of investment. When making an analysis of the investment climate, what the capitalist is concerned with is recovering the investment in the shortest possible time and ensuring long-term profit. Even though superficially speaking investors in some fields such as the capitalists who invest in mines, oil wells and other natural resources seem to speculate long-term on the surface, this longterm consideration stems from the need to ensure the supply of the original materials that go into the production of the final product, and also the need to ensure this rate of return is also very high in the long-term. But what we are calling long-term here very seldom exceeds 10–15 years, which is a far cry away from the 50 to 100 years and even longer periods of time that protecting living things requires. He stresses that “the prevailing short-term considerations of capitalists in the decision to invest have become a key factor of the overall impact on the environment.” It is particularly important here to understand that since this is determined by the essence of capital, capital requires the fastest return on its investments, often demanding that it get its initial investment back in a year or two. The time horizon that governs investment decisions in these as in other cases is not a question of “good” capitalists who are willing to give up profits for the sake of society and future generations—or “bad” capitalists who are not—but simply of how the system works.19 At the very end of this article Foster states his clear-cut position:

18  J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, in Monthly Review, 2001, 10, Vol. 53, No. 5, pp. 2–3. 19  Ibid., p. 4.

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We are constantly invited by those dutifully serving “the gods profit and production” to turn our attention elsewhere, to downgrade our concerns, and to view the very economic system that has caused the present global degradation of the environment as the solution to the problems it has generated. Hence, to write realistically about the conflict between ecology and capitalism requires, at the present time, a form of intellectual resistance—a ruthless critique of the existing mode of production and the ideology used to support its environmental depredations. We are faced with a stark choice: either reject “the gods of profit” as holding out the solution to our ecological problems, and look instead to a more harmonious coevolution of nature and human society, as an essential element in building a more just and egalitarian social order—or face the natural consequences, an ecological and social crisis that will rapidly spin out of control, with irreversible and devastating consequences for human beings and for those numerous other species with which we are linked.20 What Foster states is the choice that humanity faces indeed exists, and it is actually not difficult for humanity to make this choice but only so long as we really know the root causes of the current environmental degradation. In another essay, The Ecology of Destruction, Foster adapts the film Burn to help people understand Marx’s theory of capitalism’s relationship to nature. He states that Joseph Schumpeter praised capitalism’s destruction of the ecological environment as “creative destruction,” however, the true story that this film portrays tells people that this “creativity” of capitalism is “destructive creativity”. The basic point he wants to make is: destroying the ecological environment is the essence of capitalism and the ultimate destiny of capitalism. He puts it this way, Capital’s endless pursuit of new outlets for class-based accumulation requires for its continuation the destruction of both pre-existing natural conditions and previous social relations. Class exploitation, imperialism, war, and ecological devastation are not mere unrelated accidents of history but interrelated, intrinsic features of capitalist development. As long as there is even a day of capitalism, there is always this danger that its “destructive impulse” will turn into “destructive uncontrollability” that is the “ultimate destiny of capitalism”. And we must understand, “capitalism destroyed not only the conditions of production but also those of life itself.” He 20  Ibid., p. 15.

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insists that what Marx in those years called the “destructive uncontrollability” of capitalism, that is the loss of necessary control over the destruction of the environment, has today “come to characterize the entire capitalist world economy, encompassing the planet as a whole.”21 In this paper, Foster continues to aim the spearhead of critique directly at the infinite accumulation of capital. In his view, the fundamental problem is that Marx said there is no limit to the accumulation of capital. In this “deadly” conflict “the natural world is seen as a mere instrument of world social domination.” Hence, capital by its very logic imposes what is in effect a scorched earth strategy. The planetary ecological crisis is increasingly all-encompassing, a product of the destructive uncontrollability of a rapidly globalizing capitalist economy, which knows no law other than its own drive to exponential expansion.22 In his view, in this case, if it is asserted that “the foundation of our society is all normal,” what this means is to continue to “implement the capitalist economy,” which means to continue “to operate according to the logic of profit and accumulation,” and of course, it also means to continue the wanton destruction of the environment. Hobbes once described capitalism as “the war of all against all” but there is little acknowledgment that, according to Marx’s theory, this “war of all against all” will “require for its fulfillment a universal war on nature.” “Whenever social resistance imposes barriers on the expansion of capital, the answer is always to find new ways to exploit nature more intensively.” Foster insists “that is the logic of profit,” Specifically: under the conditions of capitalism, “one builds to make money and to go on making it or to make more sometimes it is necessary to destroy.”23 In this way, Foster not only includes the exploitation of human beings, but also the destruction of nature under “Logic of Profit”. Foster points out that Marx in fact already revealed this capitalist destruction of the environment as early as the 19th century. He praises some of the radical social ecologists in the United States for extracting knowledge of the opposition of ecology and capital from the critiques of the political economy of capitalism that Marx and other radical sociologists in the 19th century produced: First, capitalist production is an unstoppable, rapid and monotonous kind of production. This monotonous production continually increases the 21  J. B. Foster: The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 2. 22  Ibid., p. 7. 23  Ibid., p. 8.

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input of energy and raw materials, so as to pursue profit and accumulation, thus exerting enormous pressure on the earth; Second, the injustice of capitalist production and distribution in addition to causing fundamental economic contradictions also undermines the natural conditions upon which human economic development ultimately depends; Third, the logic of capitalist accumulation mercilessly creates the metabolic rift between society and nature, interrupting the basic process of reproduction of natural resources. In this paper, Foster expresses deep concern about the future prospect of ecological protection: the destructive uncontrollability of capitalism, emanating from its dual character as a system of class/imperial exploitation and of destroyer of the earth itself. Today a few hundred-people taken together own more wealth than the income of billions of the world’s populations. To maintain this system of global inequality a global system of repression has been developed and along with it vast new systems of destructive exploitation of the earth. In this case, he states, it is important to fully understand the conclusion that Marx derived from the opposition of ecology and capitalism: The only answer to the ecology of destruction of capitalism is to revolutionize our productive relations in ways that allow for a metabolic restoration. But this will require a break with capitalism’s the logic of profit.24 Foster has been interviewed about the relationship between ecology and capitalism. The interviewer asked, unlike some fellow radical ecologists, who have tended to portray “modernity” or “industrialism” as the primary causes of environmental destruction, you’ve made a strong argument for the need to anchor ecological theory and practice in a systemic critique of capitalism. Could you elaborate on this point? He replied that capitalism is the actual social system in which we live, the key is whether we see it as a capitalist system like Marx, and as long as we “see it as a capitalist system” we can know that it is not compatible with ecology, so “our primary way of designating and understanding that system is to see it as capitalist.”25 He does not agree with simply attributing the ecological crisis to “industrialism,” he states that 24  Ibid., p. 12. 25  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 3.

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We need to remember that capitalism was destructive of the environment on a global scale long before the Industrial Revolution—so the problem can’t simply be attributed to the presence of industrial production methods.26 He is also opposed to the general opinion that “modernity” is responsible for the deterioration of the environment. He points out that the scope of “modernity” is so large that it is sometimes difficult to accurately understand its meaning. Throughout today’s interpretation of the meaning of “modernity”, one can see that no matter how people interpret it, it isn’t a useful way of describing a social system, it might provide a way of describing a certain pattern of historical development characteristic of the social system we have today, but it doesn’t really point us to anything concrete. He also states that “If modernity itself were somehow to blame for environmental degradation, then the problem could be expected to exist only in ‘modern’ societies. I think that this is too simplistic a conclusion to draw.”27 He stresses that ecological problems have existed for more than 1,000 years, but in order to understand the problem in a specific historical period, we say that we have to study specific, existing historical institutions, and this institution is the capitalist system. In fact, different disciplines share a common understanding of how capitalism operates in today’s world, although some publications, such as Fortune and Business Week and the like, always praise the capitalist system, but for us, there is no doubt about what kind of system the capitalist system is. In his view, Marx has long been clear that the capitalist system is a “capital” based, “profit” centered system, and as long as capitalism exists for one day, its driving force will necessarily be the pursuit of “capital” and “profit.” This was the case for the capitalist society of the past, and so it is for the capitalist society of today. He points out that: “When you start looking concretely at the forces that are generating this crisis, it becomes clear that they are inseparable from the basic dynamics of the global capitalist system itself.”28 Today, as much as ever, capitalism demands constant and rapid economic growth. Historically, it has generally been assumed that capitalist economies could be expected to enjoy an overall rate of growth of about 3 percent a 26  Ibid., pp. 3–4. 27  Ibid., p. 4. 28  Ibid.

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year. At this rate, the world economy would increase sixteen times in a century, 250 times in two centuries, and 4000 times in three centuries. This is just an arithmetical game in a way, but the fact cannot be denied. But it shows us that a system as expansive as the one we have is inevitably going to cause problems in the context of a limited biosphere. “Indeed, the global economic system is increasingly beginning to rival the bio-geo-chemical processes of the planet itself in terms of scale.”29 In this interview, Foster repeatedly emphasizes that according to Marx, we must avoid “simply attributing the ecological damage caused by the capitalist market economy to individual responsibility.” On the surface, it is the shortterm interests of some “wealthy investors” that cause the ecological crisis, but it is unfair to let them take all responsibility. He states that to a certain extent, they should be responsible for their individual behavior, but in many cases, it is not entirely true that these individual acts are freely chosen; they are rather “subject to specific social structures in which we live-induced and forced,” which consistently speaking is to say they are driven by the capitalist system. In his view, this is the foothold of Marx’s analysis of ecological problems. He states: Marx, for instance, did not exactly paint capitalists in rosy colors, and yet he, perhaps more than any other major social critic of his time, refrained from blaming the failings of capitalism upon the greedy motives and misdeeds of individuals.30 Marx clearly tells people that if people are institutionally placed in the capitalist class, they can hardly be blamed for operating according to the established rules of the market and trying to get high returns on their stocks and investments. The key is the “market principles of capitalism” that are at work, and this is the source of evil. “The problem is that this impersonal, profit-driven market process tends systematically to expropriate wealth from other people and destroy the environment.”31 Marx once said that human beings don’t own the earth, that we simply use it and have to conserve and maintain it together for future generations. Sadly, this basic principle holds little sway in our own society, which is rapidly using up the natural environment on which future generations 29  Ibid. 30  Ibid., p. 7. 31  Ibid.

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depend. Most scientists now agree that 30–50 percent of all living species are going to be killed off in this century. They call this “the sixth extinction.” The last mass extinction on a comparable scale took place 65 million years ago, when the dinosaurs were killed off. We human beings are doing this to the earth—not merely as individuals, but as part of a social system that drives us in that direction and refuses to value anything but the accumulation of capital. Foster believes that both Marx’s ecological theory and the objective facts before us irrefutably tell us, its goals run directly up against a “highly intransigent opposition” that is rooted in the power structures of capitalist society ultimately, “achieving environmental sustainability” will require us to “transform those structures of power and not simply alter their minor manifestations”.32 32  Ibid., p. 8.

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The Bush Administration and the Kyoto Protocol Foster illustrates the correctness of Marx’s theory that capital is essentially anti-ecological, and that the ultimate source of the ecological crisis is the capitalist system itself, and on this basis asserts furthermore that only the ecological worldview of Marxism can guide humankind out of the ecological crisis in the construction of ecological civilization. This view has had a big impact on international academic circles. To demonstrate his point, he not only positively elaborates upon and promotes the related theories of Marxism, but also inversely uses a series of facts that occur in capitalist society today to explain. Here, we take a look at how he proves his point of view by analyzing the Bush administration’s attitude towards the Kyoto Protocol, by reviewing the twists and turns of several “global summits” that aimed at solving environmental problems, and by attacking the World Bank’s chief economist, who proposed “letting the third world swallow the pollution”.

The Bush Administration’s Attitude Towards the Kyoto Protocol

International efforts to control greenhouse gas emissions began in the early 1990s. The first fruit of that effort was the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change (UNFCCC) agreed upon in 1992. The UNFCCC consisted of voluntary emission targets on the part of states. The failure of states to reduce emissions under this regime led to further negotiations resulting in the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol in 1997. Foster holds a positive attitude towards the Kyoto Protocol which for the first time established the “legally binding” requirement that every industrialized nation must reduce total greenhouse gas emissions to 5.2 percent below 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012, and according to the agreement, The European Union (EU) was required to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 8 percent below 1990 levels, the United States by 7 percent, and Japan by 6 percent. In line with a prior agreement in climate negotiations (known as the Berlin Mandate) developing countries, including China, although parties to the agreement, were allowed to remain out of this initial stage of emissions reductions. While Foster holds a positive attitude towards the Kyoto Protocol,

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he also points out to people that with respect to curbing the trend of global warming, the Kyoto Protocol is only a very modest, symbolic first step. Although the aim of the protocol was to stabilize the greenhouse gas emissions of industrial countries at about 5 percent below 1990 levels, it fell far short of the massive cuts in emissions that climate scientists have repeatedly insisted would be necessary to stave off global warming.1 Foster immediately points out that “the great irony” is that even though the Kyoto Protocol only represents a very modest and symbolic first step in curbing the trend of global warming it also inexorably ended in failure. This failure was due directly to the Bush administration’s opposition and obstruction. Although in order to make the United States accept this agreement, the negotiations that followed had to nullify nearly the entire content of the original agreement, the very thing that had distinguished the Kyoto Protocol from the original UNFCCC—the establishment of “legally binding” requirements on emissions reductions—was thus abandoned. Nevertheless, the U.S. still refused to accept the agreement, and as Foster says, “The refusal of the United States, which alone accounts for a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, to remain a party to the climate accord was the most glaring failure of the agreement arrived at in Bonn.”2 In order to illustrate that the Bush administration was unilateral in obstructing the implementation of the protocol, Foster specifically reviews the path of action of the administration before and after the speech that President Bush gave on June 11, 2001, where he vowed never to return to the Kyoto Protocol. Before making that speech, Bush sought to enlist voices of American Academics for the sake of establishing a scientific basis for the rejection of the Kyoto Protocol. “Searching desperately for some kind of scientific rationale for its claim that an international accord to combat global warming was unwarranted,”3 he issued instructions to the National Academy of Sciences, saying, The administration is conducting a review of U.S. policy on climate change. We seek the Academy’s assistance in identifying the areas in the science of climate change where there are the greatest certainties and uncertainties. We would also like your views on whether there are any

1  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, pp. 19–20. 2  Ibid., p. 14. 3  Ibid., p. 15.

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substantive differences between the IPCC reports and the IPCC summaries. We would appreciate a response as soon as possible.4 Foster said while interpreting this instruction that the Bush administration had thus called upon scientists from NASA to explain in the name of science that the many opinions about the present state of climate change still possess uncertainty and that the reason why many signatory countries of the Kyoto Protocol, especially the “IPCC,” want the U.S. to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is a plot to draw some political conclusions from climate change, which are “not merited by the underlying science.”5 NASA scientists in the U.S did not act according to the Bush administration’s suggestion out of their own loyalty to science. Days before Bush’s June 11, 2001, speech NASA delivered its report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, which strongly reconfirms what the IPCC in its various reports had already established, that global warming as a result of human activities is a reality and a growing threat to the stability of the biosphere and thus to life on earth as we know it. With respect to all of this, NASA left no room for doubt, declaring in the first paragraph: Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth’s atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise. Temperatures are, in fact, rising. The changes observed over the last several decades are likely mostly due to human activities, but we cannot rule out that some significant part of these changes is also a reflection of natural variability. Human-induced warming and associated sea level rises are expected to continue through the 21st century. Secondary effects are suggested by computer model simulations and basic physical reasoning. These include increases in rainfall rates and increased susceptibility of semi-arid regions to drought. The impacts of these changes will be critically dependent on the magnitude of the warming and the rate with which it occurs.6 Foster believes that the report is a great embarrassment to the Bush administration. “The NASA report on Climate Change Science left the Bush administration with no alternative but to either face the seriousness of the problem, or be seen as having turned its back on science altogether.” All we need to do is 4  Cited from ibid. 5  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 15. 6  Cited from ibid.

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look at Bush’s speech on June 11, 2001 to know that Bush acknowledges in this speech the existence of significant global warming arising from carbon dioxide emissions along with other greenhouse gases and concedes that the “the National Academy of Science indicates that the increase is due in large part to human activity.” The key question is whether the Bush administration accepted the Kyoto Protocol on the basis of acknowledging this fact? No. Thus, in his June speech, even though president Bush acknowledges that carbon dioxide emissions and other greenhouse gases have already led to significant global warning, he goes on, however, to point out that there are still many uncertainties regarding the specific projections and effects of climate change and the technological prospects of reducing the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The Kyoto Protocol itself, he said, was flawed for two reasons: (1) it would have a negative economic impact [on the U.S. economy] with layoffs of workers and price increases for consumers”; and (2) it did not include developing countries like China and India, both of which are among the largest contributors to global warming. Thus, Bush announced unyieldingly that the United States would never return to the Kyoto Protocol. Foster points out that one clearly sees through this process that the Bush Administration’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol was based on ignoring the conclusion of scientific research. The Bush administration knew that to do so would be a violation of science, but they were still willing to do so. The Bush administration showed its true colors when it could not reject the Kyoto Protocol in the name of “science.” The Bush administration was forced to admit the true nature of its objection that in its view the cost to the U.S. economy of cutting such emissions and particularly emissions of carbon dioxide, the leading greenhouse gas, was simply too high of a price to pay. In Foster’s opinion, president Bush’s speech on June 11, 2001 clearly shows that “the Kyoto Protocol, with its mandatory cutbacks in greenhouse gas emissions, was clearly beyond what U.S. capital and its state were willing to accept.”7 In order to understand the conflict of the Kyoto Protocol and its mandatory emissions reductions with U.S. capital and its national interests, it all becomes exceptionally clear when looking at the magnitude of how dependent the U.S. economy is on carbon dioxide emissions. 7  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 16.

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The United States currently produces 5.6 tons of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use per person per year. Germany produces half that level per capita. France, which relies heavily on nuclear energy, emits 1.8 tons per capita. Overall the leading capitalist countries (the G-7, as they were called) emit 3.8 tons of carbon dioxide per capita per year. In comparison, the entire rest of the world emits only 0.7 tons of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel use per person per year. And the world’s carbon dioxide emissions are 1 ton per capita. Carbon dioxide emissions per capita in the U.S. is almost six times the carbon dioxide emissions per capita worldwide, and eight times the carbon dioxide emissions per capita in developing countries. The intensity of the U.S. economy’s dependence on carbon dioxide emissions is not hard to see. The United States is effectively a nation that is based on the consumption of carbon. As economic growth occurs, the demand for fossil fuels rises as well. The Bush administration knows that in the face of this increasing demand, it is unable to do much to arrest the accelerating pace solely by improving energy efficiency. Now the reality is that increased efficiency reduces unit energy costs, which leads to increased demand. Of course, high demand for fossil fuel use is also encouraged by the high profits to be obtained from this field. In this case, how could the Bush administration accept the Kyoto Protocol? The actual situation that we observe is the Bush administration pushing for coal-fired power plants in response to the California energy crisis, withdrawing from the Kyoto Protocol, and even calling for 1,300 additional coal-fired power plants. Foster points out that because the U.S. economy is based on the consumption of carbon, the Clinton administration at the time failed to stop the continuous growth of carbon emissions, and for the same reason the Bush administration could not make a difference in the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. Foster also reveals that the Bush administration often promoted the reason why the United States refused the implementation of the “Kyoto Protocol” as safeguarding the national interests of the United States, that is, as safeguarding the interests of all the American people, but in fact, the Bush administration was only safeguarding the interests of U.S. capitalist groups. Whether or not the Bush Administration would accept the Kyoto Protocol was completely up to large enterprises in the United States. Shortly after the launch of the Kyoto Protocol, some large enterprise groups in the United States such as big oil suddenly stood up to firmly oppose this modest agreement. The Bush administration represented the interests of monopoly capital, so it could not ignore the strong opposition coming from these large enterprise groups, and could only follow them faithfully. Capital is essentially opposed to ecology, and in the face

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of human efforts to protect the ecological environment, even if ineffective, the defenders and representatives of capital will respond fiercely and try to interfere. These large enterprise groups are the defenders and representatives of capital, so it is easy to understand why they are so opposed to the Kyoto Protocol, and the Bush administration was the chief representative of these big enterprise groups that constituted the powerful capital interests that supported it, so it was also reasonable for the administration to be so opposed to the Kyoto Protocol. Foster points out that the interesting thing is that when the Bush administration refused to accept the Kyoto Protocol which earned them worldwide condemnation including condemnation from the American people, these large enterprise groups immediately came forward and proposed all sorts of schemes to try to get the Bush administration off the hook. Foster means that some of the major oil companies in the U.S. pivoted to exotic research in carbon sequestration technology as a solution to the environmental problem. As soon as these large enterprise groups raised a voice, the Bush administration immediately wrote an article declaring: “We all believe technology offers great promise to significantly reduce emissions ……. especially carbon capture, storage and sequestration technologies.”8 In Foster’s opinion, if we do not touch the capitalist system and do not resist the logic of capital, trying to make a break-through in the implementation of a low-carbon economy through technological solutions to environmental problems remains a total illusion, and he calls the “carbon sequestration technology” that America’s large enterprise groups and the Bush administration proposed “nearly a fairy tale parading as research.”9 Foster also suggests that because the Bush Administration was the representative of capital interests, it was bound to act in accordance with the logic of capital, and thus was also bound to denying all efforts at maintaining the ecological environment, but by the same token, so will all succeeding administrations of the United States government. During the Clinton administration, in the face of opposition from the U.S. auto industry, they were helpless to pass any climate agreements. Thus, it seems that the Bush Administration’s tough attitude against the Kyoto Protocol simply made the position that the U.S. already had on this matter during the Clinton administration more definite—when all actions to get the U.S. to ratify the climate treaty came to a halt in the face of the opposition of the U.S. auto—industrial complex.10

8   Cited from J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 20. 9   Ibid. 10  Ibid., p. 14.

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The following passage can be seen as Foster’s basic conclusion of his entire study of the Bush Administration’s opposition to the Kyoto Protocol, Yet, no matter how urgent it is for life on the planet as a whole that greenhouse gas buildup in the atmosphere be stopped, the failure of the Kyoto Protocol significantly to address this problem suggests that capitalism is unable to reverse course—that is, to move from a structure of industry and accumulation that has proven to be in the long run (and in many respects in the short run as well) environmentally disastrous. When set against the get-rich-quick imperatives of capital accumulation, the biosphere scarcely weighs in the balance. The emphasis on profits to be obtained from fossil fuel consumption and from a form of development geared to the auto-industrial complex largely overrides longer-term issues associated with global warming-even if this threatens, within a just a few generations, the planet itself.11 Foster’s statement explicitly expresses the following meanings: first, greenhouse gas emissions in the atmosphere have sharply increased, which is bound to pose a threat to the survival of all life on Earth, so solving the problem of greenhouse gas emissions has become the most urgent task of humankind today; second, significant emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly come from the burning of fossil fuels in the automotive industry and other large enterprises; third, these large companies are governed by the principle of profit, so as long as they exist, they are bound to do so for the sake of rapidly accumulating capital; fourth, the capitalist system is representative of the interests of these enterprise groups, so it is impossible for it to change the structure of development of the accumulation of capital in order to protect the environment, and it is impossible for them to reverse their own original path of development; fifth, if we do not touch the capitalist system and do not change the rules of capital accumulation, even if we worked out the same provisions as those in the Kyoto Protocol, it would still be impossible to implement them; sixth, if human beings really wanted to accomplish the urgent task of preventing greenhouse gas emissions and save life on Earth, we cannot pin our hopes on the agents of the capitalist system like the Bush Administration, but instead must combine protecting the ecological environment with opposing the capitalist system. Foster believes that there is a problem that must be explained which is that capitalist countries oppose the human endeavor to eliminate the ecological crisis for the sake of safeguarding the interests of capital. This is to say that it is obvious that the United States and the European capitalist countries differ 11  Ibid., pp. 21–22.

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significantly in attitude towards the Kyoto Protocol. The United States firmly opposes it, while the European capitalist countries are mostly willing to accept it, and, indeed, did a lot of work in order to implement the Kyoto Protocol. Of course, the social system of these European countries is also capitalism, that is, the principle of capital accumulation governs the basic principles of these countries. So, the United States firmly opposed the Kyoto Protocol while the European capitalist countries were willing to accept it. Was “the refusal to go along with the climate accord a peculiarity of the United States—its corporations and government—rather than reflecting conditions endemic to capitalism itself?”12 Foster certainly does’ t think so. In his view, in order to grasp the issue correctly, we have to know the record of carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels in the United States, the European Union and Japan over the 1990s. In April 1993, president Clinton declared that the United States would keep greenhouse gas emission stable at 1990 levels by the year 2000 by relying on a series of measures. The reality is, during the 1990s U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels increased by 12 percent from 1,355 million metric tons of the carbon equivalent in 1990 to 1,520 in 1999. During the same period, Japan’s carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use grew over 14 percent from 269 MMTCE to 307. In contrast, EU emissions grew over the 1990s by only 1 percent from 904 MMTCE to 913. The European Union’s successful maintenance of levels of carbon dioxide emissions only slightly above those of 1990 was due mainly to shifting from high-carbon coal sources in both Germany and in the United Kingdom—generating a sharp decline in carbon emissions in those two countries in the early 1990s. Foster points out that the dramatic increase of carbon emissions in the United States and Japan, together with Europe’s failure thus far to fall below 1990 levels, tell an important story. For the Kyoto Protocol, 1990 is “year zero.” Reducing large quantities of carbon dioxide emissions to 1990 levels would bring serious harm to the interests of capital in the United States and Japan, while being less harmful to the capital gains of EU nations. Thus, some European capitalist countries accept the Kyoto Protocol, not because there are no sharp conflicts between capitalist states and ecology, and not because these capitalist 12  Ibid., p. 16.

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c­ ountries have reversed the path of development governed by the accumulation of capital. The fact is, when other ways and means to eliminate the ecological crisis are proposed, if such approaches and methods conflict with the capital interests of these EU countries, the latter will immediately intensify obstruction and opposition to them. For this reason, that European capitalist countries accept the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions in accordance with the Kyoto Protocol, does not mean that they approve of other measures that are taken to eliminate the ecological crisis. Foster emphasizes: The ecological imperialism of the center of the capitalist world economy was symbolized by Washington’s refusal to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on limiting greenhouse gas emissions generating global warming.13 Bush’s opposition to the Kyoto Protocol represents not only one administration of the U.S. government but every administration of the U.S. government, which is not only representative of the U.S. government but of the government of every major capitalist nation. His action reflects the “illness of capitalism itself” as the symbol of “ecological imperialism”. The U.S. Government’s Attitude Toward the Other “Earth Summits” To further demonstrate that today’s world is mainly the interests of capital preventing human beings from eliminating the ecological crisis, Foster also analyzes the background of two “Earth Summits” as evidence supporting his response to the question “what are the implications of the Bush Administration’s intense opposition to the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol?” The two “Earth Summits” he mentions were the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED 1992) held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD 2002) in Johannesburg, South Africa. The hope behind UNCED in 1992 was that humans transcend national borders and come together to solve global environmental problems. In the late 80s and early 90’s, the ecological crisis finally began to enter public consciousness. Humanity discovered that they were facing the terrifying reality of ozone depletion, global warming and species extinction, whose relationship to human survival has become increasingly close, and all of this is the result of human actions undermining the ecological environment of our planet. A new unified ideology in the world dominated UNCED. The Montreal Draft placed limits on the production of odorous chemicals which seemed to prove that the 13  J. B. Foster, The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 4.

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world’s economic powers could solve environmental problems in unison. The location selected for this “Earth Summit”, namely, Brazil, home of the Amazon, was symbolic, meaning that the purpose of the Summit was to preserve biodiversity in the world. As for the document that took shape during the conference, known as the Agenda of the 21st Century, its purpose was to make the 21st century a new century of sustainable development. Foster points out that this fact shows that the optimism coming out of Rio was misplaced largely because environmental groups were not really contemplating the economic forces arrayed against them or considering how fundamentally the capitalist economic system is geared toward environmental degradation.14 In fact, at “The Rio de Janeiro Summit”, when most of the participants were positive in wishing success at the conference, the tune sung by the U.S. president at the time, George W. Bush, could not have been more out of pitch with the whole conference. Bush explained, I think it is important that we take both those words-environment and development-equally seriously. And we do … I am determined to protect the environment. I am also determined to protect the American taxpayer. The day of the open checkbook is over … environmental protection and growing economy are inseparable…. For the past half century, the United States has been the great engine of global economic growth, and it’s going to stay that way.15 In Foster’s opinion, the remarks that G. W. Bush made at the meeting were not only in line with his re-election strategy, they also show the attitude and priorities of the United States in relation to environmental costs and environmental control. He clearly exhibited the position of the United States Government, namely, that any environmental measures which do harm to United States capital interests will not be implemented. His understanding of the concept of “sustainable development” is that first of all any environmental target may be interpreted as obstruction to development, and so must be stopped. Also as the “Rio de Janeiro Summit” was held, the Uruguay Round of GATT was under-

14  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 1. 15  Cited from J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, pp. 65–66.

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way at the same time. The outcome of the negotiations was the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO). In Foster’s opinion, this is an organization that has really centralized a lot of international economic decision making and signaled that environmental regulations globally were going to go by the board. The WTO, as well as NAFTA, the IMF, the World Bank, and other neoliberal institutions, have made it abundantly clear that economic growth, at virtually any social or environmental cost, is their number one priority.16 This shows that while people were making efforts to eliminate the ecological crisis, international capitalism was not “idle,” but was on the contrary also accelerating the pace of capital accumulation at the expense of the environment. Foster points out that over the past decade since the Rio de Janeiro Summit, we have seen the rapid expansion of the regime of neoliberal trade and investment that has undermined the possibility of meaningful environmental reforms.17 Foster notes that the mood of the second “Earth Summit” in Johannesburg, could not have been more different than the first “Earth Summit,” “Rio’s hope had given way to Johannesburg’s dismay.”18 In his opinion, it is perfectly understandable for the people attending the meeting to have been so frustrated, because the overwhelming sense among environmental groups was that we had been losing ground on the environment and that the negotiations weren’t going to accomplish anything at all. In fact, it was indeed impossible to implement. On environmental issues, people looked forward not to 10 years of improvement, but to 10 years of more serious damage. “The pessimism coming out of Johannesburg was in some ways actually a more realistic response to the nature of the problems we’ re now facing.”19 What does it refer to by saying “the essence of the problem”? As long as the logic of capital still relentlessly dominates the world, the “sustainable development” to which people so passionately look forward will amount to nothing more than “sustaining 16  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 1. 17  Ibid. 18  J. B. Foster, The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 4. 19  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 2.

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capital accumulation at virtually any ecological cost.”20 The implementation of ecological protection measures under the premise of “doing no harm” to capitalism can only be wishful thinking, and to expect the capitalist rulers of these countries to guide humankind toward the elimination of the ecological crisis would be to attempt the impossible. It becomes glaringly obvious as soon as one looks at president G. W. Bush’s attitude towards the Johannesburg conference. George Bush didn’t pay any attention to the session at all, and he declined to attend the earth summit. At the very moment that debates were taking place in Johannesburg on the future of world ecology, the Bush administration seized the world stage by threatening war in Iraq, ostensibly over weapons of mass destruction—though to the world’s environmentalists assembled in Johannesburg it was clear even then that the real issue was oil. The ecologists attending the Johannesburg conference at the time recognized the true purpose of George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. Such is the way the following scenario took shape: while these ecologists made plans for the reduction and rational use of energy in Johannesburg, the general agents of capitalism, the Bush Administration of the government in Washington were strategizing war plans to gain even more control over the source of energy. What a dose of irony these ecologists had to swallow! Foster points out that a new historical age has emerged in the ten years since the Rio summit. Economically, the world had witnessed what Paul Sweezy in 1994 called the triumph of financial capitalism with the transformation of monopoly capital into what might be called global monopoly-finance capital. By the end of the twentieth century capitalism had evolved into a system that was if anything more geared to rapacious accumulation than ever before.21 Capitalism has taken up the shield of powerful military force, specifically the force of the U.S. military to plunder nature and destroy the environment in an unprecedented manner. In the face of such a constellation of forces, all who want to protect our planet must know where the real enemy is! Foster believes that the ecological destruction that has escalated since the Johannesburg “Earth Summit” in 2002 is worse than the 10 years following the 20  J. B. Foster, The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 3. 21  Ibid., p. 4.

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Rio de Janeiro conference. He says, several decades have passed since the second Earth Summit in Johannesburg, and yet it has become increasingly difficult to separate the class and imperial war inherent in capitalism from war on the planet itself. At a time when the United States is battling for imperial control over the richest oil region on earth, the ecology of the planet is experiencing rapid deterioration, marked most dramatically by global warming. Meanwhile, neoliberal economic restructuring emanating from the new regime of monopoly-finance capital is not only undermining the economic welfare of much of humanity, but in some regions, is removing such basic ecological conditions of human existence as access to clean air, drinkable water, and adequate food.22 He even puts forward the following judgment that our planet is in the process of obliteration, and we already know it is too late to fully reverse the global disaster, and we can do nothing more than try to reduce such disasters. The key to all of this is that the world has numerous mechanisms that are triggering horrible chain reactions, which is that humanity is more and more obsessed with creature comforts and economic development, and economic development is increasingly dependent on the Earth’s energy and the unrestrained development and usage of resources. The increase of humanity’s attachment to wealth and capital is proportional to the increase of destruction to the planet. Thus, on the one hand, no one argues anymore about whether global warming will bring us crises of greater degrees, but on the other hand, people have turned a deaf ear to it, and have gone even further in intensifying the warming process in order to accumulate capital. People want to eliminate the “effect,” but do not want to do anything to eliminate the “cause.” His estimation of the state of the world and the future is: Today every major ecosystem on the earth is in decline. Issues of environmental justice are becoming more prominent and pressing everywhere we turn. Underlying this is the fact that capitalist accumulation is a juggernaut that knows no limits. In this deadly conflict, the natural world is seen as a mere instrument of world social domination. Hence, capital by its very logic imposes what is in effect a scorched earth strategy. The planetary ecological crisis is increasingly all-encompassing, a product of the 22  Ibid., p. 5.

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destructive uncontrollability of a rapidly globalizing capitalist economy, which knows no law other than its own drive to exponential expansion.23 Foster predicts that every major ecosystem on earth faces destruction. The topic of environmental justice is becoming one of the most urgent issues in every region. The background of this fact is people do not dare to place any limits on capitalist accumulation, and under this fatal attack the natural world is only seen as a means that society controls. As capital forces the implementation of the strategy of obliterating the Earth, the global ecological crisis becomes even more dramatic by the day which is the uncontrollable destructive result of accelerating the globalization of the capitalist economy, and capital cares for no law, but insists rather on an indexical type of expansion, so even if a third and fourth “Earth Summit” were to be held nothing ideal would be the result. If the Johannesburg “Earth Summit” was the reverse of the Rio De Janeiro “Earth Summit,” then the future Earth Summits are likely to face even worse setbacks than those in Johannesburg. Foster goes on to show the unfortunate event that followed, the well-known world climate conference held in Copenhagen in December 2009. The meeting failed to reach practical legally binding agreements, only a so-called memorandum was signed by the United States, China, India, South Africa and Brazil, while the General Assembly has overall failed to adopt it. The result of this inaction is expectable at least for Foster. He will launch a new round of commentary on the variety of performances exhibited by Western politicians before and after the meeting, inside and outside of the meeting. The subject matter will focus on the opposition between ecology and capital in order to explain that if we do not touch the capitalist system we cannot get rid of the ecological crisis. As the state of affairs develops further and as the political leaders of capitalism with the U.S. on the front lines find it even harder to hide their thwarting of human efforts at eliminating the ecological crisis, such illustration and demonstration will cut deeper and deeper. We look forward to that.

Obliging the Third World to “Swallow Pollution”

Foster’s criticism of Bush and the other bourgeois politicians who opposed the Kyoto Protocol did not stop there. Among the direct consequences of the Bush Administration’s rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, permission was given to in23  Ibid., p. 7.

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crease carbon dioxide emissions and to all forms of human activity that bring about the wanton destruction of the ecological environment. Of course, all life on earth will suffer from the consequences of such damage to the ecological environment. The capitalists and the agents of capital will protect the accumulation of capital at the expense of damage to the ecological environment, and the boomerang effect of having to sleep in the bed that humanity has made for itself will become harder to avoid, that is, it will become harder to escape punishment from the natural world. The capitalists do not live in a vacuum. The adverse effects of global warming brought about by the destruction of the ecological environment threaten not just ordinary people, but the capitalists themselves as well. Foster remarks that even in this scenario, Bush, the other bourgeois politicians, and the agents of capitalism will fight by hook or by crook for selfish plunder. They will manufacture pollution and at the same time do everything possible to make the poor in developing countries eat this pollution, that is, they will ship the ecological consequences of environmental destruction as far away as possible. Marx asserted that the conflict between the logic of capital on one hand and nature and ecology on the other is closely aligned with the conflict between the capitalist and the proletariat or broad masses of working people, which is still accurate today. What Foster has asserted is well founded. On December 12, 1991, the World Bank’s chief economist, Lawrence Summers, sent a memorandum to some of his colleagues. The memorandum presents views on the environment, “reflecting the logic of capital accumulation,” a part of which was published in The Economist on February 8, 1992 under the striking title “Let Them Eat Pollution.” The term “they” here refers to the majority of poor people, especially the poor from developing countries. The memorandum makes it clear: The economic logic behind dumping loads of toxic waste in low-wage countries is impeccable and we should face up to that,” “the problem with the arguments against all of these proposals for more pollution in Less Developed Countries could be turned around.24 Foster asserts that although Summers’ choice of words is “disgusting,” the deduction he makes follows perfectly from the logic of capital, so it is hard to refute. After combing through the memorandum comprehensively, Foster digs out three layers of implied messages. 1. The measurement of the cost of health-impairing pollution depends on the amount of earnings forgone due to increased rates of morbidity and mortality, which does not add up to much in 24  Cited from J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, pp. 60–61.

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comparison with the worth of one individual life from a developed capitalist country. The average wage of someone from the developed world is hundreds of times higher than that of someone from a third world country, so by the same logic, an individual life from a less developed country is worth hundreds of times less than an individual life from a developed country. Supposing that the economic value of human life was maximized across the entire world, the low-wage countries would become the most suitable place for the treatment of the world’s hazardous waste; 2. the third world is still in the condition of being vastly under-polluted, which is to say that the level of air pollution in third world regions is still extremely low in comparison with the severely polluted cities like Los Angeles and Mexico City. 3. Clean environment is the pursuit of luxury in rich countries of long life expectancy; it is only suitable for the high aesthetic and health standards of those countries. So, if polluting companies shift from the centers of the world system to the margins, production costs will fall all around the world. Foster generalizes the above three points of Summers’ memorandum which actually states the three main reasons behind “making the poor eat the pollution,” namely, because their wages are lower, the value of their lives is much lower in comparison with the rich, so first letting them eat the pollution is the only natural thing to do; since industry is not yet fully developed in the poor inhabited areas of the third world, the level of pollution there is still low in comparison with developed industrial nations, so most of the third world still possesses the status of being “under polluted,” and therefore it is also reasonable and conscionable to tip the pollution first towards those areas; Now only the rich regions pay attention to what suits aesthetic and health standards, so if the polluting enterprises are developed in these affluent areas, the populace will necessarily try to eliminate pollution for aesthetic and health reasons, which raises costs, so if these polluting enterprises are transferred to the poorer areas, although this will bring about serious pollution problems, since these areas are far from what is considered aesthetic and healthy, there is no need to eliminate pollution at the risk of higher costs. Owing to such reasons, Foster concludes that, The World Bank should encourage the migration of polluting industries and toxic wastes to the Third World. Social and humanitarian arguments against such world trade in waste, Summers concludes, can be disregarded since they are the same arguments that are used against all proposals for capitalist development.25 25  J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 61.

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After revealing the essence of Summers’ memorandum, Foster further analyzes that, although the memorandum’s predatory attitude toward the poorer countries of the world was publicly so “shocking,” Summers’ response was still far from being diagnosed as falling under the category of a “mental disorder,” because nothing could more perfectly reflect the essential characteristics of bourgeois economics. As the World Bank’s chief economist, Summers is on the mission to create the most suitable conditions for the accumulation of capital in the world, especially when it comes to the core areas of the capitalist world. Neither the welfare of the majority of the population of the globe nor the ecological fate of the earth-nor even the fate of individual capitalists themselves- can be allowed to stand in the way of this single- indeed goal.26 It is the iron law of the bourgeois economics of capital accumulation that Summers upheld, on the basis of which he asked everyone to let the Third World’s poor to eat the pollution, even though when he made this claim he of course paid no attention to either the happiness of most people in the world or the ecological fate of the planet. In the final analysis, because Summers’ memorandum aims at making the most suitable conditions for the accumulation of capital in the world, as soon as he wrote this memorandum, he immediately earned acclaim from the capitalist world, even though some people complain that Summers’ specific expressions are too explicit or too stupid—his assessment of the value of life in the poorer third world, for example. Foster points out that the claims which Summers makes in his memorandum “let them eat pollution” have effectively been implemented all around today’s world. He cites Barry Ritchey Turner’s analysis on this: Some economists have proposed that the value of a human life should be based on a person’s earning power. It then turns out that a woman’s life is worth much less than a man’ s, and that a black’ s life is worth much less than a white’s. Translated into environmental terms, harm is regarded as small if the people at hazard are poor— an approach that could be used to justify locating heavily polluting operations in poor neighborhoods. This is, in fact, only too common a practice of the government today. A recent study shows, for example, that most toxic dumps are located near poor black and Hispanic communities.27 26  Ibid., p. 62. 27  Cited from ibid., p. 63.

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Foster also cites other statistics to support Barry Ritchey Turner’s analysis. According to a study by the U.S. General Accounting Office, three out of four off-site commercial hazardous waste landfills in southern states were located in primarily black communities even though blacks represented only 20 percent of the population in the region. In Foster’s opinion, “Summer’s argument for dumping toxic wastes in the Third World is therefore nothing more than a call for the globalization of policies and practices which are already evident in the United States.”28 Foster further notes that the dignitaries of the capitalist world have attempted to transfer the adverse consequences of environmental destruction as far away as possible to the third world in the effort to make the third world swallow the evolving environmental costs brought about by the ceaseless development of global capital, which translates not only into the problem of how to deal with waste, but also in how to deal with global warming and the growing problems of drought. Our economy needs to develop, our capital must proliferate, but as to global warming and what to do with such consequences as drought leave it to the third world to figure it out—this is the basic attitude of the capitalist bosses. And so, as the sayings go, “let them build sea walls or develop drought resistant plants, etc.” Foster believes that for these dignitaries of the capitalist world, the adaptation of the capital accumulation process and thus world civilization to irreversible global warming once it has taken place and many of its worst effects are evident is easy to contemplate,” while any attempt to head off disaster “would interfere with dominance of capital and must therefore be unthinkable.29 For them, it is necessary to safeguard the rule of capital, but it is also necessary to bear as little of the costs as possible in trying to protect the interests of capital, so the only way out is to transfer the expenses to the Third World. J. B. Foster firmly believes, as long as the capitalist system dominates the planet, and as long as the logic of capital works smoothly and without impediment, we will see more and more ideas like those of Summers’. He states: the sustainability of both human civilization and global life processes depends not on the mere slowing down of these dire trends, but on their reversal. Nothing in the history of capitalism, however, suggests that the 28  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 63. 29  Ibid., p. 65.

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system will be up to such a task. On the contrary, there is every indication that the system, left to its own devices, will gravitate toward the ‘let them eat pollution’ stance so clearly enunciated by the chief economist of the World Bank.30 From the Bush Administration’s obstructionism towards the implementation of the Kyoto Protocol and the poor performance of the dignitaries of capitalist countries at the earth summits to the World Bank’s chief economist’s explicit suggestion that we should let the poor eat the pollution—all of this clearly demonstrates the unavoidable conflict between ecology and capital in today’s world. It should be noted that J. B. Foster’s exposition is coherent and to the point. Because of this, the following conclusion that he draws is fully convincing, For the nature of the global environmental crisis is such that the fate of the entire planet and social and ecological issues of enormous complexity are involved, all traceable to the forms of production now prevalent. It is impossible to prevent the world’s environmental crisis from getting progressively worse unless root problems of production, distribution, technology, and growth are dealt with on a global scale. And the more that such questions are raised, the more it becomes evident that capitalism is unsustainable—ecologically, economically, politically, and morally—and must be superseded.31 Facing Foster and this distinct conclusion: the ultimate way to solve environmental problems is to “replace” the capitalist system, that is, replace the means of production and way of life of capitalism with the means of production and way of life of socialism. Have we not been pushed to consider this more deeply?

30  Ibid., p. 67. 31  Ibid.

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Giving up Illusions in Order to Overcome the Ecological Crisis In the face of such a serious ecological crisis, many people in the world do not turn a blind eye, but instead design a variety of programs, which aim at getting out of this crisis. The problem is: can these programs really help people eliminate the ecological crisis? The American ecological Marxist Foster analyzes several major approaches and methods of solving environmental problems that are popular in the Western world today, but his intention is to show how such approaches necessarily fail due to avoiding the capitalist system, and that at best, they amount to some illusions that humankind occupies itself with in the attempt to eliminate the ecological crisis, and if humankind were really serious about eliminating the ecological crisis and constructing an ecological civilization, they would necessarily have to discard these illusions. He states: His harsh conclusion regarding capitalism’s inherent anti-environmental character, drawn from the case of global warming, stands in stark contrast to the views of those in recent years have advanced the notion that capitalism is not a threat to but rather contains within itself the solution to global environmental problems.1 Here we take a look at how he analyzes these contemporary means and methods of eliminating the crisis, which instead of “hurting” the logic of capital is built on the basis of the capitalist system; in this way, it is entirely knowable what kind of results that they will continue to bring about. Today, the Chinese people are exploring pathways out of the ecological crisis, so the analysis made by Foster is clearly instructive for us in the process of getting out of the ecological crisis. We must stick to the fundamentals, and take the right direction.

Can Environmental Problems be Solved through the “Dematerialization” of the Capitalist Economy?

What so-called “dematerialization” refers to is the increasing of energy efficiency and the reduction of the quantity of waste that is dumped into the envi1  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 22. © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004356009_010

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ronment. Capitalist economies are supposedly “decoupling” economic growth from the use of energy and material and from the flow of waste into the environment. The essence of this approach is to reduce the environmental impact of “each additional monetary increment of GDP.” Foster points out that according to this idea, “nothing really needs to be done to decrease the effects of economic expansion on the environment,” because capitalism is moving towards “The Weightless Society,” and, by constituting their own systems of “continuous innovation and market miracles,” capitalist countries aim to dematerialize their own economies. In this case, what can capitalism do? “At beat public policy needs simply to accelerate the trend toward dematerialization and to ensure that the environment is integrated within a more knowledge-driven, innovative economy.” As stated in the World Bank’s World Development Report of 1992, the passage shows that some people are obsessed with this idea as the means of solving environmental problems in capitalist society. In many cases, economic growth is being ‘decoupled’ from pollution as environmentally non-damaging practices are incorporated into the capital stock”. This hypothesis is often portrayed in terms of an ‘environmental Kuznets curve’, an inverted U-shaped curve, applicable to advanced capitalist economies, which are said to be decreasing their physical inputs per unit of GDP after having reached a peak in this respect in the mid-to late twentieth century.2 Foster’s interpretation of this pathway is that the capitalist economy can “dematerialize,” that is, the capitalist economy can become a low-carbon economy. The problem is, under the premise of doing nothing about capitalism, can the capitalist economy “dematerialize,” that is, transform into a low-carbon economy? Foster’s answer is categorically NO! He first points out that some people boast that capitalist economies are supposedly “decoupling” economic growth from the use of energy and material and from the flow of waste into the environment, which is untrue. As shown by the study The Weight of Nations: Material Outflows from Industrial Economies, although there have been reductions in the ratio of material outflow of GDP, waste flows per capita in the rich countries have nonetheless risen measurably. The “throughput” (or quantity used) of materials and energy and the material output dumped into the environment have continued to increase appreciably in absolute terms. Fossil fuel combustion is the dominant activity of modern industrial economies 2  Ibid.

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and is the single largest contributor to material outflows into the air and land. In the capitalist world except for Germany, carbon dioxide emissions are on the rise. He states that “actual dematerialization,” the report stresses, “has not been achieved.”3 On the basis of the data cited in this report, he notes further that “dematerialization” is impossible to achieve in today’s capitalism, which makes “dematerialization” as a natural outgrowth of capitalism “become a problem.”4 Some people continue to promote the logic of capitalist development in accordance with their own will to move in the direction of “dematerialization.” Foster disagrees with this view. In his opinion, the fact that the capitalist world did not achieve “dematerialization” already proves that relying on capitalism itself to realize “dematerialization” is impossible. He points out that in the history of capitalist development, we can see that decreased energy per unit of GDP growth is nothing new, “the industrial revolution was accompanied by continuous technological improvements. Each new steam engine was more efficient than the one before.” The problem is that “energy reduction per unit of GDP growth” does not mean the rise of “dematerialization” or a reduction in the total amount of energy consumed or in the quantity of output of waste. He points out that increased efficiency in the use of physical inputs has been invariably accompanied throughout the history of industrial capitalism by expansion in the scale of the economy (and by more intensive industrialization), and hence widening environmental degradation.5 Here, he highlights two points: first, the growth of monopoly capitalism has encouraged the production of all kinds of waste through the proliferation of commodities with little or no use value. One half to three quarters of annual physical inputs into industrial economies return to the environment as influx of waste every year; second, if all of this were not simply enough, such physical measures do not deal with the qualitative aspect of output—the environmental effects specific to a particular form of physical output. Toxic or potentially

3  Ibid., p. 23. 4  Ibid. 5  Ibid.

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hazardous output increased by nearly 30 percent in the United states between 1975 and 1996. Based on these studies, he concludes that the promise of “dematerialization” as a natural byproduct of ‘post-industrial’ capitalism is “thus a dangerous myth.”6 Why is it that the capitalist economy cannot rely upon capitalism itself to realize “dematerialization”? According to Foster, achieving “dematerialization” requires support, while the capitalist system is not sufficient to provide such support. The key is that as Marx’ s ecological worldview argues, capitalism is a profit-oriented system that is built on the premise of profit worship, so it is not possible for capitalism to develop in the direction of “dematerialization.” As we mentioned above, improving the utilization of resources in the capitalist world does not amount to reductions in the total amount of energy consumed or the total amount of waste output, and this is so due to the principle of profit above all else. Under this principle of profit above all else, the decreases in consumption of energy and output of waste that are brought about by improvements in utilization of resources is not enough to cancel out the increases in consumption of energy and output of waste that is brought about by the continuous expansion of economic scale. The capitalist principle of profit above all else makes it impossible for the reduced output of consumption and waste of resources brought about by the increased efficiency of resource utilization to make up for the increased output of consumption and waste of energy brought about by the continuous expansion of economic scale, and moreover, due to the overall total after “increases and reductions” it also leads to significant overall increases in the output of consumption and waste of energy. Foster points out that being obsessed with “dematerialization” is being obsessed with “the replacement of natural resources,” namely the hope that something else can “emerge” to replace those natural resources used in production today. Capitalist economists clamor over this all day, that natural resources were fully dispensable. But he followed up his hypothetical point by arguing that the degree of substitutability at present is so great that all worries of Doomsday ecological prophets could be put aside.7 Foster does not deny the possibility of the substitution of natural resources, but he insists that if we only pursue the capitalist principle of profit above all 6  Ibid., p. 24. 7  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, in Monthly Review, 2001, 10, Vol. 53, No. 5, p. 2.

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else, this path of substitution of natural resources will inevitably be blocked. He states, Capitalist economies are geared first and foremost to the growth of profits, and hence to economic growth at virtually any cost. This rush to grow generally means rapid absorption of energy and materials and the dumping of more and more wastes into the environment.8 The goal of rapid economic growth often conflicts with the use of alternative resources. Capitalists cannot possibly abandon rapid economic growth for the sake of finding and using alternative sources of energy. In addition, equally important as capitalism’s insistence on constant expansion is capitalism’s short-sighted behavior in determining investment. In estimating the prospect of any investment, what the capitalist calculates is the shortest possible time in which the investment is recovered and its long-term profit is ensured. “Capital needs to recoup its investment in the foreseeable future, plus secure a flow of profits to warrant the risk and to do better than alternative investment opportunities.”9 The short-sighted behavior of this investment is inconsistent with finding and using alternative resources. Finding and using alternative resources is a long-term process, and the capitalist who is eager to recover and increase profits in the shortest possible time is not interested in such long-term investments

Can Environmental Problems be Solved through the Development of Science and Technology?

The hope of solving environmental problems is placed in the hands of the “dematerialization” of the capitalist economy, but the key is in the hands of the development of technology, because the “dematerialization” of the capitalist economy ultimately depends on the innovation and development of technology. Foster notes that the most common way of solving environmental problems in today’s developed capitalist economic system is nudging techniques in a more benign direction with the help of technology, namely, we can make the production of energy more efficient, lower gas emissions per mile, replace fossil fuels with solar energy and recycle resources. The rulers of capitalist society always inculcate such a view: as long as technology can improve efficiency, 8  Ibid., pp. 2–3. 9  Ibid., p. 3.

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especially energy efficiency, more benign production processes can be adopted, and the most serious pollutants can be removed, all environmental problems can then be solved. He states that The wealthy capitalist countries were always seen to be their technological prowess—which would allow them to promote environmental improvements while also expanding their affluence (that is, growth of capital and consumption).10 In the face of this powerful voice with which people argue today that technology can solve environmental problems, Foster hits back tit for tat, asking: under the current capitalist system, is it possible to simultaneously achieve economic expansion while preventing the degradation of the environment by relying on new technology? With the help of “The Jevons Paradox,” Foster gives this witty and profound answer. British economist W. S. Jevons wrote a book entitled “The Coal Question” (1865), in which he argued that increased efficiency in using a natural resource, such as coal, only resulted in an increase rather than decrease in the demand for that resource, namely because such improvements in efficiency led to a rising scale of production. His exact words were: The economic use of fuel is equivalent to a diminished consumption, this confusion is purely ideological. The very contrary is the truth. The new modes of economy will lead to increase of consumption according to a principle recognized in many parallel instances. The same principles apply, with even greater force and distinctiveness to the use of such a general agent as coal. It is the very economy of its use which leads to its extensive consumption. Nor is it difficult to see how the paradox arises.11 Jevons points out that an improvement in technology will inevitably improve the utilization of a natural resource, which inevitably leads to an increase rather than decrease in the demand for this resource and hence the expansion of consumption. Jevons went on to argue that the whole history of the steam engine was a history of successive economies in its use—each time this led to further increases in the scale of production and the demand for coal. “His conclusion is every such improvement of the engine, when effected, does but accelerate anew the consumption of coal.”12 The later ecological economist made Jevons’ argument known as “The Jevons Paradox.” Foster thinks, even 10  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 93. 11  Cited from J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 94. 12  Ibid., p. 95.

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though Jevons discovered this paradox more than 100 years ago, it still holds practical significance today. Wherein lies the practical significance of “The Jevons Paradox”? It becomes clear as soon as we look at the US auto industry today. The introduction of more energy-efficient automobiles in the US throughout the 1970s did not curtail demand for fuel because driving increased and the number of cars on the road soon doubled. What we see is that, of course, continuing to improve technology can increase the energy efficiency of vehicles, that is, it reduces the fuel consumption of cars, but at the same time, it thereby brings about a surge in demand for fuel. The problem is why then does the Jevons paradox emerge from the development of the capitalist economy? That is, why does technological innovation and improving the efficiency with which natural resources are used increase the demand for natural resources? Foster points out that Jevons cannot answer this precisely. He only revealed the paradox, but it was impossible for him to make an in-depth study of the reasons behind the phenomenon. “Although Jevons is deservedly credited for introducing his paradox, the full force of the problem he raises is not addressed in The Coal Question,” and the key point is that he had abandoned the focus on “class and accumulation,” “his economic analysis was primarily static equilibrium theory, ill-equipped to deal with dynamic issues of accumulation and growth.”13 What Foster stresses is that only with the help of Marxist theory can we correctly answer this question. Marx clearly points out to humankind that capitalism is a system that directly seeks wealth but only indirectly seeks the satisfaction of human needs. The first aim entirely overrides and cancels the second. In other words, capitalism does not restrict its own activities to the production of commodities that satisfy basic human needs, and does not restrict its own activities to providing necessary services and facilities for human beings, but instead, the production of more and more profit becomes the end in-itself, and the types of goods produced and their ultimate usefulness becomes completely immaterial. In capitalist societies, the use value of commodities is increasingly subordinated to their exchange value, and moreover, use values that are devoted to ostentatious consumption and even destructive to human beings and the earth proliferate. Foster believes that in the study of whether technological innovation can solve environmental problems, we must take full account of the constraint on technology that the capitalist principles of profit and accumulation exercise. Here, in fact, is the study of the relationship between technology and accumulation, which is that technology is subordinate to accumulation, or that accumulation dominates technology. And when a technology is constrained by capitalist 13  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 95.

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accumulation, even if there are new technologies that improve the efficiency with which natural resources are used, it is impossible to achieve the effect of decreasing the quantity of natural resources used. So, all those who put their hopes in new technologies to improve the utilization of natural resources must not forget that the obsession of capital accumulation is the main difference between capitalism and all other social systems, and that its creation of more efficient forms of production through innovation is more likely a kind of “creative destruction,” namely the system runs roughshod over each and every thing that stands in its path: all human and natural conditions that interfere with capital accumulation are considered barriers to be overcome. What he repeatedly reaffirms is the following basic viewpoint: “science and technology are not the core problems of ecological crisis; the core problem is the logical relation between nature and the means of production in capitalism.”14 Foster points out that the truth of the case that unfolds before people is not one of technological innovation promoting the protection of ecology and nature, but one of technological innovation becoming enlisted in the service of accumulation and thereby becoming the tool that destroys nature and damages ecology. In particular, he praises what Paul Sweezy and Paul Barron pointed out in the book—Monopoly Capital: As a historical system, capitalism has always been dependent on epochmaking innovations. These are the kinds of innovations that alter the entire structure of production and the geography of production on a massive scale and around which the bulk of investment comes to cluster.15 Three epoch-making innovations had come into play in the history of capitalism—the steam engine, the railroad and the automobile. Since all three of these innovations were in the service of capitalist accumulation, they all thereby brought about the aftermath of destruction to nature, and in particular the consequences of the third innovation have been most devastating. He also points out that if you really want to understand technology and accumulation in capitalist society, and furthermore their relation to the indiscriminate usage of natural resources, all you need to do is look at the internal structure of a capitalist enterprise and the picture becomes clear. In many of the large capitalist enterprises, “product development” is often seen as a department that is subordinate to marketing and sales. In the eyes of the capitalist, the 14  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology in Historical Perspective, contained International Socialism, Summer 2002. Chinese translation contains Foreign Theoretical Trends, 2004, No. 2 p. 34. 15  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 98.

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dividing line between “craftsmanship” and “salesmanship” blurs, the purpose of enterprise and technological innovation to create new products is to sell them better. Foster solemnly points out: In such a system, it makes no sense to see possibilities for sustainable development as limited to whether or not we can develop more technological efficiency within the current framework of production—as though our entire system of production, with all of its irrationality, waste, and exploitation, has been ‘grandfathered’ in.16 As long as the capitalist economy continues, that is, as long as this society still “runs on the logic of profit and accumulation,” then “in this sense new technology cannot solve the problem since it is inevitably used to further the class war and to increase the scale of the economy.”17 Those who think that such “technological wonders can resolve the problem” not only “go against the basic laws of thermodynamics (especially the law of entropy, which stipulates that nothing comes from nothing)” but also “defy all that we know about the workings of capitalism itself, where technological change is subordinated to market imperatives.”18 Rather, we have to pin our hopes on transforming the system itself. This does not mean simply altering a particular “mode of regulation” of the system, but in transcending the existing regime of accumulation in its essential aspects.” He stresses that “[i]t is not technology that constitutes the problem but the socioeconomic system itself.”19 “Insofar as Jevons paradox continues to apply to us today—that is, insofar as technology by itself (given the present framework of production) offers no way out of our environmental dilemmas, which generally increase with the scale of the economy.” Faced with such a dilemma, he once again raises the issue of how to choose: We must either adopt Jevons conclusion or pursue an alternative that Jevons never discussed and which doubtless never entered his mind: the transformation of the social relations of production in the direction of socialism. A society governed not by the search for profit but by people’s genuine needs, and the requirements of socio-ecological sustainability.20

16  Ibid., p. 101. 17  J. B. Foster, The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 8. 18  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, pp. 37–38. 19  Ibid., p. 101. 20  Ibid., p. 102.

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Can Environmental Problems be Solved through a Capitalistic Market Approach to Nature?

In comparison with the two methods mentioned previously, one in particular receives a warm welcome from the capitalist rulers, that is, some environmentalists have repeatedly advocated on behalf of solving all environmental problems by means of assigning nature economic value and integrating the environment more fully into the market system. Foster points out that this method is, in fact, conducted within the traditional framework of neoclassical economics. Traditional or neoclassical economists are admirers of the market, “for them, ecological degradation is evidence of market failure.” The problems of environmental pollution, excessive levels of workplace hazards, or unsafe consumer products exist largely because ‘commodities’ like environmental pollution, workplace safety, and product safety do not trade in markets.21 The market is unable to guide firms in the efficient use of environmental assets if they are not already fully incorporated within the market system by means of a rational price structure. For example, if clean air is not a marketable goods with a price, then the market place no value on it. Thus, when an industrial plant emits air pollution, it simply externalizes the cost (which shows up in premature deaths, damage to ecosystems, deterioration of environmental amenities, etc.) to society, while the environmental damage is not internalized within the market or on the balance sheet of the firm. “The answer to this, from the standpoint of neoclassical environmental economics, to create markets in clean air, thereby internalizing such external costs within the market.” Foster points out that the prescription that these economists give to the solution of environmental problems is simply: market nature, capitalize it, “the overall logic is one of bringing the earth within the balance sheet.”22 In the face of such a prescription, Foster asks pointedly, is this cure more dangerous than the disease itself? The attempt to integrate the environment into the capitalist market system, will it not form a new economic empire that rides roughshod over ecology, that is, is this

21  See J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 26. 22  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 27.

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not the case of neo-colonialism replacing the old colonialism that no longer works? What would the ultimate result of this be?23 About the train of thought of attempting to solve environmental problems by means of marketing nature and capitalizing it, Foster declares, “[t]his entire methodology is based on the utopian myth that the environment can and should become a part of a self-regulating market system.”24 He points out that, rationally speaking, the environment can be seen as one of the economy’s “conditions of production,” but the environment cannot fully integrate into the cycle of the commodity economy. Take land as an example, the economic function of which is but one of its many vital functions. It invests human life with stability; it is the site of human being’s habitation; it is a condition of the physical safety of human beings; We may just as well imagine humans being born without hands or feet as we may imagine humans carrying on their lives without land. And yet dissociating human being from land and evaluating land according to the demands of the real estate market effectively reduces the function of land to an economic function. He angrily points out that the strange nature of such a reductionist approach to nature arises out of the attempt to organize not only all of society but also the entire ecology of humankind along the lines of the commodity market.25 In order to unmask the attempt to solve environmental problems by means of marketing nature and capitalizing it as a “utopian myth,” Foster argues that there are three major contradictions that this “economic reductionism” of reducing land and other natural beings to economic functions implies. The first contradiction is: degrading humanity’s relationship with nature to a market commodity established on the basis of the principle of personal profit above all else must thoroughly break all bonds with historical precedent. Just as Marx pointed out, it is only in the capitalist system that the natural world becomes nothing but human being’s object, becomes nothing but a useful being, and ceases to be recognized as a power for itself. At the same time, it is only in the capitalist system that the knowledge itself of natural laws appears as human cunning so as to “subject it under human needs.”26 So, capitalism’s degradation of humanity’s relationship with nature to one of purely individual 23  Ibid. 24  Ibid., p. 30. 25  Ibid., p. 31. 26  See J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 31.

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possession does not by any means prove that when humanity’s relationship with nature is born the development of humanity’s needs and capacities is nothing more than activity for the sake of satisfying humanity’s own one-sided egotism and of alienating nature from society. The historical stage of capitalism turns nature into a commodity, which does not mean that humankind before and after capitalism did and will do so as well. The authors of economic reductionism in one respect reduce the functions of nature for human being to economic functions, and in another respect, reduce the all-around function of nature for human being throughout the entire history of humankind to only that single economic function that the capitalist stage reveals. The second contradiction is: “Economic Reductionism” only believes in the “market price” of nature, but in fact, nature has its “intrinsic value.” Kant once made a distinction between the “market price” and “intrinsic value” of things. He points out that That which is related to general human inclinations and needs has a market price. But that which constitutes the condition under which alone something can be an end in itself does not have mere relative worth (price) but an intrinsic worth (dignity).27 In fact, “intrinsic value” is not reducible to mere “market value,” and there is no way to give a cost-benefit analysis to intrinsic values. Whenever asked to set a price on particular environmental goods such as air quality or picturesque landscapes people feel deeply uncomfortable, and feel that doing this is not for the sake of protection but is rather on the contrary some sort of scam for the sake of extorting protection fees, and the reason people feel this way is because people are aware of the environment’s “intrinsic value” which is impossible to set a price on. For many, perhaps the majority—even in our self-centered, profit seeking society—fracturing nature into pieces and inserting the latter into a system of prices is unacceptable. If someone views nature solely from the perspective of consumption and not from the aesthetic perspective, this person is making the big mistake of “fracturing nature.” Applying cost-benefit analysis to the environment, in fact, reduces the “intrinsic value” of nature to nothing by virtue of the “market price” of nature, and this attempt to measure the immeasurable is one hundred percent idiocy; its absurdity consists in thinking “that everything has a price or, in other words, that money is the highest of all values.”28 27  Ibid. 28  Ibid., p. 32.

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The third contradiction is integrating nature into market systems, which even though may have some sort of impact on resolving ecological problems in the short term, has absolutely no long term effects. By means of assigning everything in nature with the price of a good, and establishing markets to resolve all problems from pollution to resource exhaustion, etc., “is often presented as the way out of our ecological problems,” but a good case can be made that such solutions, “while sometimes attenuating the problems in the short term, only accentuate the contradictions overall,” mainly as “undermining both the conditions of life and the conditions of production.”29 The reason for this is the sheer dynamism of the capitalist commodity economy, which by its very nature accepts no boundaries outside of itself and seeks constantly to increase its sphere of influence without regard to the effects of this on the biosphere. It is not so much the failure to internalize large parts of nature into the economy that is the source of environmental problems, but rather that more and more natural resources are reduced to solely monetary relations and are not treated in accordance with ecological principles. The ecological effects that are brought about by the failure to internalize large parts of environmental resources into the market economy are not only short-term but also superficial. For the economic reductionist, songbird species are only facing extinction because their corresponding prices are too low. The solution from this standpoint then is to find a way to bid up the price for songbirds by creating markets for them. However, finding a way to assign songbirds a higher price is unlikely to bring about much good insofar as the primary reason for their approaching extinction in the first place is due to the expansion of the whole contemporary system of agribusiness, with its disastrous effects on the habitat on which these birds depend. It must be made clear: “from an ecological standpoint, insofar as the diversity of life is the objective, the market is extremely inefficient compared to nature itself.”30 Foster concludes by exposing the three major contradictions inherent in the “economic reductionism” above, the conditions of environmental reproduction (that is, ecological sustainability) can be undermined not only through the economy failing to take environmental costs into account, as is commonly supposed, but also by the attempted incorporation of the environment into the economy—the commodification of nature.31 29  Ibid. 30  Ibid., p. 33. 31  Ibid., p. 30.

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In order to further expose the absurdity of marketing nature and capitalizing it to solve environmental problems, Foster analyzes the concept of “natural capital” raised by some advocates. He remarks that these people insist “that all of nature and its various components are essentially ‘natural capital.’ ” From this basic understanding, they suggest that the ecological crisis is not so much a failure of the market as a failure of our accounting system, which does not recognize that capital already includes all of existence. He borrows the words of another ecological Marxist, M. O’Connor’s, to explain the main meaning and essence of the capitalization of nature: The representation of the biophysical milieu (nature) and non-industrialized economies and the human domestic sphere (human nature) as reservoirs of ‘capital,’ and codification of these stocks as property tradable ‘in the marketable.’32 The relevant image is no longer of man acting on nature to ‘produce’ value, henceforth appropriated by the capitalist class. Rather, the image is of nature (and human nature) codified as capital incarnate, regenerating itself through time by controlled regimes of investment around the globe, all integrated in a ‘rational calculus of production and exchange,’ through the miracle of a price system extending across space and time. This is nature conceived in the image of capital.33 According to O’Connor’s view, “natural capital” can be understood as “nature is conceived in capital imagery.” Foster suggests that the concept of “natural capital” seems to take the proper domain of capital and thus magically enlarge it by means of a mere alteration of terminology. All of nature is treated as an external and exploitable “present” that is gifted to humanity. Weber said that capitalism had been based on rapacious colonialism, but he went on to deny that this had anything to do with modern rational capitalism, which no longer relied on force or unequal exchange. Now these advocates of “natural capital” argue that capitalism relied on a rapacious relation to nature, but that modern rational capitalism is destined to bring all of nature onto the balance sheet, and that capitalism has become a truly rational capitalism. Foster states that even with all of the rhetoric of the valuation of natural capital, the actual operation of the system has not materially changed, and can’t be expected to change. The rhetoric of nature 32   Martin O’ Conner, “On the Misadventures of Capitalist Nature”, in Is Capitalism Sustainable? Martin O’ Conner, ed. New York: Guilford Press, 1994, p. 126. 33  Ibid., p. 131.

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and planet as capital thus serves mainly to obscure the reality of the extreme exploitation of nature for the sake of commodity exchange. Moreover, the principal result of the incorporation of such natural capital into the capitalist system of commodity production—even if carried out—will be the further subordination of nature to the needs of commodity exchange. There will be no actual net accumulation of natural capital; rather, nature will increasingly be converted into money or abstract exchange, “subject to the vicissitudes of Wall Street.” What does this mean? It implies the total destruction of nature. People have in fact already learned of the result of placing forests under the all-around management of capital and the market, “the tragic fate of these forests—as noted earlier—is not due to their exclusion from the capitalist balance sheet, but rather to their inclusion.”34 Foster also states: “The irony here is that capitalism, in typical fashion, sees any crisis as emanating from barriers to the expansion of capital rather than from the expansion of capital itself.”35 “It is precisely these advocates of “natural capital” who hold to the “typical capitalist” position, because they believe that the solution to ecological crises is found in increasing the domain of capital, recognizing that nature too is properly part of the rational system of commodity exchange.

Can Environmental Problems be Solved through Moral Reform and Establishing Ecological Ethics?

Faced with the challenge of the mounting global ecological crisis, some people are calling for a moral revolution that would incorporate ecological values into culture. They believe that the earth can be saved and the ecological crisis eliminated through the transformation of people’s ideas. As Foster points out, this appeal to new ecological and moral concepts is “the essence of Green thinking.” A. Leopold is well- known for his study of “Land Ethics.” He once said, We abuse land because we regard it as a commodity belonging to us. When we begin to see land as a community to which we belong, we may begin to use it with love and respect.36 According to A. Leopold, the ecological crisis is rooted in the problem of people’s ideas and morality and as long as people’s ideas and morality can change, 34  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 35. 35  Ibid., p. 35. 36  Cited from ibid., p. 44.

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namely, through the establishment of a proper ecological ethics, the ecological crisis will be immediately eliminated. Foster shows: yet behind most appeals to ecological morality there lies the presumption that we live in a society where the morality of the individual is the key to the morality of society. If people as individuals could simply change their moral stance with respect to nature and alter their behavior in areas such as propagation, consumption, and the conduct of business, all would be well.37 Foster points out sharply “What is all too often overlooked in such calls for moral transformation is the central institutional fact of our society: what might be called the global ‘treadmill of production.’ ”38 The cause of the ecological crisis is the core system of our current society, rather than people’s ideas and morality, and these moral reformers who ignore the core system of our current society only look at people’s ideas and morality. In fact, apart from reforming the core system of our current society, it is impossible to achieve the aim of eliminating the ecological crisis by simply staying in our moral sphere, this “inch of land” to reform. He points out that, the core system of our current society is the “treadmill of production,” the logic of which may be broken down into six elements: First, built into this global system, and constituting its central rationale, is the increasing accumulation of wealth by a relatively small section of the population at the top of the social pyramid. Second, there is the long-term flow of workers out of self-employment into wage labor that is contingent upon the continual expansion of production. Third, the competitive struggle between businesses necessitates, on pain of extinction, the allocation of accumulated wealth to new, revolutionary technologies that serve the expansion of production. Fourth, wants are manufactured in a manner that creates an insatiable hunger for more. Fifth, government becomes increasingly responsible for promoting natural economic development, while ensuring some degree of “social security” for at least a portion of its citizens. Sixth, the dominant means of communication and education are part of the treadmill, serving to reinforce its priorities and values. The problem now is that this system is like “a kind of giant squirrel cage.” Everyone, or nearly everyone, is part of this treadmill and is unable or unwilling to step off. Investors and managers are driven by the need to accumulate wealth and to expand the scale of their operations 37  Ibid. 38  Ibid.

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in order to prosper within a globally competitive milieu. For the vast majority, the commitment to the treadmill is more limited and indirect: they simply need to obtain jobs for livable wages. But to retain those jobs and to maintain a given standard of living in these circumstances it is necessary, like the Red Queen in Through the Looking Glass, to run faster and faster in order to stay in the same place. Foster’s emphasizes that everyone “caught” in this cage as well as their needs, their thoughts and their actions are to be determined along the guidelines. People’ s needs, moral values, codes of conduct are “with our social environment as a precondition.” He borrows Arthur Schopenhauer’s words: a man can do what he wants. But he can’t want what he wants. Looked at in this way, it is not individuals acting in accordance with their own innate desires, but rather the treadmill of production on which we are all placed that has become the main enemy of the environment.39 On the surface, the main enemy of environmental damage is human greed, it is the person’s corresponding behavior under the control of this kind of greed, but further, it is also the kind of mode of production behind this kind of greed, so the real enemy of environmental damage is this mode of production. Of course, we are all responsible for our individual actions to a certain point, but many of these actions are not entirely freely chosen, but are instead elicited and compelled by the particular social structures within which we operate. In the analysis of the causes of environmental crisis what we must bear in mind is that the greed of people is the result of being “elicited and compelled by the particular social structures within which we operate.”40 Foster does not deny the existence of ideas that are environmentally speaking immoral in today’s public, but he points out that people shouldn’t just focus on the general public’s immoral ideas about the environment, but should instead primarily focus on the “higher immorality,” which for Mills was a “structural immorality” built into the institutions of power in our society. As the saying goes from Mills: In a civilization so thoroughly business oriented as America, money becomes “the one unambiguous marker of success … the sovereign American value.”41 In his view, the worship of money is first and foremost the most important American value and “higher immorality.” Examples of this “higher immorality” may be found around us everywhere. In 1992 alone 39  Ibid., p. 45. 40  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 7. 41  Cited from Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 46.

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U.S. businesses spent perhaps $1trillion on marketing, this number exceeded by about $600 billion the amount spent on education—public and private—at all levels. He remarks: such a society, dominated by the corporate rich with the support of the political power elite, is a society ‘organized irresponsibility,’ where moral virtue is divorced from success and knowledge from power. Public communication, rather than constituting the basis for the exchange of ideas necessary for the conduct of a democracy, is largely given over to an astounding volume of propaganda for commodities—addressed more often to the belly or to the groin than to the head or the heart.42 The corrupting influence that all of this has on the public is visible in the loss of the capacity for moral indignation, the growth of cynicism. Under these circumstances, we can expect people to grow up with their heads full of information about sellable commodities, and empty of knowledge about human history, morality, culture, science, and the environment. What is most valuable in such a society is the latest style, the most expensive clothing, the finest car. He quotes the words of the German environmentalist Rudolf Bahro who observed: our social life is organized in such a way that even people who work with their hands are more interested in a better car than in the single meal of the slum-dweller on the southern half of the earth or the need of the peasant there for water; or even a concern to expand their own consciousness, for their own self-realization.43 What Foster stresses is those immoral ideas that the public entertains are dominated by this “higher immorality.” People do not inherently place more emphasis on money, but a “higher immorality” prompts them to care too little about other things; it is not people who become greedier, but it is this “higher immorality” which prompts them not to have other ideals of life to constrain their greed. Since the general public’s immorality is dominated by a “higher immorality,” if you want to have moral revolution, then what is primary is revolutionizing the “life” of this “higher immorality” rather than the “life” of the public’s unethical 42  Ibid. 43  Cited from ibid., p. 47.

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ideas about the environment. Because this “higher immorality” is determined by the “treadmill of production,” ultimately moral revolution means changing the “life” of this “treadmill of production.” Foster firmly states: “from an environmental perspective we have no choice but to resist the treadmill of production. This resistance must take the form of a far-reaching moral revolution.”44 What he calls the “far-reaching moral revolution” involves binding the moral revolution to the changing of this mode of production itself, to transforming people’s immoral ideas about the environment by means of changing this mode of production itself. In his view, the main tendency is remaining wary of solutions to environmental problems that place either too much emphasis on “the role of the individual” or place too little emphasis on “the treadmill of production and the ‘higher immorality’ that it engenders.” He states that it is necessary for individuals to struggle to organize their lives so that in their consumption they live more simply and ecologically. But to lay too much stress on this alone is to place too much on the individual, while ignoring institutional facts.45 Foster believes that when we talk about moral responsibility in the face of the ecological crisis, the most important thing is not to talk about moral ethics, We need to realize that our moral responsibility toward these future generations is not first and foremost a question of individual behavior, but is tied up with the whole structure of the society in which we, as individuals, participate in various ways.46 We must identify the real culprit causing the environmental destruction and must be clear that the true culprit is not human morality, but the mode of production and the social structure, which are the causes of this morality. He states: by realizing that it is not people (as individuals and in aggregates) that are enemies of the environment but the historically specific economic

44  J. B. Foster, Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 46. 45  Ibid., p. 47. 46  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 7.

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and social order in which we live, we can, I believe, find sufficient common ground for a true moral revolution to save the earth.47 We have analyzed Foster’s critique of the four ways of eliminating the ecological crisis that are currently being implemented in capitalist society. He calls all of these approaches and methods “illusions” of solving environmental problems. This is because, in his view, the premise of all of these approaches and methods is laying off the capitalist system, which simply dooms all of them to failure. In his view, the ecological crisis is brought about by the capitalist system, the principle of profit and the logic of capital under capitalism, and capital is essentially anti-ecological, so any struggle against the ecological crisis must be combined with a struggle against capitalism. Opposition to the ecological crisis develops in sync with the opposition to capitalism, and the construction of ecological civilization also develops in sync with the construction of socialism. This is the key point that he would like to make, and the biggest revelation to us. 47  J. B. Foster Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 50.

CHAPTER 8

The Fight against the Ecological Crisis Whether its Foster’s research on Marx’s ecological worldview, or the analysis of the status of the ecological environment in the contemporary world, the ultimate purpose is exploring humankind’s way out of the ecological crisis. Because he finds capitalism or the capitalist logic of capital accumulation to be the ultimate cause of the grave ecological crisis in today’s world, he argues that the only way humankind can get rid of the ecological crisis is by confronting the capitalist system, especially the capitalist logic of capital accumulation. Then how specifically would humankind go about confronting the capitalist system while ridding itself of the ecological crisis through the construction of ecological civilization? In other words, where precisely would the starting point be in the case of competing with the capitalist system, eliminating the ecological crisis and constructing ecological civilization? This is what Foster explains in detail. He proposes a set of concepts, propositions and judgments throughout the course of his discussion, and here we choose to analyze several of them in the effort to display how he hopes human being will eventually fight her way out of the ecological crisis.

Beyond the Bottom Line of a Money-Driven Economy

Foster believes that presently there is a “basic bottom line” in the capitalist mode of production, which is that all is for profit, namely, everything is only done if it seems profitable, and nothing is done if it seems unprofitable; this, he calls “the bottom line of a money-driven economy.” “Capitalism, which now dominates every corner of the globe, is in its essence a system of accumulation, geared to the production of capital and profit.”1 In his view, in order to carry out the fight to protect the environment, we must go beyond the bottom line of the money-driven economy. Ultimately the defense of the environment therefore requires a break with the tyranny of the bottom line and a long revolution (it is hoped not too long given the acceleration of history associated with ecological 1  J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 80.

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change) in which other, more diverse values not connected to the bottom line of the money-driven economy have a chance of coming to the fore.2 In his view, only by going beyond the bottom line can we establish a new mode of production, and this new mode of production would be democratically organized directly in accordance with the needs of the producers, and would focus on meeting the needs of humanity as a whole. This new mode of production must necessarily bind itself to the sustainable development of nature. “Production can be said to be nonalienation only if it promotes the welfare of every individual as the way of promoting the welfare of all, and only if it fulfills the human need for a sustainable, and in that sense nonexploitative relation to nature.”3 The bottom line of this new mode of production is to fulfill the all-around needs of human beings. So, there are two different modes of production standing before us, and two different types of bottom line accordingly: on one hand, there is the capitalist mode of production, whose bottom line is profit; on the other there is the socialist mode of production, whose bottom line is meeting the all-around needs of human beings. He states: “under the artificial regime of capital it is the search for exchange value (that is, profit), rather than the servicing of genuine, universal, natural needs, which constitutes the object, the motive, for production.”4 “The artificial regime of capital,” that is, the capitalist mode of production is in pursuit of exchange-value and profit, and once the mode of production is organized not for the sake of generating exchange value and profit, but for the sake of meeting the real, universal and natural needs of human beings, a new mode of production also takes shape. Only by overcoming the first bottom line of production can we establish the second bottom line of production. This is, in fact, beyond the current purpose of production. In Foster’s view, in order to protect the ecological environment, the essential point today is to change the purpose of production, namely, changing the purpose of production from making profit to satisfying the whole of human being’s needs. And this change is the transformation of the logic of capital accumulation itself, and along with it, the entirety of the capitalist mode of production. He argues: “The only answer to the ecology of destruction of capitalism is to revolutionize our productive relations in ways that allow for a metabolic restoration. But this will require a break with capitalism’s own system of socio-metabolic reproduction, i.e. the logic of profit.”5 2  Ibid., p. 40. 3  Ibid. 4  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 174. 5  J. B. Foster: The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, Vol. 58, No. 9, p. 12.

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Foster believes that going beyond the bottom line of the money-driven economy is very difficult in today’ s society. The key to the problem is that we owe the bottom line of profit and lose to the fact that “money is the one criterion of success,” which constitutes the supreme value of the United States as well as of the entire capitalist world. So, human beings easily become morally ruthless in the pursuit of easy money and the quick building of real estate. As long as such values take root in people’s minds, “ignoring the poverty and environmental destruction that is generated in its wake” may proceed in the manner of business as usual. In fact, it is because such values are so “institutionalized” in today’s society, “it hardly appears as immoral at all,” “nevertheless all other moral standards and bases of community are forced to give way before it.”6 As Marx has pointed out long ago, in bourgeois society “money … becomes the real community, since it is the general substance for the survival of all, and at the same time the social product of all.”7 Foster believes that the overcoming of the “bottom line of the money-driven economy” may come about solely by means of picking a fight with the value of “money above all else” and winning the fight against this fundamental values of capitalist society. We cannot fail to acknowledge that this is a very difficult revolution.

Putting People First

Foster puts forward the proposition of “putting people first” when discussing the establishment of a new mode of production to meet the all-around needs of human beings. In his view, in the fight to protect the environment, it is most important to keep in mind the proposition of “putting people first.” He claims: it must have as its priority people, particularly poor people, rather than production or even the environment, stressing the importance of meeting basic needs and long-term security. This is the common morality with which we must combat the higher immorality of the treadmill.8 In so few words, Foster incorporates the profound declaration of “putting people first.” First of all, “putting people first” is opposed to “putting production first,” and even to “putting the environment first.” In comparison with production, the people is the end in-itself while production is the means, and we 6  J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 88. 7  Ibid. 8  Ibid., p. 49.

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cannot produce for the sake of production anymore than we can produce for the sake of profit; production should always serve the end of satisfying human needs. When it comes to the environment, when we propose to fight in order to protect the environment, we cannot forget that protecting the environment is also protecting the people, so in the same way that we cannot produce for production’s sake, we cannot protect the environment for the sake of protecting the environment, and the purpose of protecting the environment must ultimately be to protect the people; Secondly, one can analyze the meaning of “the people” in “putting people first,” where “people” of course refers to human being in the broad sense or the whole of humanity, but this understanding is not enough. Foster stresses that the term “human being” here in particular refers to the “poor” majority, the majority of people in the lower class. Since these “poor” are most affected by ecological destruction, when committing to the struggle for environmental protection, we must first concern ourselves with the interests of the poor. In fact, the struggle for environmental protection is meant to address issues related to the economic and environmental injustices of the capitalist mode of production, so the interests of the poor as the starting point of this fight is the proper meaning of “putting people first.” Finally, what is it of people that should be put first in “putting people first”? Foster states very clearly, “putting people first” is based on human needs, but the needs spoken of here refer to the basic, natural and all-around needs of human beings, not those “false demands” that consumer society imposes upon human beings, such as the endless pursuit of money, and the demand for material comforts. Foster stresses that, “We must find a way of putting people first in order to protect the environment.”9 We may only effectively protect the ecological environment by means of genuinely implementing the principle of “putting people first.” One reason is that implementing the principle of “putting people first” can reduce the risks that environmental destruction brings about, and this is especially the case for those who do not stand directly at risk in the capitalist mode of production. In Foster’ s view, the capitalist mode of production does indeed bring great risk to those who possess capital and the means of production, and this risk is often direct. The risk that the capitalist mode of production brings to the “poor” majority who make a living by selling their own labor may even be smaller than that brought to the capitalist, but this is only in the sense of direct risk; indirect risk, however, is another issue altogether. In fact, if indirect risks were calculated into the equation, then the overall risk that the capitalist mode of production brings to the poor would easily outweigh the risks brought to the rich. In this sense, we can only effectively decrease the risk 9  Ibid., p. 50.

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that the capitalist mode of production brings to the poor and this especially means the environmental risks brought to the poor by means of implementing “putting people first.” Foster argues that implementing “putting people first” means taking issues of social and economic inequality as seriously as the issue of environmental destruction. “Only by committing itself to what is now called ‘environmental Justice’ can the environmental movement avoid being cut off from those classes of individuals who are most resistant to the treadmill on social grounds.”10 In Foster’ s view, it seems that out of dissatisfaction with social injustice some people in the bottom stratum of society strongly oppose the capitalist mode of production, but since the environmental movement often does not adhere to the principle of “putting people first,” and does not publicly propose the goal of fighting for environmental justice, those in the bottom stratum of society often do not embrace the environmental movement, which therefore fails to move in unison with these people. In this case, if the principle of environmental justice were introduced into the environmental movement in tandem with the principles of “putting people first” and “putting poor people first,” then the struggle for social justice would move hand in hand with the fight for environmental justice, and both struggles would thereby integrate into one holistic movement against the capitalist mode of production.

Constructing Humanity’s Relationship to Nature Based on “Freedom in General”

Foster believes that we live in a time when it is reasonable to speak of the possibility of complete ecological destruction, “in virtually the same sense that critics of nuclear armaments have often referred to the possibility of complete nuclear destruction.” However, the corresponding social movements that humankind has adopted to eliminate this risk have been extraordinarily slow. One of the reasons for this is the role that the concept of “the sacred inviolability of freedom” continues to play in people’ s minds. Some people think that “environmental protection, it is feared, would set limits both on the freedom of human being to exploit the earth’ s resources, and on the freedom of individuals to pursue their own immediate material gain.”11 It is these people who are resisting environmental protection for the sake of preserving the concept of human freedom. “Our present social order is entrapped in a mechanistic view of human freedom, and of the human relation to nature, that is directly 10  Ibid. 11  Ibid., p. 52.

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at odds with ecological imperatives.”12 A concept of human freed has been introduced into the problem of humanity’s relationship with nature, which has given shape to a mechanistic view of the relationship between freedom, human being and nature, and it is this view that inhibits the human drive to protect the environment. Facing this situation, Foster feels it necessary to take a fresh look at precisely what kind of freedom human beings are currently pursuing. In his view, this idea of freedom is necessarily anti-ecological, and the crux of the problem is that the idea of freedom is associated with extreme individualism, so the freedom spoke of here is purely personal freedom. According to this individualistic conception of freedom, the individual is separated and alone and must first take care of herself. The relationship between individuals is conceived of as entirely competitive such that every individual wants to be a winner. Since we regard the world as made up of very many tiny units, and we view exploiting every unit as the meaning of earthly life, we end up destroying the planet. He states: “An unwillingness to understand that it is irrational ‘for individuals to ignore the needs of others’ and that the world is not ‘made up of a lot of little bits’ is central to the ruling concept of freedom as free-market individualism.”13 Foster also notes that this idea of human being as homo economicus is that of an atomized, solitary individual competing for scarce resources.14 It is precisely under the influence of this concept of homo economicus that labor power and land are viewed as commodities and that people are reduced to “producers” and “consumers” while people’s desire to obtain goods is endlessly stimulated. The understanding of “freedom” is narrowed down to the right of choice between competing alternatives. The fragment of reality associated with “economic life” is often attributed to the intrinsic characteristic of human beings themselves, who are seen as utilityseeking profit-maximizers whose natural propensity is to “truck, barter, and trade.” He borrows the words of another: “the fiction of homo economics strips man’s behavior of every cultural propensity, which is tantamount to saying that in his economic life man acts mechanically.”15 This actually makes people become “happy robots.” Foster emphasizes that the concept of freedom that is established on the basis of individualism, the concept of homo economics rendering people’s greed insatiable, indeed provides a vast world for humanity to more fully dominate nature. Human beings do attain this freedom, but our environment is obliterated by this freedom in the meantime. 12  Ibid. 13  Ibid., p. 53. 14  Ibid. 15  Ibid., p. 54.

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As long as our socioeconomic order is primarily geared to the accumulation of personal wealth as the means to individual freedom, increased efficiently will only mean a more efficient exploitation of the environment, with disastrous implications for ecosystem survival.16 Those who fail to obtain this so-called absolute personal freedom in their own community will try to fully realize this absolute personal freedom in their relationship with nature. We have on the one hand the self, the abstract ego who is emptied “of all substance except its attempt to transform everything in heaven and on earth into means for its preservation,” and who, on the other hand, has “an empty nature degraded to mere material, mere stuff to be dominated, without any other purpose than that of this very domination.” Foster emphasizes that this “human freedom as synonymous with the instrumentalist organization of human beings as self-serving, possessive-individualists, even though this is the principal source of environmental destruction in our society.17 Foster critiques the concept of freedom associated with individualism, in order to propose a new concept of freedom. He demands to construct a human relation to nature that is based on “freedom in general.” In his view, the purpose of revealing that the popular concept of freedom today is incompatible with ecological protection is not to deny the significance of freedom fundamentally, namely, the purpose is not to demonstrate that freedom must be completely rejected from the relationship between human being and nature in order to protect the ecological environment. In order to protect the ecological environment what we have to do today is abandon the prevailing mechanistic conception of human freedom and build a society and a human relation to nature that is based on “freedom in general.” What he calls “freedom in general” generally speaking contains three meanings: First, the freedom mentioned here refers not only to individual human freedom, but rather to the freedom of the whole of humanity; Second, the freedom mentioned here does not divide the world into many isolated atoms, but stresses the integrity and indivisibility of the world, including, of course, the whole of humanity’s relation to nature; Third, the freedom talked about here is not completely indifferent to the means, which [if it were indifferent to the means] would allow you to do anything in order to achieve this freedom, but rather stresses the relativity and consistency of means and ends. He states: “ ‘freedom in general’: not the freedom to exclude others from a genuine relation to nature and the full development of life’s possibilities; but rather the freedom of all to 16  Ibid., p. 58. 17  Ibid.

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share in life’s development as part of an organic community.”18 In his opinion, if we are to save the planet, the only way is to break with this concept of freedom based on individualism, while advocating the new holistic concept of freedom in general, and accordingly, break with the social order that is rooted in this individualistic concept of freedom, and construct a new social system based on the new concept of freedom in its stead.

Having Enough, not Having More

Foster notes that since the Rio Earth Summit of 1992, the concept of “sustainable development” has gained wide circulation and familiarity. But at the same time, he notes sharply: “the emerging world consensus on the necessity for sustainable development hides more fundamental disagreements.”19 The key is that the concept of “sustainable development,” despite its environmental associations, “remains primarily an economic concept serving narrow economic ends.” As the British economist, David Pearce, the author of the British government’s Pearce Report, Blueprint for a Green Economy, has stated, sustainable development … is simply defined. It is continuously rising, or at least non--declining consumption per capita, or GNP, or whatever the agreed indicator of development is. And this is how sustainable development has come to be interpreted by most economists addressing the issue.20 “Sustainable development,” in these terms, is essentially the same thing as sustained economic growth. “Sustainable development” is often made more compatible with ecological considerations by “insisting that environmental costs need to be internalized by the market,” ensuring that losses in “natural capital,” for example, be accounted for in any computation of growth or development. Foster unequivocally points out that if “sustainable development” only refers to sustained economic development and the sustained development of consumption, as the Korean case so clearly shows, simply inserting the qualifier “sustainable” before the word “development” will not be enough to eliminate the serious destruction that development will wage on the environment. The

18  Ibid., p. 59. 19  Ibid., p. 79. 20  Ibid.

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key is that “sustained economic development is not the same thing as environmentally sustainable development.”21 Foster believes that critically re-examining these concepts of “development” and “sustainable development” remains one of the most urgent needs of the day. For those who are concerned primarily with sustaining the earth and creating livable, sustainable communities, rather than with sustaining development or expanding profits, the conflict between economic growth and the environment is much more likely to be emphasized.22 In his view, when looking at these concepts the most important thing is that we must understand the incompatibility between economic growth and environmental protection. We must recognize that most economic activities demand raw materials and energy from the planet and generate waste that the planet must absorb, and that the environmental consequences of economic growth are therefore unavoidable. “It is highly unlikely therefore that the planet could long sustain exponential growth of this kind, involving doublings of economic output every quarter century, without experiencing worldwide ecological catastrophe.”23 Does this mean that those concerned with the fate of the earth should abandon the goal of economic development altogether? The answer is no, according to Foster. Economic development is still needed in the poorer regions of the world. The key is found in correctly understanding development, especially “sustainable development.” People must clearly understand the following issues: what kind of conditions of development and what kind of model of development do the people of the world want and need? How is sustained development made compatible with harmonious environment? In the system of capitalist accumulation, that is, in the system of producing for the sake of profit and capital, which now dominates every corner of the globe, it is extremely important to discuss such questions. The answer Foster gives is, first of all, development cannot just be understood as economic development, this development should be comprehensive, that is, it should not conflict with environmental protection. Economic development is but “malformed development,” and we must change the “grotesque” orientation of this development so that it covers all aspects of society, and once it becomes the comprehensive development of society, it no longer conflicts with ecology. “A more ecological 21  Ibid., p. 82. 22  Ibid., pp. 79–80. 23  Ibid.

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form of social development is possible but only if the maldevelopment, which now goes under the name of development, is addressed.”24 Secondly, even if it is economic development, which cannot be unrestricted, it should be moderate. Development cannot be reduced to mere economic development, but it undoubtedly must include economic development. “Such a form of development would be about having enough, not having more.”25 Economic development “must stress the importance of meeting basic needs and ensuring long term security.” If grounded in this consideration, when we develop the economy we will not believe “the more the better” but will believe in moderately developing enough to meet basic human needs and ensure long-term security. He stresses having enough, not having more. Foster notes that we must also eliminate a misunderstanding, namely, that only by developing production and pursuing high economic growth is it possible to effectively solve the problem of poverty. He states: “[a]bove all, we must recognize that the old truth, long understood by both romantic and socialist critics of capitalism, that increasing production does not by itself eliminate poverty.”26 Production develops, the economy grows, then social wealth grows, but if social wealth remains concentrated in the hands of the few and fails to reach the broader masses, then development and growth cannot solve the problem of poverty. And this is precisely what happens in the vast majority of regions in the world today.

Putting Land Ethics into Practice

Foster believes that an important feature of today’s society is the loss of people’s “sense of place.” Throughout most of the course of human history, society organized in the form of an “ecosystem culture,” in which a particular ecosystem or up to a number of closely related ecosystems constituted the living conditions of human existence. Humankind has a strong attachment to the earth and surrounding ecology. Yet with the rise of capitalism in accompaniment with humankind’s breaking free of the constraints of the ecosystem and with “dominating nature” becoming the basic principle of human activity, human habitat has radically disappeared, and “this radical loss of habitat is precisely the loss of sense of attachment to some region of the earth.”27 Humanity finally lost its home and became homeless. This has developed to an unprecedented 24  Ibid. 25  Ibid. 26  Ibid., p. 81. 27  Ibid., p. 85.

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degree in today’s era of global capitalism. Today, people’s increasing homelessness is closely related to the capitalist system and the rapid development of the tendency of ecological imperialism. He cites Berry’s discussion in the book Another Turn of the Crank to explain. Berry states: The promoters of so-called global economy are following a set of principles that can be stated as follows. They believe that a farm or forest is or ought to be the same as a factory; that care is only minimally necessary in the use of the land; that affection is not necessary at all; that for all practical purposes a machine is as good as a human; that the industrial standards of production, efficiency, and profitability are the only standards that are necessary; that the topsoil is lifeless and inert; that soil biology is safely replaceable by soil chemistry; that the nature or ecology of any given place is irrelevant to the use of it; that there is no value in human community or neighborhood; and that technology innovation will produce only benign results.28 Foster points out that it is this exploitative model of humankind’s relation to nature that brings about the so-called “loss of ownership,” and ecological imperialism goes hand in hand with the destruction of any sense of the earth as human habitat; “inhabitants” who live in ecosystems are replaced by “human populations” in the modern sense of the term, which Berry calls “the vagrant sovereign.” Looking at this situation squarely, Foster really thinks it is necessary to think about the possibility of establishing a “land ethics.” He puts hope in “putting land ethics into practice.” A new ecological morality must replace our current immoral or at least amoral approach to the environment. “More concretely, it is essential that humanity should learn once again to inhabit the earth.”29 Today people have “the illusion that people live only in sites of consumption, not in the sites of production; and that nature can be treated as external—a region from which resources are drawn and into which wastes are dumped.” We can only eliminate the illusion by building a new ecological ethics in the vein of what Marx insisted on—that nature should be seen as the external body of our humanity, an inseparable part of our humanity. Because land is a major component of ecology, ecological morality could also be called “land ethics.” Foster believes that the main content of land ethics involves protecting “the right” of lands rather than allowing humanity to abuse it. An important manifesta28  Ibid., pp. 85–86. 29  Ibid., p. 86.

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tion of humankind’s destruction of ecology today is abusing land. We abuse land because we “regard it as a commodity belonging to us.” When we see land as “a community to which we belong,” we may “begin to use it with love and respect.” Foster stresses that “land ethics” simply expands the boundaries of “this community” to include soils, waters, plants, and animals, or collectively: the land. “Land ethics” cannot of course prevent the alteration, management and use of these “resources,” “but it does affirm their right to continued existence, and, at least in spots, their continued existence in a natural state.” A land ethics changes the role of Homo Sapiens “from conqueror of the community of land to plain member and citizen of it.” It implies respect for his fellow members, and respect for the community as such. In Foster’ s opinion “in contrast to the dominant forms of Western moral philosophy with their possessive-individualist foundations,” “moral sentiments were principally a product of the definition of moral communities—the result of historical and evolutionary.”30 He appreciates what N. Chomsky said: “If we continue to act on the assumption that the only thing that matters is personal greed and personal gain,” “the ecological commons will be destroyed. Other human values have to be expressed if future generations are going to be able to survive.”31

Environmental Revolution Necessitates Social Revolution

Foster thinks that since human labor constitutes the foundation of human being’s relation to nature, the socialization of nature may only be fully realized in accompaniment with the society of production. In this sense, the “environmental revolution necessitates social revolution.”32 Only through the democratic, organized and socialized management of production and nature, would the world have the hope of becoming the common concern of humankind, would the interests of our children hopefully extend into the future, and would nature have the possibility of not falling into the hands of those individuals who indiscriminately exploit nature solely for the sake of accomplishing shortterm goals of development. Foster puts great emphasis on the unity of ecological struggle and social struggle. He cites the words of G. Ricoveri, “[p]eople are also part of nature, and the exploitation of nature is therefore also the exploitation of some people by other people; environmental degradation is also the

30  Ibid. 31  Ibid., p. 90. 32  J. B. Foster: The Vulnerable Planet, Monthly Review Press, 1999, p. 142.

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degradation of human relationships.”33 In Foster’s view, it is very important to remember G. Ricoveri’s words that ecological development concerns environmental justice as well, “the struggle to create a greener world is linked inseparably to the struggle to reduce social injustice.” There is no environmental justice without social justice, and we will not eliminate the deterioration of human being’s relation to the environment without eliminating the deterioration of the relationships between human beings, and we cannot solve the problem of humankind’s exploitation of nature without solving the problem of the exploitation of some people by others. As it is not only social injustice but also environmental injustice that is brought about by the capitalist system, we should oppose capitalism not just for the reason of social injustice, but for the reason of environmental injustice as well. At the heart of the global capitalist system there is not only the serious problem of sharply polarized divisions, but also the problem of unsustainable development, which arises in its most acute form. “Ecological struggles are therefore inseparably bound up with the struggle against imperialism,”34 which takes on new meaning along with human progress when viewed in terms of the exploitation of the earth’s resources. This struggle will “elevate not only the status of nature and community above that of the accumulation of capital, but also that of equality and justice above that of individual greed, and that of democracy above that of the market.”35 His conclusion is environmental revolution necessitates social revolution. Foster does not hesitate to say that ecological struggle is actually class struggle. The key point is that it is impossible to achieve sustainable development in the existing capitalistic relations of production. “This means not simply altering a particular ‘mode of regulation’ of the system, but in transcending the existing regime of accumulation in its essential aspects.”36 Reality relentlessly informs people: “there is an irreversible environmental crisis within global capitalist societies,” and in order to protect the ecological environment, it is necessary to begin the desperate struggle against capitalism, in which case, Foster thinks that it looks so weak and hypocritical that “many prominent environmentalists today have adopted a political stance that sets them and the movement that they profess to represent above and beyond the class struggle.”37 33  J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 81. 34  Ibid., p. 82. 35  Ibid. 36  Ibid., p. 101. 37  Ibid., p. 104.

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By removing themselves in this way from the classic social debate these Green thinkers implicitly embrace the dominant “we have seen the enemy and it is us” view that traces most environmental problems to the shopping habits of consumers, the number of babies born, etc., which is a sorry misguided attempt at an ecological movement. It is most important to keep in mind the existence of classes and factions in societies while engaging in ecological struggle. Foster concludes at the culmination of his detailed examination of the old-growth forest and timber industry in the Pacific Northwest: That rapid ecological degradation is an inherent part of the historically specific accumulation process that defines capitalist society and its class struggle. An ecological movement that stands for the earth alone and ignores class and other social inequalities will succeed at best in displacing environmental problems.38 My main point here is that if environmentalists adopt a single-issue approach, then they will simply drive workers into the arms of capital. To be politically effective and to connect with a broader base, they need to confront the issue of class. Most people in capitalist society are working class, and the environmental movement ins’ t likely to get very far if it gets too middle-or upper-class in its orientation, or simply ignores class issues and says that the fate of laid-off workers should be left to the sanctions of the market.39 Since the nature of the ecological struggle is essentially class struggle, the result of the ecological struggle is that socialism is the alternative to capitalism. He states that the eco-socialist struggle should unequivocally become the goal. The content of the so-called ecological struggle is the “transformation of the social relations of production in the direction of socialism,”40 and “it is not the search for exchange value (that is, profit),” “rather than the servicing of genuine, universal, natural needs, which constitutes the object, the motive, for production.”41 Obviously, the socialism discussed here is the 38  Ibid. 39  J. B. Foster interviewed by D. Soron, Ecology, Capitalism, and the Socialization of Nature, in Monthly Review, 2004, 11, Vol. 56, No. 6, p. 10. 40  J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 102. 41   J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 174.

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scientific socialism that Marx spoke of at that time, rather than other forms of socialism. He states that, as Marx wrote, a humane and sustainable system ought to be socialist and based on sound ecological principles. One thing we can be assured of is: the socialism that we establish through ecological struggle is precisely this kind of socialism.42 42   J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 168.

Part 2 Research from Other Ecological Marxists

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In this part, we’ll analyze the thought of some western ecological Marxists other than Foster. Beginning in the 1960s and 1970s, ecological Marxism formed into a relatively integrated theoretical system in the 1970s and 1980s. It experienced further development in the 1990s, especially in the 21st century as it became widely influential. There are three generations of theorists in ecological Marxism. In the first generation, we will put emphasis on Marcuse; in the second, we will focus on Agger, Leiss, and especially Gorz; in the third generation, our attention moves to Foster, O’Connor, Pepper and Burkett. The American ecological Marxist, O’Connor, complains that people don’t deny the contemporary value of Marx’s economic and political theories, however, they do doubt the combination of ecology and Marxism—that is, they ignore the ecological implications of Marxism and label Marx an “antiecological” thinker. Considering this situation, O’Connor explores the inherent connection between Marxism and ecology and unveils the ecological implications of Marxism from the perspectives of “history and nature,” “capitalism and nature” and “socialism and nature” to demonstrate that Marxism is a banner guiding human progress, not the “owl of Minerva” with “wings folded in the morning,” but the bold eagle flying at dawn. In O’Connor’s opinion, grasping the Marxian theory of “history and nature” requires an understanding of “social labor.” According to him, Marxism’s bringing up of “social labor” shows that it has found the proper way of investigating the connection between human society and nature. According to Marxism, “social labor” changes nature by creating “second nature;” meanwhile, it changes people’s way of thinking by human naturalization. The prominence of Marxian materialism’s view of history lies in its revealing that the interaction between human history and nature in a broad sense is human being’s physical activity itself. O’Connor points out that the core position of “social labor” in materialism’s view of history enables materialism’s view of nature to become part of the history of human labor. Marxism interprets models of production in the context of thoroughgoing historicism, and accordingly, labor in Marxism is always under exploitation. In this sense, natural history becomes the exploitation of one human group by another in Marxism. O’Connor maintains that the principal conclusion that Marxism has drawn concerning the relationship between “history and nature” is: construction of subjectivity, the naturalization of human being, other things are independent historical beings, and “second nature” lacks no characteristics of nature. He stresses that materialism’s view of history offers the correct theoretical foundation and methodology for understanding the relationship between human society and nature, and we should perfect this view instead of establishing any ecological science. Any ecological science that is established out of materialism’s view of history is doomed to fail.

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O’Connor believes that the ecological meaning of Marxism is demonstrated in helping people understand the connection between capital and the ecological crisis. He aims to apply the methodology of Marxian materialism’s view of history in the analysis of the relationship between capitalism, nature and society and study the contradiction between contemporary capitalism and the completeness of nature and human society from the perspective of the Marxian understanding of capital. His main findings include: first, capitalism treats nature as tap and sewage while exploiting it; second, workers are under economic and biological exploitation; third, capitalist accumulation faces internal economic obstacles next to external natural and social ones. O’Connor holds that Marxism’s principal argument about the contradiction between capitalism and ecology is: capitalism is a self-expansive system of economic development, while nature cannot expand by itself. The goal of capitalist production is unlimited growth or rather making money with money. Profit is the means and the purpose of expansion. All of capitalism’s institutions and activities aim at money making and capital accumulation. He notices that all socialists and non-socialists formulaically attribute the ecological crisis to common greed and the idea of industrialization at all costs. All these formulaic understandings lack the tendency of systemic analysis of the complicated inherent relation between capital accumulation and the ecological crisis, and this results from ignorance of the existence of Marxism. If we are to trace back the source of the ecological crisis we need an ideological interpretation, and only Marxism offers such an interpretation. Any analysis of reasons behind the ecological crisis must ground itself in the theory of capital accumulation. Without Marx’s theory of capital and especially Marx’s theory of capital accumulation, nothing clear can be said about why the ecological crisis has arisen. O’Connor points out that people only know of Marx’s analysis of the “first contradiction” of capitalism, but actually there is still Marx’s analysis of the “second contradiction” of capitalism, even though it is not nearly as sufficient and systematic as the first one. The key concept that Marx uses to expose the “first contradiction” is “exchange value,” and “use value” is subordinate to exchange value. As soon as use value is placed on equal footing with exchange value, the “second contradiction” clearly emerges. O’Connor believes that Marx’s theory allows people to observe the forces of opposition in capitalist society, forces which are not only nurtured by the economic crises of capitalism, but are also accompanied by the ecological crises of capitalism. As long as we understand Marx’s principle concerning the necessary opposition between ecology and capital, it is not hard to understand why forces of opposition always emerge in capitalist society and why human beings move toward socialism while getting out of the ecological crisis. Some of the traditional Marxists believe that productive forc-

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es and production relations are developed in a more social form, that is, the productive forces and relations of production continue to move towards socialization. Capitalism necessarily transitions toward socialism. But actually, the development of the conditions of production according to more socialized models of supply and demand, namely the gradual movement of the conditions of production toward communalization and socialization will spur the transition from capitalism to socialism. On the basis of Marx’s theory, O’Connor argues for the agreement of ecology and socialism, but this leaves open an unbridgeable problem for O’Connor to answer. In contemporary society, socialist countries have exhausted their non-renewable resources as quickly as capitalist countries. The pollution they have pumped into the air, water and soil amounts to at least as much as that of the capitalist countries, if not more. Then, how could any superiority be attributed to the socialist system over the capitalist system when it comes to protecting the ecological environment? O’Connor doesn’t avoid the question. He admits the reasonability of such doubts and understands why some people avoid the socialist system since both systems bring destruction to the ecological environment; meanwhile, he tries to make convincing interpretations of the question from the Marxian perspective. He believes that the key lies in analyzing what causes are making socialist countries destroy the ecological environment, whether these causes are essentially connected to the socialist system or not, and what distinction there is between the causes of ecological crisis in socialist countries and those in capitalist ones. He points out that the main causes of ecological crisis in contemporary socialist countries stem from the introduction of technologies and systems of production from the West. In this sense, the causes of environment destruction in socialist and capitalist countries are the same. Some socialist countries have integrated into the global capitalist market, so we can say that the same global forces have the same effects in the East as they do in the West. This tells us that there are serious ecological crises in socialist states, but this might amount to something quite unlike the case of capitalist states in which ecological crisis is determined to exist by its own system. Rather, it appears that ecological crises in socialist states are due to some people in those states who never truly exercised the superiority of the socialist system and on the contrary fell into infatuation with the capitalist system. He argues, the property and legal relations in socialist states differ from those in capitalist ones, and thus the reasons and consequences of environment destruction differ in such states. He stresses that the differences in terms of relations of production and political system cannot be ignored. In fact, these differences play a vital role in the fight of ecological degeneration and environmental protection. In his view, for capitalist countries, ecological crisis is “intrinsic,” that is

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inherent and necessary; for socialist states the opposite is the case. The economic model Marx designs for socialist states is “state ownership” and “central planning.” In principle, state owned central planning reduces resource losses, “consumption externalities” (like pollution) and destruction to the environment. The capitalist economic model is demand constrained, constrained namely by insufficient demand, while socialism is a resource constrained economic model, whose growth is restrained by resource. He makes a detailed analysis of the superiority of the latter in terms of environmental protection. O’Connor believes that since there is an inherent connection between ecology and socialism in Marxist theory, the ecological movement should be linked to socialist movements. The British ecological Marxist, Pepper, believes that there is no school of Marxist ecology, but undoubtedly, Marxism included the ecological view in an implicit but meaningful way. He agrees that Marx and Engels were pioneers in anthropology, political science and social ecology. He argues that not all the Marxists in the contemporary scene can see and grasp clearly the ecological implications of Marxist theory. He groups the contemporary Marxists into four schools: first, “the dogmatic school,” second “the humanist school,” third “the Frankfurt school which believes in critical theory,” and fourth, “the social ecology school.” In his view, only the last school to which he belongs can distinguish and understand the ecological implications of Marxism. What are those theories in Marxism with ecological implications? Pepper makes a detailed analysis of this: first, the historical materialism of Marx’s deterministic theory of modes of production tells us how to deal with environmental problems. He argues that the mode of production is the key to the materialist conception of history. The basic starting point of the materialist conception of history is emphasizing the production of materials and the exchange of commodities, that is, the mode of production constitutes the foundation of a society. This viewpoint enlightens us that we are nothing other than those modes of interaction between humanity and nature that only the mode of production of commodities engenders. Therefore, we must change the mode of production in order to change the relation between humanity and nature. He argues that many views occupying people’s minds contradict ecology, and moreover, that all these views are ideological. Undergirding such views is the elite in the bourgeois class who own the means of production and possess the right of determining how they are used. Second, Marx’s political economy whose core is abstract labor tells us why ecological contradictions are inherent in capitalist society. Pepper believes that Marx analyzes capitalism on the basis of the theory of abstract labor. Marx not only sees inflation, depression, imbalance of supply and demand and other economic crises in capitalism, but also exposes

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the ecological crisis of environmental degeneration. The key is that it is precisely because Marx’s basis is abstract labor that he regards the economic and ecological crisis in capitalism as inherent. Marx believes that capitalism collapses as the result of itself. Few people oppose the view that economic crisis is inherent in capitalism, but many doubt whether the ecological crisis is connected to the capitalist system. Pepper stresses that in fact both Marx and contemporary society expose and verify that the ecological contradiction is inherent in capitalism. Third, Marx’s discourse about nature and the environment reveals why capitalism is inherently unfriendly to the environment. In Pepper’s view, Marx studies the state of nature and the environment by focusing on the investigation of the causes of natural and environmental destruction. Marx’s study makes us realize that “it is the dynamic mechanism in the material production that causes environment degeneration” and that our false attitude toward the environment is shaped by capitalist development. Capitalism objectifies land and its products by means of commodifying reality, which breeds attitudes distantly separated from nature. Pepper reminds people that Marx’s research on nature and the environment relates to his research on the dynamic mechanisms of capitalism. Marx aims to illustrate why the dynamic mechanisms of capitalism determine capitalism to be inherently unfriendly to the environment. Pepper adds that Marx starts with research on natural and environmental destruction, and then from research on the ecological contradictions of capitalism, Marx moves to the more concrete study of the problem of the externalization of cost in capitalist society. He states that one prominent contribution from Marx is the demonstration that the endless exploitation of resources is an inevitable trend of the capitalist economy. This kind of exploitation obviously only considers the value of resources without paying attention to the effects that this exploitation may have on future production, or in other words, the future generations must pay for the destruction we have made. This is in fact what people commonly call “ecological imperialism.” The fourth, Marx’s theory concerning “population-resources” tells us why natural shortages of resources is not engendered by overpopulation and hunger. He points out that the basic point of Marx’s statement on populationresources is, the so-called “population problem” treated as closely connected with resource accessibility must be viewed from a historical perspective, which is to say, the problem must relate to the mode of production. Marxism also admits that in the case that human society still lacks the capacity to change the environment, in light of the limited nature of resources, population is indeed a vital factor hindering material abundance. However, Marxism also insists that in case human society already possesses the capacity to change and manage its environment, sustainable population is mainly determined by social relations.

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The law of population that Marx talks about is not spoken of generally or abstractly; the law of population he speaks of is the one exclusive to a specific mode of production like capitalism and is restricted by social relations. He states that when researching the problem of “population-resources”, Marx wonders what “overpopulation” means. Marx emphasizes that the excess population is unable to buy food because the economic system is impotent or unwilling to create enough work opportunities to increase their salaries, or to pay sufficiently for those in positions. Fifth, Marx’s “society-nature dialectic” tells us why overcoming the alienation from nature consists in holding to natural human nature. Pepper asserts that unlike techno-centrists and eco-centrists, Marx doesn’t regard nature and society as some relation between two mutually isolated substances, so he doesn’t stress that human beings should control nature like techno-centrists or that nature should restrain human activities like eco-centrists. He emphasizes the unification of nature and society. He thinks that Marx’s “society-nature dialectic” has two main points: one is, there is no absolute gap between nature and society since they are components of one another; the other is, nature and society interpenetrate and interact in a circulatory relationship of reciprocal influence. In Pepper’s opinion, Mark’s “society-nature dialectic” is an organicism and monism. Therefore, Marx’s society-nature dialectic not only avoids the one-sidedness of idealism but also the extremism of materialism. According to Pepper, the ecological implications of Marx’s “society-nature dialectic” makes us understand why nature and society should and indeed can be unified. The theory offers people an accurate way out of the alienation from nature. Insistence on the naturalness of humankind which ecologists bring up asks humankind to return entirely to the natural state, and Marx pins his hopes of eliminating the alienation from nature on this. Since alienation from nature results from inappropriate human behavior, that is, nature doesn’t change in the direction of harmonizing with human nature, the path of overcoming alienation consists in changing the direction of human behavior, that is, in focusing effort on humanizing nature. He quotes someone else’s words, remarking that what matters is not whether nature is controlled or to what kind of degree it is controlled, but how we produce nature and how to control this kind of production. The sixth, Marx’s theory of human liberation tells people how to rationally adjust the relationship between nature and themselves. Pepper believes that rationally adjusting the metabolism between human being and nature involves the problem of how to properly grasp freedom. Marx calls for the rational treatment of freedom, and for Marx, human liberation is not absolute. He stresses that we must accept the ultimate limits of nature even in communist society, and we cannot act only on

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absolute individual will without considering any restraint from the historical environment. Pepper also thinks that according to Marx, the process of rationally adjusting the material exchanges between human being and nature is precisely the process of accurately engaging in productive labor. Human being adjusts her metabolism with nature through her own productive labor, and if we want to rationalize this adjustment we must accurately undertake productive labor. In his view, Marx believes that capitalism promotes productive forces, but productive labor in capitalism impedes the harmonization between human being and nature, so Marx proposes to adopt the very mode of production that capitalism is unwilling to adopt in developing productivity, for the sake of liberating productivity. This leads to the need to use new standards aside from narrow economic rules to organize the productive forces of humankind. Pepper also thinks that when Marx brings up the rational adjustment of material exchanges between human being and nature emphasis is placed on coordinated cooperation between human beings. Even though Marx stresses the role of class struggle in the reforming of society, he also believes in the social essence of humanity’s being, and so asks humankind to engage in productive labor in a collective and cooperative way. There is another American ecologist, Burkett, who focuses on reconstructing the inherent links between natural, social and environmental crises in Marx’s thought. Burkett disagrees with others who criticize the relationship between Marxism and ecological thought. He proposes that a social ecology must include the following four conditions: 1. Permanent persistence in materialistic and social analysis, that is material and social specification; 2. Understand human production from a holistic perspective, but in a differential and relational way, namely relational holism; 3. Equal attention must be paid to “quality” and “quantity.” He points out that we cannot understand ecological crises without reference to “quality” and “quantity”; 4. Pedagogical Potential. In his view, social ecology should not only consist of an abstract theory found solely in books, but should be directed at political practice and should be directly geared toward the public. Marx’s theories, especially historical materialism can satisfy all of those demands at the same time, so Marx’s theory qualifies as a social ecology. One problem that Burkett focuses on is: what is the role of nature in historical materialism? First, he points out that Marx did not understate the role of nature in the production of value; the reverse is true, namely nature is the intrinsic factor of production and history. Meanwhile, Marx recognizes that the distinction between the sociality of human production, the natural conditions of the human production of its sociality and nonhuman nature is a qualitative distinction. In Marx’s view, when social sciences

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investigate humankind’s capitalist production, emphasis is placed on the difference between the natural history of human survival and human history, not on their identity. However, this does not mean that Marx hails the triumph of the human control over nature, as some ecological thinkers understand it. Burkett’s discussion of the relationship between nature and historical materialism ends in the explanation of two categories—“labor” and “labor power”. In summary, Burkett believes that “labor” and “labor power” in the Marxian sense are the synthetic being of natural forces and social forces. Burkett analyzes the relationship between Marx’s categories of value and nature through the value-form approach, and thereby forms the method of analysis of ecological value. Guided by this method of analysis of ecological value, Burkett reveals that value and nature conflict under the conditions of capitalist production; capitalism faces two environmental crises; although the fundamental contradictions of capitalism promote capitalist development and manifest the progressive nature of capitalism, they also determine the existence of necessary historical crises intrinsic to capitalism. With regard to the value-nature relation, Burkett concludes that the ecological impact of capital upon nature can no longer be understood through such quantitative ways of thinking as “resource depletion” or the “filling up” of nature’s carrying capacity, and should instead be understood in terms of the reciprocal interaction of the expansionist essence of capital and the anti-natural and anti-ecological characteristics of capital. He gives an exhaustive explanation of capital’s “free appropriation of nature” in Marx’s thought. It is often argued that Marx’s phrasing here is proof of him degrading nature’s importance as a condition of capitalist production. He believes that such thoughts about Marx must be analyzed from the perspective of the synthesis of the three categories of use value, value and exchange value. When Marx examines capital’s free appropriation he is actually talking about capitalists fulfilling the conditions of realization of the production of the absolute use-value of capital. In Marx, capital’s free appropriation of nature does not imply that natural conditions constitute an unlimited supply; on the contrary, the existence of such things as land rent presupposes the relative scarcity of natural conditions, because relative scarcity is the precondition of monopoly. Marx reveals that “free appropriation” is an integral element in the continuous development of the sociality of the production of capital, and the production of capital harnesses the latent productive forces in labor and nature to satisfy the expanding, transforming and competitive drive of monetary accumulation. It is precisely in such theoretical and social senses that the conception of free appropriation gives us an opening to include natural conditions in Marx’s prospect of the transition from capitalism to communism. Burkett concludes that in Marx’s eyes, capi-

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talism destroys the natural conditions of human development not in some or one respect of capitalism but with respect to capitalism as a social whole. Marx exposes the efficient causal mechanism behind the opposition between ecology and the capitalist mode of production, and for this reason Marx essentially provides us with an analytic framework: Marx’s critique of political economy provides the methodology and relevant concepts for us to analyze the impact of the material mode of production upon the biosphere; natural conditions are included in Marx’s theory of the value of labor. Burkett points out that with the help of Marx’s analytical framework, we will clearly demonstrate that environmental crisis is an integral part and parcel of the historical crisis of capitalist relations, which is determined by the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, that is, it is determined by the contradictions between production for the sake of profit and production for the sake of human need. The historical crisis of capitalist relations is the expression of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism having developed to the highest degree. Burkett also discusses the rich ecological implications of communism in depth. All along, there has been the view that Marx’s conception of communism understands nature as possessing unlimited resources available for utilization, and argues for the anti-ecological standpoint in ethics that humans control nature. Burkett believes that Marx’s projection of future human development cannot be reduced to the realization of the growth of free time and mass consumption based on the further expansion and perfection of capitalism’s already highly developed anti-ecological techniques. Rather, Marx foresees a qualitatively rich prospect of human-nature relations and interpersonal relations, which are simultaneously pro-human and pro-ecological. Evaluating the necessary conditions of ecologically rational institutions and revealing the rich content of associated production constitute the theoretical horizon that Burkett prepares for the sake of explicating the ecological intensions of communism in Marxian thought. Burkett points out that associated production is identical to ecologically correct institutions in Marx’s conception of communism. Therefore, we may say that the communist ideas of associated production and public property are a cooperative approach to ecologically correct norms for production. The French ecological Marxist Gorz maintains that contemporary capitalism, whose aim is economic growth, cannot solve the increasingly serious ecological crisis. He uses his perspective of political ecology to analyze contemporary ecological problems and draws the following conclusion: capitalism’s profit motive necessarily destroys the ecological environment, the capitalist logic of production can neither resolve ecological problems nor the all-around social crises that are closely tied to those ecological problems. He points out that every enterprise is a complex of such elements as natural

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resources, the means of production and labor force. Under capitalist conditions of production, combining those factors together yields the maximization of profit. Every enterprise is interested in acquiring profit, in which case capitalists will go as far as possible to control natural resources and increase investment in order to strengthen their standing in global market. He stresses that the motive of seeking profit conflicts necessarily with the ecological environment. Gorz thinks that because capitalism’s profit motive compels people to destroy the environment, conflicts necessarily arise between the ecological movement and the profit motive of capitalism, because of which, the swift unfolding of the ecological movement runs up against the entirety of the capitalist system, and in this sense, the ecological movement is a massive battle field. In his own unique words, Gorz attributes the root of the ecological crisis in capitalist society to the profit motive of capitalist production. He not only accurately points out that aside from the struggle between humanity and nature, interpersonal struggles also accompany the ecological movement, and he also clearly exposes the focal point of such conflicts. His warning rings sharply that the rulers of capitalist society attempt to gain profit through transferring and governing ecological crises. In Gorz’s view, the profit motive of capitalism belongs under the category of the “Economic Reason” of capitalism. In this way, he extends the critique of the profit motive of capitalism to the critique of the economic reason of capitalism, which brings the discussion of the source of capitalism’s ecological crisis to the abstract philosophical level. He remarks that in traditional pre-capitalist societies when people could freely decide their degree of demand and their extent of work, economic reason was not applicable. In that era, the principle people held to was “enough is enough”; they preached “enough is as good as a feast”. He thinks that economic reason was born synchronically with capitalism. Economic reason starts to work when people learn how to count and calculate, that is produce not for the sake of personal consumption but for the sake of the market. He says, economic reason begins with calculation and accounting. When production is undertaken not for the sake of personal consumption but for the sake of the market, everything starts to change. In addition, he states that under the guidance of economic reason, production is necessarily controlled by commodity exchange and is necessarily driven by this principle of exchanging in a free market where separated producers face separated buyers, both of whom similarly discover themselves in competition. Under the direction of economic reason, production is mainly undertaken for the sake of exchange, so the principle of this kind of production is “the more the better.” Thus, “enough” is not only a cultural category as it is in traditional society, but transforms into an economic category. Its trademark is breaking with the principle of “enough is

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enough” in adoration of the principle of “the more the better”. From his elaboration on the definition of economic reason, Gorz equates economic reason with the capitalist mode of production. Gorz thinks on the basis of Habermas’s critique of knowledge-instrumental rationality, that the greatest harm that economic reason engenders consists in colonizing the lifeworld. On the surface, the colonization of the lifeworld means the technicalization, alienation and monetization of all kinds of relations, where persons become strangers facing this objectified world as well as the decline of living art, communication and spontaneity; but in depth, it means the formalization of thought, coding thought into technical programs. Grounded in his revelation that capitalism is the ultimate origin of the ecological crisis, Gorz argues that the ecological crisis can only be eliminated in progressive socialist societies. In Gorz’s view, the reason why the socialist system provides the possibility of ecological protection is because it does not engage in production for the sake of profit. He holds that there are two kinds of reason: one is economic reason—capitalist production for profit; the other is ecological reason—socialist environmental protection. The former stands opposed to ecological protection, while the latter is consistent with ecological protection. What genuine socialism carries out is necessarily ecological reason, and the socialist mode of production can and should be tied to ecological reason. The rationality of the ecological means of socialism consists in the rationality of ecological reason. Through the analysis of the contrariety between economic reason and ecological reason, and the demonstration of the intrinsic links between economic reason and the capitalist mode of production on one hand and that between ecological reason and the socialist mode of production on the other, Gorz demonstrates the necessity of the formation of the socialist form of society and concludes that the best option for environmental protection is the socialist mode of production. His argument is persuasive and profound, and adequately demonstrates his basic standpoint as an ecological socialist and ecological Marxist. Gorz stresses that the best option for ecological and environmental protection is progressive socialism. But what kind of socialism is this that he is referring to? What relationship does it share with currently existing forms of socialism? Gorz thinks that the socialism that can effectively carry out ecological protection differs entirely from currently existing forms and traditional forms of socialism. In his view, the Soviet form of socialism only offers people a magnified picture of the features of capitalist infrastructure, because it similarly or even radically turns accumulation and economic growth into its principal aims. The Soviet form only differs from capitalism in the way it carries out this accumulation and growth, that is, it attempts to replace spontaneous market mechanisms with a sophisticatedly planned, centralized and external means of macroeconomic

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control. Grounded in his denial of the Soviet form of socialism, Gorz proposes his own conception of socialism. He proposes the prospect of “less production, better life” as the ideal socialist model of life. Agger plays a vital role in the development of ecological Marxism. He takes a clear-cut stand, pointing out the sharp irresolvable contradictions between the emergence of the ecological crisis, unlimited productive capacity and limited environmental carrying capacity, contradictions which doom people to disillusionment with capitalism and inspire faith in the socialist revolution. He argues that we must restudy the theory of the crisis of capitalism. In his view, the basic viewpoint of ecological Marxism is found in confirming that the propensity of crisis in contemporary capitalist society has already shifted to the sphere of consumption—that is the replacement of economic crisis with ecological crisis. The original Marxist theory of the crisis of capitalism crucially lacks a theory of needs, which is indispensable for post-socialism. The aim of ecological Marxism is to prove that the propensity of crisis may generate a series of needs, new needs which may turn into the motivating force behind radical social reforms. This will necessarily lead to the critique of the phenomenon of the alienation of consumption and bring about the theory of the structure of needs. What he calls the alienation of consumption points to contemporary capitalist society’s attempt to warp the essence of satisfying needs for the sake of alleviating economic crisis and to seduce people into mistaking the pursuit of consumption under market mechanisms for genuine satisfaction, which leads to excessive consumption. It expresses itself in people measuring their degree of happiness with the extent of their consumption, which directly results in these demands exceeding the carrying capacity of nature. He holds that the uniqueness of ecological Marxism lies in its proposal of “the dialectic of shattered expectations” as a model of social reform, in order to replace the model of social reform that is rooted in traditional Marxism’s theory of the crisis of capitalism. It is “the dialectic of shattered expectations” that rejuvenates traditional Marxism’s theory of the capitalist crisis. “The dialectic of shattered expectations” to which is refering includes the following four indispensable processes: first, contemporary capitalist society is legitimized in humanity’s endless expectation of commodity consumption, which is to say that the legitimization of contemporary capitalist society is based on the stimulation of the individual’s endless expectation of commodity consumption; second, since ecological systems are unable to sustain unlimited growth, the unlimited supply of goods cannot last permanently, which results in crises of supply in contemporary capitalist societies during periods of industrial prosperity and material abundance. In other words, the ecological crises of contemporary capitalist societies will necessarily turn into crises of supply and

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demand; third, individuals have already gotten used to seeing the expectation of their own material abundance as compensation for their alienated labor. When the crisis of supply and demand sets in, their expectations are shattered and they start to lose confidence that capitalism may infinitely satisfy humanity’s material desires, and then they will go on to doubt the entire capitalist system, and consequently reconsider what human beings really need; fourth, it is precisely in this process of shattering expectations and in this process of reconsidering what human beings really need where unexpected results are produced, which is the destruction of hackneyed demands and worn out values and the creation of new expectations and new ways of satisfying those expectations. It is precisely those human beings whose expectations have been shattered who radiate new expectations. Faced with the growing seriousness of the ecological crisis, people live in pessimism. He believes that it is precisely Marxism’s “dialectic of shattered expectations” that liberates people from this pessimism. For most people, the contemporary world seems to be ushering in the end of the world. Ecological Marxism may help people eliminate this misunderstanding, because it urges people to destroy old demands and values and to establish new demands and expectations, which helps people go through a revolution of demands and expectations. Once people realize this revolution and establish new demands and expectations, an optimism and uplifting atmosphere will return to the world. Agar not only expounds the possibility of solving the ecological crisis and that of building socialism from the macro perspective, but also specifically points out how to start up this project in today’s capitalist society. The way he points out consists in transforming capitalism in the direction of decentralization and debereaucratization. He specifies the solution to the ecological crisis through the elimination of overproduction and over-consumption, the keys to which are decentralization and debereaucratization. He emphasizes that since the capitalist crisis of today has already shifted to the sphere of consumption, on the surface the solution must mainly unfold in the sphere of consumption, but the solution to the crisis will react back upon the sphere of production, namely in promoting the debreaucratization and democratization of the process of production by means of the small-scale management of technology and workers. Agar uses Schumacher’s concept of the new regime of technology to explain the socio-political significance of decentralization and debereaucratization. On the one hand, he borrows Shumacher’s thought and extends it to show that the socialist economy is a decentralized and debereaucratized economy; on the other hand, he criticizes Schumacher for failing to tie small-scale technology to the reforming of the socio-political system and for inadequately understanding the “chain” between technology and social structure.

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Leiss’s major contribution to ecological Marxism lies in clearly using Marxism to see through green theory, and in dedicating much thought to the integration of Marxism and ecology. On the one hand, he stresses the inheritance of Marx’s theory of alienation, critiques the alienation of consumption in capitalist society and foresees that the fuse behind social revolution is found in the sphere of consumption rather than that of production; on the other hand, he also focuses on the construction of ecological socialism and clearly suggests the demands of ecological socialism with regard to politics, economics, social life and ideology. He critiques superficial ideas about ecological and environmental issues, namely the idea of viewing environmental problems as ones concerning the calculation of economic costs and the idea of viewing environmental quality as a good that is consumable when the price is right. So, where is the key to solving environmental problems? Leiss clearly suggests that the cause of ecological crisis is the concept of controlling nature, which humanity has inherited and accumulated throughout the ages. Therefore, Leiss asserts that changing this concept is key. In his view, the concept of controlling nature is an ideology that causes the increasing severity of environmental problems. Further in his discussion of the negative effects of controlling nature, he asserts that the true harm of the concept not only consists in promoting control over nature, but also in bringing about control over human beings. Leiss holds that controlling nature and controlling human beings are inseparably connected to one another. How is it that controlling nature is inseparably tied to controlling human beings? This is what Leiss focuses on. He suggests that controlling nature makes human beings take control over nature for granted, but also makes them unconscious of the existence of control in interpersonal relationships. This ideology aims not only at controlling nature, but also understands and utilizes the entirety of nature, including human nature as materials for the satisfaction of human beings’ unsatisfiable desires. Leiss thinks highly of Horkheimer’s connecting of the three characteristics of human history, that is, controlling nature, controlling human beings and social conflict. Social conflict is the factor that ties controlling nature and controlling human beings together. He also suggests that Horkheimer consistently ties controlling nature to the controlling of human beings, so he is able to speak of the resistance of nature and the resistance of human nature in one breath. Leiss critiques the concept of controlling nature, but when it comes to how to overcome this concept, the key is not found in the elimination of the concept but in breathing new meaning into it. Analyzing the controlling of nature from the moral perspective, he holds that the urgent challenge that humans face is not the conquest over nature, but the development of the capacities to responsibly utilize science and technology and the development of the social system

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that can nurture and protect such capacities. He quotes Walter Benjamin to express his new concepts as the control of the relation between humans and nature. Leiss interprets the controlling of nature as the controlling of the relation between humans and nature, which is an insightful understanding worthy of attention. According to Leiss, controlling the relationship between humans and nature refers to limiting the unreasonable and destructive parts of human desires, to developing capacities to responsibly utilize science and technology, and to the setting up of a social system that can protect such capacities. Leiss thinks highly of Muller’s idea: the standard shift from quantity to quality is urgent for future society. He critiques the idea of equating satisfaction with endless material consumption in modern industrial society. He points out that the equating of consumption with satisfaction and happiness is clear proof of alienation in modern industrial society. For the purpose of controlling human beings, modern industrial society makes every aspect of human beings depend on the collective bureaucratic system at all costs and tries to eliminate and numb the frustration and pains that human beings suffer in labor through consumption. Such means of satisfaction are not only the foundation of legitimacy of the welfare state but also the root of the ecological crisis. In Leiss’s view, since the current institutions of production and consumption activities hinder the development of people’s talents and capacities, and moreover, since true satisfaction and happiness depend entirely upon the development of people’s talents and capacities, what we should do is flip the principle upside down and execute it, that is, make every effort to develop the talents and capacities of human beings. The main approach is found in creating the conditions that enable human beings themselves to engage in such activities. Of course, this kind of labor is not one of following orders which cannot be considered true labor, but one of human beings autonomously and creatively realizing their own labor. On the basis of this thought, he brings up the famous notion that true happiness is not found in consumption but rather in production. He thinks that focusing on production rather than consumption not only shifts the focus of attention, but also creates environments that enable human beings to directly participate in the labor that can satisfy their needs. The process of creating such environments is that of solving the ecological crisis. Leiss proposes the goal of building a society in which people find it is easier to survive. He summarizes this more easily surivable society with two basic points: first, this society itself is by no means the ultimate purpose, which is rather changing social policies afresh and replacing the quantitative standard of happiness with a qualitative one, so it is treated as a powerful dynamic phase of social reform; second, with regard to a society that is easier to survive in what is most urgent is rearranging resources, changing social policies and making the

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problem of satisfying demands no longer be seen entirely as the function of consumption activities. The Frankurt school makes a decisive contribution to the formation of ecological Marxism, whose founder to a certain extent is Marcuse. The questions that human beings today must answer are: What at bottom is the natural world that we are faced with? Why is the liberation of human being inseparable from the liberation of nature? How should humans treat nature? On the basis of Marx’s exposition in Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts of 1844, Marcuse elaborates on these questions from the theoretical perspective. He thinks that seeing nature as a field of liberation is the main point of Marx’s Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts of 1844. He states that although the manuscripts are pre-scientific and Feuerbach’s natural philosophy is dominant throughout them, it still expresses the most radical and comprehensive socialist ideology. It is in these manuscripts where “nature” takes up its due position in revolutionary theory. He stresses that according to Marx, the natural world is not only material, and does not only appear as organic or inorganic materials, but as independent life, as subject-object. The pursuit of life is the common essence of humans and nature. He also points out that treating nature as a subject without purpose, plan and intention goes in accordance with the Kantian viewpoint of purposiveness without purpose. In his view, Marx treats nature as a subject and binds the liberation of human being closely to the liberation of nature, which must be seen as the means of achieving the former. He concretely analyzes this with regard to four aspects: 1. The liberation of nature enables nature to become means of enjoyment. Viewing nature as a subject effectively confirms that nature possesses the property of sensible beauty, and liberating nature means rediscovering this property of the natural world; and once this property is rediscovered, nature naturally becomes human being’s means of enjoyment; 2. The liberation of nature promotes social reform. Seeing nature as a subject effectively confirms that nature possesses forces that support and catalyze the liberation of human beings, so liberating nature means liberating this power of the natural world and making it become the motive force of social reform; 3. The liberation of nature promotes the establishment of a new model of relationship between human being and nature. Since the natural world is also a subject, liberating nature means restoring its status as subject, namely “making it live together with humans in a human world,” in the process of which both nature and human beings are liberated in accompaniment with the establishment of the new relationship between human beings and nature; 4. The liberation of nature may nurture new perceptive power in human beings. Human liberation is based on new perceptions which are inseparable from the liberation of nature. He thinks that Marx’s Philosophical and

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Economic Manuscripts of 1844 not only demonstrate the necessity of the liberation of nature, but also gives direction as to how this liberation is to proceed, which is shown in his three propositions: 1. “humane occupation of nature”. The “humane occupation of nature” that Marx mentions in Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts of 1844 refers to transforming nature into a surrounding world that harmonizes with human being’s essence (being as species). In Marx, human being, who immediately is natural being, is a tangible, lively, realistic, sentimental and objective object. Humans treat nature as their object and objectify their capacities in the natural world, so to a certain degree, they need to occupy the natural world. The problem is in accordance with what principle namely shall we occupy nature. Marx stresses that human demands are diversified. The “humane occupation of nature” here means making nature satisfy the variety of demands of human beings and making nature serve the whole-sided development of human beings. 2. Fostering a relationship with the object for the sake of the object. This idea supplements the limitations of the “humane occupation of nature.” The reason why human being wants to foster a relationship with the object-natural world, on the one hand is for the sake of human being, and on the other hand is for the sake of the objectnatural world. If this aspect is forgotten, the liberation of nature is unrealizable. What is fostering a relationship with the object for the sake of the object? It is treating the natural world not merely as materials, and not merely as appearing as organic or inorganic materials, but as a lively object, in short, treating objects with humanity. 3. Shaping the objectified world in accordance with the law of aesthetics. Human being is the only being who can shape the objectified world in accordance with the laws of aesthetics. According to Hegel and Marx’s explanation, it is a matter of restoring the beauty of the external natural world, that is, restoring the external natural world to a state in which it possesses freedom of form. Nature was originally under the domination of chance where all kinds of contingent demands hindered its rational transformation and development. Undertaking the restoration of beauty helps nature throw off the constraint of all kinds of contingent demands. According to Marx, nature should become the ally of human beings against social exploitation, and the liberation of human beings is inseparable from the liberation of nature. What role does nature play in real life? Marcuse thinks that in modern industrial society, nature has not become the ally of human beings against social exploitation, but instead has become the accomplice of rulers of human slaves in an exploitative society. He reveals and criticizes modern industrial society’s invasive destruction of nature and the revenge that nature wages on human beings in return, while revealing and critiquing the rulers of modern industrial society who control human beings by means of controlling nature.

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Facing the ecological crisis threatening human existence and the controlling of human beings, which increasingly relies on the controlling of nature, Marcuse calls for an ecological revolution and a natural revolution to achieve the total emancipation of human beings by means of the liberation of nature. He states that the struggle against air pollution, water pollution, noise pollution and the invasion of the vast space of nature has become a political struggle.

CHAPTER 9

James O’Connor: The Intrinsic Relationship between Marxism and Ecology Hegel once famously stated: “The Owl of Minerva folds her wings at daybreak.” The American Ecological Marxist, James O’Connor, complains that some people today have turned Marxism into “The Owl of Minerva who folds her wings at daybreak.” His argument is that “when world economy simulates the model (no only this model) that Marx developed in Capital, Marxism is dismissed as fatally flawed, a failed enterprise, like the ex-really existing socialism of the ex-soviet Union.”1 He thinks that in such a circumstance, the most important task is to establish the “credibility of Marxism itself,” that is, to explain that Marxism far from being “The Owl of Minerva who folds her wings at daybreak,” is rather the eagle spreading her wings to fly at dawn. In O’Connor’s view, the contemporary value of Marx’s economic and political theory is self-evident. Even though the globalization of the circulation of capital has created possibilities unimaginable in the 19th century, in fact, the main contour of world economy today can be practically gleamed from the theoretical lines found in Marx’s classic text, and this forms a striking contrast with the theory of Adam Smith, which seems to have less and less practical value as changes proceed in the trends of the world economy.2 The essence of the political theory of Marxism lies in identifying the concept and fact of class struggle, which mainly connotes capital’s struggle to impose labor on the working class on the former’s terms, and the objective facts today prove that everything which Marx exposed is not only still happening but is still happening with greater intensity, “today’s hyper capitalist world economy- and the process of what Marx called global accumulation through crisis- have made this war of capital on labor of life-and-death necessity for the world’s ruling classes”.3 James O’Connor thinks that the world’s development is constantly verifying Marx’s following prediction: “there are multiple, overlapping tendencies toward fiscal and financial crises, and political and cultural crises among

1  James O’Connor: Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism, The Guilford Press, 1998, p. 1. 2  Ibid. 3  Ibid.

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other expressions of the deep contradiction of capital and capitalist politics, culture, and society.”4 In O’Connor’s view, now the problem is, even if some people do not deny the contemporary value of Marx’s economic and political theory, “those who concern themselves about these matters are even more skeptical of any wedding (or even engagement) between ecology and Marxism,” that is, they completely erase the ecological implications of Marx’s theory, and construe Marx as an “anti-ecological” thinker. In this case, O’Conner focuses on explaining the intrinsic connection between Marxism and ecology, that is, he reveals the hidden ecological value in Marx’s theory in order to prove that Marxism is still a banner guiding humanity progressively forward today. What he wants to prove is: Marx and Engels and a number of Marxist theories viewed (and today view) human history and natural history as dialectically interconnected; understood (and understand) the anti-ecological nature of capitalism and the need for a theory that articulates the contradictory relationship between exchange value and use value; and had (and have) at least a latent ecological socialist vision.5 O’Connor specifically reveals the ecological implications of Marx’s theory mainly with respect to three facets, namely “history and nature,” “capitalism and nature” and “socialism and nature”, and concretely explains the intrinsic connections between Marxism and ecology. Here we dissect them one by one.

Marx’s View on “History and Nature”

How should we look at the relationship between humanity and nature, and specifically this is to say: what at bottom could nature possibly turn into? What at bottom is nature? What is nature in the process of becoming? What could humankind possibly make nature become? What kind of relationship should be established between humanity and nature? These are the questions that humanity must answer today in order to get rid of the ecological crisis. O’Connor thinks that the ecological significance of Marx’s theory is firstly that it provides the methodological foundation needed to correctly answer this question, and his purpose of writing Natural Causes is precisely to make a profound 4  Ibid., p. 2. 5  Ibid., p. 4.

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elucidation of Marxism’s dialectical and materialist method of thought on the problem of the reciprocal interaction between humanity and nature.6 In his view, the method that Marx used in his account of the relationship between humanity and nature differs both from the “pseudo-scientific perspective” of “dialectical materialism” and from the chaotic viewpoint of postmodernism, and moreover, is much more well-rounded and practical than those methods that are currently popular in the humaniies and social sciences. O’Connor thinks that the method of Marx’s account of the dialectical relationship between human history and natural history, or rather, between human systems and natural systems is the method of historical materialism, but he attempts to discuss this branch of environmental history itself by applying the method of historical materialism. He thinks that he presents an historical explanation rooted in Marxist methodology here, and even thinks you could call this “historical explanation” the idea of “historical materialism.”7 Generally speaking, O’Connor acknowledges that the absence of a “full-bodied ecological sensitivity” in Marxist thought is strongly exemplified by the standard account of historical materialism.” Historical materialism makes too little room for nature’s economy and too much for human economy.”8 He even states: While Marxism has succeeded in demonstrating how the concept of nature is ‘socially constructed’ in different modes of production, the irreducible autonomy of nature, as enabling and constraining human projects, tends to be neglected or marginalized.9 O’Connor insists immediately after pointing out this shortcoming of Marxist theory and especially of historical materialism that this does not offset the important significance that historical materialism as a methodology has for people’s understanding of the relationship between human society and the natural world. Marx’s historical materialism takes shape in the explanation of the capitalist mode of exploitation, when Marx focuses on socially organized material life. In O’Connor’s view, Marx’s account of the roles of the following two aspects of “socially organized material life” is the confirmation of the interrelationship between human society and nature: The first is the form in which “socially organized material life” changes nature by means of creating “second 6  Ibid., p. XI. 7  Ibid., p. 4. 8  Ibid. 9  Ibid.

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nature;” the second is “socially organized material life” changes human ways of thought through naturalizing human beings. What Marx calls “socially organized material life” refers to “social labor.” O’Connor thinks that putting forward this concept of “social labor” proves that Marx discovered the right method to examine the real relationship between human society and nature. “Social labor” plays a regulating role between human history and natural history. “Labor is a material interface between society and nature.” .

Labor is organized as a division of specialized functions or tasks, including a division between mental and manual activity and mental and manual laborers. Social labor has objective and subjective moments: socially organized labor creates the objective world in which we live and work; it also helps to produce the subjective world of consciousness, which both limits and provides opportunities for new and different kinds of material activity. O’Connor states: “Seen this way, the ‘human impact’ on nature turns on the ways that social labor is organized, its aims or ends, on the distribution and use of the social product, and on human knowledge of, and attitudes toward, nature.”10 O’Connor insists that the significant contribution of Marx’s historical materialism is that it reveals that “the interface between history and nature is the material activity (defined in the broadest sense) of human beings.” Meadow, field, forest, shoreline, mountain canyon, the atmosphere, the oceans, and so on are all in a certain sense humanized natural objects, and humanity uses technology, machines or tools and raw materials to intentionally manufacture these humanized natural objects under certain forms of social organization. Using Marx’s historical materialism to formulate it, human activities coordinate and integrate in this process and at the same time change the relationship between human culture and nature. From the perspective of historical materialism, on the one hand, we can see the interaction between the process of human culture and the process of natural development, and on the other hand, we can see that it is human activity that gives this interaction moving force. In O’Connor view, “Therefore Marx placed labor or human material at the center of the materialist conception of history.”11

10  Ibid., p. 5. 11  Ibid., p. 26.

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O’Connor further points out that Marx places “social labor” at the center of the materialist conception of history and of course views natural history as a part of the history of human labor. Also, because Marx interprets the mode of production in the context of thoroughgoing historicism, what he calls labor is always in the position of the exploited, that is, the labor process is organized by the owners of production or the ruling class, and this labor process not only creates material wealth, it also creates surplus wealth. It is precisely in this sense that natural history in Marx became the history of one human group exploiting another. Of course, Marx also simultaneously observes that the history of exploitation is also the history of the struggle of laborers, and in this way “history of nature, then, is in some small or large part the history of labor.”12 O’Connor thinks that what is most crucial in using the method of historical materialism to examine the interrelationship between human society and the natural world is understanding natural history in the way that Marx did as the history of human labor, and moreover understanding it as the history of the owners of production exploiting the laborers as well as the history of the laborers opposing this exploitation. O’Connor thinks that the key to this category of social labor is grasping the following two points: One, “social labor” is endowed with cultural characteristics. We not only have to know that human labor is made on the foundation of the power of class and the law of value, but also have to know that human labor is rooted in cultural norms and cultural practices, which in turn are determined by the form of social labor. Second, “social labor” is also endowed with natural characteristics. We not only have to know that human labor is established on the foundations of class power, the striving to maintain the stability of the prices of commodities and culture, we also have to know that human labor is grounded in natural systems, which are in turn regulated by social labor. As long as we grasp Marx’s category of “social labor” in this way, we can draw the conclusion that: “It seems to follow that culture and nature meet and combine in socially organized social labor.”13 O’Connor points out that the historical viewpoint of ecological Marxism “brings together and unites the themes of culture and nature with the traditional Marxist category of labor or material production,”14 and thereby necessarily affirms Marx’s concept of “social labor,” and affirming this category of social labor is also affirming Marx’s theory of productive forces and production

12  Ibid. 13  Ibid., p. 46. 14  Ibid., p. 35.

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relations. According to the traditional Marxist train of thought, “social labor” is a two-sided process: One side consists of the technical relations between human beings and the materials afforded by nature, or the appropriation and manipulation of nature by humans for their own use. The other side consists of the social relationships within which the technical relations are organized, or the social organization of the appropriation and manipulation of nature. Marxist scholars define the former as “productive forces,” and the latter as “production relations.” Broadly speaking, productive forces denote the material powers or productive potential of society. Relations of production are taken to mean the forms of property and power relations in society, including the relations of appropriation of the social product. O’Connor thinks that people do not acknowledge the significance that the Marxian theory of productive forces and production relations has for the examination of the relationship between human society and natural world, mainly because they do not know that productive forces and production relations are “simultaneously cultural and natural” in Marx. This is to say that Marx’s explanation of historical changes and developments using his theory of productive forces and production relations is not only grounded in studies on industrial technology, divisions of labor, property relations and power relations, but also in research on concrete, historical forms of culture and nature. Marx not only focuses on the “relations” between productive forces and production relations, but also gives an account of productive forces and production relations themselves. In Marx, humanmade modifications of life forms, landscapes, and so on have their own “independent, historical existence”, and “second nature” is no less “natural” for being “second.”15 On the other hand, it is argued that the materialist conception of history has no theory of culture or of language, inter subjectivity and ethics beyond the theory of commodity and capital fetishism in capitalist societies. O’Connor does not agree with this view. He insists: “yet in all modes of production, including capitalism, both forces and relations of production are infused with cultural norms.”16 “Labor” is a cultural as well as a material practice. Similarly, the productive forces and production relations also encompass two dimensions, objective and subjective. Productive forces have an objective dimension

15  Ibid., p. 36. 16  Ibid.

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insofar as they consist of materials as well as the means and objects of production provided by nature. They are subjective in that they include living labor power in general and different capacities to cooperate or work together in particular ways mediated not only by technical skills but also by cultural practices. Production relations are objective insofar as they develop in accordance with the law of value, competition, concentration and centralization of capital, and other tendential law of capitalism, production relations are also subjective in that they include cultural concepts of property and capacity to organize particular forms of exploitation in ways mediated by particular cultural practices. In O’Connor’s view, truly understanding that productive forces and production relations have both objective and subjective dimensions, that is, truly understanding that the forces and relations of production “are thus both cultural and natural”17 is greatly significant for grasping the relationship between human society and nature.

Marx’s View on “Capital and Nature”

Today people live in capital driven societies, so what is the relationship between capital and the ecological crisis standing before us? This constitutes one of the most important issues of study on ecological problems that we cannot dodge. In O’Connor’s view, the ecological significance of Marxist theory is mainly expressed in helping people truly understand the true connection between capital and the ecological crisis. The mission he gives himself is the “application of the method of Marx’s historical materialism to the problem of capitalism and nature”,18 and the application of Marx’s theory of capital “to study the contradictions between present-day world capitalism and the “integrity of both the natural and social worlds”.19 He points out in the “Preface” of Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism that he has drawn the following conclusions using Marx’s method of historical materialism and Marx’s theory of capital to study ecological problems: First,

17  Ibid., p. 38. 18  Ibid., p. 11. 19  Ibid., p. xi.

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Capital’s exploitation of nature as “tap” and “sink”. He thinks that nature is a tap in the sense that the means and objects of production and reproduction are appropriated in various forms from the earth. Nature is a sink in that ultimately all human products, including unwanted byproducts of the immediate process of production, are returned in different forms to the earth; second, on the biological as well as the economic exploitation of the worker; third, on the external physical and social barriers to capitalist accumulation as well as the internal economic barriers.20 In O’Connor’s view, if you want to know if Marx’s theory of the opposition between capital and ecology is correct, just look at everything that has occurred in the world over the past 200 years and everything becomes perfectly clear. He notes that few will dispute the proposition that the North enjoyed an unprecedented growth of material well-being during the past 200 years. this growth has resulted in the indiscriminate destruction of natural resources and pollution of all kinds during the same two centuries. And also, that the South (the old “Third World”) is the worst victim of “global genocide.” Economic growth and material abundance in the North are thus contradictory in the sense that capital has overcome scarcity while degrading the environment in the North and South. The North owes a major if unknown part of its living standards to the depletion of nonrenewable sources, the degradation of renewable sources, and the despoilment of the global commons.21 What has factually occurred over the past 200 years fully demonstrates: the capitalist relations of production are reducing or destroying the conditions of production, which includes the environment. He stresses that these facts “are examples of the general contradiction between capitalism and nature, or contradiction between self-expanding capital and self-limiting nature”.22 In his view, Marx’s basic argument proving the contradiction between capital and ecology is that “capitalism is a self-expanding system of economic growth”, and “nature is not self expanding.” Its aim is limitless growth or money in search for more of itself. Profit is the means of expansion as well as the goal of expansion. Every capitalist institution and cultural practice is 20  Ibid. 21  Ibid., p. 8. 22  Ibid., p. 10.

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organized for profit and capital accumulation. The problem is that some people tend to ignore the untold trouble brought about by the self-expansion of capital, and instead believe that the economic growth of capitalism can resolve social problems like eliminating poverty, unemployment, unequal wealth and income distribution. New tax revenues come from capital accumulation in capitalist countries, so few politicians dare oppose this selfexpansion of capital. So, in case such a situation emerges: companies not oriented to growth are severely disciplined by bankers, the stock market and competitors. Workers unwilling or unable to change skills and places of residence in accordance with the logic of accumulation are left behind. In this way, the expansion of capital is perfectly justified and natural. The greatness of the Marxists is in revealing that capital is essentially self-expansive while warning people that nature cannot expand in sync with capital: forests reach climax stages; fresh water is limited by geography and climate; fossil fuels and minerals are physically fixed. “Nature is far from stingy and enables as well as constrains human production, but its rhythms and cycles are governed by a different logic than the rhythms and cycles of capital.”23 He furthermore asserts that Marx’s theory of the opposition between capital and ecology will lead us to consider the following two points: on the one hand, some of us live in countries that have developed an enormous industrial capacity and an abundance of commodity wealth, on the other hand, we are faced with a degraded nature, congested cities, and a population that feels isolated, alienated, and exploited. “We have suffered the results of a pact our forebears made with the devil. and if nothing changes our children will suffer a worse fate.”24 In such a situation people have to consider: “what kind of relationship do we want to have with billions of people yet unborn who have no say in the ‘market’ and counsels of government today?” A neo-Malthusian answer is “Make sure that they are not born.” Will the ecological Marxists answer likewise? Their answer is to make sure that those who are born are not “materially and environmentally impoverished.” Secondly, we suffer the consequences of the actions of not only the dead but also the living—at least some of the living. “These are the men in charge of deciding investment and technological priorities, capital flows, international lending, and government budget policy.”25 Faced with such a situation, people will think: “what kind of relationship do we want to have with the industrialists; merchants; directors of the transnational corporations and banks, the World Bank, and the IMF; and high 23  Ibid. 24  Ibid. 25  Ibid., p. 10–11.

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executives of the state?” The ecological Marxists launch attacks on all of these people out of historical necessity. All the bourgeois economists try to view capitalism itself as well as the process of capitalist accumulation and capitalist crises “natural phenomena”, but O’Connor thinks that this view is and will remain a “downright trick”. Marx’s greatness comes from his critique of this view. It must be noted that, “Marx’s attack on the political economists who would naturalize an exploitative mode of production did not, of course, blind him to the importance of nature’s economy in the production and circulation of capital”.26 Marx fully understands that “labor is not the only source of material wealth”. He notices the significance of various natural processes in industrial activities, and notes that not only labor processes but also natural processes differ from industry to industry, that is, Marx saw that in different industrial activities, natural processes play different roles in the circulation of capital. Marx also notes that the components of value (variable capital and constant capital) tied to the reproduction of capital are generally defined on the basis of their natural attributes or use values. In sum, we must recognize that even though Marx insists that only labor creates exchange value or surplus value, nature does play an important role in use value for Marx. In O’Connor view, we may only truly grasp why Marx ties capital to the ecological crisis by understanding the role that Marx sees natural systems playing in the production and circulation of capital. On the basis of a comprehensive elucidation of Marx’s theory of the source of the ecological crisis, that is, on the basis of Marx’s theory of the opposition between ecology and capital, O’Connor informs us that Marxist-type theories have more to say about ecological crisis than liberalism and other types of mainstream economic thought. This is so because Marxists have an economic crisis theory, (or more accurately, crisis theories) that express the contradictions of capitalism. Crisis theory leads us to confront in theoretical and practical ways these contradictions between capitalism and nature. He also said, would urge progressive-minded economists working on ecological problems to pay heed to Marxist theory and the theoretical and practical insights it yields, I would urge more Marxist economists and social scientists to use Marxism’s powerful method to illuminate the real sources of the ecological crisis.27

26  Ibid., p. 121. 27  Ibid., p. 186.

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Marx’s View on “Socialism and Nature”

It is impossible to eliminate the ecological crisis under the capitalist system, so where in the end is humanity’s way out of the ecological crisis? While we pin the hope of solving ecological problems on the socialist system replacing the capitalist system, what at bottom is the intrinsic connection between ecology and socialism? O’Connor thinks that Marxian theory is indispensible to answering this question correctly. The ecological implications of Marx’s theory are shown in enabling us to correctly understand not only history’s relationship to nature and capitalism’s relationship to nature but also the intrinsic connection between “socialism and nature”. The mission he gives himself is giving an account of Marx’s argument for the necessity of socialism from the perspective of ecology on the basis of elucidating the contradictions between capital and ecological in Marx’s theory. He states: “One key question today is how to make ecological struggles productive of radical socioeconomic change.”28 What he means is that the current environmental movement is in full swing, and what is crucial now is the question of how to convert the force of this movement into the driving force of a socialist movement, whose aim is to reform capitalism. This requires applying some of the basic principles of Marxian political sociology and political theory to the analysis of the environmental movement in the face of major issues. He believes this is the work that he himself is doing. O’Connor thinks that Marx’s theory will make people see that capitalist societies necessarily breed “forces of opposition,” which are fostered by the economic crises of capitalism and accompany the ecological crises of capitalism. As long as you understand Marx’s principle concerning the necessary opposition between ecology and capital, it is easy to understand why there will always be “forces of opposition” in capitalist society. He states: “When capital undermines its own conditions of production and accumulation, thereby potentially undermining its own profits, it also creates social and political opposition.” Thus, as noted above, “the issue is not only to analyze the systemic relationship between capital and its condition, but also to analyze capital as an antagonistic social relationship.”29 Only in this way, can we understand why it is necessary that people move toward socialism while getting out of the ecological crisis. He also points out that: “it may be that not only a crisis of capital overproduction, but also a crisis of capital underproduction is inherent in world capitalism today.” That is to say, “Crisis may come not only 28  Ibid., p. 12. 29  Ibid., p. 128.

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from the demand side, as in traditional Marxism, but also from the cost side, as in eco- Marxism”.30 And this viewpoint of ecological Marxism is inspired by none other than Marx, who in his writings on the “cotton crisis” in Britain during the 1860s, “himself argued this position”, “but he never tried to develop the systematic economic and social connections between movements within and between the circuits of capital and whole issue of the production and reproduction of the conditions of capitalist production.” In his view, regardless of whether it is based on Marxian theory or the reality of today’s society, “that hard questions about the connection between traditional crises of overproduction of capital and crisis of capital underproduction have to be asked; and that other questions about the connections between the destruction of nature and people”. If we do, it may turn out that what is needed today is not “socialist construction.” but rather “socialist reconstruction” of course, including our own “nature”.31 O’Connor thinks that ecological problems are political problems, and that the ecological struggle is a political struggle. “Whether or not a species dies off, an ecosystem is destroyed, or a wildness or wetland threatened are political, ideological, and cultural as well as ecological questions.”32 In particular, he stresses here that the ecological crisis can be regarded as “the turning point in the political battle”, namely, “the turning point in the battle between environmentalists who are trying to protect an ecosystem or ‘wildness’, and capitalist developers who are driven by investments and hope for profit.” He also insists that the main significance of this turning point is that it is first and foremost a “turning point politically.” In his view, only by recognizing the problem in this way, can we, like Marx, tie the struggle against the ecological crisis to that of facilitating the transition from capitalism to socialism. O’Connor thinks that some traditional Marxists always thought that if productive forces and production relations develop in increasingly socialized form, namely, if productive forces and production relations continuously tend toward socialization, capitalism will necessarily transition toward socialism. But in the view of the ecological Marxists, the development of a more socialized supply model of productive conditions, namely, the growing tendency of the conditions of production toward the public sector and socialization will encourage the transition from capitalism to socialism. This is to say, “There may be not one but two paths to socialism, or, to be more accurate, two tendencies that together lead to increased socialization of productive forces, production 30  Ibid., p. 129. 31  Ibid. 32  Ibid., p. 138.

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relations, conditions of production, and the social relations of the production and reproduction of these condition.”33 The increased socialization of productive forces and production relations will of course lead to socialism, and the “increased socialization of conditions of production, and the social relations of the production and reproduction of these conditions” will also lead to socialism. We can only see the former trend in Marx’s writings, but we should still look for the latter trend in Marx’s writings. He repeatedly insists that according to Marx’s theory, “Two, not one, contradictions and crises are thus inherent in capitalism; two, not one, sets of crisis-induced reorganizations and restructurings in the direction of more social forms are also inherent in capitalism.”34 And just as overproduction crises imply a reconstructing of both productive forces and relations, so do underproduction crises imply a reconstructing of production conditions. And just as restructuring of productive forces implies more social and relations, so does reconstructing of production conditions imply “more social forms of production conditions defined as productive forces”, “and more social forms of the social relationship”. The emergence of more social forms of production relations marks the realization of the transition to the socialist system, and the breeding of “more social forms of production conditions and social relations” similarly marks the realization of the transition to the socialist system. “In sum, more social form of production relations, productive forces, and conditions of production together contain within them possibilities of socialist forms.”35 O’Connor demonstrates socialism’s consistency with ecology in accordance with Marx’s theory, that is, he demonstrates that we can only realize ecological protection under the socialist system, but there remains an insurmountable problem in front of him waiting for his answer. That is: in today’s world, the fact is that the socialist countries used up their nonrenewable resources as fast as (or faster than) the capitalist world and polluted the air, water, and land as much as, if not more than, their capitalist counterparts. So how could we argue that the socialist system is more advantageous than the capitalist system with respect to protecting the ecological environment? He points out that some people insist on these grounds that “it is not capitalism and socialism as eco33  Ibid., p. 162. 34  Ibid., p. 171. 35  Ibid.

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nomic systems that deserve the onus for causing environmental degradation”, rather, they attribute blame to “industrialization,” “urbanization,” “technology,” “bureaucracy,” and a “production at all costs” mentality, “all of which appear to be common in both the capitalist and the socialist worlds.”36 O’Connor does not dodge this question. On the one hand, he acknowledges that it is very “reasonable” that some raise such a question, and thus that some people take it as sufficient reason to avoid social institutions because the two kinds of social systems have both caused damage to the ecological environment, but on the other hand, he also tries to offer a convincing explanation of this problem from the Marxist point of view. In his view, the key is to research exactly which causes make today’s socialist countries destroy the environment, to research whether such causes are essentially or rather contingently tied to the socialist system, research the causes that lead the socialist system into ecological crisis, and where in the end the difference is between those causes and those of the capitalist nations. He points out that socialist countries imported technology and systems of production from the west and the causes of environmental destruction in socialist countries were similar to those in the capitalist countries. Also, to the extent that economic growth and development were overriding priorities in the socialist world, in this connection, there is no difference from the capitalist society. Finally, “because the socialist countries, in fact, have integrated themselves into the world capitalist market,” we can also say that “the same kind of systemic forces” were at work in the East as in the West.” At the same time, he states that the property and legal relations were different in the socialist countries than in the capitalist world, however, the causes and effects of environmental destruction were not the same. “This can also be said about the two political systems and the corresponding differences in the relationship between civil society and the state, however, the causes and effects of environmental destruction were not the same.”37 He insists that in the socialist countries, the productive forces were not so dissimilar to those in the West, except that they were typically less “advanced.” The production relations in the socialist world were quite different from those in the capitalist countries, but it is precisely because there was a difference that the specific form of technol36  Ibid., p. 256. 37  Ibid., p. 258.

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ogy and the particular ways in which agriculture, mining, industry and so on developed within the socialist world were also different. He stresses that we must not ignore the importance of the differences between production relations and the political system. In fact, these differences play an important role in the struggle to protect the environment in the process of ecological degradation. In his opinion, such a comparative analysis of socialism and capitalism distinguishing that “they developed on the basis of different property relations, legal relations, ideologies, and relations of political power,” correspondingly, “the theoretical implications of different property and political systems for the causes and consequences of environmental degradation” would be “useful to make.”38 In his view, the ecological crisis of capitalist society is “endogenous”, that is an inherent necessity, while for socialist societies it is “external”, that is, no necessity accompanies it. This being the case, as long as it is genuinely a socialist system, it can possibly get out of the ecological crisis. O’Connor thinks that the economic model that Marx designs for the socialist system is “state ownership” and “central planning.” And in principle, “state ownership and central planning permit the state to minimize resource depletion, ‘negative externalities’ such as pollution, and the destruction of environmental amenities.”39 A planned economy is positive in fundamental respects for environmental protection. By implementing a planned economic system, there are no “economic crises” such as those intrinsic to the capitalist system, and moreover there is no capitalistic competition between businesses over market share, and this means there is much less motivation for the enterprise to pollute in comparison with capitalist enterprises, which in order to survive in the market, often have to externalize their costs. Of course, the planned economy also has negative effects on environmental protection. This is mainly reflected in central planning encouraging large, ecologically unsound mining and construction projects as well as centralized energy production and distribution. The problem now is that these socialist countries, on the one hand, do not fully exploit the advantages of a planned economy in the protection of the ecological environment, and on the other hand, turn to exercise some of its negative aspects ecologically speaking to the extreme. In order to “catch up with the West”, what is most typical of these socialist countries is to use their highly authoritarian regimes to “uncritically accepted the Western model of development” and introduce the equipment of Western capital large-scale, and of course, to buy-in across the board to those pernicious consequences of severe polluting and environmental destruction 38  Ibid., p. 257. 39  Ibid., p. 259.

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that have already grown up in the Western world. In this way, these socialist countries utilize their own planned economic systems to aggravate the trend of ecological crisis which is originally “intrinsic to” the capitalist market economy. The capitalist economic model is a “demand constrained” economy, which is an economy that is constrained mainly by shortage of demand, whereas the socialist economic model is a “resource constrained” economy, that is, an economy whose growth is constrained by resources. O’Connor clarifies that “resource constrained” here is defined in the economic sense, and does not refer to an “ecological constraint.” In his view, first of all, those implementing the model of a “resource constrained” economy were likely to exhibit slower growth than those following the model of a “demand constrained” economy, and “hence they were likely to deplete and pollute resources at a slower rate.”40 In addition, the “resource constrained” economic model demands full employment and job security, which constrains the activity of businesses to save labor by organizing technological innovation, but in the “resource constrained” economic model, the destruction of the ecological environment is engendered due to the insistence on seeking technical innovation in order to raise the labor rate. Also, those following the “resource constrained” economic model all try to “maintain the operational status of businesses” regardless of what is happening to technical and market conditions, which weakens the motive inside this economic model to “externalize cost” through pollution, and this forms a sharp contrast with capitalist economies which have been “demand constrained.” Also, those following the “demand constrained” model of the capitalist economy often ensured the smooth operating of the economic system through advertising, packaging, rebranding, remodeling, product differentiation, product obsolescence, and credit buying, all of which are needed to keep the system afloat. This “sales effort” not only wastes resources but also results in more pollution to the environment, and relatively speaking, the “resource constrained” economic model is much less guilty in this respect. Still, the “demand constrained” economic model of capitalism is based on the wage form of labor and on the commodity form of need satisfaction, while the “resource constrained” economic model stresses public consumption and collective consumption, and on these ground, the latter uses and wastes fewer resources than the former, and personal consumption creates less pollution. Finally, and most importantly, capitalist economies are subject to the rule of “accumulate or die” such that growth does not serve as a means to the end 40  Ibid., p. 260.

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of economic and social well-being but as an end in and of itself, whereas under the socialist “resource constrained” economic model, “although economic growth was also a key goal in socialist countries, the same systemic economic imperative to grow was absent,” and in a certain sense, “growth was rather a political decision pertaining to economic development and the desire to ‘catch up with the West.’ ” “In socialist economies, in principle production was for use, not for profit, and growth was regarded as a means, not an end in and of itself.” Under these circumstances, “the relentless and unplanned nature of resource extraction/pollution in capitalism may not be inherent in socialist economies.”41 After listing the various advantages of socialism’s “resource constrained” economic model with respect to environmental protection in comparison with the “demand constrained” economic model of capitalism, O’Connor repeatedly declares that this is said in the sense of “what ought to be the case” rather than in the sense of “what actually is the case.” The “resource constrained” economic model of socialism should according to its original makeup do far better with respect to environmental protection, but “this is clearly not the case in practice.”42 It must be clear that in the socialist countries there are serious ecological crises, but not in the same way that there are in capitalist societies, whose ecological crises are determined by the system itself; rather in socialist societies ecological crises are brought about by the failure of some to truly exercise the advantages of this system, due to remaining infatuated with the capitalist system. He puts it this way: It is impossible to say in principle whether resource-constrained economies deplete resources and pollute the environment more or less than demand-constrained economies in similar stages of development. It can be said that some of the main reasons for depletion and pollution are different in the two types of economies. and also, that depletion and pollution in socialist countries were more political than economic questions; that is, that massive environmental degradation is probably not inherent in socialism, as it appears to be in capitalism.43 For example, in principle, centrally planned economies “coerce enterprises into internalizing possible negative externalities and social costs generally”, 41  Ibid., p. 262. 42  Ibid. 43  Ibid., p. 263.

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“that is true”, however, only to the degree that the central planners and enterprises, and the politicians and people, want it to be true. The problem now is that all those people in the socialist countries no longer have such a desire. They are controlled by the model of economic growth, of course, so it is impossible for this situation to emerge. This being the case, we cannot blame the socialist system itself for the ecological crises in socialist countries, and of course, we should not overturn Marx’s conclusions that there is an essential relationship between socialism and ecology just because there are ecological crises in socialist countries.

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David Pepper: Why Marx’s Ecological Theory Is Needed Now More Than Ever When the Chinese edition of Pepper’s book Eco-Socialism: from Deep Ecology to Social Justice was coming out, he specifically wrote a “preface to the Chinese Edition,” in which, he makes his purpose clear from the outset that At the time the Chinese version of the book Eco-Socialism was about to be published after eleven years of the first English version, we were told that socialism and communism are dead, which insists that they are no longer relevant in today’s globalized world, where the class struggle around the outcome of industrialization and modernization has been replaced by environment and other risk allocation controversies caused by industrialization and modernization.1 Is it so? He then explicitly states: “although there contains some element of truth in this argument, but it is in general based on an extreme error and an exaggerated position.”2 In his view, the whole key is that “in fact, ‘globalization’ is bringing about economic, social and environmental threats, and the theory and practice of socialism and communism are more necessary than ever.”3 What he means to say is that globalization is making the world face unprecedented threats in the economy, society and environment, and it is precisely such threats that make this contemporary world of ours need—more than it ever needed in the past—the theory and practice of socialism and communism, and the theory and practice of socialism and communism is inseparable from Marxism, so this means that we need Marxist theory and practice in the world today more than ever before. Based on this understanding, the goals he sets for himself include explaining Marxism’s connection to understanding and eliminating the economic, social and environmental threats that today’s world faces and making Marxist analysis adapt to the environment and conditions of the 21st century globalized world. He thinks that in order to 1  David. Pepper Eco-Socialism: from Deep Ecology to Social Justice, Shandong University Press, translated by Liu Ying, 2005, p. 1. 2  Ibid. 3  Ibid.

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accomplish this mission he must of course absorb the thought that Marx and Engels had already demonstrated concerning how and why capitalism needs globalization, but even more than that, he needs to discuss Marx’s theory about the capitalist system intrinsically tending to destroy and degrade the resources and services that the material environment upon which capitalism depends provides. He asserts that he draws the focal point of his research around the latter, that is he researches why capitalism contains an ecological contradiction. He notices that many people in the world today all hold the view that a capitalism which is humane, socially fair and friendly to the environment is actually possible, and he states that what he aims to do is prove through his own research that the premises of this idea are false and that they are “in fact, illusions, and commit the same errors that Marx and Engels criticized utopian socialism for making.”4 As early as the 90’s when this book came out, Pepper in effect already explained with exceptional clarity what his purpose for writing this book was, namely his purpose of studying Marxist ecological theory. At the time, he put it this way: in 1992 during the Global Earth Summit in Rio De Janeiro, some of the leaders of the green movement were filled with hope in attending the event, but they were deeply disappointed, and declared that they felt disappointed about the Summit achieving nothing whatsoever. He asks these greens, why would you feel disappointed? In his view, that they felt disappointed means that they somehow expected the world’s richest nations to sacrifice a substantial part of their riches and, more significantly, the means of obtaining them, to help the poorest nations to protect the environments which they now have to destroy in order to survive and develop in the world economic system.5 Pepper considers himself different from these greens and did not feel disappointment with the Summit, because such a result was within his expectations. He states that we should all, however, appreciate that being capitalist nations, the USA, the EC, Japan and the like cannot do this in any serious and permanent

4  Ibid., p. 2. 5  David Pepper: Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice, London and York, Routledge, 1993, p. xi. In translating the relevant texts of James O’Connor’s book, also see the Chinese translation by Liu Ying, published by the Shandong University Press in May 2005.

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way without ceasing to be what they are. That is, by sacrificing their own economic development to help poor countries protect the environment.6 In his view, if you understand this basic point, you will not pin your expectations on such summits. He points out that, the only way to make such green factions aware of this is to help them understand Marxism, because Marxist analysis may reveal the real causes of the environmental crisis in the world today, and can also reveal the true reasons why the Summit did not generate any results. He thinks that as long as such green factions explore the relevant works of Marxism, there are many other things about Marxism which greens may find useful and interesting, and his aim here is first of all to dedicate himself to outlining some of the theories and viewpoints with great ecological implications hidden in Marxism.7

Marxism Contains Enough Elements for an Ecological Theory

Pepper firmly denies the following accusations that some of the green factions level against Marxism: Marxism is a rigid, inflexible, deterministic, mechanistic, overly ‘scientific’ theory about history, lacking humanism and a spiritual dimension, a ‘bible’ consisting of a set of prophecies which are mostly wrong, and totalitarian in outlook and implications. He states: “what I have read about Marxism suggests that these criticisms are often partly or wholly inaccurate.”8 If Marxism were such a theory, then it would not have any directive significance for the construction of ecological civilization, and instead, would have many negative effects. He thinks that Marxism is not in fact such a theory. “Various features of Marxist analysis have proved so useful and telling that to an extent all of us in the West are ‘Marxists’, we have taken on board elements of a Marxist perspective in our way of thinking.”9 He focuses on the interconnectedness of Marxist theory and ecological projects to explain. In his view, although no one could say that there is an ecological school of Marxism, there is no doubt however that “Marxism does already contain enough in the way of a meaningful—albeit mostly implicit—perspective on

6  Ibid. 7  Ibid. 8  Ibid., p. 3. 9  Ibid., pp. 59–60.

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ecology.”10 He fully endorses J. D. Vaillancourt’s judgment: “Marx and Engels were forerunners of human, political and social ecology.”11 He also borrows Parsons argument that: Marx and Engels’ ecological position comes through via their writings on society’s interdependence with nature and the mutual transformation of humans and nature through labor, and through their views on technology, precapitalist society-nature relationships, the capitalist ruination (alienation) of nature and people, and the transformation of that relationship under communism.12 On the surface, there is much thought in Marx’s works on the “control of nature,” but as Parsons notes, Marxist thinking on advanced society’s control of nature does not imply a bossy master-servant relationship, and in fact is a skill and talent given to humans for the sake of wisely changing natural abilities in the process of pursuing legitimate needs. Thus, Marx and Engels firmly believe that “as both working people and nature are exploited by class rule, so they will be freed by liberation from class rule”, and hence, they necessarily have a “clear ecological position”.13 Pepper notes that one can see clearly by opening the works of Marx and Engels (whether Engels’ Conditions of the Working Class in England or Marx’s Capital) that they were already bringing to people’s attention that for most people, the environmental problems of the 19th century were obviously caused by the problem of social decay. They concluded that environmental problems were brought about mainly by economic exploitation tied to increasing urbanization and capitalist industrialization. In the Conditions of the Working Class in England Engels describes the “ecological dislocation” occurring among the industrial, mining and agricultural proletariat rooted in the degradation of their urban and natural environments. And in Capital Marx made an even more profound revelation of the deplorable ecological environment of the working class: Every sense organ is harmed in equal degree by artificially elevated temperatures, by the dust-laden air, by the deafening noise, not to mention danger to life and limb. Some people may argue, does not Marxism insist on looking at problems historically? “Marx’s works cannot be divorced from the spirit 10  Ibid., p. 61. 11  Ibid., p. 62. 12  Ibid. 13  Ibid.

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of the times in which he wrote”, and those ecological conditions that Marx and Engels described belonged to their times. Pepper refutes this, saying that Marx and Engels might have written different things today, but the research methods they used at that time and the information that they provided are not completely invalid today. He also borrows Parsons argument: “were Marx and Engels alive today, says Parsons, ‘we may reasonably suppose that they would have declared themselves more vigorously and explicitly on the ecological side of their man-nature dialectics.”14 Pepper also points out that not all the Marxists among the Marxian camps today can see and grasp the ecological implications of Marxist theory. He summarily divides today’s Marxists into four schools: the first, the “dogmatic” school; the second, the “humanist” school; the third, the believers in the critical theory of the Frankfurt school; the fourth the “Eco-Socialist” school. In his view, only the last school, namely the school of “ecological socialism” of which he is a member can see and grasp the ecological implications of Marxist theory. “Dogmatic” Marxists insist that historical progress relies on conquering nature and achieving emancipation through production and technology, and this fundamental position determines them to ignore the pro-ecological thought of Marxism. The “humanist” Marxists attempt to re-evaluate Marx’s technological optimism and belief in material progress, but they are still grounded in the ideological foundation of controlling nature, and this leads them to treat Marxian ecological theory in a highly contradictory way; the Critical Marxists of the Frankfurt School advocate liberating Marx’s historical materialism from scientism, insisting that the reliance solely upon the development of productive forces cannot provide true freedom, and on the contrary, may lead to the alienation of humanity and nature, but their obsession with balancing human reason with emotional and aesthetic concerns, balancing economic values with non-economic and cultural values, and hence balancing materialism with idealism makes them forever unable to truly comprehend the Marxian ecological theory that is grounded in historical materialism. Of course, he makes this analysis for the purpose of proving that, as eco-socialists, only such Marxian theorists as themselves can uncover the true spirit of Marx’s ecological theory. So, in the eyes of these eco-socialists, what is the ecological perspective hidden in Marx’s works that is so worth humanity absorbing? This is what Pepper concentrates on detailing. 14  Ibid., p. 64.

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In the first chapter of his book Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice, he summarizes Marx’s contribution to ecology as follows: Marxist perspectives have more to offer greens than just an incisive analysis of capitalism, important as this is. Marxism suggests a dialectical view of the society-nature relationship, which is not like that of ecocentrics or technocentrics, and challenges both of them. Marxism has a historical materialist approach to social change, which ought to inform green strategy. And it is committed to socialism, as I define it above. And, yes, it is, and I am, anthropocentric enough to insist that nature’s rights (biological egalitarianism) are meaningless without human rights (socialism).15 This passage can be regarded as his summary of the ecological implications of Marx’s theory. The third chapter of Pepper’s book Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice is a detailed exposition of precisely which concrete viewpoints in Marx’s theory provide us today with directive thought and basic principles for eliminating the ecological crisis and constructing ecological civilization. Let us follow his train of thought in each analysis.

Solution to Environmental Problems in Marxism

Pepper has researched Marx’s historical materialist perspective of mode of production determinism and believes that this theory tells us exactly where to begin in solving environmental problems. Although Pepper does not explicitly affirm like Foster that Marx’s philosophy is always materialism whether in the ontological sense or the epistemological sense and that Marx’s ecological theory is completely rooted in this materialism, he does insist that “Marx’s approach to explaining how societies have and may evolve is fundamentally materialist.”16 He thinks that Marx opposes the historical perspective that only views history as the progress of ideas, that is, he opposes looking at history as the march of a universal human consciousness or spirit which has virtually independent existence from material life. Marx turns material life into the starting point of his concept of history, which forms a sharp contrast with Hegel’s idealism. He further proposes 15  Ibid., p. 3. 16  Ibid., p. 67.

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that the key concept of Marx’s historical materialism is mode of production. The basic starting point of historical materialism is stressing that material production and commodity exchange, namely the mode of production, constitutes the basis of every society. And it is this viewpoint that is extremely important for the ecological movement today. This viewpoint enlightens us that it is “the mode of production” rather than something else that entrains humanity’s “way of interacting with nature” today. “So, the way we relate to nature and each other is strongly influenced by the way we organize production— the basis of our material life on earth.”17 This being the case, if we want to change humanity’s relation to nature we must seek such changes not simply in the minds of people—their insights or philosophies, i.e. their “forms of social consciousness”—but also in their material, economic, life. In other words, we must see changing the current mode of production as the starting point of changing humanity’s current relation to nature. Pepper asserts that many ideas that currently persist in people’s minds are obviously opposed to ecology. For example, equating progress largely to economic progress, equating personal achievement and realization with material consumption, and so on. These concepts are “ideology”. In the view of Marxian historical materialism, they contain unchallenged assumptions which support class interests: i.e. of the ‘bourgeoisie.’ Behind these ideas is the bourgeois elite—who own the means of production and decide on their use, and manage the processes whereby economic and social production and reproduction are carried out. In other words, it is the capitalist mode of production that breeds and maintains these ideas, “they do not come from any ‘objective’ assessment of the way nature and society ‘really are.”18 They are not generated by ethical ideas themselves, but are rooted in the capitalist mode of production. In all this it is not supposed that ‘evil’ top-hatted cigar-smoking capitalists sit round conspiring to shape the superstructure of ideas to their own advantage: rather that it is an inevitable structural feature of any class society that such deformations should happen.19 Those greens have also noticed that such ideas are anti-ecological, and fiercely criticize such ideas, but they only offer criticism under the “subjective” scope rather than the “objective” scope, that is they only criticize ideas with ideas 17  Ibid., pp. 67–68. 18  Ibid., p. 69. 19  Ibid.

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rather than tracing such ideas back to the mode of production that generates them. While opposing such ideas, they have not actively changed the material environment in which such ideas may operate relatively unimpeded. They do not know that if they oppose the values that these ideas represent, they necessarily oppose capitalism. He insists that: A historical materialist, socio-economic analysis of capitalism demonstrates that it is not just individual ‘greedy’ monopolists or consumers who are to blame, but the mode of production itself: the pyramid of productive forces surmounted by productive relations which constitute capitalism.20 Pepper believes that Marx focuses history on the switching of different modes of production. Marx details historical evolution precisely on the basis of different modes of production. According to Marx’s viewpoint, there are four different modes of production, that is ancient, feudalist, capitalist, and future communist. Accordingly, there are also four different purposes of production: production for use value, production for use value and exchange value, production solely for exchange value, and on a higher level back to production for use value. To put it differently:(1) production for subsistence needs, (2) for the needs of livelihood, (3) for profit and surplus value, (4) for the sake of satisfying human needs on a higher level. In particular, we should note how Marx discusses the transition from a feudal mode of production to a capitalist mode of production. Marx’s accounts of the transition to capitalism make much of the removal of people from the land as a removal, and alienation, from nature. Not only was feudalism replaced by capitalist agriculture which damages the long-term fertility of the soil in search of short-term profits, but also a state of mind was created in which people no longer appreciated the connections between the land and what they consumed every day, and did not see the countryside as a place of production and power relations, preferring to regard it through romantic lenses as an idyllic place.21 Pepper asks rhetorically, are we still incapable of comprehending exactly where to begin the struggle against the ecological crisis today from Marx’s account of the transition of different modes of production? 20  Ibid., p. 91. 21  Ibid., p. 72.

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Ecological Contradictions: Inherent Contradictions of Capitalist Societies in Marxism

Pepper then investigates Marx’s study of political economy centered on the theory of “abstract labor.” He thinks this theory tells us why the ecological contradiction is the intrinsic contradiction of capitalist society. Pepper thinks that Marx’s ecological perspective is mainly implied in his theory of political economy. In order to make people truly grasp the essence of Marx’s political economy, he first comparatively analyzes the three major schools of political economy which have significant influence on the world today. First, “subjective preference theory” represented by the political economists Malthus, Jevons and Adam Smith. This theory is tied to the philosophy of liberalism, which philosophically speaking gives the highest priority to the individual and insists on the legitimacy of the individual’s right of ownership. Thus, as a political economy, it starts from the premise that the value of things originates from individuals who calculate their actions so as to maximize personal well-being. Their individual tastes lead them each to decide between different possible consumption patterns. Pepper thinks that this sort of political economy stresses that “individuals can increase their productivity by joining together in production and applying the principles of division of labor and specialization, hence there is little incentive for people to try to produce all of their own wants.”22 This kind of political economy admires markets most. In the eyes of people who hold this view, since different individuals have different demands according to taste, and produce different things to satisfy others’ wants according to talent, there is a need for exchange. This is done through a market, via entrepreneurs. While they worship the market, they oppose giving relief to the poor. He therefore deduced that any wide-scale poor relief administered as of right by government would be translated by the poor into more people. The better off they were the more they would breed. But increases in resources would be insufficient to meet this extra demand, so the population would soon find itself back at bare subsistence level.23 Pepper thinks that opposing government intervention in the economy and insisting that intervention in the economy by providing welfare is ultimately 22  Ibid., p. 38. 23  Ibid., p. 39.

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self-defeating are the main features of subjective preference theory, which is being developed by many economists such as Hayek. It won the favor of conservative governments in the West, and eco-centrists in the environmental protection movement are intrinsically linked to some aspects of this theory. Second is costs of production theory which is accredited to Ricardo, J. S. Mill and Keynes. Although this theory embraces some of the Malthusian principles, it deduced from them a ‘pessimistic’ conclusion that the free market would inevitably lead to economic stagnation, with most people living only at subsistence level. People holding this view hope to establish his desired model which was one of equilibrium and harmony—something which could be achieved if economically rational behavior was maximized. They hoped that such equilibrium would depend on there being a balance between labor supply and demand. The cost of labor is a major aspect of the costs of production in capitalism. The economists holding this view stressed “And it is these costs of production, rather than consumers’ subjective preferences, which are regarded as the main determinant of what is produced and what is its value.” They also suggested that “labor costs are also a function of how society decides to allocate the wealth from production between labor and capital”. Pepper notes that they stressed proceeding from this basic position that “it is necessary for the state to intervene to ensure the maximum of rationality—the state, here, is seen as a neutral bureaucracy”.24 The economists holding this view think that there are major structural problems in the free market economy. Keynes thought that the free market economy would necessarily tend toward long-term stagnation. Because such structural problems always exist, intervention is always justified. Pepper also points out that those who implement this “cost of production theory” mainly consist of social democrats (welfare liberals) and democratic socialists. It is on the basis of this theory that “they aim to influence the distribution of wealth so as to let it facilitate the process of dynamic and fast technological change.”25 In Pepper’s view, it is undeniable that the eco-centrists in the environmental protection movement share an inseparable bond with costs of production theory; they inherit many aspects of this theory like the “techno-centrism” that it inspires. Third, Marx’s “abstract labor” theory. Marx reveals that in capitalist society, relations of production are expressed in the form of commodity exchange, and labor power is a commodity that may be bought and sold. Labor that is encapsulated in a product, or more precisely “abstract labor” is the source of that value which is realized in the exchange of products. A part of this value 24  Ibid., p. 41. 25  Ibid.

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is refunded to the laborer, which is the laborer’s wage, in order to allow the laborers to continue to maintain and reproduce themselves. The remaining part is extracted or possessed as capital, and is used as an investment in future production to gain more capital. Pepper points out that Marx also desired equilibrium and harmony, but he did not hope to achieve this equilibrium and harmony “by state intervention”, and he thinks that social progress consists of engaging in the conflict to gain increased control of social relations and the means of production for the exploited classes. Such revolutionary changes, it is hoped, will eventually create a society where there are no longer antagonistic class relations.26 The politicians who regard Marx’s “abstract labor theory” as a starting point must emphasize the analysis of capitalism which shows that it is based on exploitation—i.e. the appropriation by capitalists of some of the value which labor creates. They emphasize that exploitation would not be possible if labor could get control over the means of production, hence this is their main aim. Greater collective control of productive life, through struggle, also depends on much greater democracy and freedom of information. Civil and industrial democracy depends on a degree of decentralization of power, which facilitates workers’ self-management. At the same time the whole economy must be planned and held in common ownership, which for some socialists points to the indispensable role of a centralized state.27 Pepper thinks that certain aspects of the “cost of production theory” are inherited and developed by the eco-centrists in the environmental movement, but more if them are inherited and developed by the Marxists in the environmental movement, namely the ecological Marxists. Pepper analyzes the ecological implications of Marx’s “abstract labor” theory in detail. He stresses that Marx’s “abstract labor” theory is consistent with his labor theory of value and theory of surplus value, and that to give an account of the ecological implications of the latter is precisely to explicate the ecological meaning of the former. In his view, if you want to understand the ecological implications of Marx’s labor theory of value and his theory of surplus value, 26  Ibid., p. 43. 27  Ibid.

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the key is to correctly understand that Marx’s thought sees labor as the source of value. Although Marx stresses that “a commodity’s ultimate value derives from the labor invested to make it more socially useful,” at the same time, Marx does not deny that “an element of value also comes from nature’s raw materials”, and “by implication, that nature puts some ultimate limits on wealth.” Marx states that “the term ‘means of production’ includes nature’s materials, and Marx’s basic conclusion is: use value is derived from a combination of nature’s materials and human labor.”28 “Nature’s materials are seldom useful until they are converted into a “useful form” by labor, but labor cannot create value” without the basis of natural materials. Pepper also points out that what is even more important is to know that labor as the creator of value is of course human labor, and for Marx, humanity is also an integral part of nature, so “labor represents nothing more than nature working on itself to change its form.”29 So, in Pepper’s view, whether it is said in the sense that labor creating value is inseparable from natural materials as objects or it is said in the sense that labor itself is an integral part of nature, both prove this basic point that Marx’s labor theory of value and his theory of surplus value are inseparable from nature, and that Marx attaches the utmost importance to the role of nature. As Pepper understands it, Marx unfolds the analysis of capitalism on the basis of “abstract labor theory,” and not only finds that capitalism is prone to inflation, depression, imbalance of supply and demand and other economic crises, but also exposes the ecological crisis, the main content of which is environmental degradation. The key that we must understand is, Marx considers both the economic crisis and the ecological crisis as intrinsic to capitalist society, precisely because he proceeds from the basis of abstract labor, that is, Marx regards such crises as capitalism’s own factors that lead to its own collapse. With respect to the point that economic crisis is intrinsic to capitalism, perhaps not many will disagree, but many people are skeptical as to whether the ecological crisis is also tied to capitalism. Pepper stresses that the “ecological contradiction” is enshrined among the other internal contradictions of capitalism, but this is not only a fact that Marx exposed, it is also confirmed by social reality today. In Pepper’s view, on the one hand, Marx has stressed that the “ecological contradiction” is linked to the other contradictions of capitalism or even stems from the other contradictions of capitalism, on the other hand, he also proposed that “the net effect of ecological contradiction is to increase even further capitalism’s impetus for expansion, and exploita28  Ibid., p. 79. 29  Ibid.

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tion of labor through appropriating surplus value”.30 Marx’s “abstract labor theory” reveals that capitalism necessarily advances from free competition to monopoly, which “arises through a lack of competition, which paradoxically is the logical result of ‘free’ competition. One of the most socially and environmentally exploitative capitalist organizations is the monopol.y”31 In Pepper’s view, the ecological contradiction is in fact the second largest contradiction of capitalism for Marx, and just like the first big contradiction of capitalism—the economic contradiction, it can be explained by Marx’s “abstract labor theory.” According to Marx’s analysis of capitalism on the basis of “abstract labor theory,” capitalism, which needs ever-expanding markets and destroys its markets, causes overproduction and over-production undermines its markets, and on the other hand, directly damages the ecological environment.

Capitalism: “Inherently Environmentally Unfriendly” in Marxism

Pepper also researched Marx’s accounts of nature and the environment, and thinks that this theory tells us why capitalism is “inherently environmentally unfriendly.” Pepper points out that although Marx’s historical materialism, which is deterministic with respect to the mode of production, and Marx’s political economy, the core of which consists of the labor theory of value and the theory of surplus value, only indirectly and generally address ecological problems, we can still draw some ecological conclusions from them, and Marx’s body of thought still in fact contains a lot of content that directly addresses ecological problems. Marx made many comments on the reality of nature and the environment. Pepper thinks that the research that Marx and his followers have done on the reality of nature and the environment mainly focus on why nature and the environment suffered such severe damage. The greens frequently declare that environmental damage is “the result of ‘industrialization’ allied to wrong attitudes and values;” they also believe that these wrong attitudes and values are intrinsic to human being herself, human being’s “original sin,” so when they look at the deteriorating environment, they suddenly issue forth the following cry: “We have met the enemy and it is us”. In other words, these greens finally regard human beings themselves as the enemy of the environment. Pepper remarks that the research that Marx and his followers do on the reality of 30  Ibid., p. 83. 31  Ibid.

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nature and environment refute such Greens, clarifying that it is not human beings themselves, but the social system and mode of production in which human beings exist that constitute the enemy of the environment. He borrows the words of another: “it is the way in which human ‘interference’ with nature is managed under capitalism that is the cause of much land degradation and the appalling human consequences that stem from this.”32 The capitalist mode of production has brought about poverty, and poverty has led to environmental degradation. In his view, Marx’s research on nature and environment makes us realize the dynamics at work in the material production processes which cause environmental degradation, and at the same time, it also enables us to see how attitudes to nature are shaped specifically in capitalist development; it is precisely the objectification of the land and its products (which capitalism realizes through commodification) that causes people to spawn the attitude of being distant from nature. Pepper also asks people to notice that Marx’s research on nature and the environment develops in conjunction with his research on the dynamic mechanisms of capitalism. Marx wants to explain why the dynamic mechanisms of capitalism determine capitalism to be “inherently unfriendly to the environment.”33 He argues that according to Marx, capitalism possesses a dynamic mechanism of pursuing continuous growth, and capitalism needs to provide enough products to satisfy the increasingly expanding market, and this expansion is necessary, because if consumption does not expand, capitalist enterprises will not be able to survive and gain a foothold amongst the competition, but the use of resources must then increase to follow the expansion of consumption. So, in the capitalist system, what nature and the environment are faced with is this iron rule of capitalism “increasing the accumulation of capital.” Of course, making profits grow and capital continuously expand is necessary for the capitalist system, but for nature and the environment it will necessarily mean disaster. He thinks that this is precisely one of the meanings of what Marx was writing about in The Communist Manifesto when he stated the process of capitalist development is a process of “creative destruction,” “which is embedded within the circulation of capital itself.”34 Pepper also says that in the final analysis, research that Marx and his followers produced on nature and the environment is research on the ecological contradictions of capitalism, which is for the sake of explaining how the capi-

32  Ibid., p. 91. 33  Ibid., pp. 91–92. 34  Ibid.

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talist system continuously gnaws away at the resource base which sustains it. He says, according to the Marxian viewpoint, resource conservation, recycling and pollution control are discouraged in the free market by the drive to increase productivity and maximize surplus value. Obviously, such practices involve more costs, and it is good practice for firms to internalize returns but externalize costs—that is, to let society as a whole pay them.35 Pepper points out that many people today are dreaming of “green capitalism,” but Marxist research on nature and the environment, on the ecological contradictions of capitalism, and on the externalization of costs in capitalist society prove that this can only be a dream. Capitalism cannot possibly become green capitalism. He concludes: “the ecological contradictions of capitalism make sustainable, or ‘green’ capitalism an impossible dream, therefore a confidence trick.”36 He quotes the words of O’Connor to prove his conclusion, all the green consumption in the world will not change the fact that aggregate consumption must stand in a certain relation to investment for capitalism to work, and that aggregate consumption is not regulated by consumers but by the rate of profit and accumulation—and the limits of the credit system.37

The Cause of Overpopulation, Famine and “Natural Shortages” in Marxism

Pepper has also researched Marx’s account of “population-resources”, and believes that this theory tells us why the problem of overpopulation and famine are not caused by “natural shortages”. Pepper thinks that a very important aspect of researching Marx’s ecological theory is investigating Marx’s research on the topic of “population-resources”. In the process of critiquing Malthusianism, the analyses that Marx and his followers make into the questions of why populations would “overpopulate” and why humanity would starve as well as the basic conclusions that they draw

35  Ibid. 36  Ibid., p. 95. 37  Ibid.

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from these analyses constitute important components of Marxist Ecological Theory. He notes that Marxism’s basic viewpoint on the topic of “populationresources” is the “current perceived ‘problems of population numbers’ in relation to resource availability must be seen in a historical perspective; that is, in relation to specific modes of production”. Marxism also acknowledges that where human societies have little power to change their environment, population size is an important limiting factor on material wellbeing because of physical limits on resources. However, Marxism also insists that where societies can change and manage their environments “the population size which can be sustained is determined more by social relations.”38 Marx talks not of one universal law of population, but of a law of population which is specific to a given mode of production, like capitalism, and is bound up with social relations of production. He also insists that so, one facet of the Marxist approach to questions of resource availability and subsistence is to look hard at these terms themselves and set them in their economic and social context, rather than investing them with notions of universality.39 He states that Marx’s research on the topic of “population—resources” always investigates what terms like ‘overpopulation’ mean? In relation to what is the population said to be overpopulated? And how do we know when there is overpopulation? In the opinion of some, it is very easy to answer these questions. In their opinion, as long as there exists a “population that does not have enough food to eat” you can prove that the population is overpopulated, which then in turn is associated with a shortage of resources. In the eyes of a Marxist, “it does not really follow that this starvation is produced by ‘natural shortages’ ”, and Marxists never believe an absolute inability of the earth to produce more food. Marxist’s emphasis is “rather, the ‘surplus population’ may not be able to buy food simply as a result of the inability (or unwillingness) of an economic system to create enough jobs, and therefore incomes, or to pay enough to those who do work”.40 Pepper thinks that if you want to truly understand Marx’s conclusion about the intrinsic link between “overpopulation” and the capitalist mode of production, you necessarily have to make use of the concept of “pool”. Marx’s analysis 38  Ibid., pp. 97–98. 39  Ibid., p. 100. 40  Ibid., p. 98.

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of capitalism clearly reveals that “it is fundamental to the nature of capitalism that wages must be kept as low as possible.” In order to achieve the goal of maximizing the accumulation of capital, namely surplus material, wages must fall continuously in comparison with the exchange value of the product, even if the exchange value is likely to climb. One way to do this is to have an unemployed “pool” of people “who will be ready to step in and do poorly-paid jobs if those already in them threaten to strike for more wages”. Marx’s basic viewpoint here is “the production of the pool, the ‘industrial reserve army, is an inevitable outcome of the constant tendency for machines to be substituted for labor, whatever is the absolute size of the population.”41 It is entirely permissible to say, “the reserve army of the unemployed, produced by mechanization in order to maximize capital accumulation, permits the expansion of the surplus value produced by labor, and also furnishes a ‘pool’ of labor to draw on in times of boom”. In fact, the “pool” exists during both economic booms and busts or depressions; it is just that in times of economic prosperity, because of the frequent influx of laborers, people hardly sense that the number of this “great army” has exceeded demand, and in times of recession, people immediately feel that it seems the number of this “Army” has exceeded actual demand. He cites a passage from Harvey: the production of a relative surplus population and the industrial reserve army are seen in Marx’s work as historically specific—internal to the capitalist mode of production. On the basis of Marx’s analysis, we can predict the occurrence of poverty no matter what is the rate of population change.42 The Marxist theory of population is, of course, opposed to the Malthusian theory of population. Pepper thinks that the phenomenon of “overpopulation” which exists today seems to prove that the Malthusian population theory seems correct on the superficial level, and “this relative surplus population serves to give an ever-wider appearance of Malthusian ‘starving, over breeding masses.’ ” But poverty is not said by Malthusians to result from this politicoeconomic process. Instead it is written off as a matter of ecological population laws, which are thought unavoidable except through the efforts of the “over breeders” to restrain their own behavior. Pepper thinks that Harvey’s critique of the population theory of Malthus, and especially his critique of Malthusianism

41  Ibid. 42  Ibid., pp. 98–99.

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inherits Marx’s theory, so he draws support from Harvey’s critique to explicate Marxism’s refutation of Malthus’s theory of population. Pepper also suggests that the key to grasping Marx’s theory of “populationresources” lies in understanding Marx’s concept of “needs”. He borrows Ryle’s words: “Marx is right to point out how one set of needs is replaced by another when modes of production change.”43 This means that “needs” is not an abstract, universal concept in Marx, but a specific, historical concept that is tied to certain forms of production, and it will change as production changes. Only by carefully examining the conditions of people’s demands in capitalist society, can one readily see how in capitalism, the idea of a need is highly contingent on social relations of production. ‘Need’ is not usually expressed in terms of what would be socially useful to all of the people, but in terms of the aggregate of individual demands, or ‘wants’, expressed mainly by those with appropriate purchasing power.44 When we make a decision about what society “needs” today, we do not make it on the basis of what is useful to everyone in society today, but mainly on the basis of the “wants” of those with sufficient purchasing power in society today. Pepper thinks that when Ryle utters the following passage, he really grasps the key point of Marx’s thought: “at any moment the forms taken by quite ordinary and basic needs will be newly developed: everyday social reproduction incorporates a large quantum of historically new needs.”45 Pepper insists that Marx does not consider the problem of “populationresources” to be caused by “natural shortages,” but mainly by the social system, the mode of production, and he specifically investigated the “precolonial” condition. Using his method of historical materialism, Marx recognized that prior to Western colonization the “population-resources” problem was far from prominent. “Then, ‘third world’ populations were in ecological balance, and harmony with nature was a feature of their lifestyles.”46 Marx relates this lifestyle to “the eclipse by capitalism of the pre-colonial mode of production”, which Marx called “ ‘primitive’ communism.” This mode of production was changed with the advent of the money economy, Christianity, Islam and Western individualism, and “Population-Resources” problems began 43  Ibid., pp. 99–100. 44  Ibid. 45  Ibid. 46  Ibid.

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to appear. Pepper points out that according to Marx, the problem of “population and resources” is the result of capitalist “penetration.” He draws attention, in particular, to China, which is regarded as one of the most affected countries in the world’s “population-resources” problem, but let us think for a moment. Before China was forced to ‘trade’ with Western countries through Western gunboat diplomacy, was the “population—resources” problem in China serious? He complains about those greens, who, when analyzing the “populationresource” problem of countries like China, seldom get close enough to the Marxist viewpoint, and thereby are led astray.

Overcoming Alienation from Nature and “Asserting its Humanness” in Marxism

Pepper further investigates Marx’s “society-Nature Dialectic”, which tells us why overcoming alienation from nature entails “asserting nature’s humanness”. Pepper points out that Marx is quite unlike those techno centrists and ecocentrists of today, who view the relationship between nature and society as two isolated entities, so Marx is neither similar to the techno-centrist who insists that humans do and should control nature, nor similar to the ecocentrist who insists that natural limits do, or should, constrain human activity. Marx focuses on the organic unity between nature and society. Marx’s viewpoint of the dialectical unity of nature and society is mainly reflected in his “society- nature dialectic”. In his view, Marx’s “society- nature dialectic” has two main points: first, Marx believes that there is no separation between humans and nature. They are part of each other. “which means that it is impossible to define one except in relation to the other”. “Indeed, they are each other: what humans do is natural, while nature is socially produced.” Second, Marx emphasizes that society and nature constantly interpenetrate and interact, in a circular, mutually affecting relationship, Nature, and perceptions of it, affects and changes human society: the latter changes nature: nature, changed, affects society to further change it, and so on.47

47  Ibid., pp. 107–108.

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Pepper thinks that we can see from Marx’s “society-nature dialectic” that Marx’s philosophy is not like what some “Marx’s green critics” have alleged that Marx is Cartesian or ‘mechanistic”, “however, his concept of the society-nature dialectic appears to be, in reality, deeply organic (seeing them both as making up one organic body) and monist (physical and mental phenomena can be analyzed in terms of a common underlying reality).48 If we only focus on some of Marx’s “reductionist economic” theory, we do indeed come to the conclusion that Marx’s philosophy is completely mechanistic determinism, since Marx fell into the trap of expressing his ideas in ‘scientific’ mathematical formulas, but if we leap out of this “reductionist economic theory” and grasp Marx’s philosophy from a more ambitious social and political theory, it is not difficult to see that Marx’s philosophy consistently reflected a keen awareness of society and nature as an organic whole. Marx insisted that “nature is man’s inorganic body”, “Man lives on nature”, man’s physical and spiritual life is linked to nature”. In the model of social development that Marx depicted, we can see that the society-nature relationship in this schema involves, first, an original undifferentiated unity between the two in early modes of production, then they are fragmented into antagonistic forces under capitalism, then, in communism is a new synthesis is reached: a new unity in which the two are differentiated but not antagonistic.49 In Pepper view, because Marx’s “society—nature dialectic” is an organicism and monism, it avoids the one-sidedness of idealism and eliminates extreme materialism. He highly appreciates Parsons who makes three judgments about Marx’s philosophy’s nature by means of analyzing the “society—nature dialectic”: First, Marx’s philosophy rejects the existence of a supernatural realm’ rejects the mystifying and religious, passive idealisms in feudalism and capitalism. Marx’s philosophy also rejects philosophies that make nature “illusory”, purely a product of human consciousness. “The unity of nature implied in Marx’s work derives from the concrete activity of human beings and is produced in 48  Ibid., p. 109. 49  Ibid., p. 110.

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practice through labor.” in other words, the unity of nature implied in Marx’s work is founded on materialism. Second, but this does not imply that Marx’s philosophy is a gross, vulgar materialism: “that of capitalism” which “bulldozes and creates a denatured world, dead and neutral, and is founded on the exploitative and dominating ethic of classical science”, this Marx sees “as a real contempt for and a practical degradation of nature”. third, while Marx’s philosophy does not deny the importance of external material objects and objective physical laws that we violate at our own peril, it also emphasizes how interaction with our physical world “develops our non-material personality”. Marx’s philosophy is an approach to the nature of being, therefore, that refutes both Hegelian idealism and the atomic materialism of classical science that serves capitalism.50 Marx’s philosophy would do away with the traditional dualisms of man and nature, subject and object, fact and value and the like, “It would exhibit the intimate interdependencies of nonhuman and human nature and their transformation”. Pepper thinks that the key to truly understanding the essence of Marx’s “society-nature dialectic” is in grasping Marx’s perspective on the interaction between the two. Marx asserted that the human labor process is the driving force of society-nature interactions. Human beings obtain a social character through integrating their own basic forces into nature. As a result, as human beings are naturalized, nature is simultaneously humanized. An important aspect of the society-nature dialectic says that “when humans change nature, through production, they also change human nature, i.e. themselves”.51 According to Marx, through learning how to farm nature’s products, we changed ourselves from nomadic hunter/gatherers to sedentary people. Through learning how to manufacture things we changed ourselves to an industrial society.”52 As our ability to use resources has grown we have developed new needs: housing, energy, telecommunication etc. As we have changed our power to do things we have changed the things we want and need to do. Along with the transformation of the natural ability of the need itself is also under development. Thus, needs and the power and resources to meet

50  Ibid., p. 116. 51  Ibid., p. 111. 52  Ibid., p. 112.

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them are historically produced: they change through history and in different cultures.53 Pepper also stresses that the crux of Marx’s thought on “interaction” is that this interaction is not only material. Through changing nature and making things, we have changed ourselves into creatures who can appreciate the beauty of what we create: buildings, machines, art. We have developed our subjective senses—our feelings and emotions. And because human being became an aesthetic animal, the image of nature itself also changed in the eyes of human being. “Nature itself is transformed into a human work of art.”54 Associated with this is nature’s beauty and wonder are augmented by “the quantitative and analytic appreciation which a machine culture induces”. Pepper believes that the ecological implications of Marx’s “society-nature dialectic” enable us to know that human society and nature should be united together and why they can be united together. Specifically, it first allows us to clarify the essence of the alienation of nature. The conception of “nature” in Marx, then, “is not as a mere stock of economic goods” (a technocentric view), “nor as a source of intrinsic worth or good” (a deep ecology view), “nor as an endangered ecosystem” (tragedy of the commons survivalism). “It conceives of nature as a social category: though there was an ‘objective’ nature, it has now been reshaped and reinterpreted by one aspect of itself; human society.”55 then “alienation from nature” means “a failure to conceive of nature as a social creation”. For humanity, this failure is fatal. If some people inhabit an ugly or dangerous environment, this means that society’s own acts in creating its environment have remained “powers over and against us”. The social behavior of us human beings is the opponent of ourselves. “Alienation from nature” means, in fact, that “we are alienated from our own creation,” we have not yet exerted conscious social control over the processes—our processes—which created the environment, in order to make it more desirable. Therefore, on the superficial level “alienation from nature” means that our human creations have a difficult time getting along with ourselves, and the problem arises from our own human behavior itself.

53  Ibid. 54  Ibid., p. 113. 55  Ibid., p. 114.

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Marx’s “society-nature dialectic” illuminates the right path out of the “alienation from nature”. While Pepper elaborates this point, he comparatively analyzes the perspective of Marx and that of the deep ecologists. For deep ecologists, overcoming “alienation” means asserting the naturalness of humans by “living in harmony with environment”, effectively by admitting “the power which natural laws have over us”, and by “living lightly on the earth” through trying not to transform it. In the view of deep ecologists, nature is the source of worth an will be endangered unless we follow its rules. This view sees human activity “as encroachment on or violation of nature”. What deep ecologists call “asserting nature’s humanness” is to acknowledge our “oneness” with nature, and deep ecologists would have us revere nature, in the face of which, humans can not have any sense of superiority, and cannot stand “like a brutish infant, gloating over this meteoric rise to ascendency.” Pepper notes that Marx differs significantly from the deep ecologists who attribute eliminating the alienation from nature to “asserting the naturalness of humans”, because Marx pinned the hope of eliminating the alienation from nature on “asserting nature’s humanness”. “For Marx, overcoming alienation from nature means asserting nature’s humanness, through abolishing its sham externality and controlling and planning its use for all society.”56 Since the alienation from nature is rooted in inappropriateness of human behavior, which does not change nature in the direction of becoming consistent with humanity, so the road to overcoming alienation lies in changing human behavior, that is, to work hard on making nature humanized. Marx’s view is that not all human behavior is unnatural, and what always causes the opposition between nature and human being is only the behavior of blindly pursuing profit not for the sake of satisfying human needs, which arises solely in capitalist society; it is only and always this which brings about the alienation from nature. Pepper thinks that deep ecologists “asserting the naturalness of humans” and Marx asserting nature’s humanness constitute two completely different ways. In the Marxist’s view, the deep ecologist greatly worships nature superficially speaking, but such worship “mystifies nature”, “placing humanity far apart from it.” For the deep ecologist, in fact, nature is a “supernature with its shamans, priests, priestesses and fanciful deities”. The result of this worship is “to separates us from nature”. Pepper concludes that “deep ecology’s view of alienation from nature really rests on a dualistic conception of the human-nature relationship”, “Marxism’s dialectic, however, is truly monistic”.57 Proceeding from “dualism”, “asserting the naturalness of humans” is made to act as the path 56  Ibid. 57  Ibid., p. 115.

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toward eliminating “the alienation from nature”, but on the basis of “monism,” the path toward eliminating “the alienation from nature” lies in “asserting nature’s humanness”. He borrows another’s words to point out, The question is not whether what we do ‘accords with nature’, it is whether we like what we have wrought, the first question is not whether or to what extent nature is controlled, the question is how we produce nature and who controls this production of nature.58

Rationally Regulating Humanity’s Relationship to Nature in Marxism

Pepper finally studies Marx’s theory of human liberation which tells us exactly how humans rationally regulate their relationship with nature. Pepper opposes linking socialism to totalitarianism. In his view, “the socialist vision inherent in Marxism implies the antithesis of totalitarianism”.59 What he means to say is that according to Marx’s own account of socialism, far from totalitarianism, socialism is intrinsically opposed to totalitarianism. One can not equate the Soviet model of socialism with Marxian socialism, indeed, because in the Soviet model of socialism, capitalistic relations of production have really grown there. The state became capitalist entrepreneur, keeping real power from the people, and forming a ruling class—the Party elite, and those who live in a state that still waves the flag of socialism in such a form even “see capitalistic productive relations as ‘natural’ and regard seeking alternatives as ‘perverse and idle’ and capitalism as ‘cosmic and unalterable.’ ”60 This kind of socialism is just as totalitarian in nature as capitalism. In the socialism that Marx designed for humanity, through common ownership of means of production and the the abolition of corresponding private property relations, people will gain more freedom than they have today. He agrees with Grundmann who distinguishes in Marx’s socialism between what he calls ‘weak’ socialism and ‘strong’ communism. ‘Weak’ socialism involves abolishing private property, classes and therefore class oppression; universalizing spiritual happiness and adequate material wealth, strong communism additionally involves returning to use-value production and therefore “abolishing exchange, money and wagelabor.” Pepper thinks that regardless of whether ‘weak’ socialism or ‘strong’ 58  Ibid. 59  Ibid., p. 118. 60  Ibid., pp. 118–119.

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communism is under consideration, both demand that people achieve true liberation, so, society will not be determined by ‘external’ laws:—nor by any utopian blueprint laid down in a previous age. He stresses that what is most important in Marx’s socialism is “the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with nature”.61 In pepper’s view, Marx ties human liberation to humans “rationally regulating their interchange with nature”. Well then how at bottom do humans go about “rationally regulating their interchange with nature”? Pepper believes that Marx’s theory of socialism, especially Marx’s theory of human liberation has effectively already given profound accounts of this, and what we need to do now is to excavate the “shiny points”. Pepper thinks humans “rationally regulating their interchange with nature” broaches the problem of how to grasp freedom when undertaking this regulation. Marx demands people to treat “freedom” rationally. In Marx, the liberation of humankind is not absolute. Marx emphasized that even in communist society we would also have to “acknowledge the ultimate limits of nature”, and insisted that we can’t just do what we want uninfluenced by the environment of our own history. Pepper states that So, Marxism preaches liberation, but not, idealistically, total free will, and Marx stressed “how a society can organize, at any given stage, to produce and distribute wealth is not a totally free choice, and what people think and do is not totally open either, but is circumscribed by the material circumstances of history.62 Moreover, what Marx called “freedom” is not a “freedom from the physical world,” but rather the kind which exists in the physical world and operates on the basis of understanding the physical world, and transforms the physical world according to the laws of the physical world rather than in opposition to the laws of the physical world. We are different from animals. We can predict the outcome of our actions, and moreover use this to achieve our own freedom. Pepper complains, “socialist utopianism” has sometimes been carried to grave extremes “which regard any notion that socialist free will could be limited by real external material constraints, including natural limits, as ‘counterrevolutionary’ ” he believes that Russian communists were so anxious to play up 61  Ibid., p. 119. 62  Ibid., p. 120.

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human ability to change society in the 1930s and that communists were the “masters” of nature. The practical results of this lay in “bad farming practices” in the interests of maximizing production on the collectives, crop failure and famine.63 Pepper also believes that, in Marx’s view, the process of “rationally regulating humanity’s interchange with nature” is the process of accurately undertaking the labor of production. It is through their own productive labor that humans regulate their exchange with natural substances, and in order to make this regulation rational, it is necessary to engage in productive labor correctly. In his view, Marx believed that capitalism promotes the development of productivity, but finds that labor in capitalist society obstructs its own harmony with nature, so Marx advocated that we must use production methods that capitalism is not willing to use to develop productive forces, and achieve the goal of liberating productive forces. It may entail judging the value of work on standards other than narrow economic criteria, thus reshaping industrial processes “to resurrect creativity for the worker, but at a cost of lower ‘productivity’ ”. If this is the way to organize production, then “developing productive forces” would create an eventual liberation from “the machine”. “Machineled economic growth will be replaced by dynamic economic equilibrium,”64 and correspondingly, in the society-nature relationship: Not mine and move, but stay and cultivate are the watchwords of the new order. Pepper believes that Gorz’s division between ‘heteronomous’ and ‘autonomous’ production is in line with the relevant points of view of Marx. What Gorz calls heteronomous’ production is governed by laws, codes and organizing principles, which would restrain what individuals could do and lead to some loss of creativity. In Pepper’s view, what Gorz calls “heteronomous” production would involve, “in part, the alienation which Marx recognized in capitalist production”. The labor needed by this “heteronomous” field would decrease over time through mechanization increases, and most people would contribute just a little time to it. Thus, people’s productive labor may become “autonomous” production, “liberation would come by virtue of everyone being freed to do ‘autonomous’ work, i.e. work directly for themselves”, and in accompaniment with the liberation of human beings, harmonious human-nature relations are also established. When talking about Marx’s view on properly organizing productive labor, Pepper also points out that Marx remained consistent with his point through to the end, stating that it will require banishing commodity produc63  Ibid., pp. 120–121. 64  Ibid., p. 122.

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tion and wage labor. Because there is a scholar named Morris who pointed out that properly organizing productive labor in Marx entails banishing commodity production and wage labor, he brings up Morris himself “applying faithfully Marxist principles”.65 He insists that what Marx called productive labor should be “voluntary, unpaid, without a ‘boss’, a pleasure, swappable between people, done with a sense of service to someone and done in groups”. People attain infinite enjoyment from such labor. 65  Ibid., p. 123.

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Paul Burkett: The Inherent Relationship between Natural, Social and Environmental Crises in Marxism As another ecological Marxist from the United States, Paul Burkett’s aim is reconstructing the inherent relationship between natural, social, and environmental crises. Burkett disagrees with the critical attitudes of others towards the relationship between Marx’s thought and ecological thought. He summarizes these views and other critiques of Marx’s natural philosophy from some non-ecological Marxian scholars in three points,1 1.

2. 3.

Marx fell prey to a “productivist” or “Promethean” vision under which (a) the capitalist development of productive forces allows human production to completely overcome natural constraints; (b) communism is projected as extending and rationalizing capitalism’s drive toward completing the process of human domination over nature; and (c) both capitalism and communism demonstrate an inevitable antagonism between humanity and nature. Marx’s analysis of capitalism excludes or downgrades the contribution that nature gives to production; this applies especially to Marx’s laborbased theory of value. Marx’s critique of the contradictions of capitalism has nothing to do with nature or with the natural conditions of production.

Burkett’s exposition and refutation of the methodological and cognitive foundation of these critics is fully demonstrated in the methodological principle that, in his own understanding, Marx’s natural method upholds, and these methodological principles are the four necessary conditions of the Social Ecology that he expounds.

1  Paul Burkett, Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective Macmillan Press LiD. 1999. p. vii.

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The Four Necessary Conditions of Social Ecology

Burkett believes that the first necessary condition of Social Ecology is always adhering to materialist analysis and social analysis, which he calls material and social specification. Starting from this necessary condition, he points out that “it should treat the human relation to nature as socially mediated in historically specific ways, by recognizing the mutual constitution of the social forms and material content of human-nature interaction.”2 By insisting firmly on this necessary condition, on the one hand, we may avoid vulgar materialism in the case of technological determinism or naturalism. Vulgar materialism views social reality as being determined by nature; on the other hand, we can also sidestep social constructivism, which one-sidedly emphasizes the role that social forms play in the formation of human history, and thereby underestimates the constraint that the material content of the natural conditions of human production and evolution exercises over these social forms. Burkett also specifically points out that there is an essential difference between social-material analysis and technological and ethical analysis. The method of technical-ethical analysis essentially treats ecological destruction as extrinsic consequences that bear no essential relation to the dominant social relations of capitalism; sustainable development may only be realized through the suitable arrangement of technology and the changing of individual values and behavior. From the perspective of social-material analysis, one may discover that technical-ethical analysis is incapable of realizing social self-criticism and self-reform. Through analysis, Burkett argues that Marx’s conception of history can meet the first necessary condition. “Marx analyzes the production of this surplus in terms of (1) the class relations between its producers and its appropriators; (2) the material and social conditions necessary for its production; and (3) the dynamic interactions between (1) and (2) as activated by and manifested in class struggles”. In Burkett, this approach enables Marx to treat the development of society’s productive capabilities and class relations in material and social terms, that is, as people-nature and people-people relations.3 In Burkett’s opinion, the second necessary condition of Social Ecology is that we “should also utilize a holistic yet differential and relational approach to human production, namely, Relational Holism”.4

2  Ibid., pp. 17–18. 3  Ibid., p. 18. 4  Ibid., p. 19.

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Holism is needed to conceptualize the natural conditions and limits of a total system of material production. The category of “differential” is necessary to capture the dynamics (across space and time) of the interchange between society and nature. Understanding the differences and inequalities internal to human production can help us in avoiding the mistake of pointing the finger of responsibility for ecological destruction at those who are originally the sufferers of ecological destruction. Similarly, only focusing on the differences and relations internal to human production will prevent bypassing the transformation of social production in the aim to achieve the reorganization of human being’s relation to nature. In Burkett’s opinion, Marx’s thought meets the second necessary condition. The conception of the totality of society’s relations to nature as a contradictory unity of material and social, objective and subjective, exploiting and exploited elements is what enables Marx to uncover the sources of tension and crisis in human production. It also enables Marx to establish precisely how capital’s development of labor and nature makes the transition to non-exploitative relations of production increasingly imperative both socially and ecologically.5 Burkett points out that social ecology should give equal attention to “quality” and “quantity”, the third necessary condition. Burkett emphasizes that it would be nearly impossible for us to understand the ecological crisis without using the categories of “quality” and “quantity”. In his opinion, ecological crises are generated by the evolving pattern of spatial and temporal discords between the social differentiation and expansion of human production on the one hand, and the qualitative variegation, quantitative limits, and absorptive capacities present within nature on the other. For Burkett, Marx’s qualitative and quantitative analysis of capitalism’s view of wealth in the forms of value reveals that “the commodity, money, and capital have peculiarly anti-ecological characteristics”.6 The fourth necessary condition of social ecology is Pedagogical Potential, (which may be translated literally as teaching potential). Unlike the first three necessary conditions, it is hard to say that pedagogical potential is a methodological principle that we could follow in research activities. However, Burkett lists “Pedagogical Potential” as the last necessary condition, indicating that, 5  Ibid., p. 21. 6  Ibid., p. 22.

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in Burkett’s view, social ecology should not aspire to be pure theory, which is profound but too abstruse for ordinary people to understand; rather, it should aim directly at political practice, the public. Based on this starting point, social ecology is not just useful for professional ecologists and social scientists, but also for the public, students, social activists, the common working class. Social ecology can start from specific grass-roots positions and struggles and provide their examination of the progress of social institutions with immediate conceptual framework. For Burkett, Marx’s discussion of “the relations of production” continues to hold pedagogical potential for the working class. Marx’s discussion of capital and the value of the commodity demonstrates the necessary connection between the exploitation of wage-labor and the reduction of nature to a condition of capital accumulation, thereby revealing the fundamental kinship of working-class struggles and popular environmental struggles. Indeed, this represents a social ecological model of class analysis with great political and practical significance.7

Nature and Historical Materialism

The core problem of Burkett’s research of ecological Marxism is the reconstruction of the intrinsic links between natural, social and environmental crises and other topics in Marx’s text. To resolve this problem Burkett mainly uses Marx’s works from 1845 onward, which were based on the study of political economy. However, Burkett views the relationship between nature and historical materialism not only as an important part of his research, but also as the starting point of his research. Burkett clearly raises O’Connor’s issue concerning “what is the place of nature in Marx’s materialist conception of history?”8 However, the answers that the two scholars give to this question are not the same.9 Burkett views Marx’s concept of wealth as a starting point for understanding Marx’s conception of history. In Burkett’s view, “Marx analyzes human history from the standpoint of the production of wealth, defined as use values, that is, anything that (directly in consumption or indirectly as means of production)

7  Ibid., p. 23. 8  Ibid., p. 24. 9  O’Connor’s answer to this question, see Guo Jianren: Ecological Criticism, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 2008, pp. 182–187.

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satisfies human needs”.10 In the perspective of this concept of wealth, labor and nature have contributed to the production of wealth, as William Petty puts it, “labor is its father and the earth is its mother”. Directed at some critics of Marx or conclusions that weaken or ignore the role of the nature in wealth production, Burkett analyzes five interrelated features of the view of humanity and nature in the horizon of Marx’s view of wealth in the form of use-value, and helps deepen our understanding of the common role of labor and nature in the production of wealth, which furthermore deepns our understanding of Marx’s view of history. These five characteristics are as follows:11 1.

2. 3.

4. 5.

The human capacity to work, or labor power, is itself a natural object, a thing, although a living conscious thing. Labor is a process in which the worker opposes himself to Nature as one of her own natural forces and appropriates Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. Marx treats the primitive act of appropriating the use value that nature produces without human assistance such as hunting and gathering as an inherent component of human labor. The non-identity of labor and production. Burkett believes that for Marx, the “labor-process … is human action with a view to the production of use-values,”12 and this production requires an “appropriation of natural substances” not produced by labor. Production is not the same as human labor, for example, the “universal metabolism” of nature exists independently of labor, and another example is nature’s reproduction of itself prior to the emergence of human life on the planet, or, in those places where human labor ceases, natural “production” continues. Precisely by distinguishing “labor” and “production”, Marx includes all of those conditions that the labor process needs to complete itself into the category of “the means of labor,” such as “land”. In summary, Marx’s conception of wealth not only includes natural conditions that directly serve as the objects of labor and means of labor as well as those natural conditions that do not directly serve as either the objects of labor or means of labor, but also all of the elements of “natural wealth” that labor still has not appropriated but may potentially appropriate.

10  Paul Burkett, Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective Macmillan Press LiD. 1999. p. 24. 11  Ibid., pp. 26–27. 12  Ibid., p. 27.

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Based on the five characteristics above, Burkett points out that Marx does not diminish the role of nature in the production of use value; on the contrary, nature is an intrinsic element of production no less than it is of history. However, in Burkett’s view, we should recognize that there is a qualitative difference between the sociality of human production, the natural conditions of the human production of this sociality and the natural conditions external to human beings, which is an important part of Marx’s view of history. Overall, Burkett points out, “the wealth-creating powers of labor and nature as being developed in and through specific relations of production themselves conceived as productive forces”.13 Burkett calls these social factors and the history determined by their relation to one another materialism, which is neither vulgar naturalism nor technological determinism.14 In the materialist conception of history, the evolution of human production cannot be treated as a purely natural process.15 After analysis, Burkett further concludes that under capitalism, the social form of production holds the key to the development of a specifically human production more and more distinguishable from the evolving natural world, which continues to provide its material substance and vital forces.16 A history of humanity not determined by nature arises in human history, a history of humankind that belongs to human being but is not completely determined by nature is arising; it coexists with nature’s evolution and constant reproduction of itself, and the difference between the two has intensified. After analysis, Burkett points out that, for Marx, when the social sciences study human capitalist production, what should come to the foreground is the natural history of human survival and the stripping away from this of human history rather than the identity between them. This does not mean that Marx hails the triumph of human being’s control of nature as some ecological thinkers put it. It signifies an autonomation of wealth production from nature in the sense that the combined roles of nature and labor in production—hence the natural requirements and limits of production—are not simply given from nature but are shaped by the social relations of production.17

13  Ibid., p. 28. 14  Ibid. 15  Ibid., p. 29. 16  Ibid. 17  Ibid., p. 30.

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In Marx’s “new” paradigm, questions concerning the natural conditions that may be explained as use values and questions about limits in the production of wealth need to seek answers on the basis of concrete social relations, because it is concrete social relations that constitute the bonds that link labor and nature together. Burkett also stresses that in light of the sociality of the natural conditions of production, natural conditions may no longer be entirely equated with the natural world in-itself, or vice versa.18 Under the conditions of capitalism, what one must understand is the social alienation of human producers from the conditions that they produce—and the divergence between these conditions of production and nature.19 Burkett believes that this distinction not only can explain the relationship between the environmental crisis of capitalism and social relations, but can also provide us with the paradigms and theoretical tensions that we need to logically deduce and understand the relationship between nature and communism. Because of this, it follows that Marx’s historical materialism is not anti-ecological, but pro-ecological.

The Analysis of Ecological Value and the Theory of Capitalism

1 The Method of Analysis of Ecological Value Concretely speaking, Burkett analyzes the relationship between Marx’s categories of value and nature through attempting to explain his Value-Form Approach, and thereby gives shape to the method of analysis of ecological value.20 With the method of analysis of ecological value as his guide, Burkett reveals that value and nature are at conflict with one another; Capitalism faces a two-fold environmental crisis; although the fundamental contradictions of capitalism promote the development of capitalism, which reflects its progres18  This makes us think of the distinction between humanized nature and nature in-itself. However, the contextual grounds of this distinction differ from those of Burkett’s distinction between natural conditions and nature itself. Only this distinction itself is one and the same. 19  Paul Burkett, Marx and Nature, A Red and Green Perspective Macmillan Press LiD.1999. p. 31. 20  J. B. Foster wrote a book review for Burkett’s Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective, Foster uses “Marx’s Ecological Value Analysis” as the title of the book review, and points out that Burkett has pioneering significance in revealing the ecological thoughts in Marx’s value analysis. We breifly reference Foster’s argument to summarize the specific research methods of Burkett’s study of the relationsship between capitalism and nature. See J. B. Foster, Marx’s Ecological Value Analysis, Monthly Review September 2000, pp. 39–47.

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sive nature, it also determines that inevitable internal crises exist throughout the history of capitalist relations. Here we introduce them one by one. In Capital, (I), Marx notes that “the common substance that manifests itself in the exchange-value of commodities, whenever they are exchanged, is their value,” and “exchange-value is the only form in which the value of commodities can manifest itself or be expressed,”21 whatever may be the social form of that wealth. In the form of society we are about to consider, they are, in addition, the material depositories of exchange value.22 In accordance with Marx’s distinction between value, exchange value and use value, Burkett begins his own understanding of the analysis of value. Burkett further summarizes the relationship between these forms of value in the following way: “Under capitalism—this subjugation of use value to exchange value may also be viewed as a subordination of both exchange value and use value under value as a more general social form.”23 This means namely that under the conditions of capitalism, value becomes the force that dominates everything in every sphere. Burkett reveals the three aspects of Marx’s analysis of value. First, “Marx is insisting that value arises only in production, not in the realm of exchange, we cannot identify value, exchange value, and use value”. Burkett points out that it is necessary to emphasize this aspect. Most of those who critique Marx for having no ecological thought cannot understand, or at least have forgotten this distinction, namely that it is value and not use value that serves as the means of demonstrating the role of nature in production.24 Second, use value and exchange value as particular forms of value are both subordinate to value. This means that: under the conditions of capitalism, production for the sake of profit (following the formula of M-C-M’) dominates production for the sake of use (following the formula of C-M-C’). If we take into consideration that the precondition of this dominant role is the very commodification of “free” labor power and the monetary valuation of production itself, then it is impossible for any environmental policies to truly alleviate or resolve ecological crises as long as value remains the active factor in human production.25

21  Paul Burkett, Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective Macmillan Press LiD.1999. p. 80. 22  Marx, Capital, vol. I, Beijing: People’s Publishing House, 1975, p. 49. 23  Paul Burkett, Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective Macmillan Press LiD.1999. p. 80. 24  Ibid., pp. 80–81. 25  Ibid.

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Third, since wealth exists only as myriad use values produced by materially variegated forms of labor and nature, the subordination of exchange value and use value under value means that use value is socially abstracted. The natural basis and material substance of wealth is abstracted with respect to form, and wealth is no longer understood according to the form of use value, but according the form of exchange value. The contradiction between exchange value and use value intrinsic to the commodity is also a contradiction between the specifically capitalist form of wealth and its natural basis and substance.26 Wealth in the form of exchange value under the conditions of capitalism is purely abstracted as a quantity: abstract labor time in general. This form of wealth stands in opposition to wealth in the form of use value, which exhibits qualitative diversity. Capital utilizes and understands nature in terms of the labor that society needs to consume it in the production of commodities, not in terms of nature’s contribution to wealth in the form of use value or in terms of the degree of satisfaction of human needs.27 Burkett points out that these three aspects are particularly important for objectively revealing the relationship between capitalism and nature. After the elucidation of these three aspects, Burkett makes a comprehensive review: “value is an alienated form of use value in human, social, and natural terms.”28 The conclusion is quite original, which can be seen as the characteristic of Burkett’s ecological Marxist thought. Of course, Burkett will not stop at this general conclusion. He summarizes this conclusion as the “Value-Nature Contradiction”,29 and uses it as the theoretical foundation and core categories for the elucidation of the theory of capitalism, especially the theory of capitalism’s environmental crisis. Burkett discusses the concrete forms of the Value-Nature Contradiction. In the reality of capitalism, the Value-Nature Contradiction is manifested in conflicts between money and nature. “Money’s own use value, that of being the generally accepted representative and carrier of value, both manifests and socially enforces value’s formal abstraction from the natural and human substance of wealth.”30 When examined in combination with capitalism’s division of labor and the natural division of labor, money’s abstraction from natural diversity and interrelations tends to simplify and homogenize natural conditions; after the combined productive forces of labor and nature are subsumed 26  Ibid., pp. 81–82. 27  Ibid. 28  Ibid., p. 83. 29  Ibid. 30  Ibid.

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under the scientifically regulated conditions that capital controls, this money– value abstraction completes the accumulation of social productivity and material productivity. From this backdrop of accumulation, capitalism develops into a self-alienating system that turns against nature and the spiritual individual; namely, capitalism destroys non-human life and humanity’s own spirit. This destruction or alienation of nature is quite different for different classes. Burkett notes further that once value–money abstracts from natural qualitative diversity, the qualitative identity of value—money itself permits and demands the unlimited artificial dismembering of nature, and thereby fragments nature itself. Burkett summarizes, this method of abstraction that leads to the monetization, valuation and fragmentation of the entire ecosystem follows the logic of atomism, which makes us become thoroughgoing CartesiansNewtonians-Lockeans, and ontologically speaking, we commit the grand crime of being “anti-ecological”.31 At any rate, Burkett points out that money as capital seeks to overcome all particular barriers to its expansion posed by use value and its natural basis and substance. Thus, this is reflected in capitalism’s tendency to overcome particular and local natural boundaries by expanding the natural limits of production—to the global, biospheric level. Even so that, the goal of accumulation still has to intentionally ignore the limits of global material reality and proceed in abstraction to serve the goal of accumulation. The ultimate result is the artificially rapid production that capital promotes “creates” a new uncertainty with respect to the form and limit of capacity of self-rejuvenation, and this newly added uncertainty will weaken the relative stability of ecological balances, which for humankind often means disasters. Burkett summarizes the relation of value to nature, asserting that the ecological influence of capital on nature may no longer be adequately understood through such quantified ways of thinking as the exhaustion of resources or the filling up of the carrying capacity of nature, and should be understood with respect to the interactive relation of capital’s expansive essence and capital’s anti-natural and anti-ecological characteristics.32 What needs to be pointed out is that when theoretically discussing the contradictory relation between value and nature, one problem stands out as unavoidable, namely, the problem of land rent. The problem of land rent becomes the role model and theoretical basis of those environmental economists who insist on using the methods of capitalizing nature and monetizing resources to alleviate problems of resource shortages and natural ecological crisis. Can land rent truly provide the inspiration necessary to alleviate the 31  Ibid., p. 86. 32  Ibid., p. 90.

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conflict between nature and capital? Burkett’s answer is “it cannot”. Burkett points out that, in Marx’s view, land rent is just the result of the redistribution of surplus value. Marx believes that “as long as natural conditions can be monopolized and alienated, there is no reason why such rents cannot be designed and enforced by the state: In order for a natural condition to yield an exchange value”.33 “Exchange values may be assigned to valueless but scarce and monopolizable natural conditions.”34 Therefore, land rent is only one special expression of the relation of value to nature, it is simply that this form of expression is more subtle. Burkett points out that the value-nature contradiction cannot be resolved by private rents or by grafting “green” tax and subsidy schemes onto an economic system shaped and driven by money and capital.35 The method behind the marketing of the environment is the idealist method of neoclassical economics. In the treatment of the organic relation between nature and labor, this approach is in opposition to Marx’s materialism and analysis of social relations. After Burkett’s comb through, we argue that Marx’s analysis of value certainly contains the ecological dimension within it. In the following, we provide an overview of Burkett’s creative understanding and response to several theoretical problems in his approach to the analysis of ecological value. Explaining Marx’s Assertion that Capital Appropriates Nature for Free Marx discusses the relationship between nature and capital, where 2

natural elements entering as agents into production, and which cost nothing, no matter what role they play in production, do not enter as components of capital, but as a free gift of Nature to capital, that is, as a free gift of Nature’s productive power to labor, which, however, appears as the productiveness of capital, as all other productivity under the capitalist mode of production.36 It is often argued that Marx’s value analysis underrates nature’s importance as a condition of capitalist production. Even in the “eco-Marxist” literature, one finds assertions that Marx treats natural conditions as 33  Ibid., p. 94. 34  Ibid. 35  Based on this understanding, Burkett believes that, the so-called zero-growth steady-state economy is not feasible under the model of capital, because it means making capital completely abandon profit. 36  Paul Burkett, Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective Macmillan Press LiD. 1999. p. 71.

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valueless, costless, and/ or effectively limitless, with no real allowance for natural resource scarcity.37 How should we understand this assertion in Marx that Capital Appropriates Nature for Free? Burkett thinks that we should use the method of analyzing ecological value mentioned above to understand it, that is, we should firmly apply Marx’s three categories of use value, value and exchange value in a comprehensive analysis. Burkett believes that according to Marx’s labor theory of value, at any time, capital’s free appropriation of natural conditions can only increase the use value in capitalist production, but cannot increase the total value of the commodities that are produced; because the natural conditions that are freely appropriated are not the product of any labor, they do not consume any labor, and the only way to increase the value of the commodity is through consuming socially necessary labor time. Natural conditions increase the use value of the commodity that is created by capitalist labor through the destruction of their own use value, however without participating in the formation of value.38 Burkett reminds us that we should distinguish the use value of the conditions of production that are freely appropriated and the use value of the commodity. The former helps the latter: The former is embodied in the production and consumption of the commodity or in both kinds of behavior, while the latter constitutes the means of carrying out the production and realization of value and surplus value. Therefore, in Burkett’s view, when Marx examines “capital’s free appropriation,” this is essentially to discuss the conditions that enable the capitalist to realize the production of capital’s absolute use-value.39 It is precisely in this sense that we can finally understand why Marx views what nature provides by itself (such as land, wind, water, metals and minerals, wood from virgin forests) as means of production, and stresses that they do not have any connection to capital as a whole. Similarly, from the perspective of Marx’s method of value analysis, Burkett further points out that the conditions of production that capital freely appropriates are not just natural conditions, but also social conditions (such as the productive forces that the social division of labor, cooperation, and machinery when integrated together provide), science and technology (for instance, as soon as a new scientific or technological discovery emerges, the capitalist freely appropriates this new discovery, although a definite cost was spent on 37  Ibid., p. 69. 38  Ibid., p. 70. 39  Ibid.

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the time of the initial discovery), and the working capacity of the workers (such as cognitive skills and the capacity of the worker to physically recover). Then, in Marx’s labor theory of value, what kind of theoretical and social significance does “free appropriation” have? Burkett offers the following analysis. Burkett believes that according to Marx, the following three facts are only three different forms of expression of the same process; (1) The separation of the producers from limited natural conditions: (2) these conditions become the capitalist’s private property; (3) the use values of nature become the conditions of production that capitalism appropriates for free. Secondly, Burkett stresses in combination with the previous discussion on rent that Marx’s assertion that capital appropriates natural conditions for free does not imply an infinite supply of such conditions, and precisely on the contrary, the existence of land rent itself presupposes that the natural conditions in question are relatively scarce because relative scarcity is the precondition of monopoly. Similarly, Marx does not suggest that nature enters the equation at virtually no cost. Third, Burkett points out that it is from the perspective of use value that discussing the implications of Marx’s assertion that “capital appropriates nature for free” can finally enables us to distinguish the two levels of implication of “the use value of natural conditions”: (1) the use value of natural conditions in the service of capital; (2) the conception of the use value of nature in the broad sense is not only the conception of the use value of natural conditions, which serve as the conditions of capital accumulation; for, there is also the use value that nature had in pre-capitalist conditions and will have in postcapitalist conditions, both of which must be considered free from the control of capital. Because of this, Marx reveals that “free appropriation” is an intrinsic factor in the continuous development of the sociality of the production of capital, and the production of capital utilizes the productive forces hidden in labor and nature to satisfy the expanding, transforming and competitive impulse to accumulate money.40 This alienated, independent and social power that is obtained from the conditions of production challenges the various limits of the whole of society and the specific producers individual and collective. This challenge will demand more democratic, non-exploitative social relations to replace capital’s alienating socialization of production based on class divisions, in order to liberate human being, social conditions, and natural conditions from the alienated state that capital engenders. It is precisely in these theoretical and social senses that Burkett claims that the conception of free appropriation opens a pathway for us: bring the “natural 40  Ibid., p. 76.

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conditions” into the fold of Marx’s experimental plan to transition from capitalism into communism. 3 The Two-Fold Environmental Crisis of Capitalism On the basis of the previous analysis, Burkett’s social ecology demands that the relationship between society and nature is regarded as mutually constitutive or mutually coevolved. From this perspective, the environmental crisis refers to the discords that emerge in the process of co-evolution. According to this definition, Burkett thinks that Marx’s theory of capitalism contains a theory of environmental crisis, specifically, Marx considers two kinds of environmental crisis that capitalism produces:41 (1) the crisis of capital accumulation, which stems from imbalances between the material needs of the production of capital and natural conditions, which are constrained by the laws of production of raw materials; (2) the more general crisis in the quality of development of human society, which stems from disturbances in the circulation of matter and life forces, disturbances that are mainly engendered by the industrial division between urban city and rural country under the conditions of capitalism. The latter crisis primarily concerns the erosion of nature as the condition of human development. Burkett examines the first environmental crisis from the perspective of use value. Burkett points out that since the use value of the commodity is the material carrier of the value of the commodity, the accumulation of capital simultaneously implies a corresponding growth of matter and energy. Capital’s demand for materials is manifested in three aspects: (1) producing raw materials; (2) producing accessories; (3) compensation for depreciation, for instance, compensating for additional losses that are brought about due to machinery and factory buildings. The relationship between capital and the demand for these three types of materials is as Marx observes: “After the capitalist has put a larger capital into machinery, he is compelled to spend a larger capital on the purchase of raw materials and the fuels required to drive the machines”.42 According to the labor theory of value, growing productivity means that every hour of abstract labor necessarily produces more use values and consumes higher quantities of material. 41  Ibid., p. 107. 42  Ibid., p. 109.

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In this sense, the accumulation of capital implies an imbalance that continuously worsens: the imbalance between the accumulation of value and the material supply that depends on natural conditions.43 This imbalance is first manifested directly in quantity. The goal of the accumulation of value is the maximization of profit, but material supply is regulated by natural laws. The imbalance between the demand for quantity of profit and the demand for quantity of material shows that the accumulation of capital is anti-ecological in terms of quantity. Moreover, because the accumulation of capital measures the appropriation, utilization, and disposal of matter and energy with wage labor time and calls this the “normal” scale of measure, this necessarily dooms the accumulation of capital to being anti-ecological in terms of quality. Because, based on the co-evolution of sustainable society and nature, the time that nature needs to produce and absorb matter and energy is intrinsically determined by nature’s own movements; it is impossible to measure according to the scale of wage labor time, leaving aside occasional coincidences. As a result, the accumulation of capital for its own purposes coercively enforces the scale of measurement of wage labor time upon the natural scale of measurement of the time that nature needs to produce and absorb matter and energy, and thereby continuously diminishes and erodes the quality of nature itself. As Burkett notes this contradiction between natural time and capital’s measurement of time not only diminishes the quality of the natural conditions of human development but also disrupts the accumulation of capital itself.44 With this background of knowledge, it is not difficult to understand why “Marx asserts that the only truly general crises of capital accumulation are those that feature short supplies of the major agricultural products serving as workers’ means of subsistence or as industrial materials.”45 Because of the shortage of primary agricultural products, eventually it directly threatens the material conditions of the reproduction and expanding reproduction of capital. In Marx’s view, capitalism’s means of production are opposed to rational agriculture.46 Burkett believes that this conclusion in Marx also applies to the mining industry. Burkett notes that the above analysis reveals a deeper trend of environmental crisis in capitalism: the crisis of human development.47 43  Ibid., p. 110. 44  Ibid., p. 112. 45  Ibid., p. 113. 46  Ibid., pp. 116–119. 47  Ibid., p. 119.

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Burkett points out that the analysis Marx and Engels give to the environmental influences that impact human development, which capitalist development brings about, unfold from the two dimensions of the division of labor between agriculture and industry and their reciprocal interaction on one hand and the urban/rural opposition that accompanies the division of labor between agriculture and industry on the other.48 Burkett particularly examines Marx’s understanding of the genesis of the separation and opposition between city and countryside along with the impact on the natural environment that this opposition brings about. Burkett points out that in Marx’s view, because capital leads directly to the separation between producers and their conditions of production (including natural conditions), capital’s control over the conditions of production ultimately leads to the concentration of workers and the means of production in space, which will accelerate the development of the division of labor within and between enterprises, and the economies of scale thus formed are not only more competitive than smaller units of production but also better suited for the large-scale usage of natural forces, such as the use of machinery, water resources, etc., and the result is the birth and development of the city. Marx also notes that the capital accumulation also leads to decentralization, but, in Marx’s view “the decentralization of industrial facilities itself serves to promote new growth centers of capital accumulation”.49 Therefore, the direct result of the dialectical development of industrial centralization and decentralization under the conditions of capitalism is the deepening separation and intensified opposition between city and countryside. After this analysis, Burkett points out that it is in this context that competing enterprises freely appropriate the latent productivity of the natural environment and social environment as a means of exploiting labor. At the same time, these companies will also ignore the overall impact that the increasing volume of industrial production, materially intensive industries and population have on distinct ecological networks and biological links, and it is these ecological networks and biological links that constitute the ultimate natural foundation of human development. Nature as the material basis of human development erodes, and thereby casts the shadow of crisis over human development,50 Large-scale industry and large-scale mechanized agriculture work together. If originally distinguished by the fact that the former lays waste and destroys principally labor-power, hence the natural force of human 48  Ibid. 49  Ibid., p. 125. 50  Ibid.

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beings, whereas the latter more directly exhausts the natural vitality of the soil, they join hands in the further course of development in that the industrial system in the countryside also enervates the laborers, and industry and commerce on their part supply agriculture with the means for exhausting the soil.51 Burkett concludes that in Marx’s view, it is the whole social system of capitalism in its entirety rather than some aspect of it that destroys the natural conditions of human development. And, he further points out that Marx’s conception of capitalist environmental crisis implicates the total spatial and technological organization of capitalist production. As such, it not only relies on but also is the culmination of Marx’s entire analysis of capital accumulation in agriculture and urban industry.52 This shows that Marx reveals the dynamic mechanism behind the opposition between the capitalist mode of production and ecology, and therefore in essence provides our analysis with a framework, namely Marx’s critique of political economy provides us with the methodology and corresponding concepts to analyze the impact of material production on the biosphere; natural conditions are intrinsic to Marx’s labor theory of value. With the above analytical framework, Burkett believes that Marx’s theory of environmental crisis can aid us in the analysis of the current environmental crisis.

Perspectives on the Ecological Implications of Communism

1 Two Conceptions of Revolution Based on the previous analysis, Marx’s theory has revealed: “capitalism’s socialization of production negates the necessity of prior class-based restrictions on human development, thereby creating ‘the historic presuppositions for a new state of society’ ”53 However, Burkett points out that the key is found in Marx’s further acknowledgment that capitalism gives birth to factors that lead to more advanced degrees of social development, but it is impossible for capitalism itself to realize this potential. Marx calls these potentials “mines”, which 51  Marx: Capital, vol. III, People’s Publishing House, 2004, p. 919. 52  Paul Burkett. Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective Macmillan Press LiD. 1999 pp. 128–129. 53  Ibid., p. 199.

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must be detonated by the proletariat that develops out of capitalism rather than by the bourgeoise themselves. Burkett points out that the literature in which Marx discusses communism involves such topics as the environment and nature. However, on the topic of how to transition from capitalism to communism, Marx did not directly address the problem of the environment throughout the phases of transition, and it is on this topic, where Burkett poses the question of whether or not he intrinsically considers the problem of the environment as the standard according to which he distinguishes two conceptions of revolutionary transitions from capitalism to communism in continuing the previous analysis of the fundamental contradiction of capitalism, the environmental crisis and the historical crisis: the industrialist conception of revolution and the conception of revolution in the broader sense. This industrialist conception of revolution refers to the conception of revolution which sees the workers in the fields of industry, mining and agriculture as the main revolutionary force. Burkett points out that it is very easy to generalize the industrialist conception of revolution in Marx’s literature, however, Burkett believes that Marx’s thought involves a broader conception of revolution, namely, the conception of revolution in the broad sense. The conception of revolution in the broad sense does not deny the industrialist conception of revolution, but does aim to correct the one-sided partiality of the industrialist conception of revolution. Burkett believes that from the ecological perspective, the industrialist conception of revolution faces two closely interrelated problems. First, it does not seem to adequately safeguard against the possibility that the industrial proletariat, on attaining power over production and its natural conditions, might use and develop them in an instrumentalist fashion not at all qualitatively different from that of the capitalist’s use of them merely as conditions of competition over the accumulation of money.54 Second, in the Communist Manifesto, does not Marx state that the “truly poor” who have nothing to sell but their own labor can act as agents of revolution in seizing, holding, operating and reforming the conditions of production and in thereby successfully realizing revolution? In Burkett’s opinion, as the very same proletariat class, the disparity between the proletariat as the agent of revolution and the proletariat who still awaits liberation is too great. Burkett 54  Ibid., pp. 200–201.

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believes that the understanding that the industrialist conception of revolution has of the agent of revolution is unconvincing.55 Summarizing these two points, Burkett thinks that we should consider the following questions: under the direction of the industrial revolutionary outlook, can the proletariat selfconsciously doubt the “Self-evident laws of Nature” in the natural and social conditions that have been in substance produced and developed by capital? Burkett’s answer is that making the revolution that this same proletariat leads want to realize pro-ecological communism would be very difficult indeed, because there is really no way to ensure that the industrial workers who have been alienated by capitalism can appropriate ecological conditions sustainably and less restrictively in the service of everyone’s development while avoiding the trap of acting directly as the agents of capitalism in reducing ecological conditions to the capitalistic conditions of industrial development.56 Combining Marx’s analysis of the alienation of capitalism and working class organizations, Burkett sketches out a less one-sided and more pro-ecological conception of the transition from capitalism to communism to match the industrial revolutionary outlook. Specifically, Burkett’s conception of revolution in the broad sense unfolds out of the following three interconnected sides: (1) Analyzing and exposing the tension of opposition between use value and exchange value intrinsic to the relationship between capital and labor; (2) Exploring what it is that the working class needs to overcome capitalistic competition and realize the needs of its own development; (3) Exposing the continuously rising importance that the socialization of the production of capital and its conditions of production in society have for both capital and labor.57 Burkett reveals the first interconnected area through reflecting on the fundamental contradictions of capitalism. After analyzing this, Burkett points out that the fundamental contradiction is not only found in exploiting the wealth created by workers, namely, in the alienating of wealth from labor; moreover, exploiting the vital forces and cognitive power of workers, that is, exploiting the bodies and lives of workers is the precondition of capital accumulation. 55  Ibid. 56  Ibid., pp. 202–203. 57  Ibid., p. 203.

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With respect to capital’s conversion of the use value of labor power into means for the expansion of value, labor itself implies a structural conflict; labor is not only something that may be objectified by capitalism into a commodity and that hence may become the means of capital accumulation; labor is still the way of being of the agent of labor; it is the active realizer of wealth in the form of use-value; it is the “living matter” of natural and social being with consciousness and will. The worker’s labor is opposed to the worker’s life. We may observe that labor which is intrinsically rife with structural conflict is not only the protrusion of the opposition between capital and labor, it also exposes another form of expression of the conflicts of capitalism’s contradictions: the conflict between human labor as the necessary factor of the creation of wealth and alienated labor which results from capitalism’s objectification of labor into the commodity.58 Burkett points out that this double opposition reveals the multiple forms of manifestation of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism and the transitional characteristic of its necessary turn towards communism, that is, the conflict between production for the sake of profit and the development of human being necessarily demands resolution. Burkett believes that the pathway to resolution lies in the association of the working class. Burkett stresses that the association of the working class is the necessary product of the concentration of industrial labor and the means of production, and this is an important feature of Marx’s analysis of the transition from capitalism to communism.59 The industrial conception of revolution fails to observe this and does not express that the association of producers is the necessary result of the socialization of capitalist production. After analyzing this, Burkett points out that the principle of association is the decisive factor among the conditions of development of human being; association presages the necessity of the transition to communism, where capital and competition will be replaced by collaboration and democracy. Burkett specifically points out that the ecological implications only emerge into view on condition of fully understanding “association” from the perspective of the socialization of the production of capital. This association should be broadly far-reaching, and the goal should be the human development of the whole of society becoming less restrained. Under Burkett’s examination, these are the necessary conditions of the working class achieving liberation, which is the second interrelated field. With regard to the third field, Burkett points out that the key is found in grasping the core issue: in whose interests are the social and natural conditions of production to be appropriated and developed? Is it the interests of capital or 58  Ibid., p. 204. 59  Ibid., p. 208.

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is it interests of the whole of society? What this problem involves is the struggle of two ways of socialization. The concept of industrial revolution understands class struggle as “a purely economic movement”. The broader conception of revolution goes beyond this understanding, and gives struggle a political form, through which it becomes a class movement. In the broader concept of revolution, Burkett specifically points out two issues worth noticing: (1) the autonomous activity of the working class in every sphere of society is class struggle; all the struggles undertaken for such issues as consumption, culture and gender relations constitute the class struggles of the greater masses; all the struggles undertaken for social conditions and other goals seem “extrinsic to” capital but are in fact intrinsic to the whole of capital.60 (2) How should the “less industrial character” of many contemporary working-class movements be treated? In the 20th century, the effects of non-industrial conditions of production upon capital and labor have become increasingly obvious, as the foregoing analysis has shown. In terms of social movements, what is the relationship between the industrial worker movement and these movements of much less industrial character? Burkett points out that there is one point of resonance between the struggles of traditional production and these less industrial struggles in the spheres of education, community and health care: the struggle for free time.61 So, what is the intrinsic relevance of the environment in Marx’s understanding of the transition from capitalism to communism? Burkett points out that capital will instrumentally treat the use value of natural conditions in precisely the same way that capital treats the use value of labor and the use value of the conditions of social production in looting, destroying and consuming every available resource and degrading the quality of everything. In other words, the homogeneity, divisibility and limitlessness of capital and such values are fundamentally opposed to nature’s qualitative diversity, interconnectivity and quantitative limitedness in space and time. Capital controls nature through “simplifying” the use value of nature into the means of the proliferation of value. Thus, in Burkett’s opinion, just as the working class demands association to achieve their own liberation, nature also demands that labor treat nature itself with a non-instrumental attitude and manner, demands opposing capitalism’s degradation of nature, and demands the realization of the socialization of nature in the true sense through environmental struggle. Synthetically speaking, this means fulfilling the co-development and needs of humanity and nature through the realization of the unified production of society and nature by means of the self-regulation of workers and worker groups. 60  Ibid., pp. 212–213. 61  Ibid., p. 214.

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Burkett examines the obstacles that the environmental struggle may encounter and the complexity of the environmental struggle, and generally speaking, the environmental struggle of the greater masses, which is codetermined by the dialectical movement of capital and the dialectical movement of class struggle and environmental struggle, has already shown a complexity that is host to a variety of tense relations. This suggests that environmental struggle has become an important part of the transition from capitalism to communism. Marx’s broader conception of revolution that Burkett combs through demonstrates this. 2 The Ecological Implications of Communism All along, there has persisted an opinion that Marx’s conception of communism not only understands nature as possessing unlimited availability of resources but also advocates the anti-ecological ethics of the human domination of nature. Paul Burkett believes that Marx’s projection of future human development cannot be reduced to a growth of free time and mass consumption based on the further expansion and technical perfection of the productive forces of capitalism which develop anti-ecologically.62 Rather, Marx foresees a picture of qualitative enrichment of human being’s relation to nature and inter-human relations, and this picture is pro-ecological and pro-human.63 In the following, we introduce Marx’s conception of communism that contains ecological thought, which Burkett combs through. Foster believes that Burkett shows extraordinary creativity with respect to this topic. Burkett took the initiative to declare that in order to avoid unnecessary misunderstandings, three things should be clarified about this ecological evaluation of Marx’s communism: First, his goal is not to prove the technical and/or social feasibility of the united production that Marx championed, but to determine whether there is anything fundamentally anti-ecological in Marx’s basic principles. Second, his central (but not sole) point of concern is whether Marx’s notion of a less restrictive and more universal development of humanity (read: communism) is fully consistent with natural conditions and their 62  Ibid., p. 224. 63  Ibid.

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limits, and this involves this issue of whether it reduces nature to a passive pool of resources for the satisfaction of mass industrialized production and consumption. Third, even though his main concern is ecological correctness rather than overall feasibility, establishing the inner consistency of Marx’s communism is still important for Burkett’s argument.64 Burkett begins with “Some Requirements of an Ecologically Sound System”. He believes that ecologically feasible and reasonable socio-economic systems should comply with the following standards. First, we must intrinsically recognize the responsibility of humanity to manage nature not only in terms of quality but also in terms of quantity; we must recognize that there are use values of an aesthetic character, which are enveloped in the quality of natural conditions, which in turn are not only conditions of industrial labor.65 Burkett lists the viewpoints of four outstanding ecologists, Vitousek (1997), Carson (1962), Morrison (1995) and Dasmann (1972) to add depth to this point. For instance, humanity must take responsibility for biological diversity on earth, carefully and cautiously opt for pro-ecological rather than anti-ecological ways of humanizing nature, seek mutual benefit and mutual interest in relation to nature, and achieve the goal of the coevolution of nature and society on three levels—local, national and global.66 Second, social groups and individuals should diligently attempt to understand the earth’s ecosystems and how they interact with the global changes that humanity induces. Through education, producers and communities should gain a thorough grasp of ecological knowledge about production and consumption, knowledge which generally concerns the ways and means of limiting and communicating the productive capacities of society. But even with this knowledge in hand, everyone should still have the consciousness to avert risk as a rule, namely, when the ecological impact of using some type of natural resource is still uncertain, restricting the use of it is necessary. Burkett introduces three principles associated with risk aversion which Sandra Steingraber summarizes: ① the precautionary principle; ② the principle of reverse onus; ③ the principle of the least toxic alternative.67 In addition, to minimize the risk, you can also decelerate the speed of change, increase cooperation and other measures; slowing down the pace of change and increasing cooperation not only means managing, but reconstructing the social system as well. 64  Ibid., pp. 224–225. 65  Ibid., p. 225. 66  Ibid. 67  Ibid., p. 227.

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The third criteria are respecting variety and diversity, which does not mean respecting the variety and diversity of nature, but the variety and diversity of the social field. After quoting David Harvey’s discussion, Burkett notes that respecting variety and diversity can also help individuals and groups and even countries to not only avoid thoughts of misusing ecology but also to avoid tyranny, and this is the demand and manifestation of the realization of freedom at the personal and group levels. Burkett analyzes communism’s “Basic Principles of Associated Production”. Consistent with his conception of the fundamental contradictions of capitalism, Burkett points out that the most basic feature of communism is its overcoming of capitalism’s social separation of producers from the necessary conditions of production, and the new union between producers and the conditions of production involves the complete decommodification of labor power plus a new set of communal property rights. Specifically, after he cites multiple works by Marx and Engels where the nature, content and features of communism are discussed, Burkett reviews the rich implications of “Associated Production”. Finally, as noted earlier, associated production is not just as a cooperative planning project but, more important, as a condition and result of free human development—a development already advanced by the revolutionary process leading to the establishment of the worker-community association.68 Evaluating the conditions that ecologically reasonable institutions require, and explicating the rich implications of associated production—this is the theoretical horizon that Burkett needs to prepare in order to reveal the ecological implications of Marx’s communism. 68  Ibid., pp. 237–238.

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Andre Gorz: Surpassing Economic Logic as the Key to Constructing an Ecological Civilization Andre Gorz (1924–2007) is both an important representative figure of the existentialist school of Marxism and a major theorist of ecological Marxism. Gorz was born in Austria in 1924 of a Jewish father and a Catholic mother. In 1939, after Nazi Germany annexed Austria, he moved to Switzerland. After the end of World War II, he returned to France, and from then on, he lived mainly in France. The early half of Gorz’s life was closely connected to Sartre and his existentialism. Early on in school he developed a deep interest in Sartre’s works. In 1946, he met Jean-Paul Sartre in Lausanne, which had a decisive influence on Gorz’s later development. Sartre was shocked at Gorz’s familiarity with his writings, and the two both had a great sense of regret that they had not met sooner. From that point on, Gorz respected Jean-Paul Sartre as his teacher, and Sartre saw Gorz as his star pupil. Gorz not only followed Sartre academically speaking, but also continuously drew close to him politically. In the early 1950s, he had been politically turning to the left like Sartre, that is he came to work in close cooperation with the Communist Party. But by the mid 50’s after the incidents in Poland and Hungary, he drew away from the Communist Party along with Sartre. It is common knowledge that Sartre began to engage in the “synthesis” of Marxism and existentialism and became an existential Marxist after he severed ties with the Communist Party. Gorz did as well. He gradually developed an interest in Marxism only after he all but severed ties with the Communist Party. In one respect, he used the Marxist point of view to rethink the original viewpoint of existentialism, and in another respect, he dedicated himself to the existentialist standpoint to critique and revise Marxism. In 1961, Gorz became the political editor of the magazine Modern founded by Sartre, Merleau-Ponty and others. In 1968, France erupted in the “May storm.” Gorz and Jean-Paul Sartre were unequivocally on the side of the revolting students and published a declaration in the journal World, praising the heroic efforts of the student movement in overcoming the system of social alienation. During this period, Gorz wrote a series of works that manifest the synthesis of existentialism and Marxism, including such works as Traitor (with a pref© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004356009_016

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ace from Sartre in 1958), the Spirit of History (1959), Difficult Socialism (1967), Improvement and Revolution (1969) and his most famous work Labor Strategy written in 1964. In Labor Strategy, Gorz newly reexplored the position and status of the contemporary proletariat as well as the possibility of fundamental social change from the viewpoint of existentialist Marxism. This book had a considerable impact on the New Left in France at that time, and the outbreak of the 1968 “May Storm” in France was apparently largely related to this work. By the 1970s, Gorz’s ideas reached a major turning point, meaning not that his former left-wing position had changed, but that his sphere of research had shifted to the field of political ecology. He transformed from an existential Marxist into an ecological Marxist. He is a typical theorist “changed from Red to Green”. In 1973, the main journal of political ecology the Savages started publication, and Gorz was an important contributor. Of course, Gorz was by no means alone in turning to the field of political ecology and becoming an ecological Marxist. But, Gorz’s ecological Marxism has some unique features that stand him apart from the rest: First, among all the ecological Marxists, Gorz’s critique of contemporary capitalism from the standpoint of ecological Marxism is the sharpest and most systematic. He believes that contemporary capitalism whose aim is economic growth cannot possibly resolve the increasingly serious ecological crisis. Moreover, his critique has the following distinctive feature: it closely ties the critique of capitalist society and the critique of productive forces to the critique of science and technology. Second, only Gorz directly and so strongly demonstrated the necessity of establishing socialist society through critiquing the ecological crisis of contemporary capitalist society. He insisted that the ecological movement must become part of a broader struggle, and must not stay in the ecology movement itself. Based on this viewpoint, he discussed the issue of the possibility of socialist revolution after the failure of the “May storm”, and he thought this possibility came from the ecological crisis. In his view, the ecological crisis of contemporary capitalist society could only be resolved by democratic and socialist means. Finally, in sharp contrast with the other ecological Marxists, Gorz not only discussed the necessity and possibility of establishing a form of socialist society from the perspective of resolving the ecological crisis, but also concretely and vividly described the utopian prospect of ecological socialism. Although his ideas of ecological socialism were chalk full of utopianism, they were strongly attractive to people. Gorz’s most famous later works focus on the discussion of political ecology, such as Ecology as Politics (1975), Ecology and Freedom (1977), Capitalism,

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Socialism and Ecology (1991) etc.. In addition, there are also other influential works, and although they superficially discuss problems outside of political ecology, they do in fact deal with political ecology, such as the Critique of the Division of labor (1973), Farewell to the Proletariat (1980), the Road to Heaven (1985), Critique of Economic Reason (1988) etc. Here, we focus on analyzing his thought as an ecological Marxist on the basis of Gorz’s several late important works on political ecology.

The Capitalistic Division of Labor as the Root of all Alienation

Gorz believes that the ecological crisis and crisis of nature arising from modern civilized society is rooted in the capitalist mode of production, which in turn is tied to the capitalist division of labor, and so, his analysis of the ecological crisis and natural crisis of modern civilized society begins with the critique of the capitalist division of labor. Gorz’s critique of the capitalist division of labor is mainly reflected in the book Critique de la division du travail published in 1973. The name of the English translation of the book was changed to Division of labor: Labor Process and Class-Struggle in Modern Capitalism. The book is divided into two parts: Part I, entitled “Labor Process and Class Struggle of Capitalism”; and Part II, entitled “The Struggle against the Capitalist Division of Labor”. Gorz analyzes the harms and crises of the capitalist division of labor from all angles, and traces back the critique of technology in capitalist society to the critique of the capitalist division of labor, and in particular, he especially criticized the theory of “technological neutrality,” and in connection with this, he further analyzed the status and role of workers in science and technology. Gorz points out sharply from the outset: “The capitalist division of labor is the source of all alienation”.1 To demonstrate his point, he first uses Marx’s account in Capital: the division of labor in capitalism “transforms the worker into a deformity which represses the diverse production interests and productive capacities of the workers”, “the knowledge, judgment and will of independent peasant or handicraftsman (albeit on a small scale)” were taken away from the workers by capital; they were confiscated, and incorporated into its machines, its labor organization and its technology. Furthermore,

1  A. Gorz: The Division of labor: The Labor Process and Class-Struggle in Modern Capitalism, The Harvester Press, 1978, p. VII.

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that the laborer is brought face to face with the intellectual potencies of the material process of production, as the property of another, and as a ruling power”. This separation begins in simple co-operation, where the capitalist represents to the single workman, the oneness and the will of the associated labor. It is developed in manufacture which cuts down the laborer into a detail laborer … It is completed in modern industry, which makes science a productive force distinct from labor and presses it into the service of capital.2 Gorz proves his conclusions by examining the obstacles to implementing his worker’s autonomy program. In his view, the most immediate goal of the program is to achieve decentralization and autonomy, but it is the capitalist division of labor that makes these two goals fall through. In a factory, the division of mental and physical labor makes efforts to abolish hierarchy strive in vain. Even more serious is, the capitalist division of labor makes the factory change from an economic unit independently producing goods into a production unit that compromises other units just a few hundred miles away; the entire plant just makes one or a few parts of the appliance, remaining dependent on plants hundreds of miles away, in which case, the workers in the factory have no autonomy. Now what is widely implemented is the international division of labor, which is the specialization of production and centralization of decision making, both of which fundamentally determine the impossibility of decentralization and autonomy. Gorz also points out that, from the standpoint of capital, forced labor stems from the division of labor. In order to achieve the goal of pursuing profit, it is necessary for the capitalist to implement the division of labor, and this goal always conflicts with the workers, which is the case in both classical capitalism and modern capitalism.Tied to the division of labor is industrial capital, which always means despotism and violence. The essence of industrial capital determines it to carry out the strict division of the labor of workers, thereby forcibly obtaining from workers the maximum degree of output. In the capitalist factory, the owner is allowed to take right of ownership and control over all products effectively produced, and the capitalist division of labor therefore develops. Out of necessity, the workers adamantly resist this inequality as well as the division of labor, so in the case that it is impossible to change the goal of capitalist production, the capitalist can only forcibly impose such a division of labor, that is coerce labor out of workers. As long as industrial capital exists, so 2  Marx: Capital, vol. I (part I), People’s Publishing House, 2004, p. 417, 419.

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does the capitalist division of labor, and the coercion of workers necessarily as well. In this sense, “factory tyranny is as old as industrial capital itself.” Obviously, Gorz ties the critique of the capitalist division of labor to the critique of the goal of capitalist production. In his view, the specialization of labor, the division of manual and mental labor, the elites’ monopolization of science and the increasingly expanding scale of the plant arise from the need to more efficiently produce mainly for the sake of making capitalist domination achieve long-term stability. If you want to ask, why implement the division of labor? The whole reason is this capitalist goal of making capital capable of proliferating. When it comes to the workers, this goal can only be achieved by forcibly imposing the division of labor. The labor of the workers is subordinate to the unified action of the tools of labor, forming a barracks-style order. This order is carefully arranged into a perfect system in the factory, which fully develops the all-around monitoring of workers. Gorz further points out that, if the transition to communism happens, that is if this production goal of making capital itself proliferate changes, then the hierarchical division of labor must necessarily be replaced by voluntary cooperation, and physical and mental labor must necessarily reunify. This work by Gorz took shape during the Cultural Revolution in China, and most likely due to some of China’s erroneous propaganda at the time, he went as to see the form of labor in China at that time as a typical example of using voluntary cooperation to replace the hierarchical division of labor. He pointed out that the facts taking place in China proved that the complex and strict division of labor and the use of advanced machinery are not more efficient than teams of men and women wielding simple tools, which they themselves are skilled at using, working together on a voluntary basis. Connecting alienation and the division of labor together is a basic viewpoint of Marxism. Gorz re-emphasized this point based on the latest realities of the development of capitalism, and pointing at some of the confused knowledge of his contemporaries, he repeatedly stressed that the compulsory division of labor of contemporary capitalism is tied to the goal of capitalist production. This not only stands up theoretically; it also has actual significance. With respect to his listing of China’s Cultural Revolution as a positive example, this in one respect simply reflects his deficiency of knowledge about the actual situation in China, but in another respect, it shows that as a Western Marxists, he did not fly far from the nest of utopianism. Gorz states that the capitalist division of labor is the source of all alienation, and sees capitalist technology as the reason behind the implementation of the capitalist division of labor. In this way, he again very naturally extends the critique of the capitalist division of labor into the critique of capitalist technology.

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Capitalism’s Profit Motive as the Cause of Ecological Destruction

Gorz published Ecologie et politique in 1975. The English translation, Ecology as Politics, was published in 1979. The book is composed of four chapters: “Ecology and Freedom”, “Ecology and Society”, “The Logic of Tools”, “Medicine, Health and Society”. The publication of this book marks his transition from an existential-Marxist to an ecological Marxist, and also established his position as the main representative of ecological Marxism. This is not only a work of ecological Marxism, but also a ground-laying work of modern Western political ecology. In order to understand the basic viewpoints of ecological Marxism and political ecology, we must start with this book. Political ecology has been a very popular theory in the West in recent years, and it is also one of the important viewpoints of ecological Marxism. Gorz laid the basic theoretical framework for political ecology in this book. Gorz points out that people originally view ecology as a discipline that has nothing to do with production and economic activity. Later, people subsumed ecology under the category of economics, seeing it as a branch of economics that should be considered to ensure the normal operation of economic activity. He states: Ecology does not appear as a separate discipline until economic activity destroys or permanently disturbs the environment and, in so doing, compromises the pursuit of economic activity itself, or significantly changes its conditions. Ecology is concerned with the external limits which economic activity must respect so as to avoid producing effects contrary to its aims or incompatible with its continuation.3 Gorz further points out that studying ecological problems from the perspective of production and economic activity turns ecology into a special field of economics that reflects the deepening of ecology as a branch of study. However, this is far from being able to realize modern people’s expectations about the discipline of ecology. The key is that ecology should have a simple meaning that economics cannot include. He said: “it is impossible to derive an ethic from economic reasoning. Marx was one of the first to understand this.”4 Of course, even if ecology is subsumed under the category of economics, we still cannot derive ethical principles from this, in which case ecology still must

3  A. Gorz: Ecology as Politics, Boston, 1980, p. 15. 4  Ibid.

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break through the limits of economics, and explore an ecological rationality that is not entirely identical to economic rationality. He states: to understand and overcome these ‘counter productivities’, one has to break with economic rationality. This is what ecology does: it reveals to us that an appropriate response to the scarcities and disease, to the bottlenecks and dead-ends of industrial civilization, must be sought not in growth but in the limitation or reduction of material production. It demonstrates that it can be more effective and ‘productive’ to conserve natural resources than to exploit them, to sustain natural cycle rather than interfere with them.5 In Gorz’s view, if you want to make ecology accomplish such a mission, you should make ecology enter politics and establish some link between ecology and politics, thereby revealing the social and political significance contained in ecology and ecological problems. Once this is accomplished, which is to say once ecology becomes political ecology, its function in opposing technofascism and modern capitalism will fully show itself. He states: Ecology, as a pure scientific discipline, does not necessarily imply the rejection of authoritarian, technofascist solutions. The rejection of technofascism does not arise from a scientific understanding of the balances of nature, but from a political and cultural choice…… Environmentalists use ecology as the lever to push forward a radical critique of our civilization and our society.6 Gorz insists that political ecology cannot be understood as a branch of political science, because doing so only narrowly grasps the original meaning of ecology, and does not give any new meaning to political science; neither can political ecology be understood as a branch of ecology, because this would excessively expand the scope of ecology’s influence on political science, while still remaining limited to the viewpoint of ecology. What is common to both approaches is they do not truly establish any intrinsic connection between political science and ecology. In his view, political ecology views the “metabolism of man and nature” as the true middle term of the organic connection between ecology and political science, and so turns the metabolism of man 5  Ibid., p. 16. 6  Ibid., p. 17.

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and nature into the object of his discipline. This metabolism can be analyzed either from the perspective of nature or from that of society. By analyzing this metabolism from the perspective of nature, we can see that it is ruled by the natural laws that govern every kind of material process; and analyzing it from the perspective of society, we can see that it is governed by the institutionalized norms that control the division of labor and the distribution of wealth. The former governing factors may fall under the scope of ecology, the latter under that of political science, while the combined force of the two and their interaction constitute the field of political ecology. He also notes that political ecology as political science of course focuses on the analysis of exploitative human relationships, but as political ecology, it analyzes exploitative human relationships in the broader context of the exploitative plundering of nature. In other words, the starting point of political ecology is not only the critique of exploitative human relationships, but also the critique of the exploitation of nature. Then why say this perspective of political ecology is Marxist? As Gorz sees it, the main reason is that this viewpoint to a certain extent comes from Marx himself and particularly from Marx’s social theory about the metabolism of man and nature. Marx discusses two basic categories of the metabolism between man and nature, that is the category of productive force—the exchange of matter and energy between man and nature through the process of production, and the category of relations of production—the relations between human beings that govern the metabolism of humanity and nature, and this is precisely the basic framework of political ecology. But at the same time he also points out that Marx’s theory is only an indispensable source of political ecology, and may not be sufficient by itself to become the theoretical foundation of political ecology. Actually, the process of establishing the theoretical foundation of political ecology is precisely the process of creatively developing Marxism. For example, when establishing the theoretical foundation of political ecology, in addition to using the above two categories, we also need to introduce a third category, namely the category of natural conditions—the human and non-human limits of nature that govern metabolism with respect to nature. The introduction of this third category is a major development of Marxism. It is undeniable that Gorz made a significant contribution to political ecology. His thought of tying ecological problems together with sociopolitical problems has been affirmed and emulated by many researchers. Gorz analyzes the ecological problems of today using his perspective of political ecology, and the basic conclusion that he draws is: the profit motive

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of capitalism necessarily destroys the ecological environment, and capitalism’s “logic of production” can neither resolve ecological problems nor the allaround social crisis that is closely tied to these ecological problems. Gorz points out that every business is a combination of such elements as natural resources, productive tools and labor power. Under capitalism these factors are combined so as to yield the greatest possible amount of profit (which for any firm interested in its future, means also the maximum control over resources, hence the maximum increase in its investments and presence on the world market.7 He insists that the motive of pursuing profit is necessarily in conflict with the ecological environment and that this profit motive necessarily drives people to destroy the ecological environment. In detail, he states: Corporate management is not, for instance, principally concerned with making work more pleasant, harmonizing production with the balance of nature and the lives of people or ensuring that its products serve only those ends which communicates have chosen for themselves. It is principally concerned with producing the maximum exchange value for the least monetary cost.8 Reducing costs is more important than protecting the ecological environment. This is capitalism’s “logic of production.” Gorz thinks that the ecological movement necessarily conflicts with the capitalist profit motive, precisely because the capitalist profit motive necessarily destroys the ecological environment, and therefore, if the ecological movement is to be carried out successfully, it is running up against the entire capitalist system, and in this sense, the ecological movement is an enormous site of struggle. He not only points out the seriousness that revolves around the ecological struggle, but also analyzes where the current focus of the struggle is. He thinks the focal point is the rulers of capitalist society who try to benefit personally from shifting and administrating the ecological crisis, and the ecological movement must fight against this utilitarianism. The reality ahead of us is: after capitalism has exhausted every means of high pressure coercion and trickery, it starts to find its own way out of ecological dead ends; it absorbs the 7  Ibid., p. 5. 8  Ibid.

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needs of ecology as the enforcement of technologies, and meanwhile makes them fit exploitative conditions. In the capitalist system, the interest generated by the cost of protecting the ecological environment has already become a luxury item that does not concern the majority but is for the enjoyment of the privileged. In light of this, Gorz raises this major question to those committed to the ecological movement: is it capitalism that adapts to the enforcement of ecology? Or is it a social, economic and cultural revolution that abolishes the enforcement of capitalism, and thereby establishes a new relationship between human being and nature? Gorz believes that if we cannot give the correct answer to this question, the ecological movement will dissolve. Gorz uses his unique language to analyze the ecological crisis of capitalist society rooted in the profit motive of capitalist production. He not only points out that in addition to the struggle between human being and nature accompanying the ecology movement, there is also the struggle between human beings, and furthermore clearly reveals the focus of these struggles. His warning that the rulers of capitalist society are trying to benefit personally from shifting and manipulating the ecological crisis is very pointed. Gorz points out that there are a variety of crises in contemporary capitalist society, and as long as you analyze the details it easily becomes apparent that all of these crises are related to ecological problems or originate from the ecological crisis. He thinks that in today’s capitalist society, “all production is also destruction”,9 that is, any production process is inextricably tied to the destruction of the ecosystem. In this case, if you want to understand the crisis of capitalist society clearly, you cannot cast ecological factors aside. He asserts that in today’s capitalist society, “all culture encroaches upon nature and modifies the biosphere”, and as long as this is made clear, we can understand that “there is little doubt that ecological factors plays a determining and aggravating role in the current economic crisis”, and the whole variety of crises in capitalist society are equally “intensified by the ecological crisis.” It is in this sense that you can say that the crisis of capitalism is in essence the ecological crisis.10 Gorz concretely analyzes the relationship between the crisis of over-accumulation, the crisis of reproduction and the crisis of ecology in capitalist society to prove that the ecological crisis is the ultimate source of every other crisis of capitalist society. He first reduces the crisis of over-accumulation to the crisis of reproduction. He states:

9  Ibid., p. 20. 10  Ibid., p. 21.

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In the advanced stages, the development of capitalism rests principally on the replacement of workers by machines, of living labor by dead labor……. But machines are costly to produce the investment of capital which they represent must be profitable, which means: the investor expects a return greater than the cost of the installation. Insofar as it serves to produce this surplus, through the mediation of the workers who operate it, the machine is capital. The logic of capital is the pursuit of constant growth.11 Starting with this assertion, Gorz discusses further whether the crisis of overaccumulation in capitalism can be curbed depends on the effective organization of reproduction. “This is the nature of consumption in affluent societies.”12 But the reality is that capitalist society cannot possibly effectively organize reproduction. Why not? Gorz then traces the crisis of reproduction back to the ecological crisis. Gorz explains from the following two levels that the crisis of reproduction in contemporary capitalist society presupposes the consumption and destruction of resources, and hence it is inseparably bound up with the ecological crisis: During the first phase, production becomes increasingly wasteful, i.e., destructive, in order to avoid a crisis of over-accumulation. It speeds up the destruction of the non-renewable resources on which it depends; and it overconsumes resources which are in principle renewable (air, water, forests, soil, etc.) at a pace which rapidly renders them scarce as well.13 During the second phase, confronted with the depletion of pillaged resources, industry makes frantic efforts to overcome the scarcities engendered by increased production by further increasing production. But the products of this additional production are not added to final consumption; they are consumed by industry itself.14 In summary, we are dealing with a classical crisis of “over-accumulation, aggravated by a crisis of reproduction which is due, in the final analysis, to the increasing scarcity of natural resources.”15

11  Ibid., pp. 21–22. 12  Ibid., p. 23. 13  Ibid., p. 26. 14  Ibid., p. 27. 15  Ibid.

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Gorz also notes that what every crisis of contemporary capitalist society (including that of over-accumulation, reproduction and ecology) linked together into one yields is the following law of capitalism: capitalism makes the growth of unsatisfied needs surpass the growth of the needs that it can satisfy. He argues that the mainstream of economic growth in contemporary capitalist society is a process of synthesis that is stimulated by a system of inequalities. Originally, economic growth would create the conditions for the satisfaction of human needs, but because this economic growth is linked to a system of inequalities, this satisfaction is relative and conditional. On the surface, the results of this economic growth enable the majority to quickly enjoy privileges that so far only the elites exclusively could enjoy, but such privileges (such as a college diploma and a small sedan) are for that reason devalued, and the standard of living indicated by the poverty line rises to a higher class level. If you examine further, it is easily discovered that while the original privileges have been relatively satisfied, new privileges have already been created from those places where the majority have been excluded. This is to say that the growth of the capitalist economy satisfies the original privileges, but at the same time necessarily creates new privileges; it satisfies the original demands but meanwhile it necessarily creates new demands. The economic growth of capitalism does not eliminate shortages but endlessly manufacture them, and its purpose is to recreate inequality and hierarchy. From this he concludes that capitalism makes the growth of unsatisfied demand surpass the growth of demands that it can satisfy. Although Gorz sees the ecological crisis of contemporary capitalist society as the ultimate source of this society’s other crises, and asserts that all of the crises of capitalist society are ecological in essence and by no means desirable, but his way of thinking about the other crises by linking them to the ecological crisis still is very enlightening. And his exposing that capitalism makes the growth of unsatisfied demands surpass the growth of the demands that it can satisfy in one respect profoundly critiques the substance of the capitalist system.

Beyond Economic Logic, the Implementation of Ecological Logic

Gorz attributes the ecological crisis of contemporary capitalist society to the profit motive of capitalism, which belongs to the category of the Economic Reason of capitalism. In this way, he extends the critique of the profit motive of capitalism into the critique of the Economic Reason of capitalism, which explores the root causes of the ecological crisis of capitalism from the more

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abstract philosophical level. His masterpiece is Critique of Economic Reason published in 1988. The book consists of three parts, which are: “Metamorphoses of Work”; “Critique of Economic Reason”; “Orientations and Proposals”, as well as an appendix. Gorz writes the following words in the “Introduction” to the book: What we are experiencing is not the crisis of modernity. We are experiencing the need to modernize the presuppositions upon which modernity is based. The current crisis is not the crisis of Reason, but that of the (increasingly apparent) irrational motives of rationalization as it has been pursued thus far. The current crisis is not an indication that the process of modernization has reached an impasse and that we shall have to retrace our steps. It is rather an indication of the need for modernity itself to be modernized, to be included reflexively in its own sphere of action: for rationality itself to be rationalized.16 The whole variety of postmodernist trends of thought today all believe that there is a crisis of modernity. Gorz’s statement above takes aim at postmodernism’s critique of modernity itself. In his view, the current crisis is not the crisis of modernity itself, nor is it the crisis of reason; this crisis by no means implies that we have walked to the end of the road of modernization, and must follow the same road back to whence we came. He insists that the current crisis is the crisis of that “irrational motive” in the process of rationalization, which is to say, the problem is neither modernization nor rationalization itself, but that “irrational motive” which controls modernization and rationalization. Based on this understanding, he asserts that what we need to do now is modernize modernization itself and rationalize rationalization itself, that is, not retract modernization and return to the pre-modernized, but further promote and perfect modernization. He further points out that, indeed, if we were to define modernization as the cultural evolution of the spheres of life and the secularization of the activities that correspond to such spheres, then the process would be far from complete. The process of modernization creates its own myth and maintains a new creed, which is covered up by the probe of reason and rationalizing critique. The limits of modernization that have already been established have already become easily breakable.

16  A. Gorz: Critique of Economic Reason, London, 1989, p. 1.

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What ‘post-modernists’ take to be the end of modernity and the crisis of Reason is in reality the crisis of the quasi-religious irrational contents upon which the selective and partial rationalization we call industrialism … is based.17 Gorz here once again emphasizes that the process of modernization is not by any means complete, and that the limits of modernization that already have been established are continuously being broken. What is in crisis is not modernity itself, but its quasi-religious irrational contents. Gorz thinks that if we hold the view that the current crisis is the crisis of modernity itself, we necessarily live in the wounded feeling of nostalgia for the past, and cannot give those new meanings and directions that lead to the reforming of our collapsed past beliefs, and hence cannot get out of the crisis. It appears that in Gorz’s view, the key is how to modernize modernization itself and rationalize rationalization itself. Well, how is this done? Gorz thinks that this requires changing the idea of modernization, namely that old idea that sees modernization as limitless and capable of endlessly being broken through. He states, I hope to demonstrate that rationalization has ontological and existential limits, and that these limits can only be crossed by means of pseudo rationalizations, themselves irrational, in which rationalization becomes its opposite. One of my principal objectives here will be to delimit the sphere of what can be rationalized.18 What he calls delimiting is but establishing what is doable and what undoable in the process of modernization and rationalization; this is quite unlike the current theme of saying everything is doable. Gorz opposes turning the current crisis into a crisis caused by modernity itself, and thinks that it is the crisis caused by the irrational motive in the process of modernization, and on this basis also opposes the across-the-board denial of modernization. Instead he holds to demarcating limits for modernization, which is a genuine insight. Gorz thinks that if we want to establish a limit for modernization we must examine the functioning of economic reason in contemporary capitalist society, because the progression of modernization in capitalist society is tied to the functioning of economic reason. So what is economic reason? 17  Ibid. 18  Ibid., p. 2.

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Just take a look at one of his accounts: Computerization and robotization have, then, an economic rationality, which is characterized precisely by the desire to economize, that is, to use the factors of production as efficiently as possible. For the moment, suffice it to say that a rationality whose aim is to economize on these ‘factors’ requires that it be possible to measure, calculate and plan their deployment and to express the factors themselves, whatever they may be in terms of a single unit of measurement. This unit of measurement is the ‘unit cost’, a cost which is itself a function of the working time (the number of hours worked) contained in the product and the means (broadly speaking, the capital, which is accumulated labor) used to produce it. From the point of view of economic rationality, the working time saved across the whole of society, thanks to the increasing efficiency of the means used, constitutes working time made available for the production of additional wealth. The working time saved, he writes, ‘allows for the remuneration of those who have lost their jobs’ by employing them to perform other economic activities, or by paying them to perform activities which were previously neither paid nor considered to be part of the economy.19 We may roughly know from his passage here that what he calls economic reason (economic rationality) is based on calculating and accounting; it is tied to computerization and robotics; it is exhausting every possibility of utilizing the labor time that is saved over by improving the means of labor, in order to make labor value produce even more extra value. Gorz gives an exhaustive account of the formation of this economic reason. We may better grasp the meaning of what he calls economic reason through examining his account of this process. Gorz points out that in traditional societies prior to capitalism, when people could freely determine the degree of their demand and the degree of their effort, economic rationality was unfit for use. He states: They tend then spontaneously to limit their needs in order to be able to limit their efforts, to match these efforts to a level of satisfaction which seems to them sufficient. But nonetheless it is the category of the

19  Ibid., pp. 2–3.

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sufficient which regulates the balance between the level of satisfaction and the volume of work for oneself.20 In that age, the principle that people followed in labor and production was “Enough is Enough.” The things that people reaped by plowing and planting on their own piece of earth were entirely used to satisfy the needs of their own family and livestock, and even if they sometimes went into the wilderness or neighboring forests to chop wood, it would only be used as fuel. This is to say that in those times people’s actions were in line with the time, movement and rhythm of their “livelihood.” As Gorz sees it, the key is in understanding the category of “sufficient.” He states that in that age, the category of the ‘sufficient’ is not an economic category: it is a cultural or existential category. To say that ‘what is enough is enough’ is to imply that no good would be served by having more, that more would not be better. ‘Enough is as good as a feast’ as the English say.21 Here, Gorz insists that in traditional societies, when economic reason is not in control, the category of “sufficient” is only a cultural category, and what people believe is “enough is enough” and “enough is as good as a feast.” Gorz thinks that the emergence of economic reason is synchronic with the birth of capitalism. Economic reason starts to come into play when people learn how to calculate and count, that is to produce not for the sake of their own consumption but for the sake of the market. He argues, “Economic rationalization begins with counting and calculating”, “but from the moment when I am no longer producing for my own consumption but for the market, everything changes”.22 He also asserts: counting and calculating is then the quite essential form of reifying rationalization. It posits the quantity of work per unit of product in itself, regardless of the lived experience of that work: the pleasure or displeasure which it brings me, the quality of the effort it demands, my affective and aesthetic relationship to what is produced. My activities will be decided as a function of a calculation, without my preferences or tastes being taken into account.23 20  Ibid., pp. 111–112. 21  Ibid., p. 112. 22  Ibid., p. 109. 23  Ibid., pp. 109–110.

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Gorz is actually not only giving an account of how economic reason is born, but is also giving the concrete content of economic reason. He states: to be guided by economic rationality, production must not only be intended for commodity exchange; it must be intended for exchange on a free market where unconnected producers find themselves in competition facing similarly unconnected purchasers.24 Now that people are guided by economic reason, and production is predominantly engaged for the sake of exchange, this kind of production necessarily follows the principle of the More the Better. So, this category of “sufficient” is not only a cultural category as it was in traditional societies, but has become a predominantly economic category. Its hallmark is breaking through the original principle of “enough is enough”, and initiating worship in the principle of “The More the Better”. Gorz states: In place of the certainty of experience that ‘enough is enough’ it gave rise to an objective measure of the efficiency of effort and of its success: the size of profits. Success was no longer therefore a matter for personal assessment and a question of the ‘quality of life’, it was measurable by the amount of money earned, by accumulated wealth. Quantification gave rise to an indisputable criterion and a hierarchical scale which had no need of validation by any authority, any norm, any scale of values. Efficiency was measurable and, through it, an individual’s ability and virtue: more was better than less, those who succeed in earning more are better than those who earn less.25 In this paragraph Gorz he added underlines, because this passage rather perfectly states the meaning of economic reason. The principles of economic reason that Gorz brings up are precisely the principle of calculating and counting, the principle of efficiency above all else, and the principle of the More the better. In light of his elucidation of the meaning of economic reason, what he calls economic reason is actually the capitalist mode of production. Marx gave an incisive and comprehensive analysis of the characteristics of the capitalist mode of production, and Gorz’s account in essence does not go beyond the scope of Marx’s analysis. 24  Ibid., pp. 110–111. 25  Ibid., p. 113.

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In Gorz’s view, Marx’s critique of the capitalist mode of production is the critique of economic reason. So, he first borrows Marx’s viewpoint to expose the harms of economic reason. He states that in the view Marx and Engels, economic rationality as the characteristic of capitalism, in that it swept away all values and purposes that were irrational from an economic point of view, leaving nothing but money relations between individuals, nothing but power relations between classes, nothing but an instrumental relation between Man and Nature, thus giving birth to a class of completely dispossessed worker-proletarians, reduced to nothing more than an indefinitely interchangeable labor power and divested of any particular interest.26 It is, then, according to the Marxian view, this self-same process of rationalization which, on the one hand, engenders a demiurgic, poietic relationship between Man and Nature as a result of mechanization and, on the other, bases the ‘colossal’ power of the forces of production on an organization of labor which strips both work and worker of all their human qualities.27 As a result of capitalist rationalization, work ceases to be an individual activity and a submission to basic necessities; but at the precise point at which it is stripped of its limitations and servility to become poies is, the affirmation of universal strength, it dehumanizes those who perform it.28 Gorz emphasizes here that according to Marx, the harms of economic reason can be attributed to, on the one hand, turning the relations between human beings into monetary relations, and on the other hand turning human being’s relationship to nature into an instrumental one, and the core of the problem is depriving workers of humanity. Gorz argues that “Habermas uses the concept of ‘cognitive-instrumental’ rationality to denote the unity of techno-scientific, economic and administrative approaches.”29 In his view, what Habermas calls “cognitive-instrumental rationality” is actually economic reason, so he borrows Habermas’s critique of

26  Ibid., p. 19. 27  Ibid., p. 20. 28  Ibid. 29  Ibid., p. 108, note 3.

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cognitive-instrumental rationality to further analyze the harms of economic rationality. He claims: …… economic rationality, which is a particular form of ‘cognitive instrumental’ rationality, is not only wrongly extended to cover institutional actions to which it is not applicable, it ‘colonizes’, reifies and mutilates the very relational fabric on which social integration, education and individual socialization depend. Habermas sees the reason for this ‘colonization’ in ‘the irresistible dynamic’ developed by ‘economic and administrative sub-systems’, that is hetero-regulation by money and state power.30 Thus, based on Habermas’s critique of “cognitive instrumental rationality” Gorz thinks that the main harm of economic reason is in “colonizing” the lifeworld. Gorz’s exposition of the harmfulness of economic reason following Marx’s train of thought is sharp and profound, and specifically his critique of the “new slavery” in contemporary capitalist society has the effect of warning the world. As stated, in Gorz’s view, the key to eliminating the crisis in the process of modernization today is found in demarcating limits for modernization, which is actually drawing limits for rationality. He insists that modernization can no longer proceed under the control of economic reason, and should go beyond economic reason, establish a new reason, and make modernization develop according to a new reason for behavior. Gorz thinks that to escape the control of economic rationality is to break free of the principle of “the more, the better,” because he views “the more, the better” as the principle of economic reason. He stresses that we must sever the bond between the more and the better and combine “the better” with “the less”. He thinks that as long as we produce more durable products and more things that don’t destroy the environment, or rather, produce more things that everyone can get, then it is possible to work less and consume less, but live better. He states: In particular they might even escape the grip of economic rationality by discovering that more is not necessarily better, that earning and consuming more do not necessarily lead to a better life, and that there can, therefore, be more important demands than wage demands……. ‘The market-based order’ is fundamentally challenged when people find out that not all values are quantifiable, that money cannot buy everything 30  Ibid., p. 107.

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and that what it cannot buy is something essential, or is even the essential thing.31 Gorz thinks that we can only open a sufficiently big enough space of freedom for modern people by breaking the shackles of economic reason. In this space, people’s lives are no longer completely occupied by labor, and are no longer deluded by labor. People will discover that this is a domain of value that cannot be quantified, and discover that this is finally the autonomous sphere of life. Autonomous behavior may come to occupy the dominant position in society, when labor engaged for the sake of economic goals is greatly reduced. We ought to drive economic reason out of leisure time. In this way, leisure will no longer only be surplus or compensation, but the indispensible time of life and reason for life. We have to make leisure overpower labor, and at the same time make free time overpower non-free time. Let this free time become the bearer of all universal values, namely, let creativity, joy, the feeling of beauty and play conquer the variety of values related to seeking efficiency and profit. Gorz points out that once labor is demoted to subordinate status, and free time becomes the bearer of all universal values, there emerges the prospect of another possible society, “the future society which will no longer be a workbased society.”32 He also states: What is involved is the transition from a productivist work-based society to a society of liberated time in which the cultural and the societal are accorded greater importance than the economic: in a word, a transition to what the Germans call a ‘Kulturgesellschaft’.33 Well, does surpassing economic reason only mean making leisure time overpower labor time and making society no longer based on work? Gorz thinks no. An even more important content of Gorz’s account is that surpassing economic reason means making labor itself become autonomous behavior and not just driving economic reason out of leisure time, but also depriving economic reason of any foothold in labor time; it means not only seeking the development of personal freedom outside of labor, but also seeking the development of personal freedom inside of labor. He thinks that what is of utmost importance here is we cannot let labor solely become the means of earning a wage, and if labor were to become merely the means of earning a wage, 31  Ibid., p. 116. 32  Ibid., p. 212. 33  Ibid., p. 183.

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labor would necessarily lose its meaning as well as its impetus and purpose. What people working for the sake of getting a salary actually attain are not the goals that they themselves choose but the procedures and timetables that the people who pay them a wage design. He states: “There is widespread confusion between ‘work’ and ‘job’ or ‘employment’, as there is between the ‘right to work’, the ‘right to a wage’ and the ‘right to an income’.”34 In his view, it is now common for people to equate the rights to a wage with the right to work, but actually, that you have the right to a wage does not imply that you have already really gained the right to work, and surpassing economic reason in the sphere of labor means allowing people not only to gain the right to a wage, but also to truly gain the right to work. Gorz thinks that generally speaking there are three levels of labor, which are: the organization of the labor process; the relationship to the product produced; the content of labor, namely the quality of actions and the human talent and capacity that labor demands. He insists that workers should have access to rights on these three levels, and hence possess autonomy. Concretely speaking, that is: this work should be organized by the worker herself; this work is the free pursuit of goals that are self-determined; this work should reach the worker’s personal goals. Given the current situation where large numbers of people will be driven out of the sphere of economic activity, only a small number of professional elites will engage in economic activity, and the former will therefore become the latter’s servants, Gorz highlights the importance of equitable distribution of the current labor positions. He thinks that faced with the scenario of an increasing reduction of jobs, where there are two different solutions: one is like what is taking place in modern capitalist society, where the reduced quantity of jobs are handed over to a small number of professional elites, where the majority are left unemployed without a job, and the former cheaply buy up the latter’s labor who then work at the former’s service and become their slaves; Another solution is, allowing everyone to work despite the reduction in jobs, reducing labor time to two hours per day, and allowing everyone to have a shift. He thinks that if workers are excluded from the sphere of economic activity, then it would be senseless to talk about the right to work and the autonomy of labor. So, in the present case, the first demand in the liberation from work is some reduction of labor time, but everyone must be able to engage in labor, and have their job position. He states: “The liberation from work and the idea of ‘working less so everyone can work’ were, after all, at the origin of the struggle of the labor movement.”35

34  Ibid., p. 221. 35  Ibid.

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Gorz’s account of how to surpass economic reason although full of romanticism, fully carries on the tradition of Western Marxism, and the amount of profound insights in it are considerable.

Advanced Socialism as the Key to Protecting the Environment

Capitalism, Socialism and Ecology published in 1991 is an important work that Gorz launched after the fall of the Eastern Block. The book consists of nine relatively independent papers, they are: 1. “Disorientation, Orientations: In Defense of Modernity”; 2. “A Left in Need of Redefinition”; 3. “Capitalism, Socialism and Ecology”; 4. “Redefining Socialism”; 5. “the New Servants”; 6. “The Crisis of ‘Work’ and the Post-Industrial Left”; “Old and New Actors in the Central Conflict”; 8. “Which Way is Left? Social Change in the Post-Industrial Age”; 9. “Shorter Hours, Same Pay”. There is also an afterword: “Will There Be a European Left? Theoretical and Political Queries”. The book further adds depth to his viewpoints in the Road to Heaven, Economic Rationality and other works. In it, the arguments about the relationship between capitalism, socialism and ecological protection are particularly striking. The publisher pointed out: The viewpoint that Gorz proposes in this book is bound to have an impact on human activities, and promote possibilities of personal self-realization. In this work what Gorz first argues is that the ecological crisis can only be eliminated in progressive socialist institutions. He thinks that to effectively unfold the work of ecological protection, we must be equipped with the following social environment: Produce practical items resistant to breakage, produce repairable machines that may survive prolonged use and produce clothing that does not rapidly go out of fashion. When people live in a wide collective with commonly shared services and facilities, the demand for fragile, expensive products and goods that waste energy will disappear. When there is comfortable public transport to take you to health resorts, when there is a transportation network throughout the urban and rural fabric that people actually demand, and when bicycles and cars may move without congestion, would people really still miss heavy traffic on the highway? The main industries of central planning produce solely for the sake of satisfying the basic needs of the population. Reduce labor time and implement a 20 hour work week in order to avoid massive unemployment. Each town has a complete set of tools and workshops equipped with machines and materials, where people produce for themselves, and engage in production in accordance with their interests.

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The people have sufficient leisure time to study what they are interested in, not only in reading and writing, but also in the variety of handicrafts, that is, the whole variety of professional technologies that are taken away from people by commercial enterprises such that people can only re-acquire them through purchase. Gorz points out that such a social environment is the social environment of socialism, and thinking that we can only implement ecological protection in such a social environment is equivalent to believing that we can only implement ecological protection in a socialist system. So, “the best choice for protecting the environment is an advanced socialism.” In Gorz’s view, the key reason why the socialist system offers the possibility for ecological protection, is that production in socialism is not engaged in for the sake of the profit motive. He believes there are two kinds of reason standing before us: first, economic reason, namely the reason of capitalism, which is producing for the sake of the profit motive; and second, ecological reason, namely the reason of socialism whose purpose is ecological protection. The former is in conflict with ecological protection, and only the latter is consistent with ecological protection. What true socialism implements is necessarily ecological reason. He proves that only the socialist system can possibly implement ecological reason and hence implement ecological protection through explaining the difference between these two kinds of reason. He states: the economic imperative of productivity is totally different from the ecological imperative of resource conservation. Ecological rationality consists in satisfying material needs in the best way possible with as small a quantity as possible of goods with a high use-value and durability and thus doing so with a minimum of work, capital and natural resources. the quest for maximum economic productivity, by contrast, consist in selling as high a profit as possible the greatest possible quantity of goods produced with the maximum of efficiency, all of which demands a maximization of consumption and needs. Only by such a maximization is it possible to obtain a return on growing quantities of capital. As a consequence, the pursuit of maximum productivity at the enterprise level leads to increasing waste in the economy as a whole. But, what appears, from the ecological point of view, as a waste and destruction of resources is perceived from the economic point of view as a source of growth: competition between enterprises speeds up innovation, and the volume of sales and velocity of capital circulation increase as a result of obsolescence and the more rapid renewal of products. And what, from the eco-

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logical point of view, seems a saving (product durability, prevention of illness and accidents, low energy and resource consumption) reduce the production of economically measurable wealth in the form of GNP, and appears on the macro-economic level as a source of loss.36 Gorz here clearly describes for people the distinction between these two kinds of reason: economic reason pursues the maximization of both production and consumption regardless of the wanton exploitation of resources and destruction of the ecological environment, while ecological reason seeks to minimize not only the use of labor, but also capital and resources, and make efforts to produce durable things with high use values and to satisfy the people’s need of enough which is enough. And hiding behind these two diametrically opposed kinds of reason, there are two opposed kinds of motives, namely the profit motive and the motive of ecological protection. Under the dominion of the profit motive of capitalism, the implementation of ecological rationality is unthinkable, because it will necessarily bring about so many blockages of the source of growth. Based on this understanding, Gorz repeatedly stresses that in order to implement ecological rationality, we must change the capitalist profit motive, and this means changing the capitalist mode of production into the socialist mode of production. The socialist mode of production can and should be tied to ecological reason. He thinks that the rationality of the ecological mode of socialism exists in the rationality of ecological reason. Gorz thinks that it is impossible to implement ecological protection under the mode of production of the currently existing society, namely the capitalist mode of production. The key to implementing ecological protection is controlling consumption, and a precondition of controlling consumption is fairly and rationally distributing products, but it is clear that it is impossible to do this according to the existing mode of production. He states that the framework and model of consumption of the currently existing society is built on the grounds of inequality, privilege and the pursuit of profit—zero or negative growth can only mean stagnation and the widening of the gap between the rich and the unemployed poor. In the framework of the existing mode of production, it is possible to limit and suppress economic growth once the distribution of products tends to average out the gap. In the mode of production of the currently existing society, by which means and who can distribute those products that have become scare due to the constraint of quantity, such as luxury cars, houses with private pools and the thousands of other new products? Every year industries flood the markets with new products, which devaluates the old 36  A. Gorz: Capitalism, socialism, Ecology, London, 1994, pp. 32–33.

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products, and meanwhile reproduces inequality and hierarchy. And now with what means and who can evenly distribute university degrees, management positions or possessions of property? Gorz insists that, in this case, the only way out is to break through the mode of production of the existing society, and establish a mode of production that truly embodies the principle of fair distribution, that is, the socialist mode of production. Gorz here demonstrates the necessity of establishing a socialist form of society by means of analyzing the opposition between economic reason and ecological reason and through revealing the intrinsic link between economic reason and the capitalist mode of production on one hand, and that between ecological reason and the socialist mode of production on the other, proving that the best choice for protecting the ecological environment is the establishment of the socialist mode of production. He is very convincing here in his profound theoretical analysis, which demonstrates the basic standpoint of ecological Marxism as an ecological socialist. Gorz has repeatedly stressed that the best choice for protecting the environment is an advanced socialism, but what kind of socialism is socialism is that? What kind of relationship does it have with the existing forms of socialism? In Ecology as Politics, Road to Heaven, Critique of Economic Reason and other works, he discusses this, but in this work, he gives a more detailed and comprehensive elucidation. Gorz believes that socialism which he says can effectively implement ecological protection is completely different from the existing and traditional forms of socialism. To underscore this point, he specifically states in the very beginning of this book: As a system, socialism is dead. As a movement and an organized political force, it is on its last legs. All the goals it once proclaimed are out of date. The social forces which bore it along are disappearing. It has lost its prophetic dimension, its material base, its ‘historical subject’; History and the technical changes that are leading to the extinction, if not of the proletariat, then at least of the working class, have shown its philosophy of work and history to be misconceived.37 Of course, we cannot fully agree with his basic estimations of the existing and traditional cases of socialism, but at this point we just want to show clearly that Gorz tries to distinguish his vision of socialism from the existing and traditional forms socialism. 37  Ibid., p. VII.

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The existing and traditional form of socialism of which Gorz speaks mainly refers to the Soviet model of socialism. In his view, the Soviet model of socialism is little different from capitalism with respect to this point that it can not effectively implement ecological protection. The point is that the Soviet model of socialism also pursues economic reason, rather than ecological reason, that is, under the socialist system of the Soviet model, social production and human behavior are subject to the same economic reason. As long as it is controlled by economic reason, whether it is adjusted by plan or market, social production will not bring about real socialism. He stresses that the Soviet model of socialism only provides people with a laughable enlarged charicature of the basic features of capitalism, because it regards the pursuit of accumulation and economic growth as its main goals. The only difference from capitalism is the way it implements this accumulation and growth, that is, it tries to use carefully planned, centralized and overall external economic controls over every sphere of the market to replace the external, spontaneous market mechanism. It makes the functional behavior that the system’s overall rationality demands split from the rationality of the individual’s autonomous way of behaving. The Soviet model of socialism also implemented all kinds of reforms, but because the basic ideas behind these reforms were based on consumerism, that is, because such reforms did not make the slightest changes to the goal pursued, but simply adjusted the means to achieve such goals, the result of the reforms was moving closer and closer to Western capitalism and further away from true socialism. In his view, the essence of socialism is to make economic behavior submit to the goals and values of society, and if it does not strive in this direction, the existing and traditional form of socialism cannot become true socialism. Based on this basic recognition that “there is no substantial difference between existing socialism and capitalism in pursuing economic rationality, against ecological protection”, Gorz even questions the “scientificity” of the existing form of socialism. He states: The concept of ‘scientific socialism’ has lost all meaning. Within so-called ‘real socialism’, the supposed scientificity of its precepts had the practical function of dismissing people’s needs, desires and protests as ‘unscientific’ and ‘subjective’, and subordinating them to the systemic imperatives of the industrial apparatus which was to be established. ‘Real socialist’ planning conceived of society as a centrally directed industrial machinery, and required individuals to conform to that machinery’s demands. Their life was to be completely rationalized—that is organized functionally by the bureaucratic-industrial mega-machine. Resistance to this

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functionalization, …… was condemned as petty-bourgeois or philistine individualism.38 Gorz exhaustively explains the true connection between socialism and capitalism. He states that socialism can only be understood in connection to capitalism, “of which it is the positive negation.”39 Socialism originates in the ambiguity and incompleteness of capitalist modernization, amongst the intolerable effects of the free market economy. Everywhere it was introduced, capitalism brought with it not only radical emancipatory factors but also new forms of exploitation and alienation. For the first time in history, individuals were freed from the despotism of the state or of princes, or from hierarchical dependency, and were granted the right to pursue their own material interests. As is well known, this right which was conceded to them unleashed the struggle ‘of each against all’ in free markets. Unrestricted competition forced every business to use the factors of production as efficiently as possible—that is, to seek to maximize productivity, innovation, profit and investment. Economic rationality was freed by the logic of the market from the religious, ethical, normative social precepts. Capitalism was and is the only form of society which makes competition, with the aim of maximizing productivity and profit, its first commandment, unremittingly striving to enroll society, education, labor, individual and collective consumption into the service of the greatest possible valorization of capital and consequently, to extend the domination of economic rationality, which expresses itself unchecked in the logic of the market, to all areas of life and work.40 Gorz further states: the socialist movement grew out of the struggle carried on by individuals united in solidarity to impose new social restrictions, based on ethical demands, on the sphere in which economic rationality can operate. Only such restrictions can guarantee the workers’ personal integrity and their right individually and collectively to self-determine how they live their lives. The import and purpose of the socialist movement has been— and still is—the emancipation of individuals in fields where the logic 38  Ibid., p. 38. 39  Ibid., p. 39. 40  Ibid.

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of m ­ arket, competition and profit functions to prevent individuals from achieving autonomy and fulfillment.41 In Gorz view, socialist factors already exist in capitalist society, which is precisely the intrinsic link between socialism and capitalism. However, if we understand socialism as solely aiming at increasing material wealth and the economic reason of capitalism is imposed on socialism, there no longer is any difference between socialism and capitalism. True socialism does not inherit but abandons economic reason and limits the role of economic reason, replacing it rather with the reason of values; only in this way, can we truly accord with the meaning of socialism and achieve the goals of socialism. Although Gorz profoundly demonstrates that only socialism can correctly implement ecological protection, when he discusses this kind of socialism, he pairs it in opposition to the existing form of socialism, and negates the existing form of socialism across the board, which is obviously one-sided. When it comes to the relationship between capitalism and socialism, he thinks that although there are socialist factors already in capitalist society, only by abandoning economic rationality can we truly establish socialism, which is a true insight. On the basis of his criticism of the Soviet model of socialism, Gorz puts forward his own idea of socialism. He discusses the intrinsic link between the “less” the “better” in the book Critique of Economic Reason, where he further proposes the scenario of “producing less, living better,” as the main socialist model of life in his ideals. Gorz points out that the reasons causing the current crisis of capitalist society is the excessive development of productive capacities as well as the destructiveness of the technologies formed on these grounds, and therefore overcoming the crisis can only be accomplished through the establishment of a new mode of production. The core of this new mode of production is making careful arrangements of resources and energy, in order to reduce the scale of consumption as far as possible. In other words, the goal of this new mode of production is not to produce more, but to produce less. Thus, the primary characteristic of socialism as the alternative to capitalism is to produce less. The problem is whether “producing less” can bring about “living better”? Gorz believes that this is possible, and this is precisely where the superiority of socialism stands. He thinks that in the socialist system, the goal of production will no longer be the pursuit of maximum profit, so it will suspend the production of luxury goods, and mainly produce things that people really need, durable things that 41  Ibid.

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are easy to repair, easy to produce and do not pollute. As a result of this production, it will necessarily bring about two results: First, social labor will be limited to the things that productive life needs, so working time can be reduced at the same time, which will allow people to obtain more free time, greatly expand their freely chosen behavior, and the individual and public will show themselves and diversify their own way of life in ways unimaginable today; Second, while people are changing their relationships with one another and changing the condition of their relationship with the environment, the environment and people no longer stand in opposition to one another, but in harmony with one another, and thereby regain their intrinsic bond with the natural world. Gorz stresses that these two results are tied to a people’s new way of life, that is, a truly happy way of life. Is this not precisely the ideal way of life that Marx hoped for? Gorz also produces a concrete description of “less production, better life”. He thinks that “less production” is actually imprecise, and should be more properly formulated as “people based on their imagination rather than the needs for production.” It is precisely production on the basis of imagination that enables people to enter a new state, where the market disappears, everyone feels satisfied, people come together in solidarity, and everyone plans out their own lives. People will not engage in stereotypical, monotonous, boring and uninteresting kinds of work. Gorz think that socialism is a society full of equality, and that “less production, better life” will directly lead to social equality. He argues that the modern capitalist mode of production brought about economic growth so that the masses could enjoy privileges that only the elites could originally enjoy, but at the same time, they again were excluded from the new privileges. The motto of modern capitalist society is: “Things that are equally good to everyone have no value, and you have to have a number of things that are better than others in order to be respected.” This motto presents the universally accepted values of modern capitalist society. When people all have something, this something is thereby devalued, and only items that only a few people have are noble and worth pursuing. The rulers of modern capitalist society just make use of these values and this state of mind, and continue to make new demands to control people and maintain inequality. In accompaniment with the implementation of “less production, better life,” what people produce are those things that everyone truly needs, no privilege is given to anyone, and no one’s rights are curtailed. In such a society, as Marx said: the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all. Socialist equality begins here. Gorz stresses that implementing “less production, better life”, cannot possibly proceed in the framework of capitalist society, and this is actually the ecological rebuilding of modern capitalist society, which envelops the overcoming

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of capitalism and the development of socialism. He illustrates this point by investigating the program of the German Social Democratic Party in 1989. This program clearly demands a minimum amount of labor, capital and resources to get a small amount of goods with high use value and durability. Gorz lists the elements on this agenda: “The ecological restructuring of our economy, from product design to the consumption”, and the recycling of materials concerns all forms of production and transformation of energy, and demands, the ecological restructuring of the chemical industry, transport and agriculture. These activities must grow which secure the basic elements of life and improve its quality, which promote self-determination and autonomous creative activities, those activities which threaten the natural foundations of life must diminish and disappear. Technical innovation must not only serve ecological restructuring and rationalization, it must also raise the productivity of labor, make possible shorter working hours”, and “free us from alienated labor.42 Gorz sums up the requirements of the 1989 program of the German SocialDemocratic Party as follows: “the economic criteria of maximum productivity and profitability are subordinated to socio-ecological criteria.”43 Then he says at the conclusion of his analysis that these demands can be implemented on the surface in capitalist society, but because it cannot change the basic propensity of capitalist development, it will fall to corruption or premature death in the process of implementing it. Only under the socialist system can these demands be implemented effectively, since the basic goals of social development are consistent with these demands. He stresses that the program of 1989 of the German Social-Democratic Party addressed this demand of “less production, better life”, which imposed “new and sometimes radical limitations” on economic rationality.44 He believes that the German Social-Democratic Party actually saw “less production, better life” as the basic symbol of future socialism. Gorz not only argues that only socialism can effectively eliminate the ecological crisis and solve environmental problems, but also proposes that the basic characteristic of this socialism is “less production, better life.” This argument is very pointed and gives us a profound insight. But as many scholars have pointed out, this viewpoint carries with it a shade of utopianism, and the socialism of which he speaks is “utopian socialism”.

42  Ibid., pp. 31–32. 43  Ibid., p. 32. 44  Ibid., p. 31.

CHAPTER 13

Ben Agger: The Ecological Dilemma has Shattered People’s Faith in Capitalism Ben Agger is one of the leading advocates of ecological Marxism, and Professor of sociology at the University of Waterloo in Canada. In addition to Marxism, especially ecological Marxism, he also engages in other spheres of in-depth research, most notably in critical theory, feminism and speech theory. There is no doubt that Agger has played a key role in the development of ecological Marxism, because it was in the second half of the 1970s when he published such works On Happiness and Destruction of Life, Western Marxism: an Introduction which allowed this concept and basic thought of ecological Marxism to gain widespread recognition and transmission worldwide. In the 1980s and 1990s, ecological Marxism became a school guiding social change, and Agger had an indelible role in this process. Agger and William Leiss together are the representative figures of those upholding the flame of ecological Marxism. They not only transformed ecological Marxism from a theory propounded mainly by experts in a high-rise courtyard into a theory closely tied to reality, and moreover allowed ecological Marxism to truly differentiate itself from the Western green movement and merge with the socialist revolution. Among ecological Marxists, Agger was one of the earliest to clearly assert that the emergence of the ecological crisis proves that there is a sharp, insurmountable contradiction between the infinite productive capacity of capitalism and the finite carrying capacity of the ecological environment, and that this contradiction will lead to the “shattering of expectations” in capitalism, and lastly, lead to the socialist revolution. Agger and William Leiss moreover turn ecological Marxism into a more complete theoretical system. In Agger and Leiss, ecological Marxism not only includes the theory of the crisis of contemporary capitalism, capitalism and the critical theory of capitalism, but also the theory of the impetus, path and strategy of socialist revolution, as well as the more complete conception of ecological socialism. It is generally thought that there are three facets to the theoretical origin of ecological Marxism: one is Marxism’s theory about the relationship between human being and nature; the second is the theoretical results of ecology, systems theory and the theory of the future; the third is the theory of the Frankfurt School. Agger differs from the other ecological Marxists in that he

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does not simply work with just one of these three facets; he fully works with all three aspects of the theory, which is to say that he absorbs all three aspects of the theory into his own theoretical system. In addition to being an ecological Marxist, Agger is also an important representative of “North American Marxism”. “North American Marxism” is also known as “the North American left-wing school of Marxism.” After the 1960s, campuses in the United States, Canada and other North American regions set off a wave of exploration into Marxism. Agger himself grew up in the course of this exploration, then later became a chief spokesman of this trend in Canada, and echoed some representative figures in the United States. Agger differs from some of the other representatives of “North American Marxism” insofar as he opposes indulging in the purely theoretical study of Marxism, and instead focuses on research that confronts reality, and also insofar as when he confronts reality, he specifically emphasizes that we must confront the reality of the contemporary global ecological crisis. He dedicates himself to integrating ecological problems into the main research topics of North American Marxism, directing the latter toward ecological Marxism. Agger wrote a number of books, and his works were published at great length especially after the dismemberment of the USSR. The main works are: Dialectical Sensitivity i: Critical Theory, Scientism and Empiricism (1977), Dialectical Sensitivity ii: Towards a New Intellectual Property (1978), and Western Marxist: an Introduction (1978), Sociology (Ontology): One Kind of Disciplinary Reading (1989), Analysis of a literary and political: reading science (1989), A critical theory of meaning: Fast Capitalism (1989), Conversation Recession: in the Post-modern Capitalism in Reading, Writing and Resistance (1990), Critical Theory of Public Life: a Recession in the Era of Knowledge, Discourse and Power (1991), Cultural Studies as Critical Theory (1992), Discussion of Control: From Frankfurt School to Postmodernism (1992), Sex, Cultural and Power: towards a Feminist Postmodernist Critical Theory (1993), Book author writing it? Social Analysis of the Text (1994) and so on. Here we only discuss and present Western Marxist: an Introduction as a representative work of the viewpoint of ecological Marxism.

Re-examining the Theory of the Crisis of Capitalism

Western Marxism: an Introduction is Agger’s most famous work, and the book has a subtitle “Classical and Contemporary Sources.” Strictly speaking, this is not a book, but a tutorial that introduces Western Marxism to North American College students. The book examines the historical process of the emergence

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and development of Western Marxism from the late 19th century until the 1980s and looks forward at its future development. The book has seven chapters: 1. Alienation, Contradictions, and Crisis in Marx’s Dialectical Method; 2. Twentieth-Century Reformers and Radicals: Scientific Marxism in the Second International; 3. Hegelian Marxism I: The Role of Class Consciousness; 4 Hegelian Marxism II: The Theory of Domination; 5. Eastern European Revisionism: Marxian Humanism; 6. Individualized Marxism: Class-Radicalism in the 1960s; 7. Returning to Crisis-Theory: The Many Faces of Modern Marxism. Although this work gives an all-around account of Western Marxism, its most influential part is the elucidation of ecological Marxism. The book is not really written as a purely historical work, but rather tries to create a “North American Marxism” through the combination of Marxism and American Populism, and furthermore develops “North American Marxism” into an ecological Marxism. Agger unfolds his view of ecological Marxism out of his analysis of the crisis of contemporary capitalist society. And starting with the exploration of Marx’s theory of capitalist crises, he analyzes the crisis of contemporary capitalist society. Agger states: Our central thesis is that historical changes have invalidated the original Marxist theory of crisis as belonging solely to the realm of industrial capitalist production.1 Marx thinks that due to declining margins, capital accumulation holds down the wages of workers, makes workers lose employment and become impoverished, and workers thereby revolt together and capitalism collapses. But actually capitalism does not work like this. One of the important reasons why Marx’s theory of crisis loses validity is because Marx overestimates the seriousness of the crisis of capitalism at the end of 19 century, underestimates the regeneration of the capitalist mode of production, and does not foresee that capitalism still has the capacity to survive though its inherent tendency to accumulate capital so rapidly that it cannot effectively utilize it. After World War I, the unprecedented development of the productive capacity of international monopoly capitalism was enough to provide the working class with those commodities that previously only the elite could enjoy in the past. The contradiction between laborer and capitalist diminished, and the working class lost their class consciousness. Under such circumstances, the historical delay of the collapse of capitalism occurs necessarily. He thinks that the two explanations of the crisis of capitalism went out of date in accompaniment with the outdating of Marx’s theory of the crisis of capitalism from which it derived. The first explanation was the economic 1  Ben Agger: Western Marxism An Introduction, California Goodyear Publishing Company, Inc, 1979, p. 316.

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determinism of some theorists of the Second and Third International, that is the limiting of the examination of the crisis of capitalism solely to the sphere of industrial capitalist production, while ignoring the big difference between the early stages of capitalism and the contemporary stages, ignoring that the internal contradiction of capitalism today is the warped relationship between production and consumption; The second is the Critical Theory of the early Frankfurt School. He states that members of the Frankfurt School such as Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno, who were oriented to the critique of domination, which they articulated in terms of an abstract negation of the present system, offering only meager hopes for radical change, what went wrong with them was its tendency to view all human activity as controlled by the dominating forces emanating from advanced capitalist production, this prevented them from creating a new crisis-theory and a new framework for examining emancipatory thrusts directed against a dominant system.2 In his view, that Marx’s own theory of the crisis of capitalism and the two explanations of the crisis of capitalism that derived from it became outdated does not prove that the current crisis of capitalism has disappeared. The collapse of capitalism has been historically delayed, but the factors leading to the collapse of capitalism are expanding. The reason why Marx’s own theory of crisis as well as the theories of crisis produced at the Second and Third International and in the early Frankfurt School lost validity is not because the crisis of capitalism ceased to exist. Facts prove that, While the period of romantic exuberance, characteristic of youth culture in the late 60 and captured forever in the image of the Paris May movement in 1968, has passed, capitalism today is not a more stable system, intractable and crisis-free. Indeed the crises are more serious than the crises of the 1960s, capitalism is on very rocky footing.3 It is in this historical context of Marx’s original theory of crisis becoming outdated with the crisis of capitalism simultaneously growing in depth that some Western Marxists have begun reexamining the theoretical problem of crisis. He states:

2  Ibid. 3  Ibid., p. 269.

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The return to a theory of crisis indicates that late monopoly capitalism is ripe for fundamental transformations, on the level of its economic performance as well as on the level of human motivation and meaning, crisis-theories today emphasize both the build-in structural contradictions in capitalism (resulting in what Marx termed the failing rate of profit) and the tendency for advanced capitalism to deepen alienation and to fragment human existence as well as to pollute the environment and to denude nature of its resources.4 Agger highly appreciates these new explorations of the crisis of contemporary capitalism. In particular, he brings up the following two explorations: One is the new exploration of the crisis of capitalism represented by Habermas, O’Connor and Miliband. Although they mostly agree with Marx’s view that the state is a committee that regulates the common affairs of the bourgeois class, they all disagree with the form in which Marx reveals the crisis, thinking that it already lost practical significance, because of which they put forward their own theory of crisis, such as O’Connor’s theory of the financial crisis, Habermas and Miliband’s theory of the crisis of legitimacy. These theories all stem from the understanding that the greatly expanded role of the state has brought capitalism many problems and has displaced the site of the crisis from the economy itself to the political, ideological and cultural spheres. Agger argues: they draw from Marxism political economy and particularly from Marx’s theory of the capitalist state……. the neo-Marxian theory of the state attempts both empirically to document ways in which state intervention in the economy operates and also to articulate new crisis-problems that this state intervention engenders.5 The second is the new exploration of the crisis of capitalism represented by Leiss. This new exploration thinks that there are not only deep-seated contradictions in the process of capitalist production but also deep-seated contradictions in the way in which the process of production interacts with the entire eco-system. In one respect, the expansionist impulse of the capitalist production of commodities leads to environmental pollution and the continuous dwindling of resources, and in another respect, the modern form of rule leads

4  Ibid., p. 268. 5  Ibid., p. 270.

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people to become dependent on the alienated consumption of commodities. Agger points out that this ecological crisis-theory, or ecological Marxism as we prefer to term it, argues that the imperative need to limit industrial growth will create grave political pressures that may force a fundamental reevaluation of our goals and methods as an industrial-capitalist civilization, the theory of capitalist crisis is less sharply focused, if no less important, than the neo-Marxist crisis-theories rooted in an analysis of the state.6 Agger thinks that these two new explorations into the crisis of capitalism or two new theories of the crisis of capitalism complement one another. The theory of the state deals with capitalist power relationships while the theory of a small-scale non-authoritarian socialism, offered by ecological Marxism, provides state-analysis with a utopian dimension, allowing them to see beyond capitalism towards new social and economic structures. In this sense ecological crisis-theory works on a more utopian, future-oriented level than state-theory, which deals primarily with the description of class-and power-systems in monopoly capitalism.7 Agger also points out that in comparison with the theory of crisis put forward by those such as Habermas, ecological Marxism understands contradiction on a different, deeper level of advanced capitalism. It locates contradiction on the level of the basic tension between capitalist production and the ecosystem as a whole.8 Although Agger generally asserts that Marx’s original theory of the crisis of capitalism is both outdated and no longer acceptable, his demand that we re-explore the theory of the crisis of capitalism based on the new changes of capitalism is correct; He highly appreciates two of the new theories of crisis put forward by Western Marxists, in particular, the theory of the ecological crisis.

6  Ibid., p. 272. 7  Ibid., p. 273. 8  Ibid.

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Toward an Ecological Marxism

Agger thinks that it is in the process of reexploring the theory of the crisis of capitalism where ecological Marxism may take shape. The title of the last section of the last chapter of this book is “Towards an Ecological Marxism”.9 He also predicts that in the future, ecological Marxism will become the mainstream school of Marxism and a major Marxist theory guiding social change. He insists: “Large scale social change in the 1980s may take the form of ‘an ecological Marxism”.10 In Agger’s view, the basic viewpoint of ecological Marxism is confirming that the tendency of crisis in today’s capitalist society has been displaced into the sphere of consumption, replacing economic crisis with ecological crisis, this crisis springs from the inability of capitalism to maintain its present rate of industrial growth required to provision human beings with an endless stream of commodities provided in the interest of mitigating their alienation.11 He insists that the reason why ecological Marxism may be called a Marxism is “because it locates the causes of wasteful industrial production in the expansionist dynamics of capitalism; it does not ignore class structure”.12 But at the same time he stresses that ecological Marxism is not simply a repetition of the original Marxist viewpoint, but a development of the original Marxist viewpoint towards the future. He thinks that the key “crisis” in the original Marxist theory of the crisis of capitalism is the lack of a “needs theory,” which is essential for “post-socialism.” Ecological Marxism aims at proving that the propensity of crisis can engender a series of needs, and new needs, in turn, may transform into radical impetus for social change. This necessarily leads to critiquing the phenomenon of “alienated consumption.” and he proposes a theory of the structure of needs. He states:

9  Ibid., p. 316. 10  Ibid., p. 268. 11  Ibid., p. 316. 12  Ibid., p. 272.

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in our final reading on crisis-theory, we will develop an analysis of what we term ‘Alienated Consumption,’ the logical counterpart of alienated labor, yet, we content, a topic ignored by most Marxist.13 What Agger calls “alienated consumption” points to is contemporary capitalist society trying to warp the essence of needs in order to delay economic crisis, luring people into turning consumption under market mechanisms into true satisfaction, thereby leading to over-consumption. It shows that people tend to measure their level of happiness with the extent of their consumption, the result of which is this demand itself exceeding the degree of what nature can bear. He clarifies that: ecological Marxism involves two analytical perspectives: on the one hand, it assesses the environmental consequences of continued resourcedepletion and atmospheric pollution generated by the expansionist dynamics of capitalist commodity production; on the other, it attempts to assess modern forms of domination located in the way in which human beings become emotionally dependent on the alienated consumption of commodities, attempting to escape the authoritarian coordination and boredom of alienated labor.14 Agger thinks that the uniqueness of ecological Marxism is in bringing up “the dialectic of shattered expectations” as a model of social reform to replace the model of social reform rooted in traditional Marxism’s theory of the crisis of capitalism. And it is precisely this “dialectic of shattered expectations” that revitalizes traditional Marxism’s theory of the crisis of capitalism. He argues: ecological Marxism recognizes the genesis of new crisis-dynamics triggered by what we term below the ‘dialectic of shattered expectations-a process of sudden consumer disenchantment with capitalist production and consumption and the possible restructuring of our expectations about the meaning of happiness.15 What he calls “the dialectic of shattered expectations” contains the following four inseparable processes: First, contemporary capitalist society gains its legitimacy from humanity being able to expect the limitless consumption of 13  Ibid. 14  Ibid. 15  Ibid.

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commodities, which is to say that the legitimacy of contemporary capitalist society is based on stimulating people’s expectation of a limitless consumption of goods. Second, due to the ecosystem’s inability to support unlimited growth, the scenario where people mistakenly expect that capitalism can provide an endless, steady stream of goods is not sustainable forever, which therefore throws capitalist society into crises of supply and demand during ages of industrial prosperity and material abundance, which is to say that the ecological crisis of contemporary capitalist society necessarily translates into the crisis of supply and demand. Third, people are already accustomed to seeing their own expectation of that material abundance as compensation for alienated labor, and when the supply crisis arrives, their expectations are shattered, at which point they start to lose confidence in capitalism’s ability to infinitely satisfy humanity’s material desires, and then go on to doubt the entire capitalist system, at which point they start to reconsider what it is that people really need; Fourth, it is in the process of the shattering of expectation, in the process of rethinking what people truly need, that unexpected consequences arise, that is the destruction of many stale demands, ideas and values, and the production of new expectations, and ways to meet those expectations. It is in those human beings, whose expectations have been shattered, where new expectations are brought about. Facing the increasingly serious ecological crisis, people live in pessimism. Agger thinks that it is precisely ecological Marxism’s “dialectic of shattered expectations” that releases people from this pessimism. He states: “It is this dynamic process, termed here the dialectic of shattered expectations, that we find the most compelling impetus to socialist change.”16 The ecological crisis destroys many original demands and values, which makes many people bewildered about the future. Some people assume that humanity will soon give up modernized life, demanding people to spend more time on basic household chores, such as making toast for yourself, on walking instead of driving, on eating much less nutritious grain-fed meat and on eating much more ecologically less wasteful non-meat protein. For many people, this would seem like the end of the world. Ecological Marxism can help people dispel this misunderstanding, because Agger urges people to destroy their original demands and expectations, establish new demands and expectations, and help people go through a revolution of demands and expectations. Once people realize this revolution and establish new demands and expectations, optimism and an uplifting atmosphere will once again return to the world. 16  Ibid., p. 323.

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Agger here summarizes the basic views of ecological Marxism. From his account people can understand that the core of ecological Marxism is establishing that the ecological crisis is the main crisis of contemporary capitalist society and that the way out of this crisis is in eliminating alienated consumption and realizing the revolution of human demands. His most valuable point is in tying the fight to resolve ecological problems to the prospect of socialism, while promising people a bright future through “the dialectic of shattered expectations”.

Transforming Capitalism through Decentralization and Debureaucratization

Agger not only discusses the possibility of solving the ecological crisis and establishing socialism from the macro perspective, but also concretely points out how to go about this in contemporary capitalist society. He states: The aim of ecological Marxism is also twofold. It wants to plot a socialist future that breaks the hold of overproduction and overconsumption. Overproduction will be overcome by decentralizing and scaling down industrial production; overconsumption will be surpassed by providing human beings with meaningful, non-alienated work (in small-scale, democratically controlled associations of producers). Thus the argument is as follows: Ecological crisis will impel capitalists to scale down commodity production, and will urge human beings, through the dialectic of shattered expectations, as we have termed it, to restructure their needs and values and offer them the prospect of creative work and as a result liberation from unneeded (and ecologically harmful) consumption.17 We come to know from Agger’s words here that he specifies the resolution of the ecological crisis as the elimination of over-production and over-consumption, and thinks that the key to eliminating over-production and over-consumption is in implementing decentralization and debureaucratization. He insists that on the superficial level since today’s crisis of capitalism has been displaced to the sphere of consumption, it seems the solution to the crisis must also be carried out mainly in the sphere of consumption, but actually, the resolution of the crisis will react back on the sphere of production, and resolving the 17  Ibid., pp. 272–273.

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crisis should mainly take place in the sphere of production, namely, through small scale technologies and worker management and through promoting the debureaucratization and democratization of the production process. Of course, in his framework, decentralization and debureaucratization not only applies to technology and the process of production, but also to social and political processes. More precisely, transforming capitalist society in the direction of decentralization and debureaucratization not only will have the result of resolving the ecological crisis and protecting the ecological environment, but will also have the result of transforming the entire social, economic and political system. Agger discusses the social and political significance of decentralization and debureaucratization by using Schumacher’s concept of the new system of technology. The French economist of British origin, Schumacher analyzes some of the ills of the capital intensive and resource intensive industries of developed capitalist countries in the book Small Is Beautiful, and advocates an economic model of small-scale, decentralized, “appropriate technology” (namely, technology somewhere between advanced technology and traditional technology) to replace the currently existing large-scale, centralized economy. He also argues on a variety of moral and political grounds that bigger is not necessarily better, that only small is beautiful. In one respect, Agger makes use of Schumacher’s idea, and draws the conclusion that socialism is a decentralized and non-bureaucratic economy, but in another respect, he also critiques Schumacher for failing to connect small-scale technology to the reformation of the socio-political system, and for not adequately understanding the “chain linked nature” of technology and the social structure. He states, “we wish to ‘borrow’ Schumacher’s vision of a new kind of technological organization and put it to use within our radical theory of technology and ecology”, “by radicalizing Schumacher’s vision, we can uncover the sociopolitical significance of small-scale technology,” which, “[i]n the capitalist context, implies not only a reorganization of the technical process of capitalist industrial production but also a reorganization of the power relations of that social order.”18 Agger discusses the possibility of the debureacratization of industrial production by means of critiquing Weber’s sociology of rational bureaucratic institutions, according to which impersonal, hierarchical bureaucratic organization is the necessary condition of modern industrial society characterized by a highly specialized division of labor and top-down management, which is to say that bureaucratism and modern industrial production are necessarily tied together. Weber’s sociology of rational bureaucratic institutions 18  Ibid., p. 326.

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contains two presuppositions: First, hierarchy is necessary for modern industrial production; second, bureaucracy is necessary for a highly specialized division of labor. Agger objects to Weber’s sociology of rational bureaucratic institutions. He points out that Weber personally had reservations about how humane these hierarchical bureaucratic organizations could ultimately be, but the sociological tradition that he was led to was based on the so-called bureaucratic necessity of the industrial social system. Our concept of small-scale technologies is fundamentally opposed to Weber’s sociology of bureaucratic institutions, because we think that if the process of production decentralizes, we can democratically organize the process of production. In Agger’s view, the key to Weber’s bureaucratic society is to “help developed industrial production process of capitalist society centralization and bureaucratization.” He remarks that the goal of his critique of Weber’s viewpoint is to establish such a concept: “We believe that there is nothing intrinsic to industrial production that requires workers to be powerless with respect to a highly fragmented production process.”19 He stresses, It is our contention that there can be a democratically organized and coordinated production process developed in the context of small-scale technology that liberates workers from bureaucratic organizations, effective decentralization of industrial production would only lead to socialist change if it were accompanied by the abolition of the hierarchical organization of labor and the minute fragmentation of the working process.20 Agger integrates the analysis of the Yugoslavian model to explore the Marxist significance that worker management has for decentralization and de-bureaucratization. He notes that even though the Yugoslavian labor process still has not realized de-bureaucratization and there is still a fragmented division of labor and bureaucratization of power and decision-making, worker management in Yugoslavia has already taken a decisive step towards decentralization and debureaucratization. We can learn much about the possibility of radicalizing the conserver society from the Yugoslavian experience with workers' control and industrial self-management.21

19  Ibid., p. 328. 20  Ibid. 21  Ibid.

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Workers’ control defuses the utter centralization and politicization of the production process. In this way the concept of workers’ control ‘Marxizes’ our program of radical change via ecological crisis theory. It is the missing link between decentralization and debureaucratization.22 He insists that Marx’s viewpoint concerning socialist freedom implies that workers must directly participate in managing their own labor process under the conditions of communism. Worker management in the Yugoslavian sense has partially accomplished this goal. Marx gives equally important status to possessing the means of production and managing the means of production. The Yugoslavian model allows workers to connect the abstract goal of socialist ownership over the means of production to the model of politically decentralized structures. This is where the Marxist significance of the Yugoslavian model is found. Agger sees implementing decentralization, carrying out debureaucratization and practicing worker management as the only effective ways to eliminate the ecological crisis, transform capitalism and furthermore advance toward socialism. This view became one of the most widely influential and compelling claims of ecological Marxism in the 1970s and 1980s. This claim is not only theoretically weak in many respects, but is also practically impossible to implement. Because of this, by the time the 1980s and 1990s came around, even some of the representative figures of ecological Marxism came to reject this claim. All of the ecological Marxists of the 1980s and 1990s universally opposed the Schumacher doctrine, pointing out that under the present circumstances where the whole global economic system has formed an association that cannot be dismembered into independent, decentralized parts, and under the global circumstance where growing unemployment and energy shortages have become worldwide problems, small-scale, decentralized economies are unrealistic.

Combining American Populism with Ecological Marxism

Agger’s elucidation of ecological Marxism is always closely tied to North America and especially the actual American situation. A basic conclusion that he draws from studying ecological Marxism through integrating it with the reality of the United States is that ecological Marxism can and should be coupled with American populism. 22  Ibid., p. 329.

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He finds that the long-standing tradition of populism in American political life has harbored a deep-seated distrust in repressive rule and large enterprises. Born in the American populism of the 1870s, it initially began mainly with doubts about representative democracy, urging people to directly manage themselves, and its political ideal is decentralized and anti-nationalistic. After the 1968 revolutionary student movement, American populism presented some new features, but the basic stance that “people should be actively involved in deciding their own destiny” did not change. Agger thinks that populism can be seen as the synonym of “radical democracy.” He furthermore finds that American populism is very close to ecological radicalism, namely ecological Marxism is based on the three basic demands of decentralization, debureaucratization and worker management. This shows that ecological Marxism could fully take root in American soil. He argues, A neo-Marxisan ideology builds upon the frustration of workers with their dominated, coordinated lives, This ideology can conceivably grow on North American soil, joining traditional American populism with European Marxist themes, by itself, Marxism is foreign to American political culture, yet combined with the traditional populist underpinning of American life, Marxism can take on new life as an ideology that constructively confronts social and ecological crises with renewed vigor.23 He also points out that the combination of the theory of the state, that of class and ecological radicalism is particularly suitable to the environment in the United States, because American populism which is profoundly skeptical of massive centralized systems can ground this combination. It can prove to consumers that the demand to limit growth should not be seen as a heavy social cost, and should be regarded as the opportunity to radically transform society, thereby grafting populism onto Marxism. Disconnected from the Marxist tradition, the shattering of expectations caused by the inevitable decline in industrial production will not lead to radical reform. However, once populism’s dissatisfaction with modern life integrates into a critique that explains overproduction and environmental degradation as generated by the impetus of capitalist expansionism, it will demand a new ideological synthesis—a new ideology that is particularly suited to the culture and political soil of North America. In his view, this is why we graft ecological Marxism onto American populism. 23  Ibid., p. 275.

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Agger admits that the majority of Americans maintain distance from traditional Marxism. But he points out that this is due to their misunderstanding of Marxism, that is, Marxism is understood as essentially totalitarianism. But in fact, the contemporary form of Marxism—ecological Marxism is completely anti-totalitarian. Once they understand this point, they will become more welcoming toward Marxism, and will actively pursue the integration of populism and Marxism, which will bring a bright future to the United States. He states: This ideological synthesis will show North Americans that socialism can be legitimately decentralized, energy-conserving, non-bureaucratic, and respectful of civil liberties. At the same time, it can nudge Americans frustrated by overcentralization and overcoordination of work and leisure towards a socialist perspective, without which American populism would lack a vital Marxist dimension. Populism, by itself, lacks a sufficient critique of the class- and power- systems of North American society; it resents the powers-that- be (bureaucrats, politicians, professionals) but it does not explain how they can be effectively challenged or, indeed, abolished.24 So how do we go about grafting ecological Marxism onto American populism? Agger thinks that we should begin where both most fittingly agree, that is, with the critique of bureaucratization. Bureaucratization is based on the fractured division of labor, so to start with the critique of bureaucratization is to start with the critique of the division of labor. The critique of the division of labor is the bridge that enables communication between the two. Just as the relationship between capitalist and wage laborer is the fundamental economic relation of the capitalist system, in the spheres of consumption and culture, the most fundamental capitalist relation is the “division of labor” between experts and non-experts. Populism is dissatisfied with this professionalism and the working class does not feel anything good about it either. At this point the two can form a united front, in which case, the critique of professionalism can stimulate the all-around critique of the employment relationship. With the aid of this analysis Agger concludes that the critique of the division of labor is closely related to the goal of class struggle. The socialist program of ecological Marxism, that is, first advocating the democratization of expert knowledge and then gradually eliminating the division of labor is more likely to become the form of class struggle that breaks the hegemony of the bourgeois class in comparison with the traditional socialist program, which advocates first 24  Ibid., p. 276.

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returning the means of production to the workers. Agger thinks that if ecological Marxism joins hands with populism on this point of critiquing the division of labor and successfully turning it into a class struggle, Marxism will take root in the United States and will have a significant impact on the American people. He argues, The democratic ethos of American populism can be the point of departure for this radicalism, a dose of populism might also allow the Marxist tradition to be American in such a way as to build upon the traditional American mistrust of big government and expansive bureaucracies.25 Since in Agger’s view critiquing the division of labor and bureaucratization is the key to resolving the ecological crisis, and the integration of ecological Marxism and populism in the critique of the division of labor and bureaucratization is their integration in resolving the ecological crisis. Based on this understanding, he asserts: Thus populism (shattered consumer expectations) and Marxism (radical critique of capitalism) can be joined via an appreciation of the socialist possibilities opened up by attempts to resolve capitalist ecological crises.26 Agger thinks that Herbert Marcuse was the most successful at grafting ecological Marxism onto American populism. The American counter-culture movement of Marcuse’s theory starting in the late 1960s was a movement of integration of ecological Marxism with American populism. He particularly appreciates Marcuse’s book: An Essay on Liberation, especially the theory of “new sensibility” in it. He states: while many critics view Marcuse as hopelessly post-Marxist, his An Essay on Liberation is one version of how populism (via the American counterculture) and Marxism might meet and cross-fertilize.27 Agger calls the new Marxism formed by integrating ecological Marxism with American populism “North American Marxism.” And he summarizes the origins of “North American Marxist” thought as follows:

25  Ibid., p. 337. 26  Ibid., p. 339. 27  Ibid., p. 338.

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first, the critique of the U.S. Government’s problems of legitimacy and accumulation based on populism’s critique of highly repressive government and big business; second, the critique of the ecologically harmful effects of industrial overproduction and overconsumption; third, the critique of the rigid division of labor in the factory and office, based upon the populist-inspired critique of bureaucratic centralization.28 In the theoretical system of Agger’s ecological Marxism, the most attractive part is his account of the grafting of ecological Marxism onto American populism. He remains intoxicated with the construction of “North American Marxism.” Although this is but an exploration, and as many commentators have pointed out, it is but an overly romantic, utopian fantasy. 28  Ibid., p. 277.

CHAPTER 14

William Leiss: A Marxist Approach to Green Theory William Leiss is a famous sociologist in the United States, and an important representative of ecological Marxism. Leiss was the apprentice of Herbert Marcuse of the Frankfurt School, and Marcuse’s works on the theories of ecological revolution and natural revolution like One Dimensional Man, On liberation, and Counterrevolution and Revolt affected him deeply. One could say that Leiss is the main successor of Marcuse’s theory in this respect. He is the bridge between the Frankfurt School of Critical Theory and ecological Marxism. For this reason some also enlist him among the members of the Frankfurt School. He received his Ph.D. degree from the University of San Diego in the United States. From 1968 onward, ever since he went to the Institute for Environmental Studies at York University in Ontario, Canada, where he engaged in education and research work, Leiss followed the example of Marcuse, and moved continuously to the left wing of the ecological movement. The philosophical and sociological articles that he published on environmental and ecological problems in such journals as Philosophy Forum, International Social Science Journal, Purpose, and Canadian Public Administration were widely influential. He published successively Domination of Nature and the Limit of Satisfaction: An essay on the problem of needs and commodities, two books which became the most important works of ecological Marxism. The one who truly made Leiss famous was Agger. It is in Western Marxism: An Introduction where Agger formally brings up the concept of ecological Marxism, and introduces Leiss who at the time was still relatively unknown to the world, specifically introducing Leiss’s two works that Agger regarded as the representative works of ecological Marxism, namely Domination of Nature and the Limit of Satisfaction: An essay on the problem of needs and commodities. Agger thinks that Leiss is “one of the most articulate and systematic of the ecological leftists”.1 In this way, ecological Marxism together with Leiss and his two works became well known. The combination of ecology and Marxism, which became influential throughout the Left in the West during the 1980s, developed into a new social movement, and this owes much to Leiss in general and these two works in particular. 1  Ben Agger: Western Marxism an introduction, California Goodyear publishing company, Inc. 1979, p. 308.

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Leiss’s main contribution to ecological Marxism is clearly advocating the use of Marxism to look beyond green theory, while dedicating himself to the combination of Marxism and ecology. Beginning with Leiss, some ecologists came to publicly and explicitly declare themselves Marxist. In one respect, he insists on carrying on Marx’s theory of alienation, on critiquing exhaustively the capitalist phenomenon of the alienation of consumption and on foreseeing the fuse of social revolution to appear in the sphere of consumption rather than the sphere of production; in another respect, he also focuses on the construction of the model of ecological socialism, and explicitly raises demands of ecological socialism with respect to politics, economics, social life and ideology. Leiss published the Domination of Nature and the Limit of Satisfaction: An essay on the problem of needs and commodities in the 1970. Later he published a series of influential books, such as the Dilemma of Liberalism and Socialism (1988), Social Communication in Advertising (1986), the Impact of Technology (1990). etc.. Here we mainly analyze the viewpoints of the two books considered to be the representative works of ecological Marxism: the Domination of Nature and the Limit of Satisfaction: An essay on the problem of needs and commodities.

The Logical Connection between Controlling Nature and Controlling People

The Domination of Nature is Leiss’s masterpiece as well as the representative work of the entirety of ecological Marxism. The book unfolds an extensive and penetrating account of the historical, philosophical and social meaning of this idea of controlling nature; it gives a comprehensive account of the basic standpoint and viewpoint of ecological Marxism on the intrinsic logical connection between controlling nature and controlling human beings. A series of arguments presented in the book were widely absorbed by the left-wing of the ecological movement in the West. The book is divided into two parts: Part One “In Pursuit of an Idea: Historical Perspectives” examines the historical roots and evolution of the idea of controlling nature. He traces the contradictions internal to this idea back to ancient mythological traditions, namely the religious worldview and the alchemical viewpoint of the Renaissance: he also takes up the investigation of the contribution of Francis Bacon to the idea of controlling nature; he also analyzes all of the modern forms of the idea of controlling nature that emerged after the 17th century. Part two “Science, Technology, and the Domination of Nature” trenchantly discusses the

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intrinsic connection between controlling nature, science and technology and social progress according to three 20th century philosophers, that is, Max Scheler’s thought that science is the study of control, Husserl’s distinction between science, nature and the nature of the life world, and Horkheimer’s social critical theory. The last chapter “The Liberation of Nature?” is the focus of the book, and attempts to give a new interpretation to the idea of controlling nature. In addition, there is also an Appendix entitled “Technological Rationality: Marcuse and His Critics”. In the very beginning of the book, Leiss critiques superficial perspectives on ecological and environmental problems, namely seeing the resolution of environmental problems as merely an accounting problem of economic costs, and seeing quality of environment as a commodity that is buyable when the price is right. This is the view usually held by official institutions. He states that when environmental problems were brought to widespread public attention for the first time, official decision-making bodies acted quickly to determine the location of this problem within the framework of existing speech. At the behest of the official decision-making bodies, every large company quickly established a subsidiary company that promised to design products that can “clean” those that are harmful to the environment. The decision-making bodies have repeatedly pronounced the following formula to comfort people’s minds: “an environmental problem is basically a problem of economic cost,” “quality of environment is an attractive commodity among many others,” and as long as production costs go up and people survive the rising costs, environmental problems are not hard to resolve and people may totally buy a good environment with money. Leiss hits the nail on the head, pointing out: “There are two powerful social mechanisms at work: the universality of market-oriented standards and the lofty faith in the ability of industrial technological innovation.”2 He poses a series of questions to these official bodies: The fullest meaning of environmental quality is only a desirable commodity, which you can buy when the price is right, or does it merely guarantee that it does not hinder the rise of material satisfaction? Is it the ultimate decoration of an attractive merchandise mansion, a means of increasing the enjoyment of the product? It means that the motorboat can roam swim on the bright lake, busy customers can visit the fresh air of the downtown area one after another store, or means that city dwellers

2  William Leiss: The Domination of Nature, Beacon Press, Preface, 1974. See Chinese translation The Domination of Nature, Chongqing Publishing House, 1993, p. 2.

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can take his hot showers, flush toilets, refrigerators, electric stoves, stereo and TV to camp in the clean forest?3 He insists that attributing “environmental problems to problems of accounting economic costs” is actually a “trap”, and believing it one will become “prey falling into the trap”, and “the result is that the whole of nature is placed in the position of pure object in order to satisfy the needs of man.”4 Leiss celebrates that not everyone has fallen into this trap set by the official decision-making bodies. A deeper understanding of the underlying causes of environmental problems has led many to transcend official interpretations of the problem,” in this process every step forward, there will be more individuals and groups able to penetrate the official rationalization of the smoke screen to recognize the significance of the problem occurred. But Leiss points out immediately that when people break free of the traps set by the officials, they unexpectedly fall into another trap, which is the trap set by thinkers. Some thinkers chatter on endlessly about the notion that science and technology themselves are the root causes of environmental problems, that science and technology are objects that may be cursed, and that the worship of these false gods is the source of the ecological crisis and every disaster. Max Scheler is one of them. Leiss fiercely criticizes Scheler for tying science closely to the domination of nature. According to Max Scheler’s “theory of domination,” science is essentially a knowledge of control, scientific knowledge must exclude value judgments, and science devalues all of those things that do not help human being control things, while simultaneously holding to the priority of knowledge about those things among natural phenomena that fit the intention to control. Science itself entails the control of nature, which in turn expresses the essence of science. Leiss points out: The error in the view of Scheler and others which presents the scientific mastery of the world as a pragmatic enterprise is that it leaves the realm of human goals and purposes unanalyzed. It is simply not sufficient to show that the scientific investigation of nature and its technological

3  Ibid., pp. 2–3. 4  Ibid., p. 3.

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applications occur in an operational framework. The decisive question is, in what specific social context is it operational?5 “Scheler’s basic error is to refer to a composite drive for power without further analyzing its conflicting components; the latter provide the key for the understanding of the historical dynamic of the will to domination.”6 What Leiss means is the mistake that Scheler makes is speaking about the scientific domination of nature purely on the operational level in abstraction from the specifics of the socio-historical context, while never truly revealing the conflicting components of science in the process of dominating nature, and in this way he fails to understand “the historical dynamic of the will to domination.” So, Leiss concludes: “The concept of Herrschaftswissen is incomplete, for until the meaning of “domination” in this context is made much clearer, we will not be able to comprehend the sense in which science and technology function as instruments for the winning of mastery over nature.”7 Grounded in his analysis of Scheler and the others who view science and technology themselves as the domination of nature, Leiss explicitly states that the notion that the human conquest of nature is achieved by means of science and technology has been a view shared by thinkers for thousands of years, but “only by carefully appraising this thesis is it possible to show that the full dimensions of what is intended in the human mastery of nature have been obscured because of it.”8 In Leiss’s view, science and technology exercising the function of controlling nature in real society is only a phenomenon beneath which deeper things lurk. Scheler errs in “mistaking the symptoms for the cause,”9 and if you mistake the symptom for the cause you necessarily fall into the trap that thinkers set. In order to avoid this trap, the only way out is looking through the symptom in the search for the real cause. So, what at the end of the day are the real causes of the ecological crisis? Where is the key to resolving environmental problems found? Leiss explicitly points out on the grounds of revealing the two traps mentioned above: the true cause of the ecological crisis is the idea of controlling nature that has been passed down for millennia and pounded into people’s minds, and the key to resolving environmental problems is changing the idea of controlling nature 5  William Leiss: The Domination of Nature, McGill. Queen University Press, 1994, p. 117. 6  Ibid. 7  Ibid., p. 118. 8  Ibid., p. 101. 9  William Leiss: The Domination of Nature, Beacon Press, Preface, 1974. See Chinese translation The Domination of Nature, Chongqing Publishing House, 1993, p. 4.

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that people originally have. In his view, the idea of controlling nature is an ideology, which engenders environmental problems that increase by the day. This idea of controlling nature has the general characteristics of an ideology, and as a false consciousness, it is an indicator of basic social contradictions, it can be used to conceal these contradictions. Only by deeply understanding the nature and function of this ideology can we find a fundamental way to solve environmental problems. He thinks that science and technology are only powerful tools of this greater plan of controlling nature of which people are gradually becoming conscious.10 And if you understand this point, you can further know that science and technology at most are only tools of controlling nature, and what truly leads to the wanton exploitation of nature are the human ideas that deploy these tools, namely the ideology of controlling nature. The idea of the mastery of nature is based on the methodological separation of “nature” from “society.” This separation, of course, is as old as human society itself; but it is only in modern Western societies that it ascends to the position of the conscious principle guiding human behavior. Leiss borrows a passage from Cermas-Keswicky’s book On the Human History of Nature to illustrate the basic idea of mastery over nature: society is the only sphere of meaning and development, while nature is but the support structure of society.11 He also stresses that the concept of controlling nature is self-contradictory, it is the root causes of both its progress and its degradation.12 Now the problem is, first, people tend to only see its progressive side and ignore its degenerative side; Second, even if people see its duality, they cannot further see that its progressive side is weakening, while its degenerative side is growing. Leiss here attributes the ecological crisis and the root causes of environmental problems to the idea of controlling nature, which is a profound insight. He grasps the key to the ecological crisis and environmental problems from the perspective of ideological critique. Many ecological Marxists unfold the entire theory of ecological Marxism on the basis of this viewpoint from Leiss. When describing in greater detail the negative consequences of the idea of controlling nature, Leiss asserts that the greatest danger of this idea is not only in leading to the domination of nature but also in bringing about the control over human beings. In Leiss’s view, the key is that controlling nature is inextricably tied to controlling people. He states, “the hypothesis I am attempting to argue in this book 10  Ibid. 11  Ibid., p. 5. 12  Ibid., p. 6.

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is, these two aspects of control in their full historical development exist the internal, logical contact.”13 He also states that “the concept in the ‘conquest’ of nature to cultivate false hope hides one of the deadliest historical motives of the present era: the inseparable connection between the mastery over nature and the mastery over people.”14 This statement from Leiss’s contains two very important meanings: first, the idea of the mastery over nature has brought about the combination of domination over nature and domination over people; second, it is this combination of domination over nature and domination over people that constitutes the driving force of contemporary historical development. So how is controlling nature linked to controlling people? Leiss’s account focuses on this. He points out that one of the main functions of the idea of human mastery over nature, that is, its role as a major social ideology, is preventing the emerging awareness about newly developing forms of control over interpersonal relationships. This ideology of the idea of mastery over nature not only makes people see mastery over nature as natural, but also results in people becoming unaware of the existence of control in interpersonal relationships. The most fundamental goal of this ideology is not only the domination of nature, but also understanding and using all of nature (including human nature) as materials to satisfy the unsatisfiable desires of human beings. What is most important is not that “the unlimited expansion of organs of production have become its creed,” but that “the evaluation of its achievements for the value of all reasonable standards have been destroyed.” At the final stage of this goal, the only reason that production can be provided is that, many people can be led to believe that they really demand and need the latest goods available on the market. At this stage, the control of nature and people under the guidance of the social ruling class, is internalized into the individual psychological process; it is selfdestructive, because the mandatory characteristics of the consumption and behavior destroys human freedom, and denying the long and arduous efforts of mankind to emancipate from external coercive experience, this coercion marks the primitive relationship between man and nature.15 Leiss explains the intrinsic connection between controlling nature and controlling people through giving an account of Horkheimer, who once asserted 13  Ibid., p. 7. 14  Ibid., p. 6. 15  Ibid., p. 8.

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that the main role of reason in the process of the enlightenment was to act as an instrument of struggle for control. So where is this controlling function of reason manifested? Leiss argues that according to Horkheimer’s theory, It is first manifested as the mastery over the external nature. Reason becomes above all the tool by which man seeks to find in nature adequate resources for self-preservation. It separates itself from the nature given in sense perception and finds a secure point in the thinking self, on the basis of which it tries to discover the means for subjecting nature to its requirements.16 Leiss further points out that the profound part of Horkheimer’s theory is his account of reason’s mastery over external nature, when he binds it tightly to the mastery over inner nature. He states that the main point of Horkheimer’s theory was to reveal that the ‘mastery of inner nature’ is a logical correlate of the mastery of external nature. In other words, the domination of the world that is to be carried out by subjective reason presupposes a condition under which man’s reason is already master in its own house, that is, in the domain of human nature, it is already master, the mastery of the external nature is based on the mastery of the internal nature.17 Mastery over external nature manifests itself as technological progress; mastery over inner nature manifests itself as the modern form of personal selfrestraint and restraint of instincts that the process of social production needs. Personal self-restraint and restraint of instincts, that is, mastery over inner nature appears extremely reasonable and self-conscious due to being connected to mastery over external nature. Mastery over external nature is conceived for the sake of exploiting natural resources and ensuring people’s material welfare. In order to effectively enact such control, we must first enact restraint over our instincts, which is necessary to support the mastery over external natural causes. The more intense the desire to master nature, the more conscious individual self-restraint becomes. He states: The instinctual renunciation—the persistent mastery and denial of internal nature—which is required to support the project for the mastery 16  William Leiss: The Domination of Nature, McGill. Queen University Press, 1994, p. 151. 17  Ibid., p. 152.

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of external nature (through the continuation of the traditional work process for the sake of the seemingly endless productive applications of technological innovations) appears as more and more irrational in view of the already attained possibilities for the satisfaction of needs.18 Leiss highly appreciates Horkheimer for connecting the three characteristics of human history together, namely the control of nature, the control of people and social conflict. Social conflict is the factor that binds the control of nature and the control of human beings. He states: Through the attempted conquest of nature, therefore, the focus of the ongoing struggle of men with the natural environment and with each other for the satisfaction of their needs tends to shift from local areas to a global setting. For the first time in history the human race as a whole begins to experience particular clashes as instances of a general worldwide confrontation; apparently minor events in places far removed from the centers of power are interpreted in the light of their probable effect on the planetary balance of interests. The earth appears as the stagesetting for a titanic self-encounter of the human species which throws into the fray its impressive command over the forces of nature, seemingly determined to confirm the truth of Hegel’s dictum that history is a slaughter bench.19 Conflicts, exacerbated by technical control of nature, are in the process of pursuing new technologies for political control over people. The intensified struggle has made people more desperately oppose each other. In contemporary society, one can clearly see that the technical control of nature is transformed into manipulating people by manipulating demands. He states: “caught in the web of social conflict, technology constitutes one of the means by which mastery of nature is linked to mastery over man.”20 “In the process of globalized competition men become the servants of the very instruments fashioned for their own mastery over nature.”21 Leiss also notes that, because Horkheimer ties the mastery over nature tightly to the mastery over human beings, he necessarily and quite naturally sees the resistance of nature and the resistance of human nature as one and the 18  Ibid., p. 153. 19  Ibid., p. 158. 20  Ibid., p. 147. 21  Ibid., p. 158.

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same thing. The growing control over human beings through the development of new technologies of control over nature and human nature does not occur without resistance. Horkheimer puts forward the concept of “the revolt of nature” to analyze the problem. Leiss considers this to be a superior and creative concept, even though it still does not receive the attention it deserves. “The revolt of nature means the rebellion of human nature which takes place in the form of violent outbreaks of persistently repressed instinctual demands.”22 In Leiss’s view, one of the most valuable aspects of Horkheimer’s theory is the proposition that “The revolt of nature means the rebellion of human nature.” And the degree of this resistance is proportional to the degree of repression. He states: Greater pressures produce correspondingly more violent explosions; the magnified level of domination in modern society, achieved in respect to both external and internal nature (as we have seen, both make their effects felt in everyday social life despite their differing immediate objects), is also a measure of the heightened potential of the revolt of nature.23 As the revolt of nature is inseparable from the rebellion of human nature, the destruction of nature comes with a limit. He states, “The idea of the revolt of nature suggests that there may be an internal limit within the process of enlarging domination that was outlined above,”24 in a different sense the concept of the revolt of nature may be applied in relation to ecological damage in the natural environment. There is also an inherent limit in the irrational exploitation of external nature itself……. If it is the case that the natural environment cannot tolerate the present level of irrational technological applications without suffering breakdowns in the mechanisms that govern its cycles of self-renewal, then we would be justified in speaking of a revolt of external nature which accompanies the rebellion of human nature.25 Leiss reveals the intrinsic connection between control over nature and control over human beings with the help of Horkheimer’s account, on the basis of which he asserts that the revolt of nature entails the rebellion of human 22  Ibid., p. 161. 23  Ibid., p. 162. 24  Ibid., p. 163. 25  Ibid., p. 164.

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nature, which is worth acknowledging. This shows that he does abstractly investigate the relationship between humanity and nature, namely in abstraction from social relations. Leiss thinks that the idea of the domination of nature is an ideology that has had the most enduring influence in the Western world since modern times. This ideology universally obscures the connection between control over nature and control over human beings. The key is to recognize that this ideology is the most basic ideology of capitalist society. Throughout the history of civilization, it is not difficult to see that the first social system in which this ideology appears is that of Western capitalism. It is under the guidance of this ideology that capitalist society consciously breaks with tradition, and does everything possible to pursue the overthrow of all “naturalist” thinking and behavior, while simultaneously turning the development of productive forces for the satisfaction of the material needs of humankind into their overriding task. He insists that the ideological function of the idea of controlling nature has undergone a historical evolution. In the seventeenth century the function it exhibited was mainly a positive one, which was to help people eliminate hopelessness toward the possibilities of human technology, encouraging people to believe that human beings can fundamentally change the material conditions of life, and encouraging people to develop the critique of outdated scientific and philosophical doctrines. In those times, of course, this ideology also had negative aspects, which was only seeing modern science and technology as tools of controlling nature, while ignoring the intrinsic connection between the development of science and technology on one hand and social conflict and political domination on the other, but there is no doubt that it did not fully demonstrate such negative aspects, so it remained a potential. By the 20th century, the negative aspects transformed from a potentiality into an actuality. The idea of control over nature, once a creative and progressive ideology, became an impoverished and mysterious doctrine, and a real stumbling block to social development. He further reveals that the idea of controlling nature always portrays—in the name of the universal—controlling nature as the universal task of humankind, claiming that it would bring benefits to the entire human race, not just to a particular group; its basic objective was to remove the difficulties of the human plight. But as time passed, people believed less and less in this preaching about universality. He states: More than three centuries later, however, the goal remains immeasurably distant. The circumstances that thwarted its realization are a

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matter both of the defects in its conception and also of the specific social dynamic within which it developed…… As long as the original conception retains its efficacy, the contradictory aspects of mastery over nature will remain uncomprehended or at best only dimly perceived. Yet there are abundant indications that it will not continue to retain its efficacy in the coming years; its message of universality no longer elicits the same fervent response, and the paradoxical juxtaposition of the conquest of nature and the conquest of man appears increasingly sinister to many individuals.26 In the face of the growing exposure of the negative aspects of the idea of mastery over nature, and people continuously exposing this idea’s myth of universality, all sorts of new thoughts opposing the idea of the mastery over nature have emerged. Leiss focuses on two of these new thoughts, none of which agree with him. The first new thought is about “the liberation of nature.” Since the idea of mastery over nature is a dominant ideology in capitalist society, Leiss calls the new thought about “the liberation of nature” an “anti-ideology.” He argues that this “anti-ideology” of “the liberation of nature” took shape in accompaniment with the increasing exposure of the inherent contradictions of the idea of mastery over nature and people’s belief in it becoming shaken. People feel that mastery over nature does not seem to be the great enterprise of humanity, but the means to safeguard the interests of a specific ruling group, in which case, it is very natural to be hostily opposed to it. The problem is that, because in reality people oppose this idea under the premise of not truly understanding the inherent contradictions of idea of mastery over nature, people move from one bias to another, from blindly following the idea of mastery over nature to hating this idea, from “ideology to anti- ideology”. First of all, fascism once used this sort of anti-ideology. He states: Fascist ideology used the concept of nature in its ‘blood-and-soil’ theories as a weapon against rationalism: the realm of nature was glorified as the original and true source of feeling, inspiration, and action in contrast to the supposedly distorted conceptions arising out of intellectual reflection; a return to this source was alleged to supply a remedy for cultural sickness and a guide for correct behavior. Nature would be liberated from the shackles of civilization.27 26  Ibid., pp. 170–171. 27  Ibid., p. 172.

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Second, naturalist socialism, represented by “real socialism”, has also begged for such an anti-ideology. He states: the idea of the liberation of nature appeared in an ideological guise in the early stages of nineteenth-century socialist theory. Around 1840 a group of thinkers, among whom Ludwig Feuerbach was the seminal influence, framed their demands for socialism and communism in terms of a return to a ‘natural’ order. The new society would constitute the reversal of a process of etiolation, as it were, for according to them life and happiness are not separated in the realm of nature; they thought that society should conform to nature so that human aspirations might be realized.28 In particular, Leiss mentions Marx and Engels’ criticism of this real socialism in the German Ideology, which explicitly rejects this naturalist socialism. The second new thought is about “harmony with nature.” Leiss admits that this thought “has a certain temptation, indeed, as long as this idea is correctly expressed, that is not expressed as primitive worship and exclusion of all mechanization, but rather to eliminate the wasteful production and destruction of the environment, then this idea is still very valuable.” But he immediately points out again: when it is employed in dogmatic fashion merely as a slogan, as a means of expressing generalized displeasure with the prevailing behavior, it tends to become only a counter ideology and as such to lose most of its effectiveness as an oppositional force. Certainly this ideology is far less dangerous than its distorted fascist counterpart; but used merely as a slogan it causes the battle lines of social conflict to be incorrectly situated. The potential field of unification among individuals and groups in opposition to the prevailing system is needlessly reduced if people feel that they are faced only with a choice between total acceptance or total rejection of modern technology. The dogmatic mode that characterizes messages of salvation ultimately betrays the possibilities for rationally directed social change.29 In Leiss’s view, the idea of “harmony with nature” is, like the idea of “the liberation of nature” an anti-ideology, the negative side of which mainly shows in pushing people into the following dilemma: accept all of technology or reject 28  Ibid., pp. 172–173. 29  Ibid., pp. 173–174.

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all of technology, and of course, the final outcome is to weaken people’s unity in the struggle against the existing system. On the basis of critiquing these two popular new thoughts put forward against the idea of mastery over nature, Leiss discusses his new thought of getting out of the idea of mastery over nature. He insists that the key is not to fundamentally erase the idea of mastery over nature, but to give a new interpretation to this idea, to give it new meaning. He states, The idea of the mastery of nature must be reinterpreted in such a way that its principal focus is ethical or moral development rather than scientific and technological innovation. In this perspective progress in the mastery of nature will be at the same time progress in the liberation of nature, The task of mastering nature ought to be understood as a matter of bringing under control the irrational and destructive aspects of human desires. Success in this endeavor would be the liberation of nature—that is, the liberation of human nature: a human species free to enjoy in peace the fruits of its productive intelligence.30 He thinks that the analysis of mastery over nature from the moral perspective will make it clear that the most pressing challenge that humankind faces is not conquering nature, but developing the capacity to responsibly use the means of science and technology as well as the social system for the cultivation and protection of that capacity. Today people truly need a new idea, which is understanding mastery over nature as an advanced stage of human consciousness at which spirit can adjust its relationship with nature in such a way as to minimize the self-destructive aspect of human desires. He also states: “The secular foundations of the mastery of nature in this new sense would be a set of social institutions in which responsibility and authority are distributed widely among the citizenry and in which all individuals are encouraged to develop their critical faculties.”31 Leiss finally borrows the words of Walter Benjamin to express his new idea as “the mastery of the relationship between nature and humanity.” In his view, the mastery of nature should be correctly understood as the mastery of the relationship between humanity and nature. He states: At the end of a little book first published in 1928, Walter Benjamin remarked that we should not regard the essence of human technique as 30  Ibid., p. 193. 31  Ibid., p. 197.

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the ability to dominate nature. Rather, he suggested, we should view it as the mastery of the relationship between nature and humanity. Such an attitude would do justice to the subtle interplay of internal and external nature. Mastery of the relationship between nature and humanity, (a kind of mastery no longer bound to repressive demands arising out of the structure of domination in society) could bring to fruition the progressive hopes embodied in the original notion of the domination of nature.32 Leiss’s re-interpretation of the mastery of nature as mastery of the relationship between nature and humanity, is a profound insight which is worthy of attention. What he calls mastery of the relationship between nature and humanity, according to his description actually refers to the constraining of the irrational and destructive aspects of human desire, the responsible use of the power of science and technology, and the establishment of a social system capable of protecting the capacity of people to use the power of science and technology responsibly. These ideas fully demonstrate his fundamental position as an ecological Marxist. The problem is that while he gives a new interpretation to the idea of mastery of nature, he also stresses the need to think in terms of ethics and morality, which shows that his idea of mastery over the relationship between humanity and nature still comes with hints of utopianism. All of Leiss’s comments on the idea of mastery over nature are made under the banner of Marxism. In addition to trying to apply the Marxist standpoint, viewpoint and method to investigate the idea of mastery over nature, he also directly discusses Marx’s related theories. His discussion begins with the investigation of Marx’s concept of nature. He thinks that The concept of nature is one of the most important categories in all stages of Marx’s work. The interaction between man and nature through labor was for Marx the key to the understanding of history.33 “The natural science and industry of the nineteenth century represented the most highly developed form to date of the ongoing ‘theoretical and practical relation of men to nature’ ”, the difficult task which Marx posed for himself was to show that this relation had a twofold aspect whose individual sides, so deeply interrelated, had to be distinguished, “On the one side, man is himself a natural being, and his capacity for labor is only

32  Ibid., p. 198. 33  Ibid., p. 83.

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a form of nature’s energy; on the other, man seeks to transform nature so that his growing needs may be satisfied”. Leiss is concerned with this latter aspect. He cites a passage from Capital: He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces. setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural forces of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway.34 Leiss argues that Marx presents here in outline the dialectic of human being and nature. Nature is the “field of employment” for all human activity, the universal ground of the labor-process that is common to every form of social organization. In his activity man changes the natural world, but also is himself changed; his creative abilities unfold, opening up new possibilities for utilizing nature’s resources, and the process continues indefinitely. Leiss further points out that Marx envisaged a qualitative change in human development on the basis of the potentialities revealed by the industrial system already in the mid-nineteenth century. The replacement of labor-power by machinery would gradually free the individual from unending toil and allow the emergence of a new type of man. He quotes Marx to describe this new type of person in detail: He no longer appears so much to be included within the production process; rather, the human being comes to relate more as watchman……. In this transformation, it is neither the direct human labor he himself performs, nor the time during which he works, but rather the appropriation of his own general productive power, his understanding of nature and his mastery over it by virtue of his presence as a social body—it is, in a word, the development of the social individual which appears as the great foundation-stone of production and of wealth.35

34  Marx: Capital, Vol. I, p. 208. 35  Marx: The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, Collected Works. Vol. 31, People’s Publishing House, 2nd Edition, Chinese, pp. 100–101.

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Leiss quotes Marx’s original words as well as Marx’s accounts of the concept of nature and that of the relationship between human being and nature first of all in order to show that Marx himself also held a positive and appreciatory attitude toward the mastery of nature. Saint-Simon had, like Bacon, eulogized humankind’s use of knowledge to conquer nature, and “[c]onfidently predicted that the basis of industrialization will bring a better future for mankind” and that “in modern industrial and technological conditions, the development of external nature can fundamentally change the course of human history”. Leiss argues that Marx’s theory, in its own right, can be seen as the deepening and development of Saint-Simon’s view. He states that this dimension of Marx’s theory, if taken by itself, could serve as an elaboration of the Saint-Simonian outlook”, but since it offers only an account of the relation between man and nature, it is “abstract”, “What has been abstracted from is the dimension of class conflict which characterizes all of the more developed stages of the labor-process.36 Then Leiss immediately points out that Marx’s theory of nature and the interrelationship between human being and nature goes beyond SaintSimon’s point of view in sressing that the interaction between humanity and nature is not carried out spontaneously, but is a compulsive response to the formation of conflicts of interest, which is to say that when Marx gives an account of human being’s relationship to nature, he ties it tightly together with human being’s relationship to other human beings. In Marx’s view, at a higher level of productivity, the expression and satisfaction of demands manifests itself more and more as indirect adjustments of social factors, instead of that directly straightforward pushing. Marx wrote,37 Thus, in a capitalist society, people struggle with nature in order to meet their needs, but their struggle is in a prescribed way, that is, in the conditions of wage labor, this contrasts sharply with the struggles of other societies. Leiss argues that it is natural to draw the conclusion from Marx’s argument that, in capitalist society, on the issue of the true liberation of the relationship between human being and nature, we not only have to change the idea of human being’s mastery of nature, but also have to combine this change with changes in the capitalist mode of production. Leiss goes further in the analysis of Marx’s theory, and states abstractly that the level of human domination of nature at any time is the same for everyone, which is to say that it always manifests itself as a certain stage of development 36  William Leiss: The Domination of Nature, McGill. Queen University Press, 1994, p. 84. 37  Marx: Capital, Vol. III, People’s Publishing House, 2004, p. 861.

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that humanity itself reaches. Of course, in reality, the distribution of material goods obtained from dominating nature is always unfair. But what is similarly important is that, no matter what degree this human mastery reaches, the internal conflict of a certain social class division makes people’s system of production (of which mastery of nature is a part) such that it cannot possibly fall under the people’s control. And only in a classless society is it possible that the real case of human mastery over the system of production occurs. Marx wrote in the final section of Capital vol. 3: “Freedom in this field can only consist in socialized man, the associated producers, rationally regulating their interchange with Nature, bringing it under their common control, instead of being ruled by it as by the blind forces of Nature”. Engels added that under the conditions of socialism, for the first time, people would become “the true masters of nature, for, according to them, they became masters of their own socialization”.38 Leiss insists that Marx and Engels reach an extremely profound insight when they assert that human beings can only truly accomplish the reasonable assembly of the material exchange between themselves and nature in socialist society, where they can finally act as the masters of nature while simultaneously establishing a thought of the interrelationship between human being and nature which is in harmony with human nature; it is this insight which in Leiss’s view “gives Marx’s theory great power and internal consistency”, “because it can combine a different form of relationship between human being and nature with a theory of social change”.39 In Leiss’s view: In his (referring to Marx—cited by the note) own time he was justified in not presenting mastery of nature as an important individual social variable because (1) he expected that the general social consciousness of the proletariat would develop simultaneously with the domination of nature as a result of its labor-experience in industrial production, and (2) technology was not yet the source of false consciousness—a vital means of masking continuing injustice and class antagonism—within capitalist society that it was to become later.40 After his full affirmation of Marx’s view that only in socialist society can we eventually resolve the conflict between human being and nature, Leiss immediately adds that although Marx’s viewpoint is correct, it cannot serve as the starting point for today’s discussion. The reason is the development of history 38  Marx: Capital, Vol. III, People’s Publishing house, 2004, p. 928; Engels: Anti-Duhring, p. 392. 39  William Leiss: The Domination of Nature, McGill. Queen University Press, 1994, pp. 85, 86. 40  Ibid., p. 86.

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did not give birth to “the major change Marx foreshadowed”, which is to say that although socialist states were later established, these states also failed to resolve the conflict between human being and nature. He states: to say this is not to disregard the substantial achievements of the socialist countries; but Marx and Engels could not have anticipated the degree to which a globally unified social order has become the only possible framework for bringing the material interchange between man and nature under rational control. They could not have foreseen that scientific and technological innovation would become a decisive instrument in the bitter struggle between capitalist and socialist nations, or that the ‘process of socialization’ within socialism itself would be distorted in response to powerful military and ideological pressures emanating from capitalist societies.41 Leiss insists that these socialist countries failed to resolve the conflict between human being and nature not because the socialist system did not have the capacity to do so, that is, not because “socialization” does not work, but mainly because the capitalist societies used every possible means of interference and destruction. And thus we cannot claim that Marx’s assertion is wrong that only in a socialist society, only in the “socialized” state can we resolve the conflict between human being and nature simply on the grounds that these socialist countries failed to resolve the conflict between human being and nature. On the question of the profound relationship between ecological socialism and Marxism, there are two opposing views: one is to deny that Marx’s work contains the theory of ecological socialism, believing that the strong industrialist and scientistic tendencies in Marxist theory are incompatible with the theory of ecological socialism; the second is to insist that Marx’s writings contain the perspective of ecological socialism, and that Marx was the earliest ecological socialist. Leiss holds the latter view. He correctly exposes Marx’s ecological socialism through his discussion of Marx’s concepts of nature and the relationship between human being and nature. What is commendable is that while he highly affirms Marx’s theory of ecological socialism, he also realistically analyzes some of the self-contradictory areas in Marx’s works. He points out for example that Marx and Engels subjected the efforts of this circle, whom they labeled the “true socialists,” to a lengthy critique in their joint work, The German 41  Ibid., pp. 85–86.

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Ideology (written 1845–46). There they explicitly rejected this naturalistic socialism; but Marx’s 1844 manuscripts reveal how close he himself had been to that group’s position only a short time before.42

Human Satisfaction Ultimately Lies in Production, Not in Consumption

Four years after the publication of the Domination of Nature, Leiss wrote the book the Limits to Satisfaction: an essay on the problem of needs and commodities, which can be considered the sequel of the Domination of Nature. In the field of ecological Marxism, the book is even more influential than the Domination of Nature. After 1980, the views of ecological Marxism come largely from ideas in this book. Revolving around the concept of satisfaction, the book explores the difference between human being’s true needs and false needs, and satisfaction in what sense is finally true satisfaction; he fiercely critiques all of the harms that the satisfaction which people ordinarily seek in modern capitalist society brings to nature and people themselves. The most attractive part of this book is the comprehensive exposition of the relationship between demand and commodity in advanced capitalist society and state socialist society respectively. Many people echoed his call for the Marxists of today and tomorrow to pay more attention to the relationship between nature and society. The book also explores all kinds of alternative programs to a “highly intensive market layout”, such as proposing the idea of establishing “a conserver society”. The book largely inherits and develops some of Marcuse’s theories in One Dimensional Man, Counterrevolution and Revolt and other works, which shows that Leiss is indeed unashamedly Marcuse’s student. Leiss draws attention to John Stuart Mill’s account of stable economies in Principles of Political Economy written more than 100 years prior. Mill advocated a stabilization of economic progress and population growth. Mill warned people that the productive capacities and population level existing at that time need not expand any further. Although Mill recognized the gross inequities in the distribution of life’s amenities and in the opportunities for self-fulfillment among the population, he did contend that these could only be remedied by more rational forms of social organization, and that the simple hope of quantitative increase, namely increases in the total quantity could not possibly solve the problem; he maintained that quantitative increase would not necessarily improve the lot of humankind as a whole. Leiss believes that Mill’s “correctness 42  Ibid., p. 173.

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has been proved.” He highly appreciates Mill’s assertion “that a turn from quantitative to qualitative criteria was the primary desideratum for further social progress.”43 Ever since Mill established the theory of stabilization of the economy, Leiss fiercely criticizes that the predominant traditions of social thought have maintained a conspiracy of silence with regard to Mill’s suggestion, this theory was “sidelined”. In his view, precisely because no one paid attention to Mill’s theory, the result is today’s industrial societies, whether socialist or capitalist, are out of control. He thinks that modern industrial societies generally have the following characteristics: energy demands increasingly rise; production and population become increasingly concentrated; functions are more and more professionalized; a greater and greater variety of commodities for human consumption. These new features of the industrial society that emerged after World War II need the support of a considerable amount of energy and mineral resources, but whereas before people could still get sufficient quantities of cheap energy and mineral resources, these things today are now increasingly scarce, and even if there are still some left over, the cost of mining is expensive to say the least. Leiss believes that in this case, the continuous pollution of the environment and the intensification of the ecological crisis is inevitable. Facts have proved that modern industrial society can hardly sustain itself any longer. Leiss notes that, in the face of the deteriorating state of ecology, finally there are some people in Western society who have started to mention Mill’s theory. But he points out that “this recent discussion, however, only tends to confirm Mill’s fear that the idea of the stationary state would be taken seriously only in response to pressing necessity, rather than being freely adopted as a desirable framework for qualitative improvement”.44 Leiss completely disagrees with some in Western society who regard Mill’s theory as expedient measures to resolve urgent matters instead of an effective pathway to the ideal society. He also asserts that, out of this consideration of Mill’s theory, the possible case of solution to creating the stationary state economy proposed by these people is to establish an authoritarian world government. In the book Exploration of the Human Prospect, Heilbroner insists that only by establishing an authoritarian World Government and greatly increasing State intervention in the domestic economy, can we achieve a global stationary system. Leiss thinks that these people plan to create stationary economic programs precisely in accordance with Heilbroner’s viewpoint. Under such programs, “[i]n a situation of bitter competition over the disposition of resources and wealth, the coming of the 43  William Leiss: The Limits to Satisfaction, Toronto, 1976, p. 104. 44  Ibid.

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stationary state may occasion heightened conflict and attempts at authoritarian political solutions as Heilbroner has intimated.”45 Is there a better plan to achieve the stationary economy? Leiss thinks that such a program does exist, and the program that ecological Marxism proposes is an ideal one. The main point of this plan is just Mill’s theory, which insists “that the stationary state would afford an opportunity for qualitative improvement”. He also believes that this program, in addition to inheriting Mill’s theoretical viewpoint, also represents an ideologically unorthodox “hidden tradition,” and thinkers who belong to this tradition include Fourier, Marx, Ruskin, Morris, Kropotkin, Bookchin, Fromm, Illich, Goodman, Macpherson, and Marcuse. Leiss thinks that ecological Marxism’s solution which belongs to this tradition is based on such a basic Idea: the prospect of human satisfaction must be rooted in creating a well-functioning sphere of common activity and decisionmaking that enables each person to forge the means to satisfy his or her own needs. He states, “these thinkers were never exclusively preoccupied with the high-intensity market setting as such. The common focus of their positive ideals has been the assertion that a social transformation could make possible a rich dimension of genuine satisfaction in both the labor activities and the free time of all individuals.”46 He asserts that for this tradition, qualitative differences in the mode of organization of socially necessary labor, and the relation of this labor to play and leisure activities, are the decisive element in the problem of satisfaction that arises in various forms of production and consumption activities. the organization of labor through a network of nonhierarchical, community-based associations, for example, would constitute a concrete form of social practice very different from the prevailing one. Such a decisionmaking structure would allow individuals to determine their needs under conditions of freedom and autonomy. Leiss insists that “what is most important for this tradition is a change in the mode of expressing and satisfying needs, not a definition or predertermination of an alternative set of needs as such.”47 Leiss states very clearly here that inheriting the solution of the unorthodox tradition of ecological Marxism which includes Mill of course focuses on the reform of human needs, and 45  Ibid. 46  Ibid., p. 105. 47  Ibid.

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revolves around needs, but it is not a pre-determined set of new needs that can replace current needs, and instead it changes the ways of expressing needs and satisfying needs. He thinks that “as the outcome of qualitatively different conditions of life, the new structure of needing could not be specified in advance.”48 He does not deny that in order to eliminate the ecological crisis it is necessary to first create a new structure of needing but he believes the new structure of needing can only be produced in living conditions that differ from today’s, and this must start with changing the current conditions of life and ways of life. Ecological Marxism’s theory of needs is a “theory of negative need”, whose negativity is in the negation of the current conditions of life, and “negation” is the “essential element” of this tradition. Leiss here proposes Mill’s theory of stationary state economy and correctly reveals the consequences that ignoring Mill’s theory brought about, and also rightly criticizes the current idea in the West which ties the realization of the stationary state economy to the establishment of authoritarian world government. On these grounds, he comes up with ecological Marxism’s case of solution to establishing the stationary state economy: turning from quantitative to qualitative criteria, and changing the way you express your needs and satisfy your needs. His solution perfectly expresses the fundamental theory of ecological Marxism, and has had profound influence not only on ecological Marxists but also on Western academia as a whole. Indeed, this solution provides contemporary people with useful inspiration to resolve ecological problems and to get out of the predicament of modern industrial society. When Leiss asserts that ecological Marxism establishes the case of stationary economy, he also makes the account of what human satisfaction is. He critiques modern industrial society’s idea of equating satisfaction with endless material consumption. He points out that modern industrial society is leading people to the following way of life and way of being: people live in city skyscrapers, their energy supply, food and other necessities as well as the treatment of their waste all rely upon a massive and complex system, and at the same time, people mistakenly believe that growing consumption appears to compensate for the setbacks they suffer in the other areas of life, particularly in the area of labor; so people frantically pursue consumerism so as to vent their discontent. Consequently, consumption is equated with satisfaction and happiness; in other words, quantity of consumption is the only measure of their own happiness. Leiss notes that tying consumption to satisfaction and happiness is evidence proving the alienation of modern industrial society. In order to reach the end of controlling human beings, modern industrial society 48  Ibid.

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does not hesitate to make every aspect of human life dependent on centralized bureaucratic systems. It tries to make people eliminate and numb the frustration and misery they suffer in labor through the channels of consumption. Such means of satisfaction are not only the basis of legitimacy of the welfare state, but are also the source of the ecological crisis. Leiss insists that we must change the idea of equating consumption with satisfaction. The progressive idea of social change that runs throughout the works of Fourier, Marx and Marcuse present the following understanding: human satisfaction should be sought in the activities that they can engage in, which is to say that human satisfaction ultimately depends on productive activity. He states: “the possibility of satisfaction would be primarily a function of the organization of productive activity, and not primarily a function of consumption.”49 If people understand that continuously increasing consumption cannot possibly compensate for the setbacks suffered in other areas of life, they will then think that the prospect of progressive social change depends on other spheres outside of the sphere of consumption and that satisfaction and happiness can be achieved in the spheres of life beyond that of consumption. Leiss furthermore points out that the basic needs of human being are multifaceted and the means of satisfying those needs are extremely plentiful, so there is fundamentally no need for overly specialized goods and services to satisfy them. “On the level of individual activity, the possibilities of satisfaction in an alternative setting would be related to overcoming the extreme specialization of work in the provisioning of goods and services and a consequent limitation of the sphere of commodity exchange.”50 He borrows the words of Ivan Illich to say that human being possesses a “sociable characteristic”, and the social structure that people hope to establish is “based upon ‘autonomous and creative intercourse among persons, and the intercourse of persons with their environment.’ ” The goal of a convivial society is gradually to dismember the massive institutional structures of the industrialized economy and to reduce, as far as possible, the dependence of individuals on them: people have a native capacity for healing, consoling, moving, learning, building their houses, and burying their dead. Each of these capacities meets a need. The means for the satisfaction of these needs are abundant so long as they depend primarily on what people can do for themselves, with only marginal dependence on

49  Ibid. 50  Ibid., p. 106.

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commodities. These activities have use-value without having been given exchange-value. Convivial society will encourage all individuals to directly engage in production as much as possible. Leiss states: The current organization of producing and consuming activity inhibits the development of the individual’s talents and capacities for participating directly in activities that provide the means for satisfying a wide range of needs (building a home, growing food, making clothing), and instead orients his activity exclusively around market purchase.51 In Leiss’s view: The current organization of producing and consuming activity inhibits the development of the individual’s talents and capacities for participating directly in activities that provide the means for satisfying a wide range of needs (building a home, growing food, making clothing), and instead orients his activity exclusively around market purchase. The main way to do this is to create all kinds of conditions to make people engage in all kinds of activities. Of course such labor is not the activity of following other people’s orders, which cannot be considered real labor; real labor should be labor that freely and creatively realizes oneself. This is to say that such labor is completely different from those highly fragmented procedures often seen engaged in on the assembly line or in the office. A highly fragmented division of labor makes but a one-sided, lopsided development of the people, and makes the will of the people to become distorted. Leiss still insists that society concentrating on the sphere of production and making people win happiness and satisfaction in the process of engaging in autonomous creative labor does not mean forcing everyone to adopt a particular uniform way of life; instead it allows people to have many more other attractive options than now. The policy-making that today focuses on investment in consumption can only lead to a single choice, namely a highly intensive market setting based on a concentrated urban population. Once the focus has shifted to how to make people find satisfaction in productive activities, people will be able to access an ideal living environment, which is extremely attractive to every individual. If the investment direction of modern society 51  Ibid.

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does not force people to live a single model of life, each individual could have a wide range of freedom of choice. “Under these circumstance individual could choose, for example, trade off at diverse levels the satisfactions gained by personal activity in the production of everyday requirements against the satisfactions of consumption in a generalized market setting.”52 Leiss thinks that concentrating attention on the sphere of production rather than on that of consumption is by no means simply a matter of shifting people’s attention, but one of creating an environment that can spur people to directly participate in activities related to the satisfaction of their own needs. The process of creating this environment is also the process of resolving the ecological crisis. The most effective way to solve the ecological crisis is to enable human beings to satisfy their needs in the sphere of production. Humanity’s good sense of responsibility is guided by experiences of untamed nature. Today, the deteriorating ecological environment makes the center of people’s concern shift to ecological survival. The problem of the pressure of human needs upon the ecological environment now has reached such a degree that we must see the problem of human need as an inextricable component of a much larger system of ecological interactions. Because of this we must tie together reducing human needs and changing the way of life of elevated consumption with giving rich meaning to every personal work activity and free time activity, and as far as possible make people rely on their own two hands to satisfy their own needs. Saying that human satisfaction is ultimately found in the sphere of production includes two layers of meaning: first, achieving self-realization through participating in directly productive activities makes people truly live creatively and moreover live richer and more colorful lives, in which people find enjoyment. Second, since this production is not undertaken for the sake of supporting vicious consumption, since the direct link between production and consumption is severed, and since this production is grounded in reducing the productivity of capitalism, the result of this production is not growing opposition to nature but establishing a harmonious relationship with nature, and humanity in this new relationship will feel inestimable satisfaction and happiness. Leiss’s assertion here that human satisfaction ultimately lies in productive activities and not in consumption activities is a very pointed insight. The concrete arguments he makes are convincing, especially his two points explaining how human beings find true satisfaction in the sphere of production. Leiss demands people to change their idea of needs, to shift from the quantitative standard to the qualitative standard, and to strive to find satisfaction 52  Ibid., p. 108.

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in the sphere of their own productivity. In this way, will it not bring about the deterioration of civilization, will it not bring people back once again to that poor and harsh living environments, and force everyone to live a monotonous, ascetic way of life? In response to these questions, many clarifications are made. In Leiss’s view, modern civilization is tied to commodities and market exchanges, and the affluence of modern people is also established on the basis of commodities and market exchanges, so if you want to know whether or not reorganizing your way of life according to his program will bring about poverty, this first of all depends on the attitude towards commodities and market exchange. He states: “there is nothing inherently evil in commodities and market exchange as such, and there is no reason to believe that it would be desirable to extirpate them completely.”53 His solution is not to eliminate commodities and market exchange. What he wants to eliminate is, commodity exchange tends to become the exclusive mode for the satisfaction of needs, and what he objects to is the attempt to specify a universally valid pattern for the relative significance of market changes in the overall economic calculus of every society. He states: we may assume that the degree of significance of commodity production will vary widely according to specific historical circumstance and variations in social organization and personal desires. There need not be any uniform pattern even within a particular society, if that society is sufficiently decentralized to allow wide variations in the choices available to its members. The simple rule governing such choices may be stated as follows: reliance on access to complex manufactured objects through market exchanges is inversely related to the degree of local, direct control over the means of satisfying needs.54 In Leiss’s view, in the program of life that he designs, since the degree of direct control over the means of satisfying one’s needs grows continuously, the degree of one’s dependence on market exchange to obtain complicated products will greatly weaken, but weakening is not equivalent to completely disappearing. There is no doubt that the importance of commodity and market exchange in the future of human society will not be as great as before, but we must avoid the extreme of completely ignoring their objective existence.

53  Ibid., p. 106. 54  Ibid.

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The elevated development of science and technology is the symbol of modern civilization, and the material wealth of modern civilization is mainly created by science and technology. In order to prove that organizing human life according to his proposed program will not lead humanity into poverty, Leiss describes the status of science and technology in his program. He insists that he is not against science and technology, nor is he against enjoying the fruits of modern science and technology, but only wants to change that current way of using science and technology, and make the use of science and technology move toward decentralization. He points out that “promotion of a stultifying uniformity in types of material objects and life-situations, both within and among nations is one of the primary tendencies of generalized market exchange in industrialized economies.”55 What Leiss is talking about here is “globalization”, which he clearly holds a negative attitude towards, using the word “ridiculous” to describe it. The problem is how this “ridiculous” “globalization” is brought about? He states that this is not a necessary result of technological progress itself, but is rather a function of the social policies that favor massive, centralized technologies of production over intermediate and small-scale technologies. The pattern of public and private investment which results from such policies concentrates productive resource and undermines the viability of any social and economic activity outside the metropolis that is not directly connected to the organizing centers of production.56 In his view, “globalization” is not the product of technology, but is brought about by the centralization and monopolization of technology, so his opposition to “globalization” is not opposition to technology itself, but instead to the centralization and monopoly of technology. Then he follows saying: the objective of an alternative social policy would not be to return a large portion of the population to the harshness of circumstance which in the past often characterized life in the hinterland, but to disperse the advantages of modern technology-deliberately sacrificing some of the dubious ‘efficiency’ of centralized production—over a wider variety of situation.57

55  Ibid., p. 107. 56  Ibid. 57  Ibid.

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The dispersal of the use of technology is precisely the dispersal of capital investment. The current standard of living in rural areas is much lower than that in the cities, and the effective way to change the state of the rural poor will not be to urbanize, to make the city swallow up rural areas, but to disperse technology and capital across the countryside, to make the countryside itself shape up into ideal living environments. The main feature of the way of life of current social policy is concentration. Every aspect of this life situation is energy intensive: heating and cooling of buildings, mechanized agriculture, transportation, manufacturing of commodities, and recycling of waste products. Huge investments for the continued provisioning of fossil fuels and now for nuclear generating plants will be required to sustain it. Those investments could be redirected to the support of efficient technologies for alternative ideals, for example the small dwelling or group of buildings which relied upon solar and wind energy sources, greenhouses, and the recycling of nutrients from waste to provide a high proportion of the basic requirements of daily life. Thus, it could overcome some of the disadvantages formerly imposed upon scattered smaller communities, due to the concentration of capital and technology. If this is done, then there is no doubt that under alternative policies the positive features of industrialization and sophisticated technologies could offer to contemporary society a luxury not available to earlier societies, namely the ability to sustain a variety of life-situations that are more equally attractive for individuals.58 Leiss also notes that, given that those who oppose the program he proposes and the tradition that this program carries on accuse the Idea and values of this program “primitive” and “reactionary,” it is necessary from the outset to make it clear that the program he proposes “does not seek to glorify any earlier state of social development as a golden age to which we should return.”59 He denies that his own Idea and values are “primitive” and “reactionary.” He insists that even though this program “does not necessarily assume that any other earlier social pattern achieved a better realization of that ‘autonomous and creative intercourse’ among persons and between persons and their environment of which it speaks,” we do see some merits in early social models, so it proposes 58  Ibid., p. 108. 59  Ibid., p. 109.

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absorbing these merits into modern society. “What it has suggested is that the present form of producing and consuming activity (including our dependence on energy-intensive, large-scale industrial technology) discourages the growth of personal autonomy, creativity, and responsibility,” and it is these production and consumption activities that he objects to. Even though these production and consumption activities were expressed somewhat in past societies, there is no doubt that “some of the achievements of modern industrialism have opened up new possibilities for their expression and realization.” He states: we need not adopt the stance that our existing society represents a scene of unrelieved repression of individual self-fulfillment nor that any set of alternative proposals promises an instant and complete cure for all the ills of humanity. My own assumptions here are simply that the time when we could afford to indulge ourselves in certain illusions about the prevailing pattern is fast running out, and that recalling the challenge of an alternative tradition can broaden the range of the future options which we may wish to consider.60 Aiming directly at all of those accusations against the ecological Marxist program of social reform which mainly consists of changing people’s idea of consumption, turning from quantitative to qualitative criteria, and focusing on production activities rather than consumption activities, all of these notes are entirely necessary and timely. The program of social reform of ecological Marxism that Leiss draws up does not advocate returning to the primitive state of man or giving up all achievements of modern civilization, but only attempts to change the ways of some of its production activities and consumption activities and it is certainly convincing. Leiss proposes the goal of establishing a “conserver society.” He points out that after experiencing another century of ‘development’ we can give a more precise general guideline for a decisive shift in the direction of social change than could Mill. This is to create “the conserver society.” He explains this society in the following way: the conserver society is the ensemble of social policies in the industrially developed nations whose objective would be to lessen the importance of commodities as factors in the satisfaction of human needs and to minimize per capita energy and materials demands. Most future technological innovation would be designed to assist the realization of this objective 60  Ibid.

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and to combat the accumulated effects of residual industrial wastes in the environment. One further points is especially important: the transition to the conserver society would represent a form of social progress only if a series of related policies, such as the gradual overcoming of the endemic poverty that persists even in the richest industrialized nations, were an integral part of the object stated above. If this were not the case, quite obviously the conserver society would simply be another form of impoverished existence for the disadvantaged elements in society.61 According to his explanation in this paragraph, what he calls the “conserver society” is one which minimizes energy use per capita and tries not to turn commodities into the main factors in satisfaction of human need, one where the use of all technology and the making of all policy serve this goal. This society represents progress rather than poverty. He also sums up “the conserver society” into the following two points: First, it is not an end in itself, but rather an organizing frame of reference for a reorientation of social policy away from quantitative criteria of well-being and toward qualitative criteria. Therefore it should be conceived positively as an intensely dynamic phase of social reorganization; Second, it is unimportant whether at any particular time the conserver society is characterized by an economic situation of growth, stabilization, or decline in the gross National Product, for the situation must vary with particular circumstances and needs. The primary desideratum is a reallocation of resources and a reorientation of policies so that the problem of the satisfaction of needs is no longer viewed exclusively as a function of consumption activity. There is a growing tendency among individuals and social agencies, for example, to pay more attention to job satisfaction and shared decision-making in production activity. People will increasingly gain satisfaction through engaging in ideal occupations and participating in decision-making in productive activity. Leiss particularly highlights the following points with the help of Mill’s account of the “the conserver society”: First, strict enforcement of standards of fairness and social justice. Of course, not absolute social equality, but a ‘wellpaid and affluent body of laborers,’ limitation on the accumulation of wealth, and modest income for those engaged in the intellectual pursuits; Second, population would stabilize. The first point, Leiss fully approves, and the 61  Ibid., p. 111.

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second point, he adds a supplementary explanation. In Leiss’s view, even if we realized what Mill called population stabilization, that is, even if the desirable level of population had been reached almost everywhere on the planet, it still would not satisfy people. The point is that in such a world, there is nothing left for the spontaneous activity of nature; with every rood of land brought into cultivation, which is capable of growing food for human beings; every flowery waste or natural pasture ploughed up, all quadrupeds or birds which are not domesticated for man’s use exterminated as his rivals for food, every hedgerow or superfluous tree rooted out. In this case, a simple reference to population stabilization is not enough, harmony between human being and nature must be emphasized as well. He states: Today there are different reasons for recalling Mill’s concern for the relation of man and nature in the context of a ‘conserver society’. The relentless expansion of industrial production and human numbers has rudely shifted the locus of concern from aesthetic education to biological survival. The problem of the impact of human demands on the natural environment has now reached such a magnitude that we must consider the question of human needs as an integral part of a large network of ecological interactions.62 Leiss insists that the necessity of establishing a “conserver society” comes from the following indisputable fact: an unlimited expansion of material production and its supporting infrastructure, more elaborate large-scale technologies, higher energy demands, centralization of production and population, increasing specialization of functions, and a wider assortment of commodities. The negative aspect of this ideal introduce certain dangers whose potential dimensions are so vast that it may be impossible to deal with them effectively once their nature becomes evident. In his view, there are two ways to deal with this situation: The first approach is to uphold the idea of social life in the form of an elevated consumption lifestyle for as long as possible in the face of the emergence of constraining factors. Because that standard of life which is measured on the basis of the accumulation of goods is no longer possible, and because 62  Ibid., p. 113.

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instead of that standard rising it will only get worse, existing inequalities will continue to exist and may get even more severe. Since the operative principles of this social ideal is the tendency to channel all desires and aspirations toward the sphere of consumption, anxieties and frustrations would be exacerbated as the realm of promised satisfactions shrank. Social tensions would increase rapidly, because the general level of material expectation is so much higher now than it was in the past. Leiss points out that: “to maintain that ideal under such circumstances would inevitably require the imposition of more repressive and authoritarian forms of political rule, managed by the agents of the privileged minority.”63 Another way is open, although greater courage and foresight are necessary in order to follow it, the talents and instrumentalities required for undertaking the journey already exist. One aspect of this way involves the development of alternative situations in which more direct and personal participation in activities related to the satisfaction of needs is encouraged, in opposition to the prevailing tendency to route all aspects of needing through the increasingly ambiguous would of commodities. Leiss stresses:” if this alternative is to have any chance of success, the first steps in this direction should be taken now, before the accumulating confusions and frustrations that arise in the existing system produce a mood of sullen despair among the citizenry.”64 This quickly establishes “the conserver society.” Leiss’s idea of establishing “the conserver society” expresses the social ideal of ecological Marxism. Although this is a very vague social ideal, even with the obvious tinge of utopianism, because this vision fully expresses the conscious negation of the prevailing capitalist system, and is intricately connected to Marx’s theory of the liberation of labor and the whole-sided development of human being, it certainly has some progressive meaning.

63  Ibid., p. 110. 64  Ibid., p. 111.

CHAPTER 15

Herbert Marcuse: The Marxist Path to Ecological Revolution Ecological Marxism took shape throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s, and the Frankfurt School made a decisive contribution to the formation of ecological Marxism, particularly the school of Herbert Marcuse. In On Emancipation and Counter-Revolution and Revolt, Herbert Marcuse explains in detail the relationship between human being and nature in Marxian theory, and demonstrates the necessity and possibility of “liberating nature” based on Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. All of the ecological Marxian perspectives thereafter can be traced back to these two of Marcuse’s books.

Marx’s Theory of the Liberation of Nature in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844

What is the natural world that we face? Why is the liberation of human being inseparable from the liberation of nature? How should humankind treat nature? Marcuse explains these problems theoretically in accordance with Marx’s Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. According to Marcuse, nature as a “field of liberation” is a central theme in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. He states that in spite of their ‘pre-scientific’ character, and in spite of the prevalence of Feuerbach’s philosophic naturalism, these writings espouse the most radical and integral idea of socialism”, and that precisely here, “ ‘nature’ finds its place in the theory of revolution.1 He insists that nature according to Marx is not just material, “it would appear not merely as stuff-organic or inorganic matter-but as life force in its own right, as subject-object; the striving for life is the substance common to man and nature.”2 Why does human being form a relationship with nature? This is not only because “the thing is the object”, but also because “the thing is the 1  Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, Boston, 1972, pp. 63–64. 2  Ibid., p. 65.

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subject.” The thought of viewing nature as the “expression of subjectivity” seems equivalent to teleology, namely the teleology that Western science banned long ago. The thought of viewing nature as “object” is all too consistent with the attitude that capitalism adopts toward matter to the effect it is impermissible to discard this taboo against teleology. “It seemed entirely justified by the increasingly effective and profitable mastery of nature which was achieved under this taboo.”3 So, does viewing nature as a subject really constitute a metaphysical teleology incompatible with the objectivity of science? Is it necessary to impose a taboo on this “teleology”? Marcuse argues that this is not a metaphysical teleology, and therefore there is no need to treat the “teleology” as taboo. In his view, the key to all of this is that viewing nature as a subject does not imply the belief that nature itself has its intention and plan”, and so it does not imply the belief that nature is itself purposive. He states that viewing nature as a subject only means that “there are forces in nature which could support and enhance the liberation of man. This capacity of nature may be called ‘chance’ or ‘blind freedom’. And precisely because nature possesses these forces human beings may dedicate themselves to remedying this blindness, or to use Adorno’s words, to helping nature ‘open its eyes’ and “do what perhaps it would like to do on this poor earth.4 He also points out that viewing nature as a subject without teleology, without “plan” and without “intention” is fully consistent with Kant’s concept of “purposiveness without purpose.” Kant points out in Critique of Judgment that the aesthetic form in art has the aesthetic form in nature as its correlate, and that the idea of beauty pertains to nature as well as to art, which is no mere analogy or human idea imposed on nature; it is the insight that the aesthetic form, as a token of freedom, is a mode of existence of the human being and the natural universe. He states, “It is in this sense that Kant attributes the beautiful in nature to nature’s capacity to form itself, in its freedom, also in an aesthetically purposive way, according to chemical laws …”.5 The union of the realm of freedom and that of necessity is here conceived not as the mastery of nature, not as bending nature to the

3  Ibid., p. 66. 4  Ibid. 5  Ibid., p. 67.

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purposes of man, but as attributing to nature an ideal purposiveness “of its own: a purposiveness without purpose.6 He said that when Marx regarded nature as a subject, he had “been frightened by this anthropocentric, idealist thought.” But in fact, this view is unrelated to idealism. It is the pioneer of mature materialism”, “the enlargement of the materialistic base”. “This is no longer Feuerbach’s “naturalism” but, on the contrary, the extension of Historical Materialism to a dimension which is to play a vital role in the liberation of man.7 In his view, starting with nature as a subject, Marx must closely tie the liberation of humankind to the liberation of nature, and view the liberation of nature as a means of human liberation. In this regard, he made the following four specific areas of analysis: 1. The liberation of nature can make it become an instrument of pleasure He states that viewing nature as a subject confirms that the sensible characteristic of aesthetic qualities exists in nature, that liberating nature implies rediscovering such characteristics of nature, and that once such characteristics are discovered the natural world very naturally becomes an instrument of human pleasure. Liberation of nature is the recovery of the life-enhancing forces in nature, the sensuous aesthetic qualities which are foreign to a life wasted in unending competitive performances: they suggest the new qualities of freedom.8 The Marxian conception understands nature as a universe which becomes the congenial medium for human gratification to the degree to which nature’s own gratifying forces and qualities are recovered and released.9

6  Ibid., p. 73. 7  Ibid., pp. 65, 67–68. 8  Ibid., pp. 60–61. 9  Ibid., p. 67.

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2. The liberation of nature can drive social change He states that viewing nature as a subject confirms the existence of forces in nature that support and promote the liberation of human being, and that liberating nature implies liberating these forces that exist in nature and making them become motiving forces that promote social change. What is happening is the discovery of nature as an ally in the struggle against the exploitative societies……. The discovery of the liberating forces of nature and their vital role in the construction of a free society becomes a new force in social change.10 3. The liberation of nature can promote the establishment of a new relationship between human being and nature. He points out, “here I shall attempt to indicate what is at stake, namely, a new relation between man and nature-his own, and external nature”.11 If human being’s relationship to nature is that of exploiter to exploited, then nature will stand in sharp opposition to human being, and human being who stands at the other end of this sharp opposition with nature will not feel joy. But, now that nature is a subject, liberating nature implies restoring nature’s status as subject, that is, “so that it lives with people in a common human world” in the process of which not only nature but also human being is liberated in accompaniment with the establishment of a new type of relationship between human being and nature.12 4. The liberation of nature can cultivate in human being new senses. He believes that the basic precondition of the liberation of human being is human being coming into possession of new senses, and the cultivation of senses is inseparable from the liberation of nature. Human being “liberates” nature, and from the epistemological point of view, “not only in the philosophical sense, but also in the sense of survival, the ‘true’ is given to nature”, “will naturally grasp the subject—the object, that is, to grasp the world with its own possibilities, necessity and contingency”, in the process of which, human being also transforms herself—a new kind of sense is produced. If the liberation of nature is so intimately bound to the liberation of human being, how should we treat nature? What is the right attitude that should we adopt to ensure that nature is liberated and turned into a means of human

10  Ibid., p. 59. 11  Ibid. 12  Herbert Marcuse, One—Dimensional Man, Boston, 1964, p. 239.

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liberation? In his view, Marx explains this explicitly in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. 1 “The Humane Appropriation of Nature” He thinks that the humane appropriation of nature in Marx’s The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 refers to “the transformation of nature into an environment (medium) for the human being as ‘species being’.13 In Marx’s view, Whenever real, corporeal man, man with his feet firmly on the solid ground, man exhaling and inhaling all the forces of nature, posits his real, objective essential powers as alien objects by his externalization, it is not the act of positing which is the subject in this process: it is the subjectivity of objective essential powers, whose action, therefore, must also be something objective.14 This is to say, human beings always wants nature to be their object and objectify their own capacities in the natural world, and in a sense, human being always wants to “appropriate” nature. The problem is on what principle shall human being “appropriate” nature. Marx puts forward the principle of “harmonizing with human nature.” Because Marx never regards human nature as the pursuit of the satisfaction of material life and never reduces human needs to food and warmth, Marx will also not advocate appropriating nature on the principle of suiting human nature or believe in wresting as much satisfaction of material life out of nature as possible. Marx stresses that human need is multifaceted, and that human development should be whole-sided, so “the humane appropriation of nature” that Marx brings up is to make nature meet the diverse needs of human being and promote human being’s wholesided development. If the “appropriation” of nature really suits human nature, this “appropriation” will not become “exploitation.” He states: In sharp contrast to the capitalist exploitation of nature, its humane appropriation would be nonviolent, nondestructive: oriented on the life-enhancing, sensuous, aesthetic qualities inherent in nature. Thus transformed, ‘humanized’ nature would respond to man’s striving for 13  Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, Boston, 1972, p. 64. 14  Karl Marx, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, People’s Publishing House, 1979, pp. 120–121.

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fulfillment, nay, the latter would not be possible without the former. Things have their ‘inherent measure’, this measure is in them, is the potential enclosed in them; only man can free it and, in doing so, free his own human potential.15 On the one hand, Marcuse affirms the correctness of Marx’s idea of the “humane appropriation of nature,” but on the other hand, he also points out the limit to this idea. He states that “There is, however, a definite internal limit to the idea of the liberation of nature through ‘humane appropriation.’ ” The problem is the word “appropriation.” “Appropriation”, no matter how humane, always amounts to the subject appropriating the object. It damages the object which is strictly speaking an independent object that differs fundamentally from the subject who appropriates it, that is something that exists as subject— nature. Therefore, “Marx’s notion of the humane appropriation of nature retains something of the hubris of domination.”16 2 “Relate to the Thing for its Own Sake” Marcuse believes that relating to “the thing for its own sake” which Marx proposes in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 can supplement the limits of idea of the “humane appropriation of nature”. The reason why human being relates to the thing—nature, on the one hand is for human being’s own sake, but on the other hand is for the thing’s own sake—nature’s own sake. Neglecting this latter aspect makes it impossible to resolve the problem of nature. What does “for the thing’s own sake” mean? It means not merely viewing nature as a material whether inorganic or organic, but also viewing nature as a living subject, in brief, it is humanely treating the thing. He puts forward the following example: in Yugoslavia, they sell wooden cutting boards which, on one side, are painted with very colorful and pretty flower patterns; the other side is left unpainted. The boards are imprinted with the phrase: “don’t hurt my pretty face, use other side. He asks, “Childish anthropomorphism? Certainly, but can we perhaps imagine: those who came up with this idea and those users who pay attention to it have a quite natural, instinctual aversion against violence and destruction such that they indeed have a

15  Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, Boston, 1972, p. 67. 16  Ibid., pp. 68–69.

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‘humane relation’ to the thing, which to them is part of the living environment and thus assumes traits of a living object?17 He believes that “relating to the thing for the thing’s own sake” is harder to achieve than the “humane appropriation of nature,” which is to say that the “humane treatment of nature” is more difficult to achieve than “making nature serve the realization of human nature.” The reason is that human being’s domination of nature is too deeply entrenched, human being always attempts to get something from nature as a matter of course, and seldom imagines of what service human being could fulfill for nature’s sake. He illustrates this in The Unpopular Collection of Essays of Russell: When the community cries to the Pope for help in order to prevent cruelty to animals, the Pope refuses. The reason is: human being does not assume any responsibility for lower animals, and feel innocent treating animals cruelly. This reason is established, animals do not have a soul.18 In his view, the Pope’s attitude here toward lower animals and the natural world is no different than most people’s attitude toward lower animals and the natural world. In his view, to change the consciousness of human being’s domination of nature, the only way is to confirm the status of nature as subject, and make it clear that our relationship with nature is not one between subject and object, but between subject and another subject. He states that if nature had always been a subject, “then even if it is as an object, then it is the legitimate object not only of Reason as power but also of Reason as freedom; not only of domination but also of liberation.”19 “The Formation of the Object World in Accordance with the Laws of Beauty” Marcuse points out: “it is not just in passing and out of exuberance that Marxs peaks of the formation of the object world ‘in accordance with the laws of beauty.’ ”20 In his view, what Marx proposes by “the formation of the object world in accordance with the laws of beauty” is the fundamental principle according to which we should relate to nature. Human being is the only thing that can shape the object world ‘in accordance with the laws of beauty, and human being should fully exercise this power. He believes that according to Hegel and Marx’s interpretation “the formation of the object world in accordance with the laws of beauty” is perform3

17  Ibid., p. 65. 18  B. Russell, ed, The Unwelcome Proceedings, New York, 1950, p. 36. 19  Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, Boston, 1964, p. 237. 20  Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, Boston, 1972, p. 74.

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ing the “reduction of beauty” on the external natural world, that is, reducing the external natural world to a state in which it possesses the form and quality of freedom. It originally exists under accidental domination such that all sorts of contingent demands hinder its reasonable transformation and development, and “the reduction of beauty” helps free the natural world of the shackles of all sorts of contingent demands. He states: the aesthetic reduction appears in the technological transformation of Nature where and if it succeeds in linking mastery and liberation, directing mastery toward liberation. In this case, the conquest of Nature reduces the blindness, ferocity, and fertility of Nature- which implies reducing the ferocity of man against Nature.21

An Analysis of Ecology in Today’s World

According to Marx, nature should be human being’s ally in the struggle against the exploitation of society, and the liberation of humankind is inseparable from the liberation of nature, so what kind of role does nature play currently in actual life? Marcuse believes that in modern industrial society, nature not only failed to become an ally in the struggle against the exploitation of society, but also became the accomplice of the rulers who exploit society in enslaving humankind. He states: “In the established society, nature itself, ever more effectively controlled, has in turn become another dimension for the control of man: the extended arm of society and its power.”22 With great indignation, Marcuse exposes and critiques modern industrial society’s destruction and violation of nature as well as the revenge that nature wages on humankind in return, and meanwhile exposes and critiques the rulers of modern industrial society who control human being by controlling nature. He argues that if you want to know how the rulers control human being by controlling nature, just take a look at modern society and it becomes sufficiently clear, “to what extent the damage to nature is directly related to the capitalist economy.” The established system preserves itself only through the global destruction of resources, of nature, of human life.”23 The manipulators of the capitalist economy do everything possible to guide people in directing the instinct to attack against the sphere of nature to “develop nature”, but the 21  Herbert Marcuse, One—Dimensional Man, Boston, 1964, p. 240. 22  Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, Boston, 1972, p. 60. 23  Ibid., p. 7.

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so-called “development of nature” is in fact the “destruction of nature”, the “exploitation of nature.” Modern capitalist society is a high-production, high-consumption society, whose survival is based on the capacity to produce sufficient material wealth, which it must do in order to achieve this aim. When people are under the control of the rulers of modern industrial society, the instinct to attack is directed at nature to wrest as much as possible from the natural world, and nature ruthlessly retaliates against them. People suffer deeply from nature’s revenge. He states: nature, polluted nature, militarized nature cut down the life environment of man, not only in an ecological but also in a very existential sense. It blocks the erotic cathexis of his environment: it deprives man from finding himself in nature.24 The pollution of air and water, the noise, the encroachment of industry and commerce on open natural space have the physical weight of enslavement, imprisonment.25 In short, in the view of Herbert Marcuse, nature’s “retaliation” which the violation of nature brings about puts humankind in a serious predicament. He calls this natural crisis ecological crisis. He believes that in modern industrial society, natural crisis or ecological crisis replaces economic crisis in becoming the main crisis. In Marx’s day, nature seems to contain an inexhaustible supply of energy, and the destruction of the natural environment had only just begun, so ecological issues still do not constitute one of the great contradictions of the capitalist world. At that time, people suffered mainly as a result of economic crises rooted in the contradictions between the socialization of production and the capitalist institution of private ownership. Capitalism develops up till today, and in accompaniment with turning science and technology into technocracy and new sources of destructive force, human being’s mangling of nature has become increasingly dramatic, and ecological problems have become the most important that humankind faces. The ecological crisis, the natural crisis rose to the level of major social crisis. Now people suffer mainly from the “revenge” that nature wages on humankind. Facing the “ecological crisis” and “natural crisis” that threatens human existence, facing the rulers who control human being by controlling nature, Marcuse calls for an “ecological revolution”, a “natural revolution” to achieve the aim of liberating humankind through the liberation of nature. He states 24  Ibid., p. 60. 25  Ibid., p. 61.

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that today air, water and noise pollution and the invasive movement of industry and commerce into open natural space bring on the physical weight of enslavement, imprisonment. “The struggle against them is a political struggle”.26 When the New Left emphasizes the struggle for the restoration of nature, for public parks and beaches, for spaces of tranquility, … it fights against material conditions imposed by the capitalist system and reproducing this system.27 So, how exactly should the “ecological revolution” or “natural revolution” proceed? According to the basic principles that Marx proposes in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 combined with the reality of modern society, Marcuse thinks that we can start from the following aspects: 1 Eliminate “Excessive Consumption” and “Alienated Consumption” The direct aim of people’s wanton invasion of nature is obtaining material means of subsistence from nature in order to satisfy the need of their own consumption. So, “ecological revolution” and “natural revolution” should first be carried out in the sphere of consumption. In his view, in current industrial society, the kind of consumption that people engage in is “over-consumption.” “Excessive consumption” makes the whole of society’s consumption expand increasingly until it goes way beyond the limits that nature can bear. “Excessive consumption” is also “alienated consumption.” A notable difference between contemporary capitalism and early capitalism is trying to distort the nature of satisfying needs in order to delay economic crisis, to induce people to turn the pursuit of consumption under the effect of market mechanisms (such as the decoration of goods, advertising, etc.) into real satisfaction, which leads to the “alienation of consumption.” “The alienation of consumption” induces people to measure the degree of their own happiness with how much they consume and thereby help stimulate a greater “exploitation” of nature. In this case, if we do not eliminate “alienated consumption” we cannot effectively stop the “ecological crisis” or “natural crisis.” He demands abandoning unrestrained consumption and breaking with the lifestyle of exchanging oneself for commodity fetishism. He raises the following question: is it impossible to make a living without stupid, exhausting and endless labor, while living with less waste, fewer gadgets and plastic but with more time and more freedom?28 26  Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, Boston, 1972, p. 61. 27  Ibid., p. 17. 28  Ibid., p. 23.

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In his view, the eradication of “excessive consumption” and the “alienation of consumption” is a revolution in people’s needs and desires, but what is at stake in the socialist revolution is not merely the extension of satisfaction within the existing universe of needs, nor the shift of satisfaction from one(lower) level to a higher one, but the rupture with this universe, the qualitative leap the revolution involves a radical transformation of the needs and aspirations themselves, cultural as well as material; of consciousness and sensibility; of the work process as well as leisure.29 2 Change the Direction of Development of Science and Technology Marcuse believes that changing the direction of development of science and technology is the central phase of the “ecological revolution” or “natural revolution.” In contemporary industrial society, the development and application of science and technology is predominantly the “exploitation” of nature or getting more things from Nature. People are quickly getting hold of technology used for the “development” of Nature. The more advanced the science and technology that they master, the stronger their ability to conquer nature. Science and technology have developed, the human’s sense of responsibility for nature has weakened. Human being does not realize that she is rising from a defensive position, the position of being forced to obey nature, to a new, dominant position where she has the technical power to destroy the entire planet. Marcuse states that, in this case, it is urgent to strengthen people’s sense of responsibility for Nature, and liberate science and technology from destructive abuse. When he calls for the application of science and technology in nature, it should follow the principle of the “humane appropriation of nature” and strive to liberate the inherent beauty of nature not only for human being’s own sake, but also for the sake of nature itself. He states that if human being does this, science and technology will take a new direction, “such a new direction of technical progress would be the catastrophe of the established direction, not merely the quantitative evolution of the prevailing (scientific and technological) rationality but rather its catastrophic transformation.”30 3 Reducing the Scale of Production In modern industrial society, the correlate of “over-consumption” is “overproduction” whose aim is to seek profit, which makes technological scales 29  Ibid., pp. 16–17. 30  Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, Boston, 1964, pp. 227–228.

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increasingly large, energy demands increasingly numerous, production and population increasingly concentrated, and functions increasingly centralized; this not only exacerbates the alienation of human being, that is, the splitting of the human’s being, but also the pollution of the environment and the destruction of the natural ecosystem. Marcuse argues that since “overproduction” is established on the foundation of capital-intensiveness and resource-intensiveness, it is essentially violent and destructive toward nature. In this analysis, Marcuse again understands “reducing the scale of production” to be an essential part of “ecological revolution” and “natural revolution.” He demands replacing highly centralized, large-scale production with smallscale productions that decentralize and democratize the production process. He states that due to smaller equipment and the smaller scale, small-scale productions not only incentivize the mobilization of priceless resources that everyone already has—smart brains and dexterous hands, but are also easier to decentralize, consume less resources, and are less harmful to the natural environment. He calls this small-scale production the “method of eco-scale production.” 4 Control of Population Growth Marcuse also includes the control of population growth in the ecological or natural revolution. In his view, the “ecological crisis or natural crisis” is closely tied to rapid population growth. Like some other Western thinkers, he terms rapid population growth “the metastasis of incurable cancer.” The inhabitants of the earth now spend in one year on their natural resources more than their ancestors consumed in a million years. By the time the world’s population grows to 6.3 billion the human demand for energy will equal all the energy humankind has ever consumed. Practice has proved that the population explosion has become a great source of misery and misfortune. In his view, the only practical way to control population growth is birth control. 5 Opposing the Arms Race Arms races between military groups, particularly the nuclear arms race, constitute a threat to nature. This is partly because escalating armament was established on the basis of the large consumption of natural resources, and partly because the arms tests and the manufacturing process is the process of destroying Nature. He advocates the elimination of conflicts between groups, achieving moderation, calls for the dissolution of the two military groups, NATO and the Warsaw Pact, the establishment of a nuclear-free zone, a zone free of chemical weapons, and calls for the total eradication of military conflicts and arms races from the planet and for the establishment of a new

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international order. In his view, we can only strengthen the urgency and awareness of the people’s struggle by including the struggle against the arms race in the “ecological revolution or “natural revolution.” In order to eliminate people’s concerns about the “ecological revolution” and “natural revolution,” Marcuse points out in particular: 1. “The liberation of the ecosystem “, “liberation of nature” will not make people live a life of poverty. He states, “ecological revolution”, “natural revolution” does not mean return to healthy and robust poverty, moral cleanliness, and simplicity. On the country, the elimination of profitable waste would increase the social wealth available for distribution, and the end of permanent mobilization would reduce the social end for the denial of satisfaction that are the individual’s own—denials.31 In his view, the key is what the “ecological or natural revolution” wishes to eliminate is solely overconsumption, and “overconsumption” or “alienated consumption” is originally an excessive consumption that only satisfies “false needs” that are imposed on human beings. Therefore, with the elimination of such consumption, “people’s lives will be better.” Abandoning excessive material demands does not imply that even the most basic material needs are unnecessary, and even more importantly, “to meet the material needs is to be carried out under the premise without prejudice to the nature of people.” 2. Undertaking ecological liberation or the “liberation of nature” does not bring people back to the pre-technological stage. He states: nature is a part of history, an object of history: therefore, ‘liberation of nature’ cannot mean returning to a pre-technological stage, but advancing to the use of the achievements of technological civilization for freeing man and nature from the destructive abuse of science and technology in the service of exploitation.32

31  Ibid., p. 242. 32  Herbert Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revol, Boston, 1972, p. 60.

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He remarks that he only advocates changing the direction of development of science and technology, not the abandonment of science and technology.33 He argues that freedom is first, and freedom needs science and technology, so he does not oppose science and technology. In his view, re-establishing the direction of development of science and technology and re-establishing a new technological rationality according to his demands undoubtedly involves a break with the prevailing “technological rationality,” the break in turn depends on the continued existence of the technical base itself. For it is this base which has rendered possible the satisfaction of needs and reduction of toil—it remains the very base of all forms of human freedom. The qualitative change rather lies in the reconstruction of this base—that is, in its development with a view of different ends.34 3. Undertaking ecological liberation or the liberation of nature will not make people become the slaves of nature. He states that when people were helpless in facing Nature as “The kingdom of necessity,” they had to obey nature and become her slaves; now when people know how to deal with nature, due to the use of inappropriate means, nature wages revenge on them, and became her slaves in a renewed sense. To undertake ecological revolution or the “liberation of nature” is to change human being’s slave status in this new sense, which, however, does not mean returning to the old sense of slavery. Carrying out the ecological liberation or the liberation of nature by no means implies giving up humankind’s status as masters, and in no way implies that humankind should not conquer Nature. He states that in Hegel’s terminology, “the ‘realization’ of Nature is not, and never can be Nature’s own work, but inasmuch as Nature is in itself negative, (i.e., wanting in its own existence), the historical transformation of Nature by man is, as the overcoming of this negativity, the liberation of Nature.”35 The problem is when people maintain their own master status in conquering nature, they should be sure not to forget that they are the masters, but nature as the object that you conquer possesses the facet of subjectivity in addition to the facet of objectivity. Turning nature into human being’s tool or servant does not necessarily make human being a master, and treating nature as a living subject does not necessarily make humankind a slave.

33  Quoted from Gold, The Left-wing of California, Contained the Saturday Mail, October 9, 1968. 34  Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, Boston, 1964, p. 231. 35  Ibid., p. 236.

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Marcuse’s Theory of the Liberation of Nature and the “Club of Rome”

Marcuse’s theory of the “liberation of nature” obviously contains some errors. Only two points here are put forward: First, the main theoretical basis that Marcuse establishes to demonstrate the importance of ecological liberation or the “liberation of nature” is the exposition of the interrelationship between human being and nature in Marx’s The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, but on this question Marcuse misinterprets Marx’s original intention, and distorts Marx’s thought. Marx put forward the idea of “humanized nature” in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. On the one hand, Marx defines nature—the materials of human activity as not inherent to human subjectivity, as not arising in the form of human acquisition, and generally as things not identical to human being; on the other hand, Marx thinks that defining nature as things that generally are not equal to human being does not imply that this extrahuman reality must definitely be understood in the ontological sense and objectivist sense without intermediary. Obviously, what Marx means here is that nature must be regarded not only as object but also as subject not only in the objective sense, but also in the subjective sense, stressing that nature must be explained with respect to the relationship and bond between human being and nature, emphasizing that Nature obtains an intermediary through the subject of labor and possesses social and historical characteristics, that “the reality of Nature” is formed in society, that we cannot isolate nature from human being and human society and abstractly discuss pure and static nature. However, Marcuse thinks that Marx proposes to see nature as subject in order to emphasize the identity of Nature and human being, to stress that Nature like human being possesses an independent life, and that the pursuit of life is the common essence of human being and nature. Although he repeatedly affirms that there is a distinction in principle between this thought and the popular teleology of Western metaphysics, he gives Marx’s theory of humanizing nature a metaphysical, idealist and teleological explanation. Second, Marcuse gives higher urgency to the “ecological crisis” and “natural crisis” above all else, and uses the theory of “ecological crisis” and “natural crisis” to replace the theory of “economic crisis,” which whether consciously or unconsciously replaces the class contradictions of capitalist society with the contradictions between human being and nature. It should be acknowledged that the phenomenon of “ecological crisis” emerged in the world in recent decades. With this growing phenomenon in

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view, the United Nations convened a conference on the human environment in 1972. In the Declaration on Human Environment adopted at the meeting, it was pointed out that “mankind has come to the historical turning point that the world take concerted action against environmental problems, take a more cautious approach.” As a Western scholar who had perceived the seriousness of the problem early on and systematically demonstrated it in theory, Marcuse has his own historical merits, but he did raise the question to an illegitimate position. It seems that in today’s world, ecological problems are the only problems that humankind faces, but this is neither in line with objective facts nor in any sense consistent in theory. However, it is undeniable that there are a number of insights in Marcuse’s theory of “natural revolution.” Where there is comparison, there is identification. In the contemporary world, Marcuse is certainly not the only researcher of “ecological problems,” “global problems” and “the relationship between human being and nature.” A large group of members of “The Club of Rome,” founded by the Italian Bechey, are also involved in this aspect of study. As long as we compare Marcuse’s theory of “the liberation of nature” with The Club of Rome’s theory on the “global problem and the ‘human predicament’ ” the former’s superb and clever points show forth. First, The Club of Rome’s study on “ecological issues,” “global issues” and “the relationship between man and nature” is empirical; they use quantitative information, and sometimes they use considerable abstract symbolic language, and the development of their model of the world is mostly based on formal mathematical theory; their proposed solutions to “the human dilemma” are often fragmentary, and come with a sense of desperate pushing. By comparison, Marcuse’s research is much more theorized. Marcuse is not just a matter of arguing about things, but rather a matter of reasoning about things. Since Marcuse thought philosophically about the fundamental aspects of the relationship between human being and nature, there seems to be great depth whether in his analysis of present conditions or his prospects about the future. Herbert Marcuse, on the whole, presents the richness of human being’s relationship with nature. He correctly sums up the human history of human being’s relationship to nature in the following three basic forms: one is the adaptive, restricted relationship in which human beings depend on the surrounding natural environment; one is the practical-necessary relationship, in which human being regards nature as the source of wealth for human being’s own needs; one is the aesthetic or aesthetic relationship, in which human being loves nature and experiences the beauty of nature, while the magnificence, beauty and obscure depth of nature constantly inspires the beauty of human life. Marx also correctly points out that the first kind of relationship

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precludes the harmonious development of human being and nature; he also correctly points out that in the second relationship, due to the “revenge” of nature brought about by the fearless desire for nature, the relationship between human being and nature frequently sounds off strongly discordant melodies, and only in the third relationship, human beings have the ability to discover and create more natural beauty, so that nature comes into human life in the form of beauty, that is, harmony between human being and nature is achieved. In this way, Marcuse not only analyzes the evolution of the relationship between human being and nature from a historical perspective, but also puts the “ecological crisis,” the “natural crisis,” the confrontation between human being and nature in the context of history, and views them as the product of history, but also puts forward the correct direction for how to explain this kind of crisis and realize the harmony between human being and nature. Because the variety of measures that Marcuse employs like ecological revolution and the liberation of nature fall under the basic unified principle of “creating Nature according to the law of beauty,” they differ from those of “The Club of Rome” which are just emergency measures, namely “expediency.” Second, the social and political system is often left aside when “The Club of Rome” exposes the “ecological crisis” and the “human dilemma” in the world today; they focussed on a list of phenomena, and rarely focussed on explaining the social nature of the problem; at the same time, while they put forward a program to remove the crisis and resolve the plight, “The Club of Rome” seldom ties concrete measures together with the fundamental measure of transforming the social system. Marcuse differs from them in this regard. He stresses that by means of the rule of nature, the ruler is to achieve the rule of man, and the “ecological crisis”, “natural crisis” are regarded as the reflection of “social crisis”. Although Marcuse regards the “ecological crisis” in today’s industrial society similarly the way “The Club of Rome” does, and although he makes it become the major crisis that replaces “economic crisis,” he does not stop there, but rather, remains committed to exposing the social crisis hidden in the “ecological crisis,” and furthermore traces the contradiction between humanity and nature back to the contradiction between human beings, although the contradictions he claims to find between human beings are different from the class contradictions of capitalist society that Marx reveals. In this way, when Marcuse proposes the way out of the “ecological crisis” and undertakes the “liberation of nature,” it is also possible to incorporate these concrete measures into the overall struggle of changing the existing social and political system. Third, the view of “The Club of Rome” is strongly pessimistic. On the issue of non-renewable resources, the problem of food, and so on, they emphasize the limited nature of the earth’s volume, stressing that the demand for raw

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materials, food and the like exceeds the limits that the Earth can provide, emphasizing that the growth of the population, pollution, etc. exceeds the limits that the earth can accommodate. The emphasis is that “we have only one earth.” Clearly, Marcuse’s theory of the “liberation of nature” is not so strongly pessimistic. Because he does not regard the “ecological crisis” as an inevitable product of the development of production, but as a product of the whole social life under certain historical conditions, in his view, with the changes in social and historical conditions, as people’s fundamental attitude toward nature changes, the “ecological crisis” can be eliminated. He believes that the “balance” of ecosystems and the natural environment is not rigid and closed, but a dynamic and open “balance.” Not only can human beings destroy the old balance, they can also create a new “human-made balance.” There is no doubt that Marcuse’s point of view is correct in this matter. Marcuse’s view obviously holds more positive significance in comparison with The Club of Rome’s view that social production and the development of science and technology stand in absolute opposition to the maintenance of ecological balance and that one must be sacrificed for the sake of the other, which therefore holds to the realization of “zero growth” in production.

Part 3 The Implications of Ecological Marxism

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Humanity today needs the right weapons of thought to guide itself in the elimination of the ecological crisis and the construction ecological civilization. The most valuable point of ecological Marxism is in very convincingly telling the whole of humankind: such weapons of thought are already at hand in the works Marxism and the historical materialism of Marxism, namely in the ecological worldview that may gleaned from Marx’s historical materialism. The ecological Marxists have done exhaustive in-depth research on Marx’s ecological worldview. We have learned from their research that Marx’s profound ecological worldview is mainly found in three of his most important works of different time periods, The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, the Communist Manifesto, and Capital. The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 are known for putting forward the concept of the alienation of labor. But in fact, Marx closely ties the alienation of labor to alienation from nature. Marx recreated his own concept of alienation by transforming Hegel’s, one major revision being the inclusion of alienation from nature under the scope of alienation. In this book, Marx also insists that the alienation of all natural objects, including the alienation of land is caused by humankind, in particular, as the result of the rule of private property and money. In this book, Marx also for the first time introduces the concepts of “association” and “associated producers.” This is Marx’s profound account of how to eliminate alienation from nature. Since alienation from nature is brought by the institution of private property, the elimination of this alienation necessarily presupposes the elimination of private property. How is the institution of private property eliminated? Marx asserts that this is achieved through association. It is communist society that eliminates alienation from nature through association. Communist society in Marx is not only humanist but naturalist as well. The Communist Manifesto is often misunderstood by some as “anti-ecological.” This accusation of The Communist Manifesto comes from the postmodernist position against modernism, that is, it implies certain assumptions against modernism. Marx and Engels actually praise “the conquest of natural forces” and the “reclamation of the continent as a whole” in this book, but one cannot see them praying for some kind of “Prometheanism” here, that is, they by no means praise mechanization and industrialization without reservation at the expense of agriculture and ecology. Marx and Engels reveal the contradictions of capitalism that arise in accompaniment with bourgeois civilization in this work, and among all of the contradictions that they reveal there is the ecological contradiction. They are keenly aware that the feature of the capitalist creation of wealth is that it is accompanied by the growth of most of the population in relative poverty, but at the same time, he understands that the “ ‘conquest of natural forces’ is accompanied by alienation from nature and

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asserts that alienation from nature exists in urban and rural separation as the core problem of capitalism. And it is in this work, where Marx and Engels regard the thought about establishing sustainable relationships with nature as an important part of the proof of the construction of communism. Capital is widely recognized as Marx’s most important work, but people tend to ignore the theory of “metabolism” that Marx proposes in this work. In fact, the theory of “metabolism” is extremely important in Marx’s body of thought; it is by means of this theory that Marx’s research on capitalism plunges deeper into the sphere of humanity’s relationship to nature, thereby unfolding the profound critique of environmental degradation. Marx explains the real interaction between nature and society through labor with the concept of “metabolism,” but also expresses the following facts with the concept of “metabolic rift,” namely there is an irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism, whereby the conditions for the necessary reproduction of the soil are continually severed, breaking the metabolic cycle. What is most important in researching Marx’s theory of metabolism is understanding Marx’s analysis of the causes of “metabolic rift.” While reading Capital, we will never forget Marx’s warning: the logic of capitalist accumulation inexorably creates a metabolic rift between society and nature, cutting the basic process of reproduction of natural resources. The research done on behalf of ecological Marxism not only makes us aware of the content of Marx’s ecological worldview, but also allows us to understand its practical significance, which is mainly expressed in helping us answer the four following questions: 1. Whither at bottom shall human society go? What status does the harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature have in ideal human society? For Marx, in one respect, humanity is a part of the material world and is also a natural being; in another respect, the entire natural world first as a direct means of human subsistence, and second as the materials of human biological activity, become “man’s inorganic body”, so the two not only do not conflict, but also share an inseparable bond with one another. Human being’s relationship with the other beings in the natural world is one of partnership, in which there is complete equality. The ideal society should be a society where human beings live in harmony with nature. 2. We are currently faced with the ecological crisis, so what does this crisis mean for us human beings? Where at bottom will it lead us human beings? On the one hand, Marx’s ecological worldview unfolds at the level of what ought to be the case, namely it gives an account of how ideal society ought to be from the perspective of the interrelation between human beings and nature; on the other hand, it unfolds at the level of what actually is the case, namely it returns to the actual world and exposes how opposed human beings and nature are in the actual world. We may also gain grounded knowledge of the danger

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of the ecological crisis since Marx explains the substance of the opposition between human beings and nature from the perspective of the height of philosophy and ontology. 3. Today what is most important is that humanity needs to know exactly how the ecological crisis is caused? Is the ecological crisis the inevitable end of modern human civilization or can it be eliminated? Marx’s ecological worldview clearly tells people: the capitalist system is the biggest obstacle in humanity’s path toward eliminating the ecological crisis and establishing a truly harmonious relationship between humanity and nature. The essence of capital is fundamentally opposed to nature, and as long as the logic of capital operates smoothly around the world, speaking of humanity getting out of the ecological crisis amounts to nonsense. 4. Today how do human beings begin to eliminate the ecological crisis? Certainly, eliminating the ecological crisis would require a comprehensive project and a combination of factors, but what would the most essential core of it be? Because Marx’s ecological worldview attributes the cause of the ecological crisis to the capitalist system and the logic of capital, the necessary logical conclusion is: the elimination of the ecological crisis must unfold as a struggle against capitalism, and humanity should put the struggle against the ecological crisis in sync with the struggle against capitalism. The ecological Marxists unfolded broadly reaching and deeply penetrating research on current ecological problems, and their research can give us a lot of inspiration. Picking the most essential among such research: 1. it looks through the conflict between human beings and nature to analyze and resolve the conflict between human being and other human beings. On the problem of ecological protection, superficially speaking, the problem emerges at the level of human being’s relationship with nature. The average person thinks that ecological crises and natural crises emerge mainly due to deviations in human being’s idea and way of co-existing with nature. But the ecological Marxists resolutely hold that the problem emerges at the level of human being’s relationship with other human beings, and that the root is found at the level of human being’s relationship with other human beings. Deviations in human being’s idea and way of coexisting with nature are determined by deviations in human being’s relationship with other human beings or by deviations in the social system. We are a socialist country, and we cannot directly say that the ecological problems emerging around us here are all the result of problems emerging in our social system or in our interpersonal relationships here. Our social system and our interpersonal relationships should have no fundamental conflict with ecological civilization. But this is not equivalent to saying that the basic train of thought of the ecological Marxists with respect to ecological problems cannot inspire us and is not applicable to us, namely, looking

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through human being’s conflict with nature to analyze and resolve human being’s relationship with other human beings. The key is, even though there is no fundamental opposition between our social system (our interpersonal relationships) and ecological civilization like there is in the capitalist system, this does not amount to saying that our system and interpersonal relationships are already perfect and fully coordinated with ecological civilization. In fact, many of our ecological problems are related to our system, the imperfect relationships between people. In this case, we should draw inspiration from these ecological Marxists, analyze the ecological problems in our China not merely at the technical and technological levels but at the level of institutions and interpersonal relationships and resolve ecological problems by focusing on continuously reforming all of the imperfections of our social system and interpersonal relationships. 2. Exercise all of the advantages of socialist society in constructing the institutions of ecological civilization. Facing the new historical developments, the ecological Marxists recognize that socialism is currently on the ebb, but remain convinced that socialism will inevitably replace capitalism. In theory, they examined the intrinsic connections between the development of society and ecological problems and assert that ecological civilization is the indispensable intension of socialism, and that socialism is the only option in solving ecological problems. Obviously, this will have an inspiring effect on and give great confidence and encouragement to the Chinese people who are currently engaged in the construction of ecological civilization under the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics. This sphere is most worthy of people’s deeper consideration among the massive theoretical system of ecological Marxism. It must be noted that they are striving to prove the necessity of establishing socialism through the critique of the ecological crisis of contemporary capitalist societies when socialism is on the decline, which is to say that they raise the banner of socialism up high in the ecological movement when socialism is receding, and this is very noble. They revolve around this goal of building ecological civilization and add new content to the holistic perspective through which they explain socialism. It is not accidental that ecological socialism rose suddenly among all the ranks and camps of socialism, which reflects a major turn in the traditional theory of socialism. We are presently undertaking the construction of ecological civilization under the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and have substantially completed the transition to socialism that these ecological Marxists demanded. We must fully cherish the superiority of our socialism because of this, and fully exhibit the advantages of the socialist system in the process of building civilization. 3. We must combine constructing ecological civilization with creating a new way of being. The ecological Marxists tie research on ecological

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civilization tightly to research on humanity’s way of being. They believe that the fundamental significance of ecological civilization is in creating a new way of human life, or rather, a new way of being. What follows the construction of ecological civilization will certainly be the formation of new ways of human life and new ways of being. The ecological Marxists demand humanity to turn the process of constructing ecological civilization into the process of creating new ways of human life and new ways of being. Their viewpoint here gives the Chinese people who are currently engaged in the construction of ecological civilization inestimable inspiration. These theorists of ecological Marxism make the account that the process of constructing ecological civilization ought to be the process of giving shape to a new way of life and a new way of being from the perspective of what ought to be, and the being of humans under ecological civilization ought to be a new way of being that differs from the way of being in capitalist society which is marked by “possessing,” but their account still holds a wealth of inspiration for us, mainly in letting us know that what our purpose is in constructing ecological civilization and where we are going. 4. Make the construction of ecological civilization become a great revolution of thought. The ecological Marxists share a common notion when making the account of ecological civilization, which is: the construction of ecological civilization construction is not a problem of project itemization; it is not a problem of techniques and technologies; it is not a financial problem but a problem of core values and a problem of the human soul. They all stress that the construction of ecological civilization is a great revolution of thought. Whether ecological civilization can truly be built actually depends on the completion of this revolution of thought. The inspiration behind this point is undoubtedly great. They dedicate themselves to revealing the cultural roots of the ecological crisis in thought, thinking that the global ecological crises that humanity faces today is not the result of causes in the ecosystem itself, but in the system of our culture. The entire cultural system is actually approaching a dead end, and it is under the influence of this culture of thought that natural ecosystems have been pushed to the breaking point. The degree of destruction of ecosystems in the world today is proportional to the extent of the decline of our thought, culture and values. Grounded in this basic understanding, they call for introspection on the culture of thought from the ecological perspective. The 17th Congressional Meeting of the CCP added in the content of ecological civilization under the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, which not only marks a major shift at the level of China’s development strategy, but also a major step forward in ideas of thought, and we believe familiarizing ourselves with the relevant accounts from these ecological Marxists will definitely allow us to comprehend this more profoundly.

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The correctness of the theory of ecological Marxism is well illustrated through its opposition to postmodernism. This opposition mainly appears as: 1. Discard modernization or heal the sickness of modernization? The rise of ecological Marxism represents a tendency within the ecological movement to try and get out of the postmodernist predicament, and lead the green movement toward a more healthy modernism. The process of the “red-greens” splitting off within the ecological movement is actually the process of opposing postmodernism. Postmodernism is directed at the modernization movement of modern industrial civilization. Postmodernism comes from the charge against the modernization movement of modern industrial civilization; it starts with the critique of all of the adverse consequences of modernization and proceeds by denying the entire view of development and perspective of evaluation of industrial civilization. Postmodernism not only encompasses the continuity between modernism and postmodernism over time, but also encompasses postmodernism’s rebellion against and correction of modernism. What the ecological Marxists first find dissatisfying in postmodernism is this mood of transcending modernity. They also sharply critique the negative consequences of modernization, particularly the destruction of the ecological environment, but they do not reject modernization itself. They do not reject industrial society, advocate anti-growth, oppose technology and resist production as the postmodernists and eco-centrists do. They do not beautify modern civilized society, nor reject modern civilized society whole-sale. They do not express radical passions against modernization and modernity. They are strongly motivated to repair the collapsed modernity and to continue pursuing the possibility of modernity in the cultural, social and economic spheres. 2. Do we need to replace anthropocentrism with eco-centrism? A distinguishing feature of postmodernism is the elimination of subjectivity. Postmodernists think that the existence of the subject not only implies the existence of the subject/object dichotomy, but also reflects the defect of modernity. The subject is erasable like a word written in the sand. After this what exists in the world is no longer the relationship between human being and something, but the relationship between something and nothing. We know that modernism overthrew religion and eliminated God and made humanity and the subject rise to the surface. One of the great achievements of the modernization movement is enabling the establishment of the subject and subjectivity. So, postmodernism opposes modernism, and the first matter it relentlessly tends to is the critique of the subject. The eco-centrists in the environmentalist movement, namely the “green greens” systematically play on this anti-subjectivity of postmodernism, thinking that the root of ecological problems is anthropocentrism. Beginning by opposing industrialization’s plundering of the natural

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world, they proceed by opposing anthropocentrism, and assert that anthropocentrism must be replaced by eco-centrism. The ecological Marxists do not oppose anthropocentrism in general, but instead they do oppose the capitalist form of anthropocentrism in particular. Especially after the 1990s, ecological socialism insisted that the “human scale” should not be thrown out when humanity reflects on its attitude toward nature, and proposed returning to anthropocentrism. They split off within the camps of “green politics” and reconstructed a new ecological politics aimed at anthropocentrism. In philosophy, they want to establish a modern view of nature with a human scale to analyze humanity’s relationship to nature. 3. Should we correct the deviance of reason with reason itself? The core of modernism is humanism and rationalism. While eliminating subjectivity and anthropocentrism, postmodernism points the spearhead of critique at rationalism. Postmodernists strongly oppose the view of modernists that rationality conquers all and is the measure of everything. The modernization movement progresses with the help of reason. On the grounds that reason has brought many negative consequences to modern society, postmodernists emphasize that, on the one hand, reason did get rid of old forms of slavery and oppression, but on the other hand, brought about new forms of slavery and oppression by dint of establishing a new “authority”, “essence” and “center.” Postmodernistss blame all of the ills of modern society on reason and especially the dominance of viciously inflated scientific and technological reason and the metaphysical way of thinking over people, and therefore advocate eliminating reason. Although the ecological Marxists also sharply critique instrumental reason, technological reason and economic reason, and even though they also profoundly expose many misfortunes that enlightenment reason has brought to modern humanity, they do not fundamentally reject reason. They insist that reason is unique to human beings, that people can only use reason to correct the deviances of reason, that reason itself did nothing wrong and finally that reason cannot possibly be eliminated. In their view, the problem now is not how to eliminate reason but rather how to recover the essential characteristic of human being qua human, and how to make reason healthily and orderly develop and play a role. They continuously ask the postmodernists the following question: is it possible to undertake the critique of reason without the means of reason? While they reject instrumental reason, scientific reason, technological reason and economic reason, they dedicate themselves to reconstructing and rebuilding an entirely new reason, that is, social reason and ecological reason. 4. How should we look at the function of science and technology? From the perspective of the postmodernists, hostility toward reason is consistent with hostility toward science. In their view, only after the alliance between science and reason

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evolved into pure “instrumental reason” did the latter bring so many disasters to human beings. Since the enlightenment movement, and especially after the 20th century, the influence of science and technology over human beings has grown and grown, and the negative impact on human beings is becoming increasingly obvious. They manufacture an inverse relationship between the progress of science, technology and human happiness, and attribute science and technology with original sin. While they stick to the principles of antigrowth and anti-production, they also oppose technology. Postmodernism is a typical anti-scientism. In the works of the ecological Marxists, a large amount of work may be found revealing how the employment of science and technology destroys the ecological environment and leads to many negative consequences, but as long as you look closely, it is not difficult to see that they don’t think that the effects of science and technology on modern society are completely negative or that science and technology only have “negative effects” and no “positive effects,” nor do they construe the negative social role of science and technology as being brought about by science and technology themselves or talk about the so-called original sin of science and technology in abstraction from the social relations of production and the political institutions of society. They insist that the ecological crisis of modern society is not the crisis of science and technology, but the crisis of the mode of production and mode of employing science and technology. They raise sharp critiques against ecocentrism and even the whole of postmodernism’s hostility toward science and technology. 5. Is humankind’s search for meaning wrong? Among all of the theories of modernism, there is none more dramatic than anti-logocentricism, anti-foundationalism, anti-essentialism and anti-reductionism. Postmodernists resolutely reject the original sense of metaphysics, ontology, the ultimate origin of the world, the existence of human essence, foundations and principles. The postmodernists oppose traditional philosophy across the board for always wanting to establish a foundation for the world and being of humans. Starting with this opposition to essences and foundations, postmodernism proceeds to oppose all of the social ideals that are raised on the basis of these essences and foundations. Because scientific socialism was formed on the basis of the ontology of Marxism, it naturally became the target of their first attack. The ecological Marxists fiercely oppose the postmodernists who nullify ontological problems. They believe that the mistake that metaphysics makes is not found in accepting the foundation of things or the existence of essences, but rather in absolutizing and rigidifying foundations and essences, so the postmodernists mistakenly kill off metaphysics in one blow; on the surface it seems the postmodernists are only drilling open a window in the closed “castle” of metaphysics, but in fact, they completely destroy this “castle”. In

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their view, that the eco-centrists are so clueless as to what to do and ultimately resort to anarchism in the face of the ecological crisis is by no means accidental; this is closely related to their lack of ontological foundation. The ecological Marxists tightly bind the search for meaning to proving the necessity of socialism, and focus their research on the foundation of the being of socialism. Ecological Marxism’s opposition to postmodernism represents the stance of Western Marxism and carries on the tradition of Western Marxism. First of all, ecological Marxism’s opposition to postmodernism is the inheritance of Habermas’s theory of reflection on modernity. When many ecological Marxists give the account of their theory, they frequently mention this currently most influential representative figure of Western Marxism and use Habermas’s perspective to demonstrate the correctness of their own theory. Indeed, many aspects of ecological Marxism are inspired by Habermas, and we can clearly see the heritage of Habermas’s theory and especially his theory of reflection on modernity in the theories of ecological Marxism. Habermas critiques modernity, the modernization movement and modern civilized society, but does not think that they are irremediable. The ecological Marxists and Habermas are equally aware that the postmodernist rejection of modernity and modernization movement is the rejection of civilization as a whole, so they equally display anxiety and unease in response to such behavior, thinking that postmodernism denying the idea of modernity will necessarily stomp out all hope of the self-renewal of modernity, and bring humanity to a tranquilized state in the face of no matter what happens. Habermas combs through the concept of “reason,” revealing that science and reason form an alliance in the modernization movement, which evolves into pure instrumental rationality or technological reason, and at the same time, Habermas also insists that reason still did not reach the step of immanent death, and would take postmodernism to finish the job. The ecological Marxists accept and follow Habermas’s basic attitude toward reason across the board, in one respect unfolding the critique of instrumental reason, technological reason and economic reason and in another respect demonstrating that reason itself is not to blame, that reason must be rescued, and that people must tap the potentials of reason to reveal the conditions of modern society’s realization of human freedom. Second, the ecological Marxists inherit the social critical theory of the Frankfurt school in opposing postmodernism. Whether it is the ecological Marxists personally or those researching ecological Marxism at home and abroad, all of them see the critical theory of the Frankfurt School as one of the theoretical origins of ecological Marxism. We think that this theoretical origin mainly unfolds as its opposition to postmodernism directly stemming from the Frankfurt School.

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Looking throughout the entire theory of the Frankfurt School, there is a basic principle that weaves through it from beginning to end like a red thread, which is the principle of subjectivity. The Frankfurt School is a school of humanism that is highly influential today, and praising subjectivity is one of the most distinctive theoretical characteristics of the Frankfurt School. The ecological Marxists insist that no matter what, humanity cannot do away with the “human scale” when solving the ecological crisis and reexamining humanity’s relationship with nature, and also assert that there is reasoning sufficient enough to oppose ecocentrism and resolutely hold to anthropocentrism in the Frankfurt school’s conception of nature. While the Frankfurt School critiques instrumental reason and technological reason, they always show high appreciation for value rationality and critical reason as the antithesis of the former, and in a certain sense, they critique the former for the sake of enabling the latter to gain better control over the world. Some ecological Marxists similarly critique instrumental reason and economic reason, and in another respect dedicate themselves to restoring ecological reason and social reason. That the Frankfurt School critiques technological reason and opposes scientism is beyond doubt. However, critiquing technological reason and opposing scientism does not necessarily equal hostility toward science. Some ecological Marxists actually accept the Frankfurt School’s theory of science and technology across the board, and precisely on the basis of this theory unfold the account that only changing the social environment can change this scenario where science and technology severely damage the ecological environment, and moreover begin the resistance against postmodernism’s anti-technological and antiproductive eco-centrism. Finally, the rejection of postmodernism by Western Marxists carries on the tradition of the founders of Western Marxism. Even though Lukács, Korsch and Antonio Gramsci fiercely opposed traditional ontology and the traditional way of metaphysical thinking, they did not fundamentally overturn metaphysics and ontology nor fundamentally nullify the existence of foundations and principles. There is clearly no “minor narrative” running through their writings, but there is rather a “meta-narrative” and even a “grand narrative” running through them. This basic stance runs through the Frankfurt School (including Habermas’s theory) and weaves directly into ecological Marxism. What most clearly reflects the thought of such early representatives of Western Marxism as Lukács, Korsch and Antonio Gramsci, who diverge in principle from postmodernism is the attitude toward treating wholeness. Postmodernism wages war against wholeness and identity, advocating an anti-holistic method of thought. An important feature of the body of thought of early representatives of “Western Marxism” is appreciation for wholeness. Some ecological Marxists point out that the whole world economy

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has already given shape to an interconnected system, and in the case that it is basically impossible to divide it up into discrete parts, implementing decentralization is unrealistic, and so while they philosophically praise once again some of the early representatives of Western Marxism, they also insist on the economic model of centralization and wholeness. The early representatives of “Western Marxism” and especially Lukács focused on the critique of modern capitalist society, that is, the critique of modern civilization. Lukács first used materialization to summarize the feature of modern capitalist society, and unfolded the critique against it. There is no doubt that Lukács’s critique of the phenomenon of materialization in modern capitalist society is based on Weber’s concept of rationality. In this respect, the theorists of Frankfurt School correctly grasp Lukács’ critical theory, because their critique of the instrumental reason in modern civilized society basically unfolds following Lukács’ train of thought; the ecological Marxists even more so correctly understand Lukács’ critical theory; otherwise, they would have been unable to exhibit such a sharply distinct position from the postmodernists while critiquing the ecological crisis in modern civilization. What they particularly point out is that ecological Marxism’s opposition to postmodernism embodies the positive meaning of Marxism itself. We trace the newest form of Western Marxism— ecological Marxism—all the way back to the source of Western Marxism, and comprehensively examine its opposition to postmodernism. The facts fully demonstrate that “Western Marxism” is a trend of thought that stands in opposition to postmodernism, even though this opposition has undergone a process of development from parts to whole and from tacit to explicit. Whether it is with respect to the attitude of their philosophical worldview toward modern metaphysics or their stance on the Idea of modernity and the modernization movement, the boundary between ecological Marxism along with the whole of “Western Marxism” and postmodernism is perfectly clear, and the opposition between them is perfectly visible as well. By placing ecological Marxism in the context of opposition to postmodernism, all of the positive meaning that it embodies is the positive meaning of Marxism itself. The theorists of ecological Marxism are able to so forcefully contend with postmodernism, and in the process, put forward such profound insights, because in one respect they comprehend the basic theory of Marxism, and in another respect they are good at making the basic theory of Marxism coincide with the demands of the times. The positive meaning and creativity of ecological Marxism is intensively reflected in their proposition that human satisfaction is ultimately found in the activity of production rather than the activity of consumption. Understanding the profound implications of this proposition would go a long way for modern

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people who are currently infatuated with consumerism. They demand people to concentrate on production rather than consumption. They point out that modern industrial society is leading people toward the following way of life: people live in city skyscrapers, their energy supply, food and other necessities as well as the treatment of their waste all rely upon a massive and complex system, and at the same time, people mistakenly believe that growing consumption appears to compensate for the setbacks they suffer in the other areas of life, particularly in the area of labor; so people frantically pursue consumerism so as to assuage their discontent. Consequently, consumption is equated with satisfaction and happiness; in other words, quantity of consumption is the only measure of their own happiness. But turning people’s attention from the sphere of consumption to the sphere of production is by no means just a matter of shifting people’s attention; rather it is a matter of creating an environment that can spur people to directly participate in activities related to the satisfaction of their own needs. The basic demand that they raise in the sphere of consumption is to sever the link between “the more” and “the better” and instead to associate “the better” with “the less”. In their view, this is a shift from the quantitative standard to the qualitative standard. The basic demand that they raise in the sphere of production is to let everyone have a job post where they can exercise their potentials, and make this job become autonomous behavior, so that workers gain inestimable satisfaction from it. One of the greatest mistakes that humanity could have made since entering the civilized state is looking for satisfaction solely in the sphere of consumption and seeing the sphere of production solely as the means of satisfying consumption. And in the second half of the 20th century, this mistake intensified. The ecological Marxists undoubtedly makes this proposition mainly on the basis of this state of modern capitalism, but the implications of this proposition go far beyond the scope of modern capitalist society. It is also enlightening to the well-off and wealthy Chinese who are currently striving to break free of poverty on the path of rapid modernization. Concretely speaking, it has at least the following four enlightening points: 1. on the path of modernization, the Chinese people cannot only focus concentration on the sphere of consumption, that is, the Chinese people can not only fight for the sake of raising their standard of material life. On the basis of the concrete condition in China at present, we should of course put the development of productive forces first, and we should further enrich the material means of subsistence of our society. But while doing so, we must not forget that developing productivity and creating material wealth are only the means, that is, these are only the means of satisfying human needs, the means of realizing the human essence and the means of encouraging people to achieve this goal of happiness and satisfaction. We

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cannot mistake the means for the end itself, and that we have sufficient means by no means necessitates that they will automatically serve the end, and here there is still the question of how to make the means effectively serve the end. 2. In the sphere of consumption, the Chinese people must get rid of the stale idea of the more the better, and establish the new idea that enough is enough, that enough is as good as a feast, and sever the link between the more and the better as the ecological Marxists propose. We should pay attention to the quality of consumption, rather than just blindly pursuing quantity, and realize the shift from the quantitative standard to the qualitative standard. In eating, value nutrition; in living, value health, in culture, value high taste; in the environment, value cleanliness and beauty. In particular, we must change that Idea of consumption which seeks what is exotic and what I alone can get. Instead, we should forcefully promote the consumption of those things that are durable and resistant to damage. If we don’t rapidly change that present way of satisfying consumption by means of the more the better, and if we do not launch a revolution in the sphere of consumption, resources and the environment will needless to say continue to suffer destruction, and that Western reversal of the relationship between human being and commodity, that is, the relationship in which the product is not produced to satisfy human need but exists for the sake of being consumed will play out once again here in China. 3. We should indeed shift the focus to the sphere of production, and on this land of China, we should be the first to implement Marx’s concept of the liberation of labor, and although at present we can only make a very small step toward this goal, even heading in this direction would mean the great fortune of the Chinese people. We must bear in mind that the value of life lies in creation rather than in consumption, and we should organize our new way of life under the guidance of this thought. We should turn the historical act of building socialism with Chinese characteristics under the leadership of the Communist Party of China into an act of practicing Marx’s theory of the all-around development of human being and create a new way of life. The emancipation of labor is not a pure utopian fantasy, but rather encompasses actual content. 4. At present what is most important is the question of how to ensure that people have their own jobs under circumstances where we are implementing the structural adjustment of the industry and where traditional jobs are decreasing. Ecological Marxism’s thought of letting everyone have a job even if jobs are decreasing is extremely pointed and filled with practical significance. They insist that “the right to earn money” must be distinguished from “the right to work”, and that the latter should not replace the former is a profound insight. We absolutely cannot allow the traditional jobs to concentrate in the hands of a few working elites and cannot take away those traditional jobs from the majority of people,

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who would then degrade into servants who work for the working elites. For the majority of the laid off and unemployed, it is not enough to simply provide them with a living allowance to survive; they do not just need to survive, but need rather a world that can prove their own worth. Practice proves that the meaning of enabling everyone to have work is not second to enabling everyone to have food to eat. Take notice for a moment the development of ecological Marxism, and you will find that its influence has grown in direct proportion with the depth of its reflection on and critique of contemporary capitalism. The theoretical contribution of ecological Marxism after the drastic changes in the Soviet Union can be seen precisely at the verge of the collapse of socialism when many people took the opportunity to chant the praise of contemporary capitalism, while ecological Marxism unfolded an even more radical critique of capitalism with respect to the link between the capitalist mode of production and the ecological crisis. In particular, the proposal of the concept of “ecological imperialism” integrated this critique with research on global problems. The consistent stand of ecological Marxism is to determine that the crisis of capitalist society is essentially an ecological crisis, which mainly stems from the capitalist mode of production, namely the capitalist mode of production whose goal is the maximization of profit, and to insist that the capitalist profit motive necessarily destroys the ecological environment. Ecological Marxism disagrees with ecologism mainly over the cause of the deterioration of the modern social environment and the source of ecological crisis. Ecologism avoids the capitalist system, while ecological Marxism charges directly at the capitalist system. The ecological Marxists insist that production relations and class relations are the root causes of economic, social and political exploitation, which directly results in environmental degradation and ecological crisis. Ecologism’s critique of environmental deterioration and the ecological crisis in modern society basically does not even touch on private property and the basic institutions of capitalism, but ecological Marxism resolutely insists that capitalism is the real source of the ecological crisis. During and after the drastic changes in the Soviet Union ecological Marxism not only refused to back away from this basic position, but also made this position more firm and sufficiently powerful due to looking squarely at the objective facts on one hand and thanks to doing more in-depth theoretical research on the other. They not only attribute the ecological crisis of contemporary capitalist society to the profit motive of capitalism, but again attribute the profit motive of capitalism to the category of the economic reason of capitalism. Thus, he extends the critique of the profit motive of capitalism into the critique of the economic reason of capitalism, which explores the root causes of the ecological crisis of capitalism from the more

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abstract philosophical level. They think that economic reason emerged in sync with the birth of capitalism. Economic reason starts to play a role when people learn how to calculate and count, that is, produce not for their own consumption but for the market. In their view, Marx’s critique of the capitalist mode of production is the critique of economic reason. So they expose the harms of economic reason first with the help of Marx’s viewpoint. On the basis of undertaking this critique, they assert that ecological protection cannot be implemented under the current capitalist mode of production. The economic rule of productivity enacted by contemporary capitalist society is that, namely, economic reason is opposed to ecological reason, and as long as this rule is still in effect, ecological protection remains nothing more than empty talk. Economic reason welcomes the wanton exploitation of resources, does not hesitate to destroy the ecological environment, and pursues maximum production and consumption, and ecological reason strives as far as possible to produce durable things of high use value with less labor, less capital and less resources, in order to satisfy human demands [according to the principle] of enough is enough. And what hides behind these two completely different types of motive are two diametrically opposed types of reason, that is, the profit motive and the motive of ecological protection. Under the sway of the profit motive of capitalism, the implementation of ecological reason is unthinkable, because it brings about obstacles that block the sources of growth. Based on this understanding, they repeatedly insist that the implementation of ecological reason must change the profit motive of capitalism, and this means changing the capitalist mode of production into the socialist mode of production. The socialist mode of production can and should be linked to ecological reason. They think that the rationality of socialism’s ecological way exists in the rationality of ecological reason. The basic conclusion that they draw from examining modern capitalistic society is: the currently existing capitalist nations are largely ecological imperialist states. They expose this, arguing that since ecological contradictions are unresolvable for the capitalist system, this system tries to transfer and assuage the contradictions by expanding the ecological plunder of developing countries. Thus “ecological imperialism” emerges. He critiques some of the developed capitalist nations for transferring consumption-intensive, pollution-intensive and labor-intensive enterprises to developing nations, and even transfer their own garbage to those nations, plundering their lands, clean air, clean water and every other natural resource. Against all of the calls to beautify contemporary capitalism, they assert tit-for-tat that it is impossible to have a “sustainable development of capitalism.” In their view, the idea of some kind of ecological capitalism or sustainable capitalism has never gained theoretical clarification to this day, and even less could be said about some

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institutionalized infrastructure actually embodying it. The key point is the destruction of the environmental is tied to a specific political system, and under the existing political system of capitalism, economic crisis will necessarily sow ecological crisis. In summary, in the modern capitalist world, things always get worse before they get better. The ecological Marxists argue that the capitalist mode of production is the main source of the ecological crisis, and at the same time, they repeatedly demonstrate that only the socialist mode of production can possibly enable human beings to get out of the ecological crisis. Inspired by the account of the ecological Marxists on the necessary connection between socialism and ecological civilization, let us explain why constructing ecological civilization is the proper meaning of socialism with Chinese characteristics. This can be understood from the following several aspects: first, the nature of socialism determines that constructing socialism with Chinese characteristics must proceed according to the standard of ecological civilization. When people talk about socialism with Chinese characteristics, they often only focus on the “Chinese characteristics” part, but in fact “Chinese characteristics” is said here in the sense of a distinguishing particularity, while socialism is said here in the sense of a general commonality, and the distinguishing particularity of “Chinese characteristics” cannot be separated from the common essence of socialism. Although talking about “socialism” in abstraction from the “Chinese characteristics” part runs the risk of repeating the mistake of viewing socialism as an unchanging model and dogmatic textbook theory, talking about the “Chinese characteristics” part in abstraction from socialism runs the risk of committing the mistake of turning socialism with Chinese characteristics into capitalism with Chinese characteristics. When discussing socialism with Chinese characteristics, the party’s 17th congress appropriately insisted that socialism with Chinese characteristics must adhere to the basic principles of scientific socialism. Now that socialism with Chinese characteristics adheres to the basic principles of scientific socialism, the essential characteristics and core values of socialism that Marxism reveals are also precisely the essential characteristic and core values of socialism with Chinese characteristics. And, we must place the construction of ecological civilization at the core of the construction of socialism to be precisely in accordance with the essential characteristics and core values of socialism that Marxism reveals. The Chinese people will necessarily regard constructing ecological civilization as an important strategic task in the process of engaging in the great enterprise of socialism with Chinese characteristics, if socialism with Chinese characteristics adheres to the following kind of socialism, whose essential characteristics and core values consist of creating a way of being which is unlike the

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capitalist way of life, of truly fulfilling functions and needs that solely belong to human being, and of realizing the whole-sided development of human being. The reason is extremely simple: One of the most important conditions of the formation of a new way of life is establishing harmonious connections between human being and nature, namely creating ecological civilization. Secondly, the strategy of “scientific development” determines that this development is “green” instead of “dark.” The proposing of the idea of scientific development is a good solution to this problem of why and how to develop socialism with Chinese characteristics. Development is an eternal theme, which humanity has always faced since the beginning of history. Development is also a global theme that every nation in today’s world undertakes with overbearing pain and overwhelming longing. The soul of scientific development is found in “transforming,” namely transforming that model of development, which originally disjoined and even opposed economic growth to social equity and environmental protection into a new model of development. The moment of proposing the idea of scientific development marked the point where socialism with Chinese characteristics found its own path of development. Changes in the external conditions and internal conditions of the development of socialism demand that today’s socialism must not only break free of that original model of development that focused one-sidedly on economic development, but also introduce a new model of development to adapt to the times. Meanwhile, the current international environment and the reality of socialist development will also create the conditions for this new model of development, which was first proposed and implemented in China. Socialism with Chinese characteristics chooses scientific development as a development strategy, which means that the development of China is not dark but green and that the rise of China is not a darkening but a greening. The fact is, when General Secretary Hu Jintao described the main content of harmonious socialist society, he emphasized harmonious coexistence of humanity with nature. People often say that harmonious society encompasses three aspects: harmony between human being and other human beings (or harmony between human being and society), harmony between human being and herself (or harmony between one’s main functions and needs), and harmony between humanity and nature. These three aspects are organically linked together and each one is indispensable to the other two, but harmony between humanity and nature occupies a prominent position among them. Without harmony between humanity and nature, harmonious socialist society would be groundless and could not be said to exist. In a certain sense, the harmony between human being and other human beings and harmony between human being and herself are enveloped in the harmony between

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humanity and nature. Although harmony between humanity and nature necessarily presupposes as its own social conditions harmony between human being and other human beings as well as harmony between human being and her own self, there is no doubt that harmony between humanity and nature necessarily becomes the foundation of the harmony between human being and other human beings as well as harmony between human being and her own self, and moreover will also become the foundation of the entire civilized system of society. When Hu Jintao as the General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee regarded building harmonious socialist society as the basic task of socialism with Chinese characteristics, he naturally and logically put realizing harmony between humanity and nature as well as establishing ecological civilization on his own agenda. Taking the path of harmonious development is but taking the path of ecological civilization. The society of an ecological civilization is the most ideal harmonious society. Finally, human-based values determine the whole-sided development of human being to be promoted through the unity of humanity and nature. As of yet, there is still no other socialism in the world that openly holds to “humanity as the basis” like socialism with Chinese characteristics. In the political report of the 17th Communist Party Congress, General Secretary Hu Jintao not only reiterated that socialism with Chinese characteristics is resolutely people-oriented, but also asserted that being people-oriented entails promoting the whole-sided development of human being. This shows that what the proponents of socialism with Chinese characteristics call “being people-oriented”—as the ideal and core value of this kind of socialism—is but having the orientation to realize the free, whole-sided development of human being. As long as the implication of “being human based” (people-oriented) as the end value of socialism with Chinese characteristics is understood in the sense of realizing the whole-sided development of human being, then the status of promoting the harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature according to these values is self-evident and perfectly clear. Eliminating the opposition between humanity and nature and accomplishing the unity of naturalism and humanism are indispensible phases of realizing the whole-sided development of human being, and we could even say, compose the foundation and precondition of realizing the whole-sided development of human being. As the General Secretary of the Central Committee, Hu Jintao posits the end value of socialism with Chinese characteristics as being human-based (people oriented), which posits the end value as realizing the whole-sided development of human being; and to posit realizing the whole-sided development of human being as the end value is precisely to posit realizing the elevated unity of complete harmony between humanity and nature as our most noble pursuit.

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Ecological Marxism not only profoundly reveals but also fiercely criticizes the growing ecological crisis today and makes extensive discussion on how to get out of the ecological crisis. In research on the strategy of the construction of ecological civilization of socialism under the banner of Chinese characteristics, ecological Marxism’s related theories are worth learning from. In accordance with the theory of ecological Marxism, we should say “no” to the following three strategies in our building of ecological civilization: first, say “no” to giving up the pursuit of modernization in order to achieve ecological protection. The moment people hear about constructing ecological civilization, they immediately recall agricultural civilization and hunting and gathering civilization, and think that constructing ecological civilization entails returning to pre-industrialized and pre-modernized times. They believe in back-to-the-jungle romanticism and advocate the return to “idyllic” life in order to establish “ecological Utopia” as the ideal of society. They do not understand that ecological civilization is a new human civilization that is to be built on the foundation of industrial civilization, and do not understand that the building of harmonious relationships between humanity and nature can only be successful under the premise of fully enjoying the fruits of modernization. Whereas although prior to industrial civilization it was basically harmonious between humanity and nature, and on the whole, there were no fundamental, overall conflicts, this harmony was of a low level. What we need today is not a low level of harmony, but a higher level of harmony. Obviously, we cannot possibly abandon industrial civilization for the sake of ecological civilization, and we cannot possibly avoid enjoying all the fruits of modernization for the sake of ecological civilization. We get modernization at the cost of sacrificing ecological civilization, but similarly, we cannot achieve harmony between humanity and nature at the cost of sacrificing modernization. Second, is it that the idea of realizing modernization is first on the list, and then we just have to decide what to do later? Should we wait until industrial civilization is built up, and then think on the matter of ecological civilization later. Because ecological civilization is a new civilized state of humanity that follows industrial civilization, humanity must move according to this sequential order of industrial civilization first and ecological civilization later. Some among us here in China repeatedly insist that it is entirely unavoidable that China is repeating the old refrain that the other developed industrial nations have already sung, and accordingly, insist that destroying the environment is a cost that we must necessarily pay on the journey to achieve modernization. Their basic strategy is to concentrate whole-heartedly on achieving modernization and building up industrial civilization now, while temporarily “suspending” ecological civilization and speaking of the construction of ecological civilization in the “future

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tense.” Obviously, in choosing this development strategy it is very likely that without yet fully enjoying the fruits of modernization the heavy costs will already ruin us. Then again, we choose this development strategy on the basis of recognizing that this is the path taken by the prosperous citizens of the developed industrialized nations, namely on the grounds that this is a path of success. But in fact, whether this pathway of development, whether this model of development can succeed in a developing nation like China deserves skepticism, and setting this question aside, it is still even questionable that a clear judgment can be made as to whether it has already been completely successful in the developed industrial nations. Third is the idea of transferring the destruction of the ecological environment that should originally be shouldered by one’s own nation to other nations. Advanced industrial nations have achieved modernization by sacrificing ecological civilization, and the degree to which they have modernized should be proportional to the degree to which the environment has deteriorated. But the reality of the situation is that although some of the ecological conditions in the developed industrial nations also warrant our worries, they still fare far better than those in developing nations overall. This is due to their implementation of “ecological imperialism,” namely forcing the developing countries to “eat” the rotten fruit of manufacturing waste. The problem is that while the developed industrial nations can execute the “transfer” strategy to alleviate the ecological crisis, can we do the same in the process of constructing ecological civilization? If we can do that, can we not only continue our modernization but also avoid getting caught in the ecological crisis at the same time? The reality is that various factors preclude us from choosing this “transfer” strategy. First, we are a socialist country, and the nature of our system determines that we cannot do so; second, the staggering economic size of China is far too massive, so massive that joining the ranks of all those “transferring” nations across the world, would bring about unprecedentedly serious consequences, and obviously, such consequences would be injurious to ourselves as well. Last, after so many years of these industrialized nations insisting on the “transfer” strategy, the amount of space that remains left over is already running out, the cake has been largely divided up amongst them. So, it seems that China basically does not have the conditions to construct ecological civilization through executing the “transfer” strategy. These three strategies are the strategies that we should not implement. The strategy that we can implement is promoting a new model of ecologically oriented modernization. Since we have decided that we should enjoy the fruits of modernization without destroying the ecological environment, and at the very least, that we should minimize the harm wrought on the ecological environment through the process of modernization, we can’t make the

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three choices mentioned above, but must develop new strategies. It seems our only option is to integrate industrial civilization and the construction of ecological civilization. In other words, we are still committed to achieving modernization, but this kind of modernization must not damage the ecological environment as a precondition. This is a new type of modernization. We may call it “ecologically oriented modernization”, or more simply “ecological modernization”. This new “ecologically oriented modernization” is the right strategic choice that we can make. Though no one has taken this path before, we Chinese must take it. This development strategy of “ecologically oriented modernization” basically connotes decoupling economic development from environmental degradation and making efforts to complete the ecological transition of the model of modernization. Modernization basically connotes industrialization and urbanization, and effectuating the strategy of “ecologically oriented modernization” in industrialization and urbanization means realizing “green industrialization” and “green urbanization.” The development strategy of “ecologically oriented modernization” not only goes against the strategy of going back to pre-modernization, but also resists the strategy of “high investment, high pollution and high consumption in exchange for economic growth and the realization of modernization, and even more so rejects and overcomes the “transfer” strategy universally adopted by the developed industrial nations. It is based not on “transferring” but on “transforming,” which although on the linguistic level makes only a difference with respect to one suffix, actually differentiates the meanings of widely different things. To transform means to start fresh, to start up anew; it means that clear weather starts to come at the peak of the storm. The contents of this “transformations” are plentiful, including the transformation of the conception of development and the Idea of development, the transformation of the theory and method of development, as well as the transformation of the model of economic growth, the transformation of the system of socio-economic operations and operating mechanisms, and even the transformation of working styles and standards of measurement. The theorists of ecological Marxism propose the goal of constructing “ecological socialism,” but they also know that we are far away from achieving this goal, and that the difficulties ahead of us our considerable. The most attractive aspect of the theory of ecological Marxism is in its profound and vivid description of the dilemma, in which humanity today is unwilling to give up affluent material life, but is still striving to get rid of the ecological crisis. Today the Chinese people have personal experience of what the ecological Marxists call the “human predicament” and the “human dilemma.” Here we follow the train of thought of ecological Marxism in order to analyze the “dilemma” that

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we ultimately find ourselves in and determine how to face it. In our view, this “dilemma” is mainly manifested in the following aspects: first, how to deal with capital: use capital while restricting capital. The results of China’s modernization are tied to the full utilization of capital. China just like the rest of the world uses the invisible power of capital to assemble, arrange and rearrange everything around us, while simultaneously washing China of otherness. China is currently in the process of undergoing a profound civilization, and undoubtedly, the driving force of this process is capital. And although capital in today’s China has brought about such obviously positive consequences as economic growth and increased material wealth, it has also brought about a negative impact that grows by the day. Among all of the negative effects, the most obvious one is the damage to the natural environment. So, the following difficulty arises before us: the enterprise of modernization is inseparable from the support of capital; without the role played by capital the enterprise of modernization becomes just another conjuring of the ivory tower. However, the essence of capital is pursuing the maximization of profit, and in order to pursue the maximization of profit, capital inevitably fails to consider the destruction of the ecological environment. So, how do we deal with capital? The key that we must always keep in mind is: what we want to implement is not the traditional form of modernization but “ecologically oriented modernization.” The implementation of the traditional form of modernization is but the blind use of capital. But, in implementing “ecologically oriented modernization” we cannot completely prostrate ourselves at the feet of capital. Instead, while making use of capital, we should also restrict capital. Second, technology needs to be developed and simultaneously controlled. Our nation is now implementing the strategy of rejuvenating the nation through scientific education, and pinning the hope of national prosperity on the development of science and technology is fully justified. The question is: is the influence of science and technology upon human enterprises completely positive? The reality is that science and technology are a “double-edged sword,” which, on the one hand, brings happiness and joy to humanity, but on the other hand, fabricates pain and misery. We can see the severe opposition between technology and the natural environment from the harms that technology bring to nature. So, in the process of implementing “ecologically oriented modernization”, we also run up against the problem of how to deal with of science and technology. Modernization is inseparable from the development of science and technology, but science and technology are often turned into tools of destruction that harm the ecological environment. Can we not turn science and technology into tools that are only beneficial and never harmful to the ecological environment and humankind? If we can, then there is still the hope of implementing “ecologically oriented modernization”

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and of building ecological civilization. The key point that one must realize is that science and technology are themselves “neutral.” They may become useful instruments or equally harmful weapons, depending on what kind of values animate the mind of the human being who uses science and technology, and what kind of purpose he or she has in mind. In order to implement “ecologically oriented modernization”, we must not only develop science and technology, but must also control and monitor science and technology, so that science and technology can become useful tools and powerful means to the end of building ecological civilization. Third, organizing production: we have to both expand production and change production. The process of pushing modernization forward is the process of continuously expanding production. On this there is no doubt. Even if the modernization we want to implement is ecologically oriented modernization, it is still an established policy to continuously expand production and develop the economy. The question is whether we should also make corresponding changes with respect to the organization of the mode of production in this switch from traditional modernization to ecologically oriented modernization. Here the perplexity we have to resolve is how to make production continuously expand and develop while simultaneously preventing this production from becoming “over-production” like a cancer cell that threatens the ecological environment and humanity’s own survival. Now that we have gathered the resolve to get out of the traditional model of modernization and implement ecologically oriented modernization, the original way of organizing production has to give way to change as well, which is to say that we cannot simply expand production and develop production in the process of implementing ecologically oriented modernization, but must also change production and adjust production at the same time. What first needs to be changed and adjusted is the purpose of production. The production that we implement in order to achieve ecologically oriented modernization cannot be production for production’s sake and even less can it be production simply for the sake of value and surplus value. This production ought to explicitly be first and foremost for the sake of satisfying human needs, but these needs must be genuine human needs, which is is to say needs that are tied to the wholesided development of human being. Fourth, how to organize consumption: we have to both stimulate consumption and give direction to consumption. What we are implementing now is not traditional modernization but rather ecologically oriented modernization, and whether we need to change this policy of blindly expanding and stimulating consumption and how we should change it are precisely the problems that we need to investigate. Originally this question was not difficult to answer, but since ecologically oriented modernization does not demand people to stop enjoying a rich material life, but on the

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contrary presupposes a rich material life, it also needs to use consumption to stimulate production and generate a plentiful subsistence of material life, and so it leads people to lose direction in the face of consumption, thus turning this originally easy to answer question into a hard one. We must not hesitate to change those consumption patterns which are incompatible with ecological civilization. Specifically, along with stimulating consumption we must also guide it according to the principles of ecological civilization. As long as we produce more durable products and produce more things that do not destroy the environment, or rather, produce more things but things that everyone can get a hold of, then less consumption can mean a better life, which is entirely possible. In order to realize ecologically oriented modernization, we not only have to stimulate consumption and use the expansion of consumption to spur economic development, but what is even more necessary is the need to give direction to consumption, and the need to stop consumption from breaking through the bottom line of ecological capacity.

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Marxism and the Construction of an Ecological Civilization “All roads lead to Rome.” This is the height of ancient Rome, a portrayal of the focus of the world. In the late 1960s, the world once again came to focus on Rome, where dozens of experts and scholars organized the “Club of Rome” around the task of accomplishing specialized research on global problems and the human predicament, resulting in the writing of some fully breathtaking reports for everyone on earth, telling people: while humankind is exploiting and conquering the natural world, they are encroaching on their own base of survival, and moreover are plundering the next generation; the entire circle of life that humankind depends upon to survive is narrowing, natural disasters will unprecedentedly increase and tend to worsen, and the habitable space of human beings—present and future—will be swallowed up by the desert. In the early 1990s, the Union of Concerned Scientists initiated and signed the “World Scientists Warning to Humanity,” in which 1,575 of the top scientists in the world signed their names. At the end of this statement of warning they inform humanity: we, the signatories of the statement, as senior members of the worldwide scientific community, solemnly issue a warning to all of humanity: we are facing great danger. If we want to prevent humanity from falling into great misfortune and avoid making our home—the Earth—meet disasters that take it to the point beyond recovery, then this ship, the Earth and the shipping routes of life on it have to make major changes. The warning call of the “Club of Rome” already receded into the past nearly one half of a century ago, and it has been 20 years since 1,575 of the world’s top scientists signed the statement as well. Throughout the world, environmental pollution and ecological damage have continued and further intensified in some areas. Humanity is still facing the threat of natural and ecological crisis. Recently, it was also predicted that due to global warming, sea-level rise near Shanghai where we live will be submerged like many cities around the world in a few decades. So, what causes humankind to find it so difficult to construct ecological civilization? Human being is a being with thought, human being’s practices are carried out under the control of thought, and correct behavior requires correct

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theoretical guidance. The key reason why humankind is struggling so greatly with respect to constructing an ecological civilization is due to the lack of proper theoretical guidance. One could say that the ecological crisis that humankind faces at this point is growing in seriousness by the day, but human beings have still not found weapons of thought genuinely powerful enough to get themselves out of this crisis. Then where can humankind find such weapons? The Western ecological Marxists convincingly tell humanity: this weapon is readily available in Marxism; it is the historical materialism of Marxism; it is the ecological world-view deduced from Marx’s historical materialism. The ecological worldview of Marxism is the world’s only weapon of thought that is capable of guiding people toward the elimination of the ecological crisis and the construction of ecological civilization. If people ask if Marxism has any practical significance in today’s world, then we can say that guiding people out of the ecological crisis is its greatest significance. In today’s world, there are a variety of ecological theories, and numerous facts have proven that they are not enough to guide humankind to take up the task of building an ecological civilization. Some people have come to realize and other people will eventually realize that only Marxism can take on this responsibility.

The Ecological Vision in Marx’s Works

Here I first analyze Marx’s three works, which are the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, the Communist Manifesto and Capital. These three are Marx’s major works of different periods. How does Marx explain the ecological worldview in these three books? Let us take a look. Marx is well-known for putting forward the concept of the alienation of labor in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. But in fact, Marx is closely linked the alienation of nature to the alienation of labor. The reason why the alienation of nature and the alienation of labor are inextricably interlinked is determined by the nature of what is natural. Marx always emphasized that nature enters directly into human history through the products of labor, and it is in this sense that Marx always viewed nature as the self-extension of humanity, and called nature “mankind’s inorganic body.” So, when Marx talks about alienation, he is not only talking about the alienation of labor, but also about the alienation of nature. The alienation that Marx speaks of is humanity’s alienation of its own labor as well as the positive role of humanity’s own transformation of nature. Since the alienation of nature and the alienation of labor in Marx originate from practical human life, the

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essence of the alienation of nature is no “more abstract” than the concept of the alienation of labor.1 Marx’s concept of alienation was recreated by means of transforming Hegel’s concept of alienation, and one major improvement is the inclusion of the alienation of nature under the scope of alienation. Marx saw Hegel as the first person to develop the concept of the alienation of labor, but thought that he was developing it in the field of idealism, which is mainly manifested in Hegel viewing alienation as solely the alienation of spirit, failing to recognize that the human practice of self-alienation is the basis of human alienation; this includes not only human being’s alienation from her own self but also from her real, sensuous existence: their relation to nature. People previously only recognized the distinction between Marx’s concept of alienation and Hegel’s, showing that alienation in Hegel is solely the alienation of mind, while Marx emphasizes that alienation is the alienation of human being’s sensuous activity. In fact, this is not enough, but seeing and not seeing the alienation of nature as a content of human alienation should be seen as a great discrepancy between the two. If you want to know how Marx understands the alienation of labor, just look at Marx’s analysis of the alienation of land, because the alienation of land is a typical example of the alienation of nature. Marx is right on point: the alienation of land demonstrates the following fact: “that the land should likewise sink to the status of a commercial value, like man”.2 Such is the alienation of land, and so is the alienation of other natural beings. Marx stresses that the alienation of nature is humanmade. In particular, it is caused by the rule of private property and money. He quotes Thomas Muntzer who attacks the evils of private property: “Open your eyes! What is the evil brew from which all usury, theft and robbery springs but the assumption of our lords and princes that all creatures are their property?”3 The institution of private property is a system of money-worship, and it is the worship of money that makes money become an independent thing, the universal value of all things. It has therefore deprived the entire world—human and natural—of its specific value. An important aspect of Marx’s ecological world-view that the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 express is revealing the universality of the opposition between the institution of private property and money, which shows that this opposition not only occurs in the spheres of agriculture and large estates, but 1  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 73. 2  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, People’s Publishing House, 1979, p. 85. 3  See also J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature, Monthly Review Press, 2000, p. 74.

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also occurs in large cities. According to Marx’s description, the alienation of the workers in the large towns had thus reached the point where light, air and sanitation were no longer part of their existence, and that it was rather darkness, polluted air and raw, untreated sewage that constituted their material environment. We can see from Marx’s description that not only creative work but also the essential elements of life were themselves forfeited as a result of this alienation of nature. Marx first introduces the concepts of “association” and “associated producers” in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844. This is Marx’s profound discussion on how to eliminate the alienation of nature. Since the alienation of nature was brought about by the institution of private property, the elimination of alienation necessarily presupposes the elimination of private property. How do we eliminate the institution of private property? Marx proposes to eliminate it through association. It is communist society that eliminates the alienation of nature through association. In Marx, communism is not only a humanist society, but also a naturalist society. The communism that Marx describes forms a sharp contrast with the society he examines—“the widespread prostitution of workers” and the “universal pollution” in large cities, that is, “dead matter”, and the monetary form of domination over the needs of human beings and their own development. Marx’s description of communism, and even the entire ecological worldview that he expresses in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, that is, his naturalistic and humanistic worldview is itself “the overcoming of history,” “the conquering of social alienation”.4 The Communist Manifesto is often misunderstood by some to be “anti-ecological”. This accusation that people wage against Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto derives from postmodernism’s position against modernism, namely it “implies certain assumptions against modernism.” Those who have criticized The Communist Manifesto as “anti-ecological” have merely grabbed onto some of the words of Marx and Engels to make big fuss about them. For example, Marx and Engels once praised the conquering of the forces of nature and the reclamation of the continent as a whole for cultivation in The Communist Manifesto. In the eyes of these critics of Marx, this is “irrefutable evidence” that Marx is anti-ecological. We must correctly understand these two phrases, namely “the conquering of the forces of nature” and “the clearing of whole continents for cultivation.” Marx and Engels state this in a truly appreciatory tone, because in their opinion it is a good thing. Famine—Malthus’s ghost—was already pushed back in such and such a way 4  Ibid.

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by bourgeois production. They had no reason not to be happy about it. It is clear here that Marx and Engels praised “the subjection of Nature’s forces to man” and “the clearing of whole continents for cultivation,” but we do not see them praying for some “Promethean doctrine”, that is, we do not see them espousing mechanization and industrialization “without reservation” at the expense of agriculture and ecology. Anyone who has read The Manifesto should be aware that Marx and Engels’ praise of bourgeois civilization in part one is not some abandonment of the critique of capitalism, but an introduction to reflection on the contradictions of capitalism. In fact, Marx and Engels end their praise of the bourgeois civilization at the conclusion of part one, where they state that capitalism, with its huge means of production and means of exchange, “is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells.” This involves a series of contradictions caused by the onesided essence of capitalist civilization. According to Marx and Engels, among the variety of contradictions of capitalism that are engendered in accompaniment with bourgeois civilization, there is the ecological contradiction. They are intensely conscious that “the wealth-generating characteristics of capitalism were accompanied by an increase in relative poverty for the greater portion of the population,” so they understood that the ‘Subjection of Nature’s forces’ to man “had been accompanied by the alienation of Nature, manifested in the division between town and country, which they saw as central to capitalism.5 In part two of the Manifesto, particularly in the “ten-point plan,” Marx and Engels give a brief but profound exposition of the ecological contradiction. And it is in The Manifesto where Marx and Engels consider the thought of establishing a sustainable relation with nature to be “an important component of the argument about the construction of communism.”6 Some of the core theories of Marx’s ecological worldview already took shape in The Manifesto, which is to say: all ecological problems are caused by the capitalist mode of production. The solution of the contradiction between town and country is the key factor in overcoming humanity’s alienation from nature, but to eliminate the contradiction between town and country necessarily requires changing the capitalist mode of production. That is, “that they tended to see the ecological 5  Ibid., p. 139. 6  Ibid., p. 140.

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problems in terms that transcended the horizons of bourgeois society and the immediate objective of the proletarian movement.” With respect to ecological problems in The Manifesto, on the one hand Marx and Engels were “careful to avoid falling into the trap of the utopian socialists of proposing blueprints for a future society that went too far beyond the existing movement,” and on the other hand, emphasized “the need for the movement to address the alienation of nature in the attempt to create a sustainable society.” The term “movement” is the proletarian revolutionary movement in opposition to capitalism, and the term “sustainable society” refers to socialist and communist society. Capital is widely recognized as Marx’s most important work, but people tend to ignore the theory of “metabolism” that Marx proposes in this work. The theory of “metabolism” is extremely important in Marx’s body of thought. It is precisely by means of this theory that Marx links together his critique of the following three aspects of the political economy of capitalism: the critique of surplus product of the immediate producer, the critique of the theory of capitalist ground rent, and the critique of the Malthusian theory of population. It is also with the aid of this theory that Marx’s study of capitalism goes deeper into the sphere of the interrelationship between human beings and nature, thereby unfolding the profound critique of the deterioration of the environment, and it is precisely this critique that “anticipated much of present day ecological thought.”7 In order to study Marx’s theory of metabolism one must first understand the meaning of Marx’s concept of metabolism, which refers to “the metabolic interaction of nature and society through labor”; Second, we must find out what Marx means by “metabolic rift”, namely one has to understand that Marx uses “metabolic rift” to express that: “an irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism, whereby the conditions for the necessary reproduction of the soil were continually severed, breaking the metabolic cycle.”8 Marx’s concepts of “Metabolism” and “metabolic rift” come mainly from the agricultural chemist Liebig, but Marx made major revisions to it. For instance, Marx revised the concept of metabolic rift in two respects: one is he no longer limits this concept to describing the depletion of soil fertility, and uses this concept rather to refer to the entirety of capitalist society’s “alienation of nature” and “alienation of matter;” Second, he does not think that this “rift” occurs only in certain regions and countries, such as the United Kingdom of Europe, and stresses rather that this is the entire capitalist world, and even the entire globe. 7  Ibid., pp. 141–142. 8  See also J. B. Foster: The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, vol. 58, No. 9, p. 10.

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What is most important in studying Marx’s theory of “metabolism” is understanding Marx’s analysis of the cause of the “metabolic rift.” The ecological Marxist Foster believes that we can draw the following eight conclusions from Marx’s causal analysis of the metabolic rift: 1. Capitalism catalyzes an irreparable fracture in the metabolic relationship between humankind and the earth, and the earth is originally the permanent condition of production that nature gives to humankind; 2. This demands the “systematic restoration” of the metabolism as “the natural law of social production;” 3. However, under the capitalist system, large-scale agriculture and long-distance trade intensifies and extends this metabolic fracture; 4. The wasting of soil nutrients is reflected in the city’s pollution and emissions; 5. Large-scale industrial and mechanized agriculture collectively participate in the destruction of agriculture; 6. All of these portray the urban and rural opposition in the capitalist system; 7. Rational agriculture needs independent small landholders or joint large manufacturers to autonomously operate their production activities, which is fundamentally impossible under the conditions of capitalism; 8. The present condition needs the metabolic relation between humanity and the Earth to be structured, thereby pointing beyond the capitalist system toward socialism and communism.9 The most central facet of the eight conclusions is the attribution of the root cause of such metabolic rifts as soil failure, urban pollution and so on to the capitalist system. Reading Capital and especially studying the theory of “metabolism” that Marx proposes in this work, we can never forget the following warning that Marx gives: “that the logic of capital accumulation inexorably creates a rift in the metabolism between society and nature, severing basic processes of natural reproduction.”10 Whereas Marx’s thought about the “metabolic rift” during the 1840s and 1850s mainly concerned the depletion of soil fertility, and thereby highlighted the split between city and countryside in capitalist society as well as the long distance trade of goods that it brings about as the cause of the metabolic rift, in the 1860’s and 70’s, Marx’s analysis of the source of the metabolic rift plunged deeper than the rather direct and superficial urban/rural split to reach capitalism’s mode of production and private ownership of land. This of course follows Marx’s concern about the metabolic rift in capitalist society broadening from the depletion of soil fertility to the entirety of capitalist society’s alienation of nature; this is to say that Marx used this concept of metabolic rift universally to illustrate the ecological problem in capitalist society. 9  J. B. Foster: Marx’s Ecology in Historical Perspective, contained International Socialism, Summer 2002. Chinese translation contains Foreign Theoretical Trends, 2004, No. 2 pp. 34–35. 10  J. B. Foster: The Ecology of Destruction, in Monthly Review, 2007, 2, vol. 58, No. 9, p. 9.

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The Practical Significance of Marx’s Ecological Worldview

Through the above analysis of Marx’s three major works, we illustrated the core of Marx’s ecological worldview. Let us reflect further on the practical significance of Marx’s ecological worldview. In my view, this practical significance is mainly found in the profound light it sheds on humankind’s elimination of the ecological crisis and humankind’s construction of ecological civilization. At the very least the following four points are enlightening: First, where is human society ultimately heading? What sort of condition of existence at bottom should humankind have? What position does the harmonious coexistence between humans and nature hold in the ideal human society? Marx’s ecological worldview gives definitive answers. We should without any hesitation proceed in the direction that Marx points out. Since in Marx, on the one hand, humanity belongs to the material world as a component part, and human being is a naturally existing thing, and on the other hand, the entire natural world first is a direct means of subsistence of people, followed by the activities material of human life and change into “man’s inorganic body”, the two not only originally do not conflict, but also share an inseparable intrinsic connection to one another. Human being’s relationship with the other beings in the natural world is one of partnership, and there is complete equality between them. The ideal society should be a society of mutual harmony between humanity and nature. The ideal society that Marx talks about is not only a humanistic society, but also a naturalistic one. Regarding naturalism as a chief feature of communism and insisting that communism is the organic integration of humanism and naturalism—this is the most fundamental core of Marx’s ecological worldview. Marx explicitly states that this positive kind of communism as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man—the true resolution of the strife between existence and essence, between objectification and self-confirmation, between freedom and necessity, between the individual and the species. Society under communism is no longer alienated due to the institution of private property and the accumulation of wealth as the driving force of industry. “Thus, society is the complete unity of man with nature—the true resurrection of nature—the consistent naturalism of man and the consistent humanism

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of nature.”11 We should always remember the picture of the ideal society that Marx describes for us, and never forget the perfect combination of naturalism and humanism as the goal to fight for! Second, we are squarely facing the ecological crisis, so what exactly does this crisis means for us human beings? Whither ultimately will this crisis lead us human beings? Marx’s ecological worldview can enable us to adequately understand the essence of the ecological crisis and the seriousness of the harm that it inflicts on us human beings. This to say that Marx’s ecological worldview will enable us human beings to adequately understand that whether or not human society can ultimately continue depends on whether or not today’s humanity can cross this juncture of the ecological crisis. In one respect Marx’s ecological worldview unfolds at the level of “what should be the case,” namely it discusses what the ideal society should be like from the perspective of the interrelation between human beings and nature, and in another respect, it also unfolds at the level of “what actually is the case,” namely it returns to the actual world and reveals how human beings and nature are opposed in the actual world. Since Marx explains the essence of the opposition between human beings and nature and the essence of the ecological crisis from the heights of philosophy and ontology, we can fundamentally understand the danger of the ecological crisis. According to Marx’s exposition, the ecological crises will make us human beings lose the basic elements of life, and if we do not eliminate the ecological crisis, us humans will fail to become human, but will become inhuman. If we live to get rich at the cost of sacrificing the natural environment, the premise of this kind of life is the opposition between human beings and nature, and so does not really count as happiness. According to Marx’s exposition, if human beings endlessly invade nature, nature will wage revenge on humankind in return, and the result will be the inevitable extinction of human society. We certainly have to warn ourselves with these statements of Marx, and always situate our existence as if facing the deep abyss while treading on thin ice, and always remember that us human beings are already in immanent danger. Third, what is most important for today’s humanity to know is exactly how the ecological crisis is engendered. Is it engendered, as some people say, by technology, modernity and industrialization itself or by other causes? Is the ecological crisis the inevitable end of humanity’s striving for modern 11   Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, People’s Publishing House, 1979, pp. 118–119.

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civilization or can it be eliminated? The most valuable part of Marx’s ecological worldview is the explanation that the ecological crisis is brought about by the capitalist mode of production and way of life, the capitalist principle of profit and the logic of capital. Because of this, the ecological crisis is not insurmountable, and as long as humankind limits and eliminates the logic of capital, humankind can get out of the ecological crisis. The ultimate solution to the ecological crisis is changing capitalism into socialism. Marx’s ecological worldview clearly tells people: the capitalist system is the biggest obstacle in the way of humankind’s elimination of the ecological crisis and building of a truly harmonious relationship between humankind and nature. The essence of capital stands in fundamental opposition to nature, and as long as the logic of capital is operating smoothly in the world without obstacle, talking about humankind wanting to get out of the ecological crisis is as absurd as climbing up trees to catch fish. The biggest revelation that Marx’s ecological worldview gives to people today is: eliminating the ecological crisis without touching the capitalist system can only be a dream. The reason humanity opposes the capitalist system is not only because it is a system of some people cruelly exploiting others and an institution that engenders inequality between human beings, but also because it is a system of some people endlessly pillaging the earth and an institution of conflict between human beings and nature. Fourth, how is humankind to begin eliminating the ecological crisis today? Certainly, eliminating the ecological crisis is a synthetic project requiring the synthetic undertaking of all kinds of factors, but what is the most essential core of it? Because Marx’s ecological worldview attributes the cause of the ecological crisis to the capitalist system and the logic of capital, the necessary logical conclusion is that eliminating the ecological crisis is a struggle against capitalism, and humanity’s struggle against the ecological crisis should be synchronized with humanity’s struggle against capitalism. Since the argument that Marx uses to prove that it is precisely the capitalist system that destroys the “metabolism” and that leads to the ecological crisis is fully adequate, his argument that we can only eliminate the “metabolic rift” and realize sustainable development by overthrowing the capitalist system and ending the capitalist system of private property is also strongly convincing. We must remember: the process of changing the capitalist relations of production is “the process of completely breaking from capitalist principle of profit,” and only by breaking with the principle of profit, can we ensure the healthy “metabolic relation” between humans and nature; abolishing alienated labor is the necessary condition of resolving the “metabolic rift”, and we should combine changing alienated labor with altering the relation of opposition between

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humans and nature; “having plans” is an indispensable element of establishing healthy a “metabolic” relationship between humans and nature, and a society that realizes sustainable development is a society in which human beings gain true freedom in such a necessary sphere as the natural world, and the main manifestation of such a society is “controlling with consciousness and plans;” “letting workers unite” is the key to achieving sustainable development, and producers who are united can finally rationally regulate the metabolism between themselves and nature; solving the problem of private ownership, namely changing the capitalist institution of private ownership into the socialist institution of public ownership is the precondition of eliminating the “metabolic rift” and achieving sustainable development. When we emphasize that the key to eliminating the ecological crisis and constructing ecological civilization, according to Marx’s ecological worldview, is changing the capitalist mode of production and changing the logic of capital whose purpose is profit, we must also point out that such changes are not easily accomplished. That we hold to the Marxian ecological worldview does not mean that we advocate thoroughly breaking with both the capitalist mode of production and the logic of capital at once in order to realize ecological civilization. Building ecological civilization is a long and arduous process, and breaking with both the capitalist mode of production and the logic of capital is no less long and arduous. The key to all of this is that there is no single goal of human activity but a plurality of goals of human activity. This pluralism determines the direction of the activity of the social system toward an organic system of goals. When making decisions about the goals, people in such an organic system of goals must synthesize, balance and coordinate their variety of goals, and then draw up their own reasonable plans of action. For today’s humanity, eliminating the ecological crisis and constructing ecological civilization is certainly a goal, and even the main goal, but it is equally certain that in addition to this goal, humanity still has other goals. It is impossible for humankind to give up other goals for the sake of a single goal. When the goals of eliminating the ecological crisis and building ecological civilization require humanity to break with the logic of capital, other goals may still further require the implementation of the logic of capital. In this case, in order to realize the synthetic system of goals, there remains the problem of how to maintain the tension between limiting and transcending the logic of capital while exercising and implementing it. In my opinion, pointing this out does not weaken the urgency and importance of advocating the ecological worldview of Marxism today. In the process of eliminating the ecological crisis and constructing ecological civilization, Marx’s ecological worldview enables us to discover the true direction of attack, which is combining the elimination of the ecological

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crisis and the construction of ecological civilization with the struggle against the logic of capital, but in concrete action, our attitude must remain calm and scientific. Of course, under circumstances where the main direction of attack in eliminating the ecological crisis and building ecological civilization is still extremely vague, it is becoming even more necessary to specifically draw people’s attention to Marx’s ecological worldview.

CHAPTER 17

The Inspiration of Ecological Marxism for Constructing an Ecologically Friendly Civilization Looking ahead, the deterioration of the ecological environment can be seen everywhere. Protecting the ecological environment and strengthening the construction of ecological civilization have become essential. So how in the end do we proceed? As some people say, wouldn’t investing more in some funds and solving some more technical problems take care of the issue? I think the study of ecological Marxism gives us much inspiration. Here, I think about where our construction of ecological civilization should begin through the detour of explaining relevant theories from “ecological Marxism.” Following the spirited rise of the ecological movement in Western society, ecological Marxism has also been developing continuously, and some even regard ecological Marxism as the latest form of development of Marxism. Ecological Marxists have long been engaged in exposing the seriousness and source of current social and ecological crises and in revealing the way out of the ecological crisis. Ecological Marxism, the Red-green faction of the current ecological movement, differs from ecocentrism, the Green-green faction of the ecological movement. Ecological Marxism basically carries out theoretical activity under the banner of Marxism, and many of its viewpoints on theory have much inspiration for us to consider.

From Humanity’s Conflict with Nature to Conflicts between Human Beings

How should we look at the increasingly serious crisis in ecology and nature? How are they brought about? These are questions that the contemporary study of ecological civilization must answer. Unlike other researchers who stop at the level of humanity’s relationship with nature, and talk about humanity’s conflict with nature solely with respect to humanity’s conflict with nature, what distinguishes the theorists of “ecological Marxism” is that, when answering these questions, they reveal contradictions between human beings through revealing the contradictions between human being and nature, and raise the problem of the relationship between humanity and nature to the

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level of inter-human relations for analysis. It is this point that will give us profound inspiration. On the issue of ecological protection, on the surface the problem seems to emerge at the level of humanity’s relationship with nature. The average person thinks that the ecological crisis and the crisis of nature emerge mainly due to the deviation of the idea and way of coexistence of humanity and nature. However, the theorists of ecological Marxism although insist that the problem emerges at the level of humanity’s relationship with nature, the roots of the problem plunge to the deeper to the relationship between human being and human being. The deviation of the Idea and way of coexistence of humanity and nature is determined by the deviation of human being’s relationship with other human beings, or rather by the deviation of the social system. Here we illustrate the analyses of the root causes of the ecological crisis that three theorists of ecological Marxism give. Gorz traces the roots of ecological problems in capitalist societies back to the social system of capitalism. The basic conclusion he reaches is that the capitalist profit motive inevitably destroys the ecological environment, and that capitalism’s “logic of production” cannot solve ecological problems. In his view, all the ecological problems in capitalist society can be attributed to the capitalist profit motive and capitalism’s “logic of production”. He specifically analyzes that every firm is a complex of such elements as natural resources, productive industry, and labor power. Under capitalism these factors are combined so as to yield the greatest possible amount of profit which for any firm interested in its future, means also the maximum control over resources, hence the maximum increase in its investments and presence on the world market.1 Concretely speaking, he states: Corporate management is not, for instance, principally concerned with making work more pleasant, harmonizing production with the balance of nature and the lives of people. Or ensuring that its products serve only those ends which communicates have chosen for themselves. It is principally concerned with producing the maximum exchange value for the least monetary cost.2

1  A. Gorz: Ecology as Politics, Boston, 1980, p. 5. 2  Ibid.

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Reducing costs is more important than protecting the ecological environment. This is capitalism’s “logic of production.” How could implementing this logic of production not destroy nature? Gorz sometimes describes the opposition between the protection of the ecological environment and the destruction of the ecological environment as the opposition between “ecological reason” and “economic reason.” With respect to economic reason, he states, “Computerization and robotization have, then, an economic rationality, which is characterized precisely by the desire to economize, that is, to use the factors of production as efficiently as possible”.3 In his view, if capitalism were to exist for one day it would implement economic rationality that very day, and implementing economic rationality necessarily destroys the ecological environment. In his view, examining ecological problems in abstraction from the economic rationality of capitalism will forever fail to get to the crux of such problems. According to Leiss, there is an intrinsic logical connection between controlling nature and controlling humans, and on the surface, the problem of contemporary civilized society seems to emerge at the level of humans controlling nature, but in fact, it emerges at the level of humans controlling humans. He states that “the concept in the ‘conquest’ of nature to cultivate false hope hides one of the deadliest historical motives of the present era: the inseparable connection between the mastery over nature and the mastery over people.”4 Leiss highly appreciates Horkheimer for linking together three characteristics of human history, that is, mastery over nature, mastery over human beings and social conflict. Social conflict is the linking factor of mastery over nature and mastery over human beings. He states: through the attempted conquest of nature, therefore, the focus of the ongoing struggle of men with the natural environment and with each other for the satisfaction of their needs tends to shift from local areas to a global setting. For the first time in history humans as a whole begin to experience particular clashes as instances of a general worldwide confrontation; apparently minor events in places far removed from the centers of power are interpreted in the light of their probable effect on the planetary balance of interests. The earth appears as the stage-setting for a titanic self-encounter of the human species which throws into the fray

3  A. Gorz: Critique of Economic Reason, London, 1989, p. 2. 4  William Leiss: The Domination of Nature, Beacon Press, Preface, 1974. See Chinese translation The Domination of Nature, Chongqing Publishing House, 1993, p. 6.

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its impressive command over the forces of nature, seemingly determined to confirm the truth of Hegel’s dictum that history is a slaughter bench.5 Conflicts exacerbated by technical mastery over nature fall into pursuing new technologies for the sake of exercising political control over relations between human beings. The intensified struggle has made people oppose each other with even greater desperation. In contemporary society, people may clearly see that technical mastery over nature converts into mastery over human being through manipulating demands. He states: “caught in the web of social conflict, technology constitutes one of the means by which mastery of nature is linked to mastery over man.”6 Leiss here demands that we not only view conflicts between human beings but also conflicts between human being and nature as social conflicts, and moreover understand conflicts between human being and nature in the context of social conflicts. Foster asserts that the ecological problems that threaten all life on Earth today are caused by the capitalist world economy. In his view, we cannot say generally that there is an opposition between ecology and humanity. What actually does exist is the opposition between ecology and capitalism. Moreover, capitalism and ecology do not simply oppose one another in the sense that certain minor complications arise between them, but rather they fully oppose each other with respect to each as a whole. He directly named his work Ecology Against Capitalism to demonstrate that the capitalist economy is the root cause of environmental and ecological problems. He does not agree with “environmental economists” who construe ecological deterioration as the result of the dereliction of the market’s duty and argue that it is brought about by dint of the market’s failure to recognize the environment as an element to integrate into its self-regulatory system. He also does not agree with the “technical capitalist” who asserts that with the help of new technologies he can expand the economy while simultaneously preventing environmental deterioration. In his opinion, the key to these two views is the failure to trace the human-nature relationship back to the human-human relationship, thereby speaking about ecological problems in abstract isolation from the capitalist economic system. For example, in his view, “Still, it would be wrong to see this as a mere technological problem or one of fuel efficiency, since the technologies that would allow us to avoid such a rapid buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere have long existed, the essence of the problem is “The drive to accumulate capital pushes the advanced capitalist countries down the road of maximum dependence 5  William Leiss: The Domination of Nature, McGill. Queen University Press, 1994, p. 158. 6  Ibid., p. 147.

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on the automobile, as the most efficient way of generating profits”.7 He states: “The capitalist system hopes to rely on natural capital to solve the environment approach absolutely does not work. The key is that the real cause of environmental problems lies in the capitalist social economic system itself.”8 Foster summarizes the four anti-ecological laws of capitalist economic production, that is “the only eternal relationship between things is the money”; “as long as not to re-enter the capital cycle, where things go is indifferent”; “all selfregulation market know is the best”; “natural giving is the gift of the property owner”. The anti-ecological nature of the first law is that all of human being’s relationships with nature are like all of human being’s relationships with other human beings under the conditions of capitalism, namely they can all be reduced to monetary relations, which estranges the inherently existing relationships between things in nature, and thereby pulls nature apart into fragments. The “anti-ecological nature” of the second law manifests itself as economic production under the conditions of contemporary capitalism failing to constitute a cyclical system. Since the capitalist economy only pays attention to whether some production can bring about profit, it cannot, as human beings did successfully in pre-capitalist society, reintegrate waste back into the loop of recycled utilization according to ecological laws; instead it draws one line from resource repository to waste dump. The “anti-ecological nature” of the third law manifests itself in using the rules of the market to govern all social and natural laws, whereby not only society becomes the market’s means of making money but nature does as well, for example, food has become a means of making profit, thereby giving food packaging, food transportation and food storage priority over the nutritional value of food. The “anti-ecological nature” of the fourth law manifests itself in capitalism’s failure when taking possession of natural resources and energy to include the ecological costs under the scope of economic calculations. For the capitalist economic system, natural resources and energy are free lunch, but as the higher level manager over the capitalist economic system, nature keeps this in mind: you pay the price for this so-called free lunch, which is the deterioration of the environment and ecology. The three ecological Marxists mentioned above illustrate from different perspectives that ecological problems although often manifest as humanity’s relationship with nature, could be problems in human being’s relationship with human being by means of revealing the intrinsic connection between the ecological crisis, environmental degradation and capitalism. We are a socialist country, and of course we cannot directly say of the ecological problems 7  J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 98. 8  Ibid., p. 40.

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that emerge before us that they are all generated by our social system, by our relationships between us human beings. We ought to say that our social system and the relationships between our people do not fundamentally conflict with ecological civilization. But this is not equal to saying that the basic train of thought of the ecological Marxists in facing ecological problems, namely that of looking through the conflict between humanity and nature to analyze and resolve the conflict between human being and human being does not give us any inspiration, and that it is not applicable here for us. The key point is that even though our social system and the relationships among our people do not fundamentally oppose ecological civilization as those relationships do in capitalist society, this is not equal to saying that our system and the relationships between our people are already perfect and fully in line with ecological civilization. In fact, many of our ecological problems are related to the imperfection of our system and relationship to one another, in which case we should draw inspiration from these ecological Marxists, and analyze the ecological problems of our China not solely at the technological level but at the interpersonal level of our social system, and moreover, concentrate on solving ecological problems through continuously reforming all of those imperfect aspects of our social system and interpersonal relationships.

The Advantages of Constructing an Ecological Civilization in a Socialist Society

Facing the new developments of history, while the ecological Marxists acknowledge that socialism is on the decline, they remain convinced that socialism will inevitably replace capitalism. In theory, they examine the intrinsic link between social development and ecological problems and assert that ecological civilization is the indispensable intension of socialism, and that moving toward socialism is the only option in solving ecological problems. This will obviously encourage us and give us great confidence on top of having an inspiring effect on us Chinese people who are currently engaged in the construction of ecological civilization under the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics. In the ecological Marxists, appealing to socialism in the end to fundamentally resolve ecological problems is a matter of course. The ecological Marxists look through the conflict between humanity and nature to reveal the conflict between human being and human being, and therefore oppose the eco-centrists avoiding the capitalist system, and instead insist that the capitalist system is the real source of the ecological crisis. Correspondingly, on the

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question of how to eliminate environmental deterioration and the ecological crisis, the ecological Marxists also oppose advocating as the eco-centrists do that the ecological crisis can be eliminated through improving technology and implementing such measures as decentralizing the economy in the capitalist system, and instead insist that the ecological crisis and environmental crisis can only be ultimately resolved by scrapping the capitalist system and eliminating the poverty and unfairness that this system brings about. Similarly, on the question of what kind of society should be established after eradicating environmental deterioration and the ecological crisis, the ecological Marxists also oppose the eco-centrists who advocate “back to the jungle” Romanticism, in order to establish “ecological Utopia” as the socio-political ideal, and instead posit the ideal goals of achieving the harmonious development of ecology, economy and society on the basis of socialism and of establishing socialism without exploitation and repression. Below we explain through dissecting several relevant accounts of ecological Marxism. Gorz made it clear that the best choice for protecting the environment is advanced socialism. He believes that we must be equipped with the following social environment in order to effectively carry out conservation work: producing practical items that are resistant to breakage, producing easy-to-repair machines that can stand up to prolonged use, producing clothing that stands up to the tides of fashion for prolonged wear; The major industries of central planning only produce for the sake of satisfying the basic needs of the population. All cities and towns should have workshops equipped with complete sets of tools, machinery and raw materials where citizens can produce for themselves and engage in production following their own interests. The people will have sufficient time to learn what they are interested in, time not only for reading and writing, but also for all kinds of handicrafts, that is, all of those professional technologies that have been taken from people by businesses and which henceforth can only be regained through purchasing them. Gorz points out that such a social environment is the social environment of socialism, and also points out that believing ecological protection is only possible under such a social environment is equivalent to believing that we can only implement ecological protection under socialism. He puts it this way: the economic imperative of productivity is totally different from the ecological imperative of resource conservation. Ecological rationality consists in satisfying material needs in the best way possible with as small a quantity as possible of goods with a high use-value and durability and thus doing so with a minimum of work, capital and natural resources. In contrast, the maximum pursuit of economic productivity aims to sell the

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maximum amount of stuff with the best efficiency of the production to get the most lucrative, and all these are based on the maximum amount of consumption and demand.9 Gorz clearly describes the differences between the two kinds of rationality. He stresses that we must transform the capitalist profit motive to implement ecological rationality, which means that we must transform the capitalist mode of production into the socialist mode of production. The socialist mode of production can and should be tied to ecological rationality. He believes that the rationality of an ecological mode of socialism is found in the rationality of ecological reason. Gorz insisted that the best choice for protecting the environment is an advanced socialism, but at the same time he also points out that what he called socialism was not the Soviet model of socialism existing at the time. In his view, the Soviet model of socialism is little different from capitalism on the point that it cannot effectively implement ecological protection. The key is that what the Soviet model of socialism follows is economic reason, not ecological reason, that is, under the Soviet model of socialism, social production and human behavior are equally ruled by the same economic reason. As long as the latter are ruled by economic reason, it does not matter whether plans or the market are used to adjust the economy, it will still fail to produce true socialism. He stresses that the Soviet model of socialism only provides people with a laughable enlarged caricature of the basic features of capitalism, because it regards the pursuit of accumulation and economic growth as its main goals. The only difference from capitalism here is the way it implements such accumulation and growth, that is, it tries to use carefully planned, centralized, overall external economic controls over the market to replace the external spontaneous mechanisms, and in all areas of behavior, it separates the functional behavior required by the overall rationality of the system from the rationality of the individual’s self-controlled behavior. Socialisms of the Soviet model also implemented all kinds of reforms, but because the basic ideas behind these reforms were based on consumerism, that is, since such reforms did not make the slightest change to the goal pursued, but only adjusted the means of achieving this goal, the reforms resulted in moving closer to Western capitalism and away from true socialism. In his view, the essence of socialism is to make economic behavior submit to the goals and values of society, and if you do not strive in this direction, the traditional form of socialism cannot become true socialism. 9  A. Gorz: Capitalism, socialism, Ecology, London, 1994, pp. 32–33.

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Pepper points out that since the ecological crisis is rooted in the capitalist system and in the business strategy of giving profit total command, which this system cannot change, the only way out of the ecological crisis is change this system, that is, to change the capitalist system into the socialist system. Of course, what he calls socialism is not the traditional sense of socialism, but ecological socialism. Pepper specifically points out to people that ecological socialism does not revolve around ecology and cannot—like some eco-centrists—maintain that ecological problems mainly emerge in humanity’s control over the ecological environment, and thereby also maintain that as long as we abandon control over the ecological environment and give ecology central primacy, then we have resolved the problem. We cannot maintain that the ideal society must be eco-centered. Pepper stresses that because he does not think that the root of ecological problems in capitalist society is failing to give central primacy to the ecological environment, he certainly does not boil the main features of the new ideal society that replaces capitalist society down to giving central primacy to ecology. Pepper points out that, as the ideal society that replaces capitalist society, the main characteristic of ecological socialism is implementing anthropocentrism. Of course, this anthropocentrism is not anthropocentrism in the techno-centric sense which is popular in current capitalist society. What some people currently call anthropocentrism is actually techno-centrism, that is, the giving of central status to what nominally is human being but actually is technology. The anthropocentrism in the present context is synonymous with what Marx called humanism. He states: Eco-socialism is anthropocentric (though not in the capitalisttechnocentric sense) and humanist. It rejects the bioethics and nature mystification, and any anti-humanism that these may spawn. though it does attach importance to human spirituality and the need for this to be satisfied partly by non-material interaction with the rest of nature. But humans are not a pollutant, neither are they ‘guilty’ of hubris, greed, aggression, over-competitiveness or other savageries. If they behave thus, it is not by virtue of unchangeable genetic inheritance, or corruption as in original sin: the prevailing socio-economic system is the more likely cause. Humans are not like other animals, but neither is non-human nature external to society. The nature that we perceive is socially perceived and produced. Also, what humans do is natural.10

10  David Pepper: Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice, London and York, Routledge, 1993, pp. 232–233.

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Pepper’s passage rather clearly reveals the reason why he understands ecological socialism as anthropocentrism: if we do not give central primacy to human beings but instead to nature and reverse the human-nature relationship, thinking that the real master is nature, that human being is only the servant of nature, and thereby mystify the human-nature relationship, this would inevitably bring about all kinds of anti-humanist institutions, whose result would not be nature assuming power, but many people becoming the slaves of a small number of people. The original nature of human being is rational, and all of the greediness and madness that human being presently expresses when in the face of nature is brought about by the existing social and economic system. According to her original nature, human being does not conflict with nature. As long as we transform the existing social and economic system, all of human being’s greediness and madness will disappear, and human being will recover her rationality. So, people will utilize natural resources in rational ways with reasoning and planning to satisfy humanity’s materially limited but rich and colorful demands. In this new model of the relationship between human being and nature, human beings have central primacy, and nature is the dear and lovely home of human beings, while humanity forms a harmonious relationship with nature, and truly achieves the elevated unity of humanism and naturalism. Foster believes that because there is inherent conflict between maintaining ecological balance and maintaining the rapid, unlimited economic growth that capitalism represents, it is impossible to resolve the contradiction between humanity and nature through the path of capitalizing nature under capitalist conditions. He also thinks that the application of new technology under capitalist conditions must submit to the “logic of capital”, or in other words, submit to the pursuit of profit, but the original nature of capital to make itself proliferate, so technological progress in capitalist society cannot possibly solve environmental problems in a fundamental way. On these grounds, he points out that only through social revolution and ecological revolution can we solve all environmental and ecological problems. He states that if you want to save the planet, you must make a clean break with those economists who advocate individual greed and promote the social order that is built upon it, and switch to building the new social system that can more effectively represent the pursuit of people’s values. He asserts that the new social system “must be peopleoriented, in particular, giving priority to the poor rather than the production of profits, the importance of meeting basic needs and ensuring long-term security must be stressed”.11 He proposes the transformation of the social relations 11  J. B. Foster: Ecological Crisis and Capitalism, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, Translated by Geng Jianxin et al., 2006, p. 75.

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of production along the direction of socialism as well as the social ideal of realizing the revival of socialism. In his view, this ideal social form “is not built on the basis of the accumulation of wealth at the expense of mankind and nature. but on a just and sustainable basis.”12 In this ideal form of society there is also of course the force of control, but such a force of control “is not a pursuit of profits but to meet the real needs of the people and social and ecological sustainable development requirements.”13 The process of realizing the ecological strategy is also the process of transforming capitalism into socialism, in the process of which, on the one hand, there needs to be an alliance between the workers movement and the environmental protection movement, which eliminates the opposition between workers and environmentalists; on the other hand, there needs to be coordinated action at the national level to satisfy social needs, and simultaneously we must plan out the establishment of new humannature relations, vigorously weaken the cooperative tie between the state and capital, and eliminate the role of the state as an agent of capital. In his opinion, socialism is of the utmost importance for enacting the transformation of ecological strategy. He states: “In the socialist system, the root causes of the largest and most serious environmental damage will be directly eradicated in a way that shows itself beyond capital capacity, not only against its interests.”14 He even suggests that the environmental revolution is the socialist revolution as the third human revolution. He combines the history of struggle between socialism and capitalism with the development and present condition of the environmental movement, and puts forward the basic strategy to solve current environmental problems—to realize socialism with “social ecological justice” as the main content.15 The three scholars mentioned above are representative of the whole of ecological Marxism in giving the account that only socialism can finally resolve ecological problems. This is the area that is most worthy of deeply considering among all the work of the huge theoretical system of ecological Marxism. It must be noted that they strive to prove the necessity of establishing socialism even while socialism is receding through critiquing the ecological crisis of contemporary capitalist society, that is, they raise the banner of socialism high in the ecological movement precisely when socialism is receding from the currents of popular prestige, which makes it even more valuable. They revolve 12  Ibid., p. 96. 13  Ibid., p. 129. 14  Ibid., p. 128. 15  See also: Chen Shilin: The contradiction between Man and Nature and its Solution—On Foster’s Ecological Crisis, contained Foreign Social Science, No. 2, 2007, pp. 19–20.

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around this goal of constructing ecological civilization and explain for people that socialism adds new content from a holistic perspective. That ecological socialism emerges suddenly from a plethora of socialist camps and schools is by no means accidental, and this reflects a major turning point in the traditional theory of socialism. We are currently in the construction of ecological civilization under the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and we basically completed the desired transition to socialism that these theorists of ecological Marxism demand. Therefore, we must cherish the advantages of our socialism, and in the process of building a civilization, we must fully exercise the advantages of the socialist system. The implementation of “ecological-oriented modernization” and the construction of ecological civilization will face many problems, and we can say that these problems are simply impossible to solve in capitalist society. The basic reason why we have been able to so confidently explore ways to solve these problems is because we have the support of the socialist system and socialist values. In capitalist society, even individual enterprises are also trying to implement an ecological transformation, but the whole system is capitalist, so this transformation is bound to die halfway down the road. We know that in all of the different business enterprises, the value that is generated by following the laws of ecological civilization undoubtedly belongs to the category of singular value, and Marx points out: the real value of a commodity is not its singular value but its social value, which is to say that its real value is not calculated as a function of the labor time that the producer actually spent to produce it on a singular occasion, but as a function of the social labor time necessary to produce it, in which case, if society cannot provide an excellent environment for enterprises to take the path of ecological civilization, even if these individual enterprises want to achieve the ecological transformation they would be too hard pressed to do so, because due to reasons related to scale, technology, equipment and the market, they really cannot possibly make their individual value equal to or less than the social value.16 This shows that overall only socialism can possibly implement ecological civilization. Looking around at today’s world, the cries for the construction of ecological civilization are resounding to the high heavens. Here, we decide to build ecological civilization, and scholars of the capitalist nations of the West also propose the need to improve the ecological environment, and achieve the relationship between humanity and nature. Having read the accounts that these “ecological Marxists” give, we now know that only a socialist society can possess the conditions necessary to solve ecological problems. 16  See Jia Huaqiang: Firm Establishment of the Concept of Ecological Civilization, Contained Wen Wei Newspaper, October 30, 2007.

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Because we possess these conditions, we should take on the responsibility of taking the lead in building ecological civilization in the land of China.

Constructing Ecological Civilization and Creating Humanity’s New Way of Being

The theorists of ecological Marxism closely combine the study of ecological civilization with the study of humanity’s way of being. They believe that the most basic meaning of constructing ecological civilisation is creating humanity’s new way of life, or rather, new way of being. What follows the construction of ecological civilisation is certainly the formation of humanity’s new way of life and new way of being. The theorists of ecological Marxism demand that humanity self-consciously turn the process of constructing ecological civilization into the process of creating humanity’s new way of life and new way of being. This viewpoint that they offer gives the Chinese people who are currently engaged in the construction of ecological civilization inestimable inspiration. What is the biggest problem in today’s world? Many people argue that the problem of development is the biggest, namely that there are no problems in today’s world that are bigger than the problem of how our world is to develop. But the theorists of ecological Marxism think that there is a problem bigger than that of how to develop, which is the problem of how to live. We can only truly know how at bottom this world of ours should develop after first clarifying the problem of how humanity should live. In their view, the problem of how to live is closely tied to the problem of how to exist, and solving the problem of one’s way of life resolves the problem of one’s way of being. They think that humanity’s current way of being is not the genuine way of being of humanity. Humanity’s way of being may basically be divided into two types: the first is “having,” namely reducing the meaning of human existence to having as many things as possible; the second is “being,” namely a person does not exist because she possesses things, rather her existence is the expression of her creativity, activity, and love. This contemporary way of being marked by human being “possessing” things most prominently manifests itself with respect to humanity’s relationship with nature, namely human being endlessly wants to wrest things from nature and possess them as her own. So, in their view the first step in changing this “possessive” way of life is changing humanity’s relationship to nature. Only when humanity’s relationship to nature is no longer the relationship of the possessor to the possessed, only when the natural world is no longer the object of human possession, and instead humanity builds an equal partnership with nature, will human being no longer have the

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feeling of being a “possessor” and “conqueror” when coexisting with nature, and humanity’s new relationship to nature will take shape along with a new way of human life, a new way of being. Below we concretely look at accounts relevant to this point from several ecological Marxist theorists. Gorz thinks that constructing ecological civilization for humanity is escaping the control of economic rationality, and this means breaking free of the principle of “the more the better.” He insists that the link between “the more” and “the better” must be severed in the process of building ecological civilization and “better” must be tied together with “less”. In his view, as long as we produce more durable products and goods which inflict less harm on the environment, or produce more goods that everyone can obtain, we can live better with less work and consumption. He argues: “ ‘the market-based order’ is fundamentally challenged when people find out that not all values are quantifiable, that money cannot buy everything and that what it cannot buy is something essential, or is even the essential thing.”17 And, when people enter such a state, and feel satisfied with it, this marks the point where people have already formed a new way of life and a new way of being. In this new way of life and new way of being, people will find that their lives are no longer entirely dominated or confused by labour. People discover that this is a sphere in which value cannot be quantified, and discover that this is finally the sphere of autonomous life. When labour that is undertaken for economic purposes is greatly reduced, autonomous activity gains the possibility of becoming dominant in society. We should drive economic reason out of leisure time. In this way, leisure will no longer be just surplus or compensation, and instead will be the indispensible time of life and the reason for living. As leisure overrides labour, free time should override non-free time. Let such free time become the bearer of all universal values, and let creativity, joy, beauty, and play defeat all the values of efficiency and profiteering in labour. Gorz sometimes describes the new way of life and the new way of being as “less production, better life”. In his view, once ecological civilisation has been built, the purpose of production will no longer be the pursuit of maximum profit, and the production of luxury goods will cease and give way to the production of those durable and repairable things that do not pollute and that people need. The two great results that come about from implementing this type of production include: One, social labour will be limited to producing things that life demands, and thereby working time can be reduced at the same time, which will allow people to gain more free time, greatly expand their freely chosen activities, and meanwhile, both person and public will express themselves in ways that are 17  A. Gorz: Critique of Economic Reason, London, 1989, p. 116.

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today unimaginable, which will make their ways of life diversify. Two, as people change their relationship with one another, they also change their relationships with the environment. The people no longer stand in opposition to the environment, but in harmony with the environment, recovering and reviving their intrinsic connection to the natural world. Gorz stresses that these two great results are connected to people’s new way of life and new way of being. Leiss asserts that the process of building ecological civilisation is the process of guiding people to find joy in the sphere of production rather than that of consumption, and once people find that their own satisfaction ultimately rests in production activities rather than consumption activities, a new way of human life and a new mode of human existence take shape. He points out that modern industrial society is in the process of guiding people toward such a way of life and way of being. For people living in the tall multi-story buildings of cities, their energy supply, food and other necessities, as well as waste treatment are all reliant upon a massive and complex system. At the same time, people mistakenly believe that continuously growing consumption may seem to compensate for the setbacks suffered in other areas of life, particularly that of labor; because of this, people frantically pursue consumption to vent their dissatisfactions with work. Consequently, consumption is equated with satisfaction and happiness; in other words, only quantity of consumption is used as the scale upon which to measure their own happiness. Leiss notes that this equating of consumption with satisfaction and happiness is precisely evidence that modern industrial society is in the process of alienation. In order to reach the goal of controlling human beings, modern industrial society does not flinch at making every aspect of human life dependent on centralized bureaucratic systems, doing everything possible to make people eliminate and numb the frustrations and pains they suffer in work through the avenues of consumption. Such a way of life and way of being is not only the foundation of legitimacy of the welfare state, but also the source of the ecological crisis. Leiss insists that we must transform that way of life and way of being which equates consumption with satisfaction. He argues: “The possibility of satisfaction would be primarily a function of the organization of productive activity, and not—as in our society today—primarily a function of consumption.”18 If people understand the fact that continuously growing consumption cannot possibly compensate for the frustrations suffered in other areas of life, then they will understand that the prospect of progressive social revolution depends on normally finding satisfaction and happiness in the areas of life outside of the sphere of consumption. Leiss also insists that society focussing on the sphere 18  William Leiss: The Limits to Satisfaction, Toronto, 1976, p. 105.

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of production and on encouraging people to seek happiness and satisfaction in the process of engaging in autonomous and creative labour does not entail forcing everyone to adopt a single particular way of life; on the contrary, it encourages providing people with more attractive options than they are currently used to. The investment strategy that currently focuses on consumption can only lead to a single choice, namely a highly intensive arrangement of the market based on a concentrated urban population. Once the focal point shifts to the question of how to make people find satisfaction in production activities, people will be able to access an ideal living environment, which is richly attractive to every individual. If the direction of investment of modern society did not force people to live a single model of life, then each individual would have a wide range of freedom of choice. “Under these circumstances individuals could choose, for example, to trade off at diverse levels the satisfactions gained by personal activity in the production of everyday requirements against the satisfactions of consumption in a generalized market setting.”19 Whereas the two ecological Marxists mentioned above mainly focus on explaining how the construction of ecological civilisation builds a new way of life and new way of being as well as on what kind of characteristics this new way of life and way of being ultimately have from the philosophical perspective, another theorist of ecological Marxism, O’Connor, mainly gives an account of these issues from the perspective of economics. According to the economic theory of Marxism, He argues, every good has both exchange value and use value. The exchange value means the conversion value of a commodity to all other commodities, which is measured by the labour time; thus, it is a quantitative concept, while use values concern human being’s natural or acquired needs, which is a qualitative relationship. A certain quantity of food can provide a certain amount of nutrition; a certain amount of oil or coal can provide a certain amount of heat or energy; a particular model of car will deliver people to work at a certain speed; specific types of fabric keep the person who wears it warm or cool; specific books educate readers in a specific technical field. All of these are “use values”. He points out that in capitalist society, the purpose of capitalist production is the pursuit of profit, so “use value” is subordinate to “exchange value”, and “concrete labor” is subordinate to “abstract labor.”20 Indeed, “ ‘use value’ is being increasingly incorporated in “exchange value”, which is to say that the meeting (or not meeting) of more and more needs comes more regularly in the (single) form of the commodity, and much 19  Ibid., p. 108. 20  James O ‘Connor: Natural Causes—Essays in Ecological Marxism, Translated by Tang Zhengdong et al. Nanjing University Press, 2003, p. 514.

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less commonly come in the immediately social form. Indeed, examples of this include more cars, less public transport; more treatments, fewer preventions; more fast food, fewer home cooked meals; more MTV, less local music; more major performing groups, less cultural self-development.”21 At this point it is fitting to refer to certain activities, such as studying food from the viewpoint of nutrition, studying the workplace from the viewpoint of health, and examining the transportation system on the basis of commuting time to and from work, each case of which although may be “reasonable” from the perspective of “use value,” is often “unreasonable” from the perspective of “exchange value.” In O’Connor’s view, constructing ecological civilisation in some sense means transforming this situation in capitalist society in which use values are subordinate to exchange values, and doing the opposite, namely making exchange value subordinate to use value and making those things that were originally thought “unreasonable” become “reasonable.” Whether with respect to the whole of humanity or with respect to each individual, once people focus on the importance of “use values” and dedicate themselves to making exchange values dependent on use values, this means that a new way of life has taken shape, a new way of being differing substantially from the current way of life and way of being. This new way of life and new way of being manifests itself not only in attaching more importance use value over exchange value, but also in praising “quality” over “quantity.” There is no doubt that quantity is more important than quality in capitalist society. In fact, it expresses an attitude toward life as well as a way of life. Thus, when the Marxists in the ecological protection movement assert the need to struggle for “determining quality” instead of struggling for “determining quantity,” which is to say when they struggle for a higher quality of life instead of merely struggling to increase quantity, they are in fact creating a new way of human life and a new way of being. In addition, O’Connor furthermore asserts that what accompanies the construction of ecological civilisation is not only the switch from putting more weight on “exchange value” toward putting more weight on “use value” and consequently the switch from esteeming “quantity” toward esteeming “quality”, but also the switch from “distributive justice” toward “productive justice”. He states that the environmental movement should save socialism from its infatuation with “quantitative reform practices” and “distributive justice”, and replace them (or supplement them) with qualitative reform practices and “productive justice.”22 He also points out that “distributive justice” means “distributing things equally” and “productive justice” refers to “producing things equally”. In capitalist 21  Ibid., p. 520. 22  Ibid., p. 515.

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society, “distributive justice” is well accepted. With regard to environmental issues for example, equality means the equal distribution of environmental benefits, environmental hazards, risks and costs. However, the reality is that in capitalist society, the more people believe in this “distributive justice”, the more environmental destruction there is. The key point of the construction of ecological civilisation is how to transform “distributive justice” into “productive justice”, and how to change the concern with the equal distribution of the positive and negative factors of production and accumulation into a concern with the production of the positive and negative factors of production and accumulation. The former involves a “social exchange relationship”, while the latter involves “the social relations of production that include labor relations.”23 We can decipher what he means through this obscure concept, namely that in order to protect the ecological environment, we should not always pin all the focus on whether or not a society is “just” with respect to distribution, and instead should pin focus on whether or not this society is “just” with respect to production. He states: “the only viable form of justice is ‘productive justice’; and the only viable form of ‘productive justice’ is ecological socialism.”24 Judging from the context of this passage, he not only wants to express here his advocacy for “productive justice” but even more so wants to explain that a way of human life and way of being that is commensurate with ecological civilization has effectively taken shape when people all believe in productive justice. Even though these ecological Marxists argue, from the perspective of “what ought to be,” that the process of building ecological civilization ought to be the process of forming a new way of life and a new way of being, and also that the being of humans under ecological civilization ought to be a new being which differs from the way of being in capitalist society marked mainly by “possessing,” their accounts still enlighten us greatly, especially with respect to making us aware of what kind of goal it is that us human beings are finally trying to reach in constructing ecological civilization, namely with respect to making us aware of what direction we ought to move in. At present, some Westerners are discussing the question of whether the 21st century will become China’s century. In their view, if the 20th century was the American century, then it is entirely possible that the 21st century could become the Chinese century. If this is true, then the discussion turns to the question of what kind of nation China should develop into so that it could act as the leading representative of the 21st century. I think that even if the GDP of China catches up to or exceeds that of America, and the level of Chinese people’s material consumption 23  Ibid., pp. 537–538. 24  Ibid., p. 538.

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catches up to or surpasses that of the American people’s, the 21st century could still not possibly become the Chinese century. China’s GDP must continuously increase, and the level of Chinese people’s material consumption must continuously rise, but what Chinese people need to do most at present is create a new way of life and a new way of being. The way of life and way of being that is popular today has already reached the point in time where it must change its course to avoid the disaster it is courting. At present the entirety of humanity is calling for the emergence of a new way of life and new way of being. At this crucial moment, if in the process of building ecological civilization, we focus on building a new way of life and a new way of being, and moreover this new way of life and new mode of civilization is constructed first on Chinese land, would this not be the greatest epoch making contribution to all of humanity?

Making the Construction of Ecological Civilization into a Great Revolution of Thought

The theorists of ecological Marxism have a common sense when discussing ecological problems, which is: the construction of ecological civilization is not an issue of projects, technology or finances, but instead one about core values and the human soul. They all insist that the construction of ecological civilization is a great revolution of thought. Whether ecological civilization can truly be built depends on whether or not we can complete this revolution of thought. Undoubtedly, this enlightening point is no trivial matter. They all devote their efforts to revealing the source of the ecological crisis in culture and thought, thinking that the global ecological crisis that humanity is facing today is not caused by ecosystems themselves, but by our cultural systems. At present the entire cultural system has actually reached its end point, because it is precisely under the influence of this culture of thought where nature’s ecosystems have already been pushed to the limit of collapse. The current degree to which all of the ecosystems in the world today are being destroyed is directly proportional to the degree to which the culture of thought and values have been decaying. Based on this basic understanding, the theorists of ecological Marxism call for re-inspecting the culture of thought from the ecological perspective. In their view, this examination should not only reveal the roots of today’s ecological crisis in the culture of thought and analyze how some of the current cultural viewpoints and values have assisted if not outright triggered the ecological crisis, but also should create thought and values that suit ecological civilization. They repeatedly demonstrate that raising the ecological awareness of people around the world is the key to building

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ecological civilization. They always ask others as well as themselves: in the face of such a grave ecological disaster, how can we not deeply reflect on our thought and values? They are deeply convinced that as long as the conscience and sense of mission of the majority of people have still not disappeared, but instead have been reawakened, then they will indeed coalesce into a great tide of ecological protection. Although they did not directly participate in the practices of ecological management, they did however contribute to digging out and even uprooting the foundation of the ecological crisis in the culture of thought as well as contribute to building an environmentally friendly type of society from the perspective of ideas of thought. Below we similarly discuss related accounts from several theorists of ecological Marxism. Agger argues that the way to eliminate the ecological crisis lies in eliminating the alienation of consumption and in realizing the revolution of human needs. He states clearly that Ecological Marxism involves two analytical perspectives: on the one hand, it assesses the environmental consequences of continued resource-depletion and atmospheric pollution generated by the expansionist dynamics of capitalist commodity production; on the other hand, it attempts to assess modern forms of domination located in the way in which human beings become emotionally dependent on the alienated consumption of commodities, attempting to escape the authoritarian coordination and boredom of alienated labor.25 In his view, how to resolve this phenomenon of people being made “emotionally dependent on the alienated consumption of commodities” is the key point. So he puts forward “the dialectic of shattered expectations”, a new form of social revolution, to replace the model of social change in the traditional Marxist theory of the crisis of capitalism. He argues that yet ecological Marxism recognizes the genesis of new crisis-dynamics triggered by what we term below the ‘dialectic of shattered expectations’— a process of sudden consumer disenchantment with capitalist production and consumption and the possible restructuring of our expectations about the meaning of happiness.26

25  Ben Agger: Western Marxism: An Introduction, p. 272. Goodyear Publishing Co., Inc. California, 1979, p. 272. 26  Ibid.

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What he calls “the dialectic of shattered expectations” includes the following four inseparable processes: First, contemporary capitalist society gains its legitimacy from humanity being able to expect the limitless consumption of commodities, which is to say that the legitimacy of contemporary capitalist society is based on stimulating people’s expectation of a limitless consumption of goods. Second, due to the ecosystem’s inability to support unlimited growth, the scenario where people mistakenly expect that capitalism can provide an endless, steady stream of goods is not sustainable forever, which therefore throws capitalist society into crises of supply and demand during ages of industrial prosperity and material abundance. This is to say that the ecological crisis of contemporary capitalist society necessarily translates into the crisis of supply and demand. Third, people are already accustomed to seeing their own expectation of material abundance as compensation for alienated labor, and when the supply crisis arrives, their expectations are shattered, at which point they start to lose confidence in capitalism’s ability to infinitely satisfy humanity’s material desires, and then go on to doubt the entire capitalist system, at which point they start to reconsider what it is that people really need; Fourth, it is in the process of the shattering of expectations and in the process of rethinking what people truly need, where unexpected consequences arise, such as the destruction of many stale demands, ideas and values, and the production of new expectations, and ways to meet those expectations. It is in those people, whose expectations have been shattered, where new expectations are brought about. Facing the increasingly serious ecological crisis, people are pessimistic. Agger thinks that it is precisely ecological Marxism’s “dialectic of shattered expectations” that releases people from this pessimism. He states: “It is this dynamic process, termed here the dialectic of shattered expectations, that we find the most compelling impetus to socialist change.”27 The ecological crisis destroys many original demands and values, which makes many people bewildered about the future. Some people assume that humanity will soon give up modernized life, and henceforth demand people to spend more time on basic household chores, such as making toast for oneself, walking instead of driving, eating much less nutritious grain-fed meat and eating much more ecologically less wasteful non-meat protein. For many people, this would seem like the end of the world. Ecological Marxism can help people dispel this misunderstanding, because Agger urges people to destroy their original demands and expectations, establish new demands and expectations, and help people go through the revolution of demands and expectations. Once people realize 27  Ibid., p. 323.

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this revolution and establish new demands and expectations, optimism and an uplifting atmosphere will once again return to the world. Leiss notes that there are two traps in the problem of how to understand the source of the ecological crisis and how to get rid of it. The first trap is set by some government officials. Policy officials repeatedly try to comfort people’s concerns by singing the same tune: environmental problems are basically problems of economic cost and quality of environment is one kind of attractive commodity among many others. They announce that as long as production costs go up and people accept a rise in prices, environmental problems can be solved easily. It means people can buy a good environment with money. Leiss sharply points out that “There are two powerful social mechanisms at work: the universality of market-oriented standards and the lofty faith in the ability of industrial technological innovation.”28 He insists that “attributing environmental problems to problems of accounting economic costs” is actually a “trap”, and believing it will become “prey falling into the trap”, and “the result is that the whole of nature is placed in the position of pure object in order to satisfy the needs of man.”29 The second trap is set by certain thinkers, who continue pronouncing that the root causes of environmental problems are science and technology, and hence that science and technology should be cursed, an that the worship of these false gods is the root cause of all disasters and ecological crises. Leiss fiercely critiques the viewpoint of such thinkers who closely tie science to the control of nature. He points out that The error in the view of Scheler and others which presents the scientific mastery of the world as a pragmatic enterprise is that it leaves the realm of human goals and purposes unanalyzed. It is simply not sufficient to show that the scientific investigation of nature and its technological applications occur in an operational framework. The decisive question is, in what specific social context is it operational?30 What Leiss means is that their mistake is in discussing science’s control of nature purely on the operational level in abstraction from the specific sociohistorical context, and they do not truly reveal the many conflicting ingredients of science in the process of controlling nature, and consequently fail to understand “the real historical motivations of the pursuit of control.” So, what 28  William Leiss: The Domination of Nature, Beacon Press, Preface, 1974. See Chinese translation The Domination of Nature, Chongqing Publishing House, 1993, p. 2. 29  Ibid., p. 3. 30  William Leiss: The Domination of Nature, McGill. Queen University Press, 1994, p. 117.

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is the real cause of the ecological crisis? What is vital to solving environmental problems? Leiss clearly states that: the ecological crisis is caused certainly by people’s idea of controlling nature which has been passed down inveterately for thousands of years. So, the key to solving environmental problems is in changing the original idea of controlling nature. In his view, the idea of controlling nature is the precisely ideology, which causes the growing environmental problems. The idea of controlling nature has the general features of an ideology like “as a kind of false consciousness, it is an indicator of basic social contradictions” and “it can be used to conceal the real contradictions.” We can only discover the fundamental way to solve environmental problems by deeply understanding the nature and functions of this ideology. He thinks that it is through the idea of controlling nature that people become arrogant, treat nature cavalierly and regard nature as a “possession” but not as a “cherished cooperator”. In his view, human beings must change this deeply rooted idea, and get free of this self-centered limitation. People should start with the overall interests of the ecosystem and think about problems from the perspective of humanity and nature having a partnership, and constrain their lives and development with such thoughts. Foster calls for a moral revolution which fuses ecological values and culture into one. In his view, the human response to the global ecological crisis will be completely hopeless if we do not quickly establish a new ecological culture and ecological ethics which can replace people’s current immoral and even amoral way of treating nature. He thinks that presently such immoral ideas and immoral behavior that humanity demonstrates in relation to the environment are all related to what he calls the “treadmill wheel mode of production,” which is actually the capitalist mode of production. This mode of production consists of the owners of capital at the top of society and the struggling workers at the bottom. They each constitute one part of the treadmill wheel. Because this mode of production is established on the basis of dependency on energyintensive technologies and the investment of a lot of raw materials and energy, it necessarily leads to the rapid consumption of natural resources and increasing amounts of waste, which is to say that it is necessarily uncoordinated with the earth’s ecosystems. Foster thinks that this mode of production is consistent with certain ethical ideas; indeed, it is impossible to maintain a mode of production without corresponding ethical ideas. He lists all kinds of ethical ideas that prevent people from protecting the ecological environment and which are combined with the treadmill of production. The first one is the ethical idea of viewing land as a commodity, which necessarily spawns the idea of controlling nature, namely the idea that nature exists to serve humanity and to become the slave of humanity. In order to oppose this ethical idea of viewing land as

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a commodity, we ought to establish the new idea of land ethics according to which land belongs to us. Only in this way can humanity come to use land with a respectful heart and make the standard of judgment of our behavior whether or not some behavior promote the integrity, stability and beauty of the earth. The second is the unethical idea of money above all else. A society dominated by the capitalist mode of production is a society that the rich controls. A society that the wealthy controls necessarily sets the standard of measurement of success as how much money is made, in which case, trying to stop the worsening of the environment through calling on persons and corporate elites at the top of the social pyramid for a moral awakening can only be wishful thinking. Only when the rich are not controlled by the idea of money above all else, which is to say, only when they think of something more precious than money, will they possibly do the right thing and protect the environment. The third one is the ethical idea of viewing personal interest as more significant than the group’s. The treadmill mode of production adores personal interest. Selfish individuals can do anything. Interest groups can do whatever they want for the sake of the interests of their own small group. Proceeding from the standpoint of private self-interest, forget about intergenerational equality because intragenerational equality is already out of the question. Actually, us individuals only gain a foothold on earth when the whole species and the whole world can survive well. Otherwise, the old proverb is completely true that when a bird’s nest is overturned, no egg remains intact. The last ethical idea is that of worshipping competition. Natural selection has already become the natural law that people follow in handling daily affairs. Under the rule of this law, modern society has become a society whose core value is competition. When this value is situated in humanity’s relationship to nature, insane plundering emerges. Under the rule of competition above all else, the one-way controlling relationship inevitably becomes the dominant form of social relation, which then necessarily brings about hierarchy, namely the higher class’s control and enslavement of the lower class. Actually, what we need is not competition but symbiosis. Symbiosis is crucial to both human society and the entire biosphere. Foster deeply recognizes that people are directed under the guidance of these ethical ideas to carelessly destroy the ecological environment, and so he demands that people begin solving ecological problems at the level of ideas. He argues that, in a future ecological society, “the status of nature and community above that of the accumulation of capital; equality and justice above individual greed; and democracy above the market”.31 31  J. B. Foster: Ecology Against Capitalism, Monthly Review Press, 2002, p. 82.

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The accounts given by these ecological Marxists have a deeply shocking effect on us. The 17th communist party congress under the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics added the content of ecological civilization, which not only marks an important transformation of development strategy on the national level but also great progress in thought. What’s more, we are sure to gain a more profound understanding by learning about the relevant accounts that these theories give. The construction of ecological civilization in China needs the commitment of government leaders at all levels as well as individual participation. To stimulate the people’s active participation, the precondition is strengthening ecological consciousness. Without a strong consciousness of ecology, where would active participatory consciousness come from? Two Chinese idioms may be used to illustrate the two profoundly different results that arise from having and lacking ecological consciousness. The first one is accumulating water sinks the boat, which illustrates the significant cost that will be paid if 1.3 billion Chinese people ignore ecological protection in daily life. The second one is “drops of water become a river,” which illustrates that plenty of resources can be accumulated if 1.3 billion Chinese people take ecological protection into considerations and carry out corresponding actions. The theorists of ecological Marxism often regard ecological consciousness as the largest ecological resource. They believe that as long as the people of the earth break the chains of bourgeois values and commonly establish ecological consciousness, grave ecological disasters will not arise, and even if they were to arise, people would be able to overcome them. Indeed, the recent ecological problems have largely been caused by human activity. It is better to discover the key causes and make corresponding solutions. Let the ones who created the problem solve it. These human-made ecological crises need human beings to solve them. What’s more, only with ecological consciousness can people take the responsibility of saving the planet as well as living in harmony with nature. “One prospers in worry, but perishes in tranquility” is an old Chinese adage. On the journey toward advancing socialism with Chinese characteristics and implementing ecological civilization, we should maintain some consciousness of worry in mind. Actually, the first thing we should worry about is whether the Chinese people really have the strong impulse to promote environmental protection work. It can be seen that “satisfying the material needs of the people” is still the mainstream expectation that some Chinese people have. However, limited ecological capacity can never fill this massive gaping hole of desire, in which case, how could we not worry? Apart from this, some Chinese believe that “every man should fight for himself and God will fight for everyone,” which means that people will maximize their own benefit but ignore that of others. People prefer to maximize their own

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good and give up responsibility to God. However, where is God? As Nietzsche alerts us, “god is dead,” in which case, how can we not worry? Thankfully, with the lead of Hu Jintao, the general secretary of the CPC central committee, the construction of ecological civilization and the revolution to establish ecological consciousness will begin to unfold in China first. So we have no reason to continue sinking to the level of accusing Nature and resenting man. Following the whole-sided development of constructing ecological civilization and following the whole-sided enactment of “ecologically oriented modernization”, significant changes of both the natural environment and living environment in China will occur. China’s skies will be blue skies, Chinese waters will be clear and fresh waters, Chinese people will be healthy people. China must become green mountains, fresh waters and clear skies, where people are beautiful, creatures are beautiful and life is beautiful.

CHAPTER 18

Ecological Marxism’s Opposition to Postmodernism Since ecological Marxism separated itself from the ecological movement, its conflicts with postmodernism have become increasingly obvious, so this part focuses on such conflicts between ecological Marxism and postmodernism.

“Green Politics” as a Form of Post-modern Politics

“Green politics” emerged in accompaniment with the booming of the ecological movement in the West. “Green politics” is undoubtedly a post-modern politics. David Pepper, a newly emerging ecological Marxist of the contemporary West, believes that Green politics often lack structure and coherence, reject authority and embrace cultural relativism—paradoxically despite their desire to see all societies conforming to universal meta-theories of ecology, i.e. the laws of nature like carrying capacity. Therefore green politics have much in common with postmodernism. They reject universals (apart from laws of ecology) being imposed on groups, in favor of self-determination, and they reject, in green theorizing, the hidden and structural in favor of the superficial. Hedonism (doctrine that pleasure is the chief good and proper aim) and aestheticism (appreciation of beauty) rather than grand morality, are the organizing principles behind many visions of a green ethics and society.1 Ecological Marxists believe that some “Green Political Scientists” themselves believe so too. For example, Atkinson, a Green Political Scientist, combines “green politics” with post-modern politics and puts forward the concept of “green postmodernism.” As a Green Political scientist, Atkinson greatly admires relativism. He is convinced that fostering universal rational principles and making use of dualistic logic and reductionist analysis is equal to encouraging cultural imperialism. Atkinson stresses that both positivism and social Marxism, as the appendage of the ideology of this social and political system 1  David Pepper, Eco-Socialism: from Deep Ecology to Social Justice, London and York, Routledge, 1993, p. 57.

© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi ��.��63/9789004356009_023

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(a hierarchical system of power), their function lies in the legitimization of instrumentalism, and their “discovery” of the “function” hidden behind noninstrumentalist cultures represents a simple denial of other cultures or rather the attitude of non-instrumentalist culture. In sharp contrast, “Postmodernism strongly recognizes other cultures and ideas, namely the equal value of the ‘other.’ ”2 That Atkinson highly praises postmodernism is very clear here. Atkinson argues that the mission of “the Green Political scientist” is to criticize, abandon the enlightenment and create an alternative political ecology. It must be pointed out that the category of “Green Politics” which echoes postmodernism does not include every theory of environmental protection. Here, “Green Politics” only refers to ecologically centered politics. The ecological movement that parades under the “green” flag amasses schools and trends of all stripes, which can be roughly divided into two camps, namely, “the Green-greens” and “the Red-greens.” The former includes ecofundamentalisim, ecological anarchism and the mainstream green party. All related theories are referred to as eco-centrism. The “Red—greens” consists of both social democrats and some Marxists, whose theoretical apparatuses are referred to as ecological socialism. What is more, theories that openly brandish the seal of Marxism are also known as ecological Marxism. Generally speaking, “Green Politics” means the “Green-greens” and does not include ecological socialism or ecological Marxism, namely “the Red-Greens.” In the theory of environmental protection, the ecologically centered doctrine is closely tied to postmodernism and is opposed to modernism. Ecological socialism, especially ecological Marxism, is closely tied to modernism but not to postmodernism. In Pepper’s opinion, making it clear that “Green Politics” only refers to ecocentrism in the theory of environmental protection is of significant value, because the main conflict between the “Green-greens” and the “Red-green” lies in their differing attitudes toward postmodernism and modernism respectively. Pepper states that “Green-green” and “Red-green” can be regarded as the controversy between postmodernism and modernism, the “Green-greens” stand on behalf of postmodernism, and the “Red-green” is on behalf of modernism.3 Pepper also states that Ecologism (mainstream as well as an overtly anarchist version) is highly infused by elements of anarchism, which has many coincidences with postmodernism, even though it is an old political philosophy. The red 2  Atkinson, Principles of Political Economy, London, 1991, pp. 61–62. 3  David Pepper, Eco-Socialism: from Deep Ecology to Social Justice, London and York, Routledge, 1993, p. 58.

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c­ ritique of ecologism is an attempt to pull it towards a more modernist outlook, involving: (i) a form of anthropocentrism; (ii) a Marxist-informed (materialist and structuralist) analysis of what causes ecological crisis; (iii) a conflictual and collective approach to social change; (iv) socialist prescriptions for, and visions of, a green society.4 In pepper’s view, ecological socialism, especially ecological Marxism, is theoretically based on the enlightenment, rationalism and concepts of development and values pertaining to industrial society. Thus, it is necessarily consistent with modernism and is inconsistent with “the Green Politics” of ecocentrism, which adores irrationalism and mysticism.

Should Modernization be Abandoned or Reformed?

The rise of ecological Marxism represents a tendency within the ecological movement to step out of the traps of postmodernism and to lead the green revolution toward modernism. The “Red-greens” separating from the ecology movement is actually a process of confronting postmodernism. Ecological Marxism opposes not only postmodernism’s ecocentrism, which belongs to environmentalism as well, but also the entirety of postmodernism. Postmodernism is the result of the opposition to the modernization movement of modern industrial civilization. Beginning with the critique of all of the negative effects of modernism, postmodernism goes on to critique the entire industrial civilization’s view of development and values. Postmodernism not only encompasses the span of time between modernism and postmodernism, but also includes the resistance to and correction of modernism. Postmodernism inherits from modernism, but also resists it. Postmodernism attributes the series of social problems, which modernity causes, to the idea of modernity, and thereby has to fundamentally negate modernity itself. Some postmodernists argue that postmodernism is not the end of modernism but the beginning of modernism. Some think of it as the latecomers surpassing the forerunners, others as “the future being there first.” D. R. Griffin, an American postmodernist, points out that postmodernism is “One that human beings can and must go beyond the modern mood.”5

4  Ibid. 5  David Griffin, Post-Modern Science—the Reappearance of Scientific Charm, Central Compilation and Translation Press, 1995, “English Preface”.

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Ecological Marxists seriously disagree with the arrogant “beyond modern” attitude of postmodernism. They also sharply critique modernism for its negative effects, especially for the destruction of the ecological environment. However, they do not negate modernization itself. Ecological Marxism does not deny industrial society like postmodernism, which includes eco-centrism; they advocate anti-growth, anti-technology, and anti-production. Actually, they neither beautify nor negate modern civilized society. They do not harbor extreme passions toward modernization and modernity. They have strong motivation to repair collapsed modernity and to pursue the possibilities of modernity in the cultural, social and economic fields. Ander Gorz, the most famous ecological Marxist, points out in Critique of Economic Reason that the problem of modernity is that there is no limit to it, so a limitation must be placed on modernity. He argues that What we are experiencing is not the crisis of modernity. We are experiencing the need to modernize the presuppositions upon which modernity is based. The current crisis is not the crisis of Reason but that of the (increasingly apparent) irrational motives of rationalization as it has been pursued thus far. The current crisis is not an indication that the process of modernization has reached an impasse and that we shall have to retrace our steps. It is rather an indication of the need for modernity itself to be modernized, to be included reflexively in its own sphere of action: for rationality itself to be rationalized.6 Various postmodernist theories believe that modernity is in crisis. Actually, Gorz’s words are pointed at postmodernism’s critique of modernism itself. He also argues that What ‘post-modernists’ take to be the end of modernity and the crisis of Reason is in reality the crisis of the quasi-religious irrational contents upon which the selective and partial rationalization we call industrialism.7 By saying so, Gorz stresses that the process of modernization is incomplete, and that the limitations that have been placed on modernity are already in the process of being broken through. The crisis is not modernity itself, but its quasi-irrational religious content.

6  Gorz: Crique of Economic Reason, London, 1989, p. 1. 7 Ibid., p. 2.

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If people adhere to the standpoint that the current crisis is a crisis of modernity, then getting sadly lost in nostalgia for the past is inevitable, which prevents us from giving new meaning and direction to the reform of our old collapsed beliefs, and thus, we cannot get us out of the crisis. Hence, the key is to change the concept of modernization, namely the old concept of modernization which believes that there are no limits to modernization which can be crossed endlessly. He says that I hope to demonstrate that rationalization has ontological and existential limits, and that these limits can only be crossed by means of pseudorationalizations, themselves irrational, in which rationalization becomes its opposite”, “One of my principal objectives here will be to delimit the sphere of what can be rationalized.8 Drawing a line means learning what can and cannot be done in the process of modernization. Another famous ecological Marxist, William Leiss, points out that malpractice in modernization should not encourage people to head back to the pre-modern era. In light of the fact that those who oppose ecological Marxism often accuse the ideas and values of ecological Marxism as being “primitive,” Leiss reiterates that “this perspective does not seek to glorify any earlier state of social development as a golden age to which we should return.”9 What is more, he believes that ecological Marxism “does not necessarily assume that any other earlier social pattern achieved a better realization of that ‘autonomous and creative intercourse’ among persons and between persons and their environment of which it speaks,” but that “some of the achievements of modern industrialism have opened up new possibilities for their expression and realization” (Refers to the development of human autonomy, creativity—cited by the note).10 In his opinion, the serious disagreements between ecological Marxism and postmodernism erupt out of the issue of whether or not we should give up all the fruits of modernization and go back to a pre-modern state. He calls for discussing ecological Marxism and postmodernism separately. People should recognize clearly that negating modernity and going back to the original period is postmodernism. In order to eliminate the misunderstanding, he says that

8  Ibid. 9  William Leiss, The Limits to Satisfaction, Toronto, 1976, p. 109. 10  Ibid.

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the objective of an alternative social policy would not be to return a larger portion of the population to the harshness of circumstances which in the past often characterized life in the hinterland, but to disperse the advantages of modern technology—deliberately sacrificing some of the dubious efficiency of centralized production—over a wider variety of situation, and if you really do this, then no doubt, the positive features of industrialization and sophisticated technologies could offer to contemporary society a luxury not available to earlier societies, namely the ability to sustain a variety of life-situations that are more equally attractive for individuals.11

Eco-centrism or Anthropocentrism?

A pronounced feature of postmodernism is dispelling subjectivity. Post­ modernists believe that the existence of the subject not only implies the twoway division of being into “subject-object,” but also reflects the shortcomings of modernity. The subject can be seen as one’s name written in the sand; it may be erased, after which there is no more relation between human and thing in the world, but the relationship between something and nothing. It is well known that modernism overthrows religion and the divine, and releases humanity and subject. One of the great achievements of modernity is to put forward the subject and subjectivity. Hence, when postmodernism fights modernism, the subject is the first to be criticized. The ecological centrists of environmentalism, or the “Green-greens,” have undertaken a systematic study of the anti-subjectivity of postmodernism and attribute the root problems to anthropocentrism. They begin with objecting to the industrialized plunder of nature, then oppose anthropocentrism, arguing that ecocentrism should replace anthropocentrism. Ecological Marxists oppose not anthropocentrism itself so much as the capitalist form of anthropocentrism. Especially after the 1990s, ecological socialism has emphasized that although people should rethink their attitudes toward nature, they should not give up the “human scale,” but should on the contrary return to being anthropocentric. Splitting from “Green Politics,” the ecological Marxists want to rebuild a new ecological politics with anthropocentric aims 11  Ibid., pp. 107–108.

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and re-establish the modern view of nature based on the “human scale” to analyze humanity’s relation to nature. Pepper argues clearly that “Eco-socialism is anthropocentric and humanist.”12 Specifically, It rejects the bioethics and nature mystification, and any anti-humanism that these may spawn, though it does attach importance to human spirituality and the need for this to be satisfied partly by non-material interaction with the rest of nature. But humans are not a pollutant, neither are they ‘guilty’ of hubris, greed, aggression, over-competitiveness or other savageries. If they behave thus, it is not by virtue of unchangeable genetic inheritance, or corruption as in original sin: the prevailing socioeconomic system is the more likely cause. Humans are not like other animals, but neither is non-human nature external to society. The nature that we perceive is socially perceived and produced. Also, what humans do is natural.13 This explains why Pepper regards ecological Marxism as anthropocentric. If not humans but nature is placed at the center, which reverses the relationship between humans and nature by regarding nature as master and humans as slaves, then the relationship between humans and nature is rendered mysterious, and anti-human systems will emerge, which turn humans into slaves of nature. The result will be the majority of humans becoming slaves of a minority group. It is understandable that human nature is originally rational, but the current social and economic system encourages human greed and volatility. Human instincts are not in conflict with nature. So as long as the current social and economic system happens to transform, greed and volatility will disappear, and hence, humans will regain their rationality. Then humans will reasonably use natural resources in a planned manner to meet a limited though ample and diverse set of human needs. This new mode of relation between humans and nature is anthropocentric, but regards nature as the lovely home of human beings. A harmonious relationship between humans and nature will be established and the integration of naturalism and humanism will be achieved. Gorz argues that the shortfall of eco-centrism lies in its incorrect reduction of the cause of the ecological crisis to the failure to shift the ecosystem to the center of the sphere of ideas, which is the erroneous belief that environmental 12  David Pepper, Eco-Socialism: from Deep Ecology to Social Justice, London and York, Routledge, 1993, p. 232. 13  Ibid., pp. 232–233.

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protection will be achieved as soon as eco-centrism is fully implemented in the sphere of ideas. Gorz strongly disagrees, arguing that we should find the causes of the ecological crisis in the capitalistic mode of production. Specifically, the human behavior of destroying the natural ecological balance is largely caused by the capitalist mode of production. He stresses that every enterprise is a combination of natural resources, production tools and labor elements. Under capitalism these factors are combined so as to yield the greatest possible amount of profit which for any firm interested in its future, means also the maximum control over resources, hence the maximum increase in its investments and presence on the world market.14 He believes that the motivation for pursuing profit essentially opposes the protection of the ecological environment. The profit motive inevitably drives people to destroy the ecological environment, in which case, the key solution to the ecological crisis is obviously not found in shifting ecology to the center of the sphere of ideas, but in abandoning the motivation based on maximizing personal profit. What is more, giving up the pursuit of personal profit cannot be achieved, as eco-centrism insists, simply by advocating for it loudly. Actually, there is no necessary connection between anthropocentrism and the principle of profit-first. Trying to solve the ecological crisis by opposing anthropocentrism is like trying to squeeze blood out of a stone. Only by accepting and promoting anthropocentrism and humanism can we tackle serious ecological crises. Furthermore, Gorz believes that identifying the differences between anthropocentric ecological Marxism and technologically oriented theories is vital. Technologically oriented socialism is a form of anthropocentric capitalism. It pursues maximizing profit and ends up destroying the relationship between humans and nature. Therefore, ecological Marxism opposes not only eco-centrism but technocracy as well.

Can Rationality Correct the Biases of Rationalism?

Humanism and rationalism constitute the core of modernism. While dispelling subjectivity and anthropocentrism, postmodernism points the spear at rationalism. Postmodernists take aim against modernists who advocate for the viewpoint of using rationality to conquer and measure everything. The modernization movement takes its strides forward with the aid of rationality. 14  A. Gorz, Ecology as Politics, Boston, 1980, p. 5.

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That rationality has in no small way negatively affected modern society is the basis upon which postmodernists insist that rationality dismantles the old slavery and oppression, but not without bringing about new forms of slavery and oppression by dint of setting up new “authorities,” “essences” and “centers.” Postmodernists blame all of the downsides of modern society on its rationality, especially the malignant inflation of technological rationality and the dominance of the metaphysical way of thinking over people. Consequently, postmodernists advocate for the elimination of rationality. The eco-centrists in the environmental protection movement, namely, the orientation of the cultural values of the “green-greens” do not differ at all with other postmodernists in holding fast to irrationalism and anti-rationalism; they connect the critique of enlightenment rationality to the critique of the ecological crisis in modern society, believing that the severity of destruction of nature in modern society is the result of the successful deployment of enlightenment rationality. Eco-centrists deny instrumental rationality, technological rationality and economic rationality, and further, deny the entirety of rationality. Even though ecological Marxists sharply criticize instrumental rationality, technological rationality, and economic rationality, and moreover, reveal the depth of misfortune that modern humans suffer due to the influence of enlightenment rationality, they do not fundamentally deny rationality. Ecological Marxists emphasize that rationality is distinctive of human beings, which makes them still capable of using it to correct the ill uses of rationality. They believe that rationality is of no fault by itself and cannot be eliminated. In their view, the current problem is not how to eliminate rationality, but how to revive the essential attribute of human beings and make rationality develop and function in an orderly and healthy way. They constantly question post­ modernists on the following point: is it possible to carry out the critique of rationality without adopting the means of rationality? While denying instrumental rationality, technological rationality and economic rationality, they try to rebuild and improve an entirely new rationality, namely social rationality and ecological rationality. The ecological Marxist, Gorz, critiques rationality no less than postmodernism with great severity, but he restricts his critique of rationality to economic rationality. What he speaks of as economic rationality refers to the pursuit of maximizing profit, and at the same time, maximizing efficiency, maximizing consumption and maximizing demand. Gorz believes that the emergence of economic rationality is synchronous with the birth of capitalism. Economic rationality began to work when people learned to calculate and account, which means producing not for personal consumption but for the sake of the market. He states, “Economic rationalization begins with counting and calculating,”

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“but from the moment when I am no longer producing for my own consumption but for the market, everything changes.”15 Now that production under the direction of economic rationality is mainly undertaken for the sake of exchange, production follows the maxim of the more the better. So, the category of “enough” is no longer merely a cultural category as it was in traditional society; rather it has become a principally economic category. Its hallmark is breaking the original maxim of “Enough is Enough” with the principle of “The More, The Better.” He borrows Habermas’s critique of “cognitive—instrumental rationality” to dissect the dangerous influence of economic rationality: …… economic rationality, which is a particular form of ‘cognitive instrumental’ rationality, is not only wrongly extended to cover institutional actions to which it is not applicable, it ‘colonizes’, reifies and mutilates the very relational fabric on which social integration, education and individual socialization depend……. Habermas sees the reason for this ‘colonization’ in ‘the irresistible dynamic’ developed by ‘economic and administrative sub-systems’, that is hetero-regulation by money and state power.16 So, on the basis of Habermas’s critique of “cognitive—instrumental rationality,” Gorz argues that the major danger of economic rationality consists in “colonizing” the lifeworld. Gorz’s critique of economic rationality has greatly influenced Western society. Even some postmodernists frequently cite Gorz’s critique of economic rationality to illustrate the evils of rationality. However, Gorz does not only critique economic rationality but also praises ecological rationality at the same time. He believes that only ecological rationality truly embodies the true spirit of enlightenment rationality. So in his view, the denial of economic rationality does not demand that people get rid of the entire spirit of rationality, but demands that people better carry the great banner of rationality. Gorz demands that rationality be redefined and that rationality be given a new content that carries the characteristic of the age, which is to praise ecological rationality. What he calls ecological rationality refers to the goals of living better with less labor and consumption while seeking the maximization of ecological good. He argues that we must break the bond between “the more” and “the better”, and forge a bond between “the better” and “the less”:

15  A. Gorz, Critique of Economic Reason, London, 1989, p. 109. 16  Ibid., p. 107.

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In particular they might even escape the grip of economic rationality by discovering that more is not necessarily better, that earning and consuming more do not necessarily lead to a better life, and that there can, therefore, be more important demands than wage demands.17 After breaking free from the constraint of economic rationality, the best direction is towards ecological rationality. He argues: Ecological rationality consists in satisfying material needs in the best way possible with as small a quantity as possible of goods with a high usevalue and durability and thus doing so with a minimum of work, capital and natural resources.18 Gorz insists that humanity turning from economic rationality toward ecological rationality is the victory rather than failure of rationalism, which indicates that humanity has taken a big step forward on the path toward truly using reason to think. Leiss more straightforwardly announces that he and postmodernists are on the same path of trying to expose the ill uses and faults of rationality and their corresponding damage to modern society, but he splits with postmodernists on the issue of whether it is necessary to use rationality to rectify the ill uses and faults of rationality. In the modernization movement, he argues, the big mistake of human rationality is in believing that people can gain satisfaction through consumption. To break free from the mistake, people must still turn to the tradition of rationalism. Relevant thinkers include Fourier, Marx, Raskin, Maurice, Kropotkin, Bookchin, Fromm, Ilic, Goldmann, MacPherson and Marcuse. Their theories are built on the following basic idea: the prospect of human satisfaction must be rooted in the creation of a well-functioning sphere of joint activities and joint decision-making, in which every person can forge the means to satisfy their own needs. These thinkers were never exclusively preoccupied the high-intensity market setting as such. The common focus of their positive ideals has been the assertion that a social transformation could make possible a rich dimension of genuine satisfaction in both the labor activities and the free time of all individuals.19 17  Ibid., 116. 18  A. Gorz, Capitalism, socialism, Ecology, London, 1994, p. 32. 19  William Leiss, The Limits to Satisfaction, Toronto, 1976, p. 105.

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He argues that the main idea of the tradition of rationalism, in a nutshell, is that people’s satisfaction ultimately lies in the activity of production rather than that of consumption. “The possibility of satisfaction would be primarily a function of the organization of productive activity, and not primarily a function of consumption.”20 If people can understand the following fact that the unfettered growth of consumption cannot possibly compensate for the setbacks incurred in other areas of life, then they will think that the prospect of progressive social change depends on other spheres beyond that of consumption, namely that people can find satisfaction and happiness outside of the sphere of consumption. Leiss emphasizes that the only prescription that can make people wake up from the nightmare of consumerism is rationalism, namely the tradition of Western rationalism, which makes people associate satisfaction with productive activities.

The Proper Way to Regard the Functions of Science and Technology

For the postmodernists, looking in enmity at rationality is equal to looking in enmity at science. In their view, rationality and science joined hands and evolved into pure “instrumental rationality” which has been disastrous for modern people. Since the enlightenment, especially since the 20th century, scientific technology has had a greater and greater influence upon human beings, and the negative effects of this have become increasingly obvious. They fashion an inverse relationship between the progress of scientific technology on the one hand and human happiness on the other, and moreover, brand science and technology with the nature of an original sin. While objecting to growth and production, they also oppose technology. Postmodernism is a typical form of anti-scientism. Eco-centrists, namely the “green-greens” spin this anti-scientism of postmodernism into the environmental protection movement, and extend their critique of the anti-ecological usages of science and technology in modern society to the critique of science and technology itself. They attribute the ecological crisis in modern society to the faults of technology itself. So they naturally come to the conclusion that the only way to solve the ecological crisis is to return to the pre-technological state. In the works of the ecological Marxists we may also find a large number of remarks exposing how the use of scientific technology damages the ecological environment and brings about all kinds of adverse effects. However, it 20  Ibid., p. 105.

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becomes apparent through careful analysis that they neither believe that all of the effects of scientific technology in modern society are entirely negative nor that scientific technology only has negative effects and has no positive effects, and most certainly did not make the case that the negative effects of scientific technology in society are brought about by science and technology itself. They did not divorce science and technology from the social relations of production and social political institutions in order to discuss the so-called “original sin” of science and technology. Ecological Marxists stress that the ecological crisis in modern society is not the crisis of science and technology itself, but the crisis of the mode of production, including the crisis of the ways of using science and technology. They put forward sharp critiques of hostility toward science and technology that both eco-centrism and the whole of postmodernism exhibit. Leiss strongly criticizes the postmodernist viewpoint that binds science tightly together with controlling nature. According to the viewpoint of some postmodernists, science is essentially a kind of knowledge about control, scientific knowledge necessarily suspends evaluative judgment, science depreciates all things that do not help people control material things and simultaneously adheres firstly to knowledge about those things in natural phenomena which fit the plan of control. Science itself implies the control of nature, which is the essence of science. Leiss points out that The error in the view of Scheler and others which presents the scientific mastery of the world as a pragmatic enterprise is that it leaves the realm of human goals and purposes unanalyzed. It is simply not sufficient to show that the scientific investigation of nature and its technological applications occur in an operational framework. The decisive question is, in what specific social context is it operational?21 Leiss believes that the mistake of the postmodernists consists in discussing the control that science exercises upon nature purely on the operational level in isolation from the specific background of social history while failing to expose all of the mutually conflicting factors at work in the process of science controlling nature, and thereby also failing to make sense of “the real historical motivation for the pursuit of control.” Grounded in their analysis of the postmodernist viewpoint that science and technology itself consists in controlling nature, Leiss explicitly remarks that, “the conquest of nature by man 21  William Leiss, The Domination of Nature, McGill. Queen University Press, 1994, p. 117.

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is achieved by means of science and technology,” it has been a common view of thinkers for thousands of years such that “only by carefully appraising this thesis is it possible to show that the full dimensions of what is intended in the human mastery of nature have been obscured because of it.”22 In Leiss’s view, in actual society, science and technology end up fulfilling the function of controlling nature, but this is only a phenomenon behind which there is something much more profound, and the error that postmodernists make is “mistaking the symptom for the cause.” In his opinion, science and technology are only powerful tools in the greater project of controlling nature that humans are gradually recognizing, and by understanding this point one may furthermore recognize that science and technology are at most just tools for controlling nature, and that the real cause leading to the rampant exploitation of nature is found in the human ideas that make use of these tools, that is the ideology of controlling nature. When analyzing the current international situation, Leiss points out that the promotion of a stultifying uniformity in types of material objects and life-situations, both within and among nations is one of the primary tendencies of generalized market exchange in industrialized economies.23 What Leiss wants to explain is “globalization”, towards which he clearly holds a negative attitude, and which he describes as “ridiculous”. The problem is how this “ridiculous” “globalization” is brought about? Leiss argues that this is not a necessary result of technological progress itself, but is rather a function of the social policies that favor massive, centralized technologies of production over intermediate and small-scale technologies. The pattern of public and private investment which results from such policies concentrates productive resource and undermines the viability of any social and economic activity outside the metropolis that is not directly connected to the organizing centers of production.24 In Leiss’s opinion, “globalization” is not the product of technology itself, but is brought about by the concentration and monopolization of technologies. In his view, to oppose “globalization” is not to oppose technology itself, but to oppose the monopolistic concentration of technology. 22  Ibid., p. 101. 23  William Leiss, The Limits to Satisfaction, Toronto, 1976, p. 107. 24  Ibid.

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Gorz asserts that technology itself is divisible, and that it is divisible into “technology marked by the logic of capitalist production,” “soft technology” and “post-industrial technology.” The former is established on the basis of the rational control of workers and nature. “Nuclear technology represents an authoritarian political choice.”25 The latter kind of technology gives up control, and tends to promote interpersonal integration on one hand and the integration of the person with nature on the other, thereby respecting both workers and nature. Furthermore, he asserts that precisely because technology is divisible, we cannot totally deny and reject it in one breath like some forms of postmodernism do; the key is in facing how technology chooses. societal choices are continually being imposed upon us under the guise of technical choices. These technical choices are rarely the only ones possible, nor are they necessarily the most efficient ones. For capitalism develops only those technologies which correspond to its logic and which are compatible with its continued domination. It eliminates those technologies which do not strengthen prevailing social relations, even where they are more rational with respect to stated objective. Capitalist relations of production and exchange are already inscribed in the technologies which capitalism bequeaths to us.26 On the basis of such acknowledgements, Gorz makes it clear that the ecological movement does not unfold through the stopping of economic growth or the restricting of technology but through the choosing of technologies. He states that “The struggle for different technologies is essential to the struggle for a different society.”27 He solemnly suggests that people change the current ecological movement from an anti-technology movement with its intense postmodernist flavor into a movement of correctly choosing and using technology.

Humankind’s Search for Meaning

Among all of the theoretical viewpoints of postmodernism, perhaps there are none more eye-catching than its anti-logocentrism, anti-foundationalism, anti-essentialism and anti-reductionism. Postmodernists resolutely deny 25  A. Gorz, Ecology as Politics, Boston, 1980, p. 19. 26  Ibid. 27  Ibid.

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metaphysics in the original sense, deny ontology, deny the existence of the ultimate origin of the world as well as the existence of the human essence, while also denying the problem of “foundation” and “principle.” Because traditional philosophy always needs to establish an “arche” for the world and human existence, postmodernistss oppose traditional philosophy across the board. Postmodernism starts with anti-essence and anti-foundation and so opposes the establishment of social ideals that are based on such foundations and essences. Because scientific socialism is shaped on the basis of Marxist ontology, scientific socialism naturally became the target of the their first attack. The reason why the Eco-centrists, namely “the green-greens” oppose linking the elimination of environmental degradation and the ecological crises to socialism but instead advocate the romanticism of returning to the jungle and anarchy is, after all, fundamentally related to the stance they share in common with postmodernism in rejecting the existence of ontological problems. Eco-centrists oppose the socialist ideal, and even more so oppose the logos of Marxism upon which it is established. Between the “green-greens” and the “red-greens” there is the divergence of upholding or opposing the socialist ideal, but hidden behind this superficial political divergence are two distinctly different attitudes towards the antifoundationalist and anti-essentialist stance of postmodernism. Ecological Marxists firmly oppose the postmodernists’ nullification of ontological problems. They believe that the problem with metaphysics is not in affirming foundations and the existence of essences, but rather in absolutizing and rigidifying all of this, in closing it off, and accordingly, it is wrong that the postmodernists kill off metaphysics in one blow; on the surface it appears that the postmodernists are only opening a window in the “castle” of metaphysics, when in fact they completely obliterated the “castle.” Ecological Marxists think that it is the real world in which we live that has rigidified and solidified metaphysics, but the postmodernists simultaneously shake up the world while shattering and nullifying this world through anti-metaphysics. In the view of the ecological Marxists, eco-centrists are at such a loss in the face of the ecological crisis that their turn to anarchism is by no means accidental, rather it is intimately connected to their absence of ontological foundation. Ecological Marxists tightly knit the pursuit of meaning to the demonstration of the necessity of socialism, and concentrate on exploring the ontological foundation of socialism. The main thread that Gorz weaves through all of his works is that the best choice for protecting the environment is progressive socialism. He broadens the exploration for new possibilities of contemporary socialist revolution. One of his greatest efforts in this theorization of the possibilities of progressive

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socialism is the pursuit of the meaning of socialism, that is the explanation of socialism from the ontological perspective. In his Critique of Economic Reason, almost half of the text is under the heading of “the Search for Meaning,” which re-establishes the ontological ground of socialism. Gorz believes that capitalist society is established on the basis of its own unique logic of production, which is precisely to promote the campaign of “one man against all.” Endless competition forces every enterprise to maximize the utility of its productive components, that is to maximize productivity and profit, to maximize investment and invention. Capitalism was and is the only form of society which makes competition, with the aim of maximizing productivity and profit, its first commandment, unremittingly striving to enroll society, education, labor, individual and collective consumption into the service of the greatest possible valorization of capital and consequently, to extend the domination of economic rationality, which expresses itself unchecked in the logic of the market, to all areas of life and work.28 The key to learning of the possibility of socialism is found in the question of whether there is another logic of production. Gorz believes that the existence of this new logic of production is entirely possible. The new logic of production is simply stated as: expanding the workers’ field of autonomous activity, and increasing the likelihood of workers’ self-realization. He further explains that the socialist movement grew out of the struggle carried on by individuals united in solidarity to impose new social restrictions, based on ethical demands, on the sphere in which economic rationality can operate. Only such restrictions can guarantee the workers’ personal integrity and their right individually and collectively to self-determine how they live their lives. The import and purpose of the socialist movement has been—and still is—the emancipation of individuals in fields where the logic of market, competition and profit functions to prevent individuals from achieving autonomy and fulfillment.29 In this way, he integrates socialism with the new logic of production. Distinct from Gorz, some of the other ecological Marxists such as Leiss explain the necessity of socialism directly through the aid of exploring the 28  A. Gorz, Capitalism, socialism, Ecology, London, 1994, p. 39. 29  Ibid., p. 38.

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essence of human being. Leiss borrows Ivan Ilic’s formulation that human beings possess some kind of “conviviality,” and that the social structure people hope to establish is a society “established on people’s relationship that is based on independent and creative interaction as well as people’s exchange relationship with their own environment.” The goal of convivial society is to gradually break up the institutional structures of large industrialized economies and to minimize each individual’s dependence on such structures. People are born with the capacities to rehabilitate, plant, sew, exercise, study, build, and bury, and everyone of such capacities can satisfy the needs of communication. As long as the means of satisfaction depend on what people can do themselves and depend less on commodities, the means may be rich in variety. Such activities have use value, but no exchange value. Leiss states that The current organization of producing and consuming activity inhibits the development of the individual’s talents and capacities for participating directly in activities that provide the means for satisfying a wide range of needs (building a home, growing food, making clothing), and instead orients his activity exclusively around market purchase.30 In his view, only the socialist system can satisfy this “conviviality” of human beings, and furthermore meet the needs of the all-around development of the human being, so the necessity of socialism is found in this idea of the allaround development of the human being.

The Theoretical and Practical Relevance of Ecological Marxism Compared to Postmodernism

We have revealed various disagreements between ecological Marxism and postmodernism. These disagreements have been enough to show that ecological Marxism is indeed at odds with postmodernism across the board. As to whether this contention stands for the entire opposition between the tradition of “Western Marxism” and postmodernism, this text will not explore further. Here we want to indicate that the theoretical veracity of ecological Marxism is only fully explicated through the opposition with postmodernism. The reason why ecological Marxism gradually replaces eco-centrism and generates an increasingly powerful influence over modern Western environmental protection movements is also due to the continuous critique of postmodernism and 30  William Leiss, The Limits to Satisfaction, Toronto, 1976, p. 106.

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the consequences of its misleading of the environmental movement. It also should be noted that the rise of ecological Marxism made Marxism obtain further development in the difficult circumstances following the Soviet collapse. In an essay titled “Why “Red” Must be “Green” Italian socialist theorists point out that the debate over the relationship between “red” and “green” “undoubtedly represents a new stage in the development of Marxism in the last years of our century (Referring to the 20th century—cited by note).”31 In the context of positioning ecological Marxism in opposition to postmodernism, its theoretical achievements and actual significance in general, and its theoretical achievements and actual significance with respect to environmental protection in particular may be summarized as follows: Firstly, due to the misdirection of postmodernism, people are feeling increasingly helpless in the face of the accelerated deterioration of the ecological environment; even the question as to whether the enterprise of modernization should continue has generated skepticism and the deteriorating ecological environment is seen as the inevitable product of the modernization movement. Ecological Marxism, in this context, plays the role of the moral defender of modernity and of the modernization movement by theoretically severing the necessary link between the modernization movement and environmental destruction, and by standing on the platform of today to defend modernity, arguing that although modernity is not without weak points it still possesses liberating potential. Second, weaving those basic postmodernist ideas of anti-anthropocentrism, anti-rationalism and anti-scientism through the environmental movement has caused great confusion. The environmental movement now faces the great danger of becoming a movement that is hostile to humanity and rationality no less than to science and technology. Ecological Marxism has eliminated all of these influences over the environmental movement, and has illuminated in a timely manner that the environmental protection movement is inseparable from human being as the measure, and that we cannot abandon rational thought and cannot be divorced from science and technology, which actually points out the right path for environmental protection. Third, postmodernism continues to distance the environmental movement from socialism. Ecological Marxism has demonstrated on ontological grounds that the best choice for protecting the ecological environment is socialism. Ecological Marxists waste no time in planting the flag of socialism in the position previously occupied by the camp of the green movement, which 31   Referenced from Yu Ke-ping Editor: Socialism in the Era of Globalization, Central Compilation and Translation Press, 1998, p. 211.

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was overtaken by the anti-socialist tendency of postmodernism, and effectively realize the integration of the green movement with socialism. At the same time, Ecological Marxism opens up a new perspective on the relationship between humankind and nature, which greatly enriches the connotations of socialism. Of course, the list may go on, but the main points are undoubtedly these. In clear contrast to the continuous descent of postmodernism since the late 1980s, and especially since the 1990s, ecological Marxism is now flourishing. We have no reason to feel unhappy about this situation.

CHAPTER 19

Western Marxism’s Rejection of Postmodernism In this chapter, we are going to focus on discussing whether ecological Marxism’s opposition to postmodernism represents Western Marxism and even the opposition between Marxism and Postmodernism.

The Confrontation between Ecological Marxism and Postmodernism

Ecological Marxism is the newest form of “Western Marxism.” Its rise to popularity as a new force after the 1980s and 1990s reflects the fact that Marxism did not vanish from the Western World in accompaniment with the dissolution of the former Soviet Union. On the contrary, Marxism came to develop even further in this extraordinarily difficult environment. In the article, “Why ‘the Red’ should be ‘the Green’,” an Italian socialist theorist states that the discussion about ‘the red’ and ‘the green’ “undoubtedly represents a new stage in the development of Marxism in the last years of our century (referring to the 20th century-cited by Note).”1 Research into Western Marxism’s relationship to Postmodernism should begin with research into ecological Marxism’s relationship to Postmodernism. Green politics emerged in the Western world in accompaniment with the booming of the Western ecological movement. “Green politics” is undoubtedly a postmodern politics. The newly emerging Western ecological Marxist David Pepper thinks that “green politics have much in common with postmodernism.”2 It must be pointed out that ‘green politics’ is consistent with postmodern politics but the former does not encompass every form of environmental protectionism. The green politics mentioned here only refers to the eco-centric politics of environmental protectionism. There are all stripes and colors of schools of thought marching under the “green” banner of environmental protection and the ecological movement. These trends and schools of thought can be roughly divided into two camps, the Green-greens and Red–greens respectively. Ecofundamentalists, anarchists and mainstream 1  Referenced from Yu Ke-ping Editor: Socialism in the Era of Globalization, Central Compilation and Translation Press, 1998, p. 211. 2  D. Pepper, Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice, London, 1993, p. 57.

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greens all belong to the former camp and are collectively referred to as ecocentrism or ecologism. And the ecological Marxists, who are card-carrying Marxists, belongs to the latter camp. “Green politics” refers to the politics of the ‘Green-greens,’ but does not encompass either ecological socialism or ecological Marxism, namely the politics of the red-greens. In environmental protectionism, what is truly closest to postmodernism is only ecologism, namely the green-greens, but ecological Marxism, namely the red-greens, not only has nothing to do with postmodernism but even opposes it in many ways. Pepper states that Ecologism (mainstream as well as an overtly anarchist version) is highly infused by elements of anarchism, which has many coincidences with postmodernism, even though it is an old political philosophy. The red critique of ecologism is an attempt to pull it towards a more modernist outlook.3 Postmodernism comes from the attack directed at the modernization movement of modern industrial civilization. It begins with the critique of all the negative effects of modernism, and proceeds with denying the outlook of the development and values of the entirety of industrial civilization. Postmodernism blames the host of social problems to which modernity gives rise on the Idea of modernity, and thereby negates modernity itself at the most fundamental level. The American postmodernist, D. R. Griffin, claims that postmodernism is “one mood that believes human beings can and must be ahead of modern.”4 Ecological Marxists first and foremost finds this postmodernist mood that considers itself ahead of the modern most dissatisfying. They also sharply critique all of the negative effects of modernization, and especially the destruction of the ecological environment, however, they do not negate modernization itself. They do not negate industrial society, advocate anti-growth, oppose technology or fight against production like postmodernism and the eco-centrists that represent it do. They do not promulgate extremism in the face of modernization and modernity. They have a strong motive to repair the modernity that has already collapsed and to continue pursuing the possibility of modernity in the spheres of culture, society and economics. The most outstanding ecological Marxist Andre Gorz points out in his famous Critique of Economic Reason that the problems of modernization do not emerge from itself, but from exceeding 3  Ibid., p. 58. 4  David Griffin, eds.: Postmodern Science—Reproduction of the Charm of Science, Central Compilation and Translation Press, 1995, “English Preface”.

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its proper scope, and asserts that we must define the boundaries of this scope. He states that What we are experiencing is not the crisis of modernity. We are experiencing the need to modernize the presuppositions upon which modernity is based. The current crisis is not an indication that the process of modernization has reached an impasse and that we shall have to retrace our steps. It is rather an indication of the need for modernity itself to be modernized.5 A distinctive feature of postmodernism is dissolving subjectivity. Post­mo­der­ nists think that the existence of the subject not only entails the existence of the subject-object binary division but also reflects the defect of modernity. The subject is like one’s name written in the sand. The subject is erasable. Ecocentrists systematically exercise this anti-subjectivity of postmodernism, attributing the root of ecological problems to anthropocentrism. They start off by opposing industrialization’s plundering of nature, and proceed by opposing anthropocentrism, insisting that eco-centrism must replace anthropocentrism. The ecological Marxists do not oppose anthropocentrism in general, but do indeed oppose the capitalist form of anthropocentrism in particular. Especially after the dawn of the 1990s, ecological socialism has insisted that humanity examine her own attitude towards nature, and has also insisted that the “human measure” should not be abandoned, thereby advocating the return to anthropocentrism. Pepper clearly remarks that “Eco-socialism is anthropocentric and humanist.”6 While dissolving subjectivity and anthropocentrism, postmodernism simultaneously aims the critique directly at rationalism. The postmodernists blame all the ills of modern society on reason, and especially on the vicious inflation of technological rationality as well as the sway of the metaphysical way of thinking over human beings, and hence advocates eliminating reason. The cultural values of the eco-centrists do not differ whatsoever from the other forms of postmodernism in this respect, that is, they completely hold to irrationalism and anti-rationalism, and bind together the critique of enlightenment rationality with the critique of the ecological crisis of modern society, thinking that the severe destruction of nature in modern society begins with the prevailing success of enlightenment rationality. Even though ecological Marxists sharply critique instrumental rationality, technological rationality, and economic 5  A. Gorz, Crique of Economic Reason, London, 1898, p. 1. 6  D. Pepper, Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice, London, 1993, p. 232.

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rationality, and moreover, reveal the depth of misfortune that enlightenment rationality brings upon modern humanity, they do not fundamentally deny rationality. They emphasize that reason is the distinctive property of human being, stress that reason itself has done no wrong, and also that reason cannot be eliminated. While denying instrumental rationality, technology rationality and economic rationality, they simultaneously dedicate their efforts to reconstructing and improving an entirely new rationality, namely social rationality and ecological reason. Gorz’s critique of reason is no less radical than that of the postmodernists, but his critique of reason is only limited to the critique of economic reason. Gorz’s critique of economic reason has been widely influential in Western society, even some postmodernists often cite it to explain the evils of economic reason. But, what they do not know is that he simultaneously praises ecological reason while critiquing economic reason. In his view, denying economic reason does not by any means demand people to fully dispel the spirit of rationality from the air altogether, but does demand people to raise the banner of rationality in a better way. In the postmodernists, hostility toward reason is consistent with hostility toward science. In their view, reason and science bring so much catastrophe to modern humanity by forming an alliance, which evolves into pure “instrumental rationality.” Eco-centrists wind this anti-scientism of postmodernism through the environmental protection movement and construe the ecological crisis of modern society as one engendered by the faults of technology itself. In this way, they quite naturally draw the conclusion that the only way to solve the ecological crisis is to back pedal toward the pre-technological condition. In the works of ecological Marxists one may find no shortage of expositions of how the use of science and technology destroys the ecological environment and thereby causes all kinds of negative effects, but as soon as one examines closely one easily sees that they do not construe the negative social effects of science and technology as if they were brought about by science and technology themselves and do not divorce science and technology from the social relations of production and the political institutions of society to speak of the so-called “original sin” of science and technology. The ecological Marxists stress that modern society’s ecological crisis is not the crisis of science and technology themselves, but the crisis of the mode of production, which includes the mode of employment of science and technology. They put forward sharp critiques of the hostility toward science and technology that both ecocentrism and the whole of postmodernism display. Leiss fiercely criticizes the postmodernist viewpoint that binds science tightly together with controlling nature. According to the viewpoint of some postmodernists, science is essentially a kind of knowledge about control. Scientific knowledge necessarily

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suspends evaluative judgment, science depreciates all things that do not help people control material things and at the same time adheres firstly to knowledge about those things in natural phenomena which fit the plan of control. Science itself implies the control of nature, which expresses the essence of ­science. Leiss points out that The error in the view of Scheler and others which presents the scientific mastery of the world as a pragmatic enterprise is that it leaves the realm of human goals and purposes unanalyzed. It is simply not sufficient to show that the scientific investigation of nature and its technological applications occur in an operational framework. The decisive question is, in what specific social context is it operational?7 Among all of the theoretical viewpoints of postmodernism, perhaps there is none more eye-catching than its anti-logocentrism, anti-foundationalism, anti-essentialism and anti-reductionism. Postmodernists start with denying essences and foundations as well as the social ideals that are established on the basis of such essences and foundations. Due to the fact that scientific socialism is shaped on the basis of Marxist ontology which is “handcuffed to logocentrism” scientific socialism naturally became the target of the postmodernists’ first attack. The reason the eco-centrists are so opposed to tying the elimination of both environmental degeneration and the ecological crises to socialism is after all fundamentally related to the stance they share in common with postmodernism in rejecting the existence of ontological problems. Between the “green-greens” and the “red-greens” there is the divergence of upholding or opposing the ideal of socialism, but hidden behind this superficial political divergence are two distinctly different attitudes towards the anti-foundationalist and anti-essentialist stance of postmodernism. Eco-Marxists firmly oppose the postmodernists’ nullification of ontological problems. In the view of the ecoMarxists, eco-centrists are at such a loss in the face of the ecological crisis that their turn to anarchism is by no means accidental, rather it is intimately connected to their absence of ontological foundation. Ecological Marxists tightly knit the pursuit of meaning to the demonstration of the necessity of socialism, and concentrate on exploring the ontological foundation of socialism. The main thread that Gorz weaves through all of his works is that “the best choice for protecting the environment is progressive socialism.” He broadens the exploration for new possibilities of contemporary socialist revolution. One of his greatest efforts in this theorization of the possibilities of progressive socialism 7  W. Leiss, Domination of Nature, MeGill-Gueen’s University Press, 1994, p. 117.

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is the pursuit of the meaning of socialism, that is the explanation of socialism through the ontological perspective. In his Critique of Economic Reason, almost half of the text is under the heading of “the Search for Meaning,” which reestablishes the ontological ground of socialism.

The Inheritance of Habermas’ Reflections on Modernity

Above we explained the opposition between ecological Marxism and postmodernism from many perspectives. With so many facts right in front of us, probably no one will deny this opposition. The problem is whether the opposition between ecological Marxism and postmodernism can represent the whole opposition between the ‘Western Marxism’ tradition and postmodernism. Many ecological Marxists will mention Jugen Habermas, the most influential representative of contemporary ‘Western Marxism’, in the discussion of their own theories, and they also refer to Habermas’ theories to prove the correctness of their own theories. Indeed, ecological Marxism is inspired by Habermas in many aspects, and we may see some relation of inheritance from Habermas’s theory and especially Habermas’s theory of reflection on modernity to ecological Marxist theories. Habermas critiques modernity, the modernization movement and modern civilized society, but he does not believe that modernity, the modernization movement and modern civilized society are already irremediable. He argues that we should treat them as Marx treated Hegel, “We must be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and take flight in a new irrationalism.”8 He claims that modernity cannot be abandoned and needs to be rescued. He publicly declared to the world that he himself “does not abandon the project of modernity and does not stoop to postmodernism and anti-modernism.”9 So, Habermas proposes to people a modernity bailout program, which in actuality is fully unfolded in the field of ecology by ecological Marxism. Habermas’s many critiques of postmodernism’s complete rejection of modernity, which can be seen in his debates with postmodernists like Lyotard and Derrida, in some round-about way are reflected in the crushing blows that the ecological Marxists gave to postmodernism and especially the postmodernist “greengreen” faction of the ecological movement after the 1990’s. The ecological Marxists and Habermas are equally aware that the postmodernists’ rejection of modernity and the modernization movement are rejections of civilization 8  Habermas: Interview with Habermas, Shanghai People’s Publishing House, 1997, p. 37. 9  Ibid., p. 56.

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as a whole, and because of this they both express their anxiety and uneasiness about their path, thinking that postmodernism’s rejection of the Idea of modernity will necessarily shatter the hope of the self-renewal of modernity and will bring humanity into some kind of lost state of taking things as they come. Habermas combs through the concept of “reason”, revealing the harsh reality where in the modernization movement reason forms an alliance with science, which henceforth evolves into pure “instrumental reason” and “scientific reason” in which form it stands as the standard of everything and every question and as the legal organ who sentences right and wrong. Habermas acknowledges that the philosophical view of reason has deviated since the ancient Greeks, and acknowledges that reason is heading down the dead-end path of self-denial. But at the same time, Habermas emphasizes that reason has not gone so far as to step over the cliff, and hence, does not need postmodernism to extinguish it. In Habermas, the rescuing of modernity is inseparable from the rescuing of reason, because in Habermas’s view, “The intrinsic relationship between modernity and what he called ‘Occidental rationalism’ was still self-evident.”10 This basic attitude that Habermas expresses toward reason is accepted across the board by the ecological Marxists who follow Habermas and unfold the critique of instrumental reason, technological reason and economic reason, but on the other hand, the ecological Marxists also exhaustively prove that reason itself is of no fault, and that we must save reason. They therefore demand people to apply the potential of reason to reveal the conditions where modern society realizes human freedom. In Habermas’s view, an important ideological reason that leads to all kinds of deviations of reason in real life is that modern people understand and apply reason in the framework of the modern philosophy of subjective consciousness. This is understanding reason as an innate cognitive and practical capacity and understanding the basic framework of reason as the cognitive and active relationship between subject and object, which insists that reason is the subject’s capacity to represent and seize the object. Habermas thinks that this understanding of reason in the framework of the modern philosophy of subjective consciousness necessarily leads to trapping reason and freedom, individual and society, nature and society, passion and reason into endless conflict. Grounded in this basic understanding, Habermas stresses that if we want to truly release the liberating potential of reason and rescue modernization, we must escape the modern philosophy of subjective consciousness. The concept of reason inherited from the modern philosophy of subjective consciousness is an excessively heavy piece of heritage that needs to be cleaned 10  J. Habermas, The Philosophy Discourse of Modernity, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987, p. 1.

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and transformed with respect to the demand of fully realizing the liberating potential of reason. So, he ties releasing the liberating potential of reason and rescuing modernity to the critique of the modern philosophy of subjective consciousness. Ecological Marxism’s analysis of the cause of all of reason’s faults is nearly identical to Habermas in this respect. When some ecological Marxists explain why people’s behavior under the control of rational motives will destroy nature, they generally tie this together with understanding rationality according to the modern philosophical way of thought. They point out in nearly the same tone as that of Habermas that the philosophy of subjective consciousness can only verify economic reason, and if you want to free reason from the shackles of economic reason you can only do this by breaking free of the philosophy of subjective consciousness. Habermas’s thinks that the only way to realize the liberating potential of reason and thereby rescue modernization is to shift from the philosophy of the subject to the philosophy of language and shift from instrumental reason to communicative reason, “the focus of research shifts from cognitive-instrumental rationality to communicative rationality.”11 Habermas wants to rebuild the concept of rationality outside of the context of traditional metaphysical theory, and the concept of reason that he rebuilds is communicative reason. He takes the concept of communicative reason to be the universal category with which he understands modernity. In his view, putting forward the concept of communicative behavior not only enables people to truly understand the root of the crisis of modernity, namely that it is not caused reason itself, but by the unbalanced relationship between communicative rationality and instrumental rationality under capitalist conditions; it also enables people to find the way out of the crisis of modernity, namely, through developing communicative rationality. Even though ecological Marxists do not make the turn from the philosophy of the subject to the philosophy of language, they take roughly the same direction with respect to the problem of how to correct the deviation of the path of modernization, which is through critiquing instrumental reason and economic reason while establishing “new reason.” It is only that the content of this “new reason” is not the same: In Habermas, “the new reason” is communicative reason; but in the ecological Marxists “the new reason” that needs to be established is ecological reason. Habermas fiercely critiques postmodernism for thinking that the reason of the modern philosophy of subjective consciousness centralizes power, excludes otherness and is repressive and for refusing to theoretically illuminate the possibility of non-instrumental reason and for denying the possibility of 11  J. Habermas, Theorie des Kommunikativen Handelns, Suhrkamp Verlag, 1988, p. 525.

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the realization of communicative reason in the modern way of life. He insists that the key is in postmodernism’s failure to link the restriction of instrumental reason to the realization of communicative reason and the transformation of the structure of capitalist society. He think that up to the present time, the form of modernity’s realization has been the social structure of capitalism. But the basic reason why modernity is “an incomplete project” is because the social structure of capitalism cannot possibly release the rational potential of modernity, from which he deduces the necessity of transforming the social structure of capitalism. We know that Habermas once unfolded debates with his prior generation around the question of how to treat modern capitalist society, and that he did not agree with completely rejecting and overturning modern capitalist society, but we cannot draw the conclusion from this that he fully embraced modern capitalist society, nor can we think we can realize his concept of releasing the potential of communicative reason in the framework of modern capitalist society. Although the ecological Marxists are critical toward Habermas’s reformist attitude, they think that the way Habermas links realizing his project of rescuing modernity to transforming the social structure of capitalism is invaluable, and openly acknowledge that their position on reforming the current capitalist system stems from Habermas’s argument for the necessity of transforming the capitalist structure.

The Inheritance of the Frankfurt School’s Critique of Society

Since Habermas’s theory of reflection on modernity roughly took shape after the 70’s, and since the Habermas of this period is commonly recognized as already having experienced “spiritual patricide” in going against the tradition of critical theory of his predecessors such as Max Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse, there are inevitably those people who think that even though facts prove that ecological Marxism’s contention with postmodernism carries on Habermas’s theory of reflection on modernity you cannot prove from this that this contention stems entirely from “Western Marxism.” Although we have reservations about the opinion that Habermas went through “spiritual patricide,” we still want to take a step back and consider for one second whether acknowledging this popular view would make a certain degree of sense and whether you could not prove that ecological Marxism’s critique of postmodernism is rooted in the tradition of “Western Marxism” from the connection between ecological Marxism’s opposition to postmodernism and Habermas’s later theory of reflection on modernity. Let us skip Habermas and directly examine the relationship of ecological Marxism’s critical theory

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of postmodernism to the critical theory of the Frankfurt school represented by the likes of Horkheimer, Adorno and Marcuse. Whether it is the ecological Marxists themselves or the multitude of foreign and domestic researchers of ecological Marxism, all of them see the Frankfurt school of critical theory as one of the theoretical sources of ecological Marxism. We think that this theoretical source presents itself mainly as the opposition between ecological Marxism and postmodernism stemming directly from the Frankfurt school. Looking through all of the theories of the Frankfurt school, there is a basic principle like a red thread that winds its way from the beginning through to the end, which is the “principle of subjectivity.” The Frankfurt school is a widely influential school of contemporary humanism, and praising subjectivity is one of the most distinctive theoretical features of the Frankfurt school. They weave this principle of subjectivity into the conception of nature, putting forward the theory of “humanizing nature.” Even though they were the earliest to put forward the thought of liberating nature, they do not realize this liberation of nature through abandoning anthropocentrism and implementing ecocentrism. They think that the only way to liberate nature is “humanely appropriating nature,” that is when you interact with nature you must harmonize with the demands of the essence of humanity and sculpt nature aesthetically or in other words you must restore the beauty of nature.12 On par with Pepper is a newly emerging representative of ecological Marxism, Reiner Grundmamn, who investigates the Frankfurt school’s conception of nature in detail; he thinks that the Frankfurt school’s conception of nature clearly tells people that nomatter-what humanity cannot abandon the “human measure” when resolving the ecological crisis and when re-examining humanity’s relationship to nature, and furthermore, he insists that ecological Marxism can find adequate reasons for opposing ecocentrism and upholding anthropocentrism in the Frankfurt school’s conception of nature. People always connect the Frankfurt school to anti-rationalism, which is not completely without reason. Just take a look at Horkheimer and Adorno’s classic The Dialectics of Enlightenment and you will understand that they expose how the enlightenment’s focus on reason and technology ultimately leads toward the opposite, namely the tragedy of the self-annihilation of the enlightenment of reason; just read Marcuse’s famous work Eros and Civilization and understand how he revises Freud’s theory of the structure of the psyche and asserts that the essence of being is irrational eros, and people will naturally make this connection, but when people make this connection, they cannot ignore two points: first, prior to the publication of The Dialectics of Enlightenment and 12  See also H. Marcuse, Counterrevolution and Revolt, Boston, 1972, pp. 64–65; p. 74.

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Eros and Civilization, the Frankfurt school was called “rationalist Marxism,” whether it was such early works as Horkheimer’s Traditional and Critical Theory or Marcuse’s Reason and Revolution, all of them highly revered reason and even saw reason as synonymous with revolution, and their critiques of pragmatism all stood in defense of rationalism; second; beginning with The Dialectics of Enlightenment, the critique of enlightenment reason is actually the critique of enlightenment reason metamorphosing into instrumental reason and technological reason, and when they critique enlightenment reason and technological reason, they always simultaneously champion evaluative reason and critical reason as their antithesis, and in a certain sense, they critique the former in order to help the latter more fully rule this world. The most interesting case is Marcuse, who, when praising eros, repeatedly asserts that one must make eros and reason communicate and establish a new reason, a satisfied reason.13 Quite evidently then, seeing the Frankfurt school’s opposition to instrumental rationalism as an opposition to the entirety of rationalism is inappropriate. In this respect, some of the ecological Marxists understand more accurately when they critique instrumental reason and economic reason on one hand, and dedicate themselves to re-establishing ecological reason and social reason on the other, which is undoubtedly inspired by Habermas and the entire Frankfurt school. That the Frankfurt school critiques technological reason and opposes scientism, this there can be no doubt. But critiquing technological reason and opposing scientism is not necessarily being hostile to science. So, whether the Frankfurt school is anti-science and anti-technology is also worth debating. Ever since 1932 when Horkheimer published the essay “Notes on Science and the Crisis,” the Frankfurt school went through decade after decade without ever stopping the critique of technological reason, and moreover they often integrated the critique of technological reason with the exposition of the negative social function of science and technology. The whole key is whether or not the Frankfurt school’s critique of the negative social function of science and technology is the critique of science and technology themselves, or in other words, did the Frankfurt school attribute the cause of all the negative effects that science and technology exhibit in modern society to science and technology themselves, and thereby find in science and technology some kind of original sin, or on the contrary did they not do so. The answer to this is easily given as long as one understands Marcuse’s new view of technics. Among all the representatives of the Frankfurt school, no one’s critique of science and 13  See also Marcuse: Eros and Civilization, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1987, pp. 165–166.

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technology is sharper than Marcuse’s. But it was precisely Marcuse, who repeatedly insisted that science and technology exercising ideological functions and becoming instruments of domination is not tied in any necessary way to science and technology themselves, and who moreover insisted that science and technology could completely become a means of liberation in new historical conditions. He thinks that when science and technology become instruments of domination and control, the revolutionary theorist ought to investigate the issue of the necessity and possibility of making science and technology become new means of liberation. Revolutionary theory must carry forward the program of a new technology and new science.14 Marcuse’s new view of science and technology clearly demonstrate that he did not think that the negative social effects that science and technology generate are science and technology’s own inherent attributes. This viewpoint of Marcuse is representative of the whole of the Frankfurt school. For instance, as the backbone and founder of the school, Horkheimer insisted much earlier before Marcuse that one cannot talk about the positive and negative effects of science and technology in abstraction from the objective conditions of applying science and technology, and argued that science and technology’s engendering of a whole series of “side effects” is mainly due to the external environment of the application of science and technology being wrong.15 But then Habermas took up disagreement with Marcuse’s new view of science and technology. He approaches the problem with his “original sin theory,” thinking that Marcuse’s theory is inconsistent when he uses the bad social environment to explain the negative social effects of science and technology and insists that human beings could choose science and technology.16 Obviously, among all of the Frankfurt school’s theories of science and technology, Habermas can only be an exception. Among ecological Marxists, some are originally Marcuse’s followers and accept across the board the Frankfurt school’s theory of science and technology, and it is precisely on this theoretical foundation that they unfold the account that only by changing the social environment can we change this present scenario of science and technology severely destroying the ecological environment, and furthermore unfold their resistance to anti-technological and anti-productive ecocentrism and postmodernism. Do the representatives of the Frankfurt school dedicate themselves to the investigation of the foundation and origin of being? Is the Frankfurt school’s 14  See also H. Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, Boston, 1964, p. 166; pp. 204–205. 15  See also Horkheimer: Critical Theory, Chongqing Publishing House, 1989, p. 2. 16  H. Marcuse, Towards A Rational Society, Boston, 1970, p. 87; p. 88.

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critical theory an ontology? Does the Frankfurt school’s critical theory deduce the prospect of future society—socialist society—from its ontology? We think that the answer should be yes down the list. Even though among the representatives of the Frankfurt school there are detailed arguments that Marxism is non-ontological like Schmidt’s, and even though among the works of the Frankfurt school you may also find some critiques here and there of the metaphysical ways of thinking of old traditional philosophies, on the whole nothing like postmodernisms demand to destroy and deconstruct foundationalism and essentialism can be found in the Frankfurt school, which on the contrary demonstrates for people an ontological system as the foundation of the existence of its socialism. Horkheimer thinks the problem is not whether the answers to the world’s ultimate questions are theological, idealist or materialist, but rather how people can find the answer to the riddles of life and living. In his view, only philosophical metaphysics can do this, because only metaphysics is dedicated to exploring the essence of being. His materialism as a practice of life and way of life is proposed on the basis of this understanding.17 Eric Fromm resolutely opposes construing Marx’s historical materialism as non-ontological and opposes psychologizing it, that is understanding it as a doctrine of the belief that people’s subjective desire is to want to gain the maximum material benefit. Fromm insists that Marx’s historical materialism is a philosophical ontology of thinking that people’s ways of life determines people’s thoughts and desires.18 It is worth mentioning that Marcuse’s ontology-complex was so severe that when he advanced his theory of eros he did everything within his means to prove that his theory of eros is a radical social critical theory and also a philosophical ontology.19 Some ecological Marxists say that their opposition to postmodernism’s deconstruction of essentialism and foundationalism, their resolute investigation of the problem of the ecological crisis from the foundation of ontology, and moreover their establishment of the prospect of ecological socialism on ontological grounds is all in line with the philosophical direction of the Frankfurt school, and not without good reason.

17  See also Herkimer: Critical Theory, “Materialism and Metaphysics”, Chongqing Publishing House, 1989, pp. 8–44. 18  See also Enform, Marx’ Concept of Man, New York, 1965, pp. 12–13; p. 14. 19  See also Marcuse: Eros and Civilization, Shanghai Translation Publishing House, 1987, pp. 89–90.

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The Inheritance of the Pioneers of Western Marxism

The Frankfurt School is one of the most representative schools of “Western Marxism”, which proves that the opposition between ecological Marxism and postmodernism follows the basic philosophical path of the critical theory of the Frankfurt School, which amounts to demonstrating that the struggle between ecological Marxism and postmodernism carries on the Western Marxist tradition, but we still want to explore the relationship between the comprehensive struggle between ecological Marxism and postmodernism on one hand and “Western Marxism” on the other with respect to the origin of “Western Marxism”. This is to say, we want to see whether the system of thought of Western Marxism’s founders, that of Gyorgy Lukács, Karl Korsch, and Antonio Gramsci embodies elements of postmodernism. If we prove that when Gyorgy Lukács, Karl Korsch, Antonio Gramsci founded what later came to be called the system of thought of Western Marxism and held to totally different theories than the postmodernists, then it will become more convincing to say that the opposition between ecological Marxism and postmodernism follows the tradition of Western Marxism. Although Gyorgy Lukács, Karl Korsch and Antonio Gramsci severely disapproved of traditional ontology and the metaphysical forms of thought, they did not fundamentally overturn and did not reject the existence of “foundations” and “principles.” Obviously, there is no “grand narrative” or “meta-narrative” weaving through their works, but rather a “minor narrative”. Lukács criticizes himself for attributing Marxism to a mere methodological mistake made in his early years in Ontology of Social Being, which he wrote in his later years. He brought up the motto “return to being,” stressing that the precondition of Marxism is ontology. It’s not difficult to see that even in his early years, he didn’t fully abandon the study of the ground of being, but simply took a strong stance against traditional philosophy, especially Hegel’s understanding of the ground of being, if we carefully read his History and Class Consciousness and other early writings. Lukács opposes Hegel’s understanding of absolute spirit as “substance-subject”, but he still accepts Hegel’s proposition that substance is subject, namely he believes there is something most basic and original in the world that makes up all beings, and this something is both substance and subject. In this way, Lukács gives up Hegel’s absolute spirit, but also defines human being—or strictly speaking human consciousness as “substancesubject”. Gramsci is a more proficient expert in ontology, and he was the first to understand Marxian philosophy as “practical ontology”. But it would be wrong to believe that Gramsci fundamentally opposes “monism” and completely cancels out problems concerning the origin of the world simply because he

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opposes materialist monism and opposes seeing “objectively existing matter” as the origin of the world. What he opposes is “materialist monism” and at the same time what he holds firmly to is “practical monism”. He thinks what truly composes the origin of the world “is in human activity (history-spirit) in the concrete, indissolubly connected with a certain organized (historicized) “matter” and with the transformed nature of man.”20 We cannot see any trace of the tendency to dispel ontology in the writings of early representatives of “Western Marxism”, such as Lukács, Gramsci, etc. What we see is the reconstruction of a new ontology, namely “practical ontology”, based on the denial of traditional ontology. This basic position continuously pierces through the Frankfurt School all the way to ecological Marxism. What shows most distinctively the divergence between the principles of postmodernism and the thought of early representatives of Western Marxism like Gyorgy Lukács, Karl Korsch and Antonio Gramsci is found in the attitude toward wholeness. Postmodernism declares war on wholeness and identity, and praises an anti-holistic model of thought. One of the most important features of early representatives of the system of thought of “Western Marxism” is respect for wholeness. Lukács even attributes the class consciousness of the proletariat to grasping “totality.” In his mind, the category of totality is “the essence of Marxism methodology”.21 Korsch even more systematically launches his wholeness theory, establishing the superior principle of the allencompassing whole in relation to the parts, and someone once criticized his book Marxism and Philosophy in the following way: “the basic assumption of Marxism and Philosophy is to consider the society as a whole. In this undercomposed unity, every element supports and reflects other elements.”22 The early representatives of “Western Marxism” attached importance to wholeness, which the Frankfurt school inherited. Their wholeness revolutionary theory is the concrete manifestation of the principle of wholeness in the conception of revolution, and only a few representatives turned the focal point to individuality such as Marcurse did in old age. Some representatives of ecological Marxism, such as Ben Agger, Gorz, Leiss etc, applied the principle of wholeness to the prospect of eliminating the ecological crisis when they still hadn’t broken free of the influence of postmodernism in the 1960s and 1970s. They regarded implementing decentralization and small-scale economies as the only way to eliminate the ecological crisis under the motto of “small is beautiful”. However, when they broke free of the 20  See also A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, London, 1971, p. 372. 21  G. Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness, MIT Press, 1971, p. 27. 22  See also PageRank end., Biographical Dictionary of Neo-Marxism, London, 1985, p. 237.

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influence of postmodernism in the 1980s and 1990s and stepped onto the path of real ecological Marxism, they all came to oppose the principle of wholeness. They pointed out that since the world economy forms an interconnected system and cannot be divided into discrete parts, it is unrealistic to implement decentralization. So, while they supported “the wholeness theory” of “Western Marxism”, they stressed the economic model of centralization and wholeness. The early representatives of “Western Marxism” all opposed the subjectobject opposition where the subject stands separately on one side of the binary opposition, but this does not mean that they cancel the subject entirely as postmodernism does. They just demand that human being is seen as whole human being and not as the partial human being of the subject-object opposition. They demand the reconsideration of the value and meaning of the being of humans and their activity. This is to say that human being in their eyes is still a determinate kind of being, and their philosophies show the tendency of [positing] a existing subject. The dialectic of subject and object in Lukács is both a dialectic against the separation of subject and object and a dialectic that uses the subject to subsume the object. Lukács posits the subject’s constituting and subsuming of the object as the precondition of identity of subject and object. Ultimately, Lukács’s dialectic of subject and object is for the sake of unfolding the entirety of history from the reciprocal interaction between the subject and the object and demonstrates the active role of human being in history, that is for the sake of elevating the subjectivity of human being. Gramsci calls his “practical philosophy” “absolute historical humanitarianism.” He not only suggested publicly that “What is human being” is the fundamental problem, which elevated the problem of human being to the core of his entire research, but also endeavored to demonstrate that the world unifies in human being, in human practice. He argues, objective always means “humanly objective” which can be held to correspond exactly to “historically subjective.”23 He asks: What is the meaning of the world without human being? Whether it is Lukács’s dialectic of subject and object or the “practical philosophy” of Gramsci, they both devoted themselves to establishing a new subjectivity characterized by the unity of subject and object, while opposing the subjectivity characterized by the separation of subject and object. The Frankfurt School came to inherit this basic view of subjectivity later, but the reason why ecological Marxism opposes postmodernism’s attitude to subjectivity and anthropocentrism is due to this basic position. Early representatives of “Western Marxism”, especially Lukács, took very seriously the critique of modern capitalistic society, namely the critique of 23  See also A. Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, London, 1971, p. 445; p. 446.

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modern civilization. Lukács was the first to use “reification” to summarize the characteristic of modern capitalist society and unfold his critique of it. Doubtless this critique of the phenomenon of reification in modern capitalist society is based on Max Weber’s concept of rationality. Weber held the view that modern people could not escape the “iron cage” of the rationalization of modern civilized society. He regards rationalization as inherent to modern civilization, and the same goes with Lukács. The fact is that while Lukács applies Weber’s concept of rationality, he also absorbs the theory of commodity fetishism from Marx, and stresses that rationality and reification are bound together with commodity fetishism in modern capitalist society along with the result of the universalization of the form of the commodity in modern capitalist society. He stresses that reification only emerges when commodities become a universal phenomenon and when the structure of the commodity penetrates every aspect of society. There is an essential distinction between the commodity—as one of the many forms of control over the metabolism of human society—and the commodity—as playing the role of universal structuring principle. Rationalization only becomes reification and commodity fetishism only emerges in the latter case.24 In this way, Lukács not only overturns Weber’s pessimistic conclusion that modern people could not break free of the “iron cage” of the rationalization of modern society, but also rigorously distinguishes the capitalistic form of rationalization from rationalization itself and the capitalistic-form of civilization from civilization itself, and so avoids turning the critique of the capitalistic-form of rationalization into the critique of rationality itself and does not turn the critique of the capitalistic form of civilization into the critique of civilization itself. After reading the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 in the 1930s, Lukács critiqued himself for failing to distinguish alienation from objectification as Marx did, due to which he ignored the analysis of the social origin of the phenomenon of alienation.25 Many researchers of Lukács make the conclusion on these grounds that Lukács committed the error of reducing the origin of alienation to rationalization and mechanization. Actually, judging precisely what kind of critique Lukács’s critique of reification in modern civilized society is requires looking not at one of his examinations under specific historical conditions but at the actual content of the critique. The actual content of his critique tells people that generally speaking he never made such a mistake. In this respect, the theorists of Frankfurt School correctly got the point of Lukács’s critique, because their critique of instrumental rationality in modern civilized society unfolds by 24  See also Glucans, History and Class Consciousness, MIT Press, 1971, pp. 83–88. 25  See also Ibid., pp. ⅹⅹⅲ–ⅹⅹⅳ.

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following this critical train of thought in Lukács; Ecological Marxists understand the critical theory of Lukács even more accurately, if not they would not be able to exhibit such a strikingly distinguished position from postmodernism when unfolding the critique of the ecological crisis in modern civilization.

A Reflection on the Positive Significance of Marxism Itself

We trace the newest form of Western Marxism—Ecological Marxism—all the way back to the origin of Western Marxism, and comprehensively examined their opposition to postmodernism. The facts already demonstrate that “Western Marxism” is a trend of thought that stands in opposition to that of postmodernism, and although this opposition underwent a process of development, namely from parts to whole, from implicit to explicit, postmodernism in the true sense only took shape in the 60s and 70s. But some of the basic thought of postmodernism appeared prior to its opposition to Marxism, and some even widen the range of postmodernism to include all of the Western trends of thought marked by anti-traditional philosophy since the middle of the 19th century. So, even though the history of Western Marxism expands much longer than that of postmodernism, we may still say that the history of “Western Marxism” is a history of opposition and struggle with postmodernism. “Western Marxism” has been living in a state of opposition since its formation with many trends of thought, including postmodernism. Many researchers have continuously neglected its opposition to postmodernism. People have only seen the opposition between “Western Marxism” and trends of thought that maintain traditions, especially those that safeguard capitalism, but have ignored its opposition to postmodernism, whose distinctive feature is likewise anti-traditional and critical of capitalism but whose theoretical starting points and conclusions are quite different. In fact, one may only understand the theoretical essence and modern significance of Western Marxism by revealing its opposition to postmodernism in this respect. As human history developed into the 20th century, the world view of modern metaphysical philosophy that took shape in accompaniment with the modern natural sciences as well as humanity’s idea of modernity and the modernization movement that reflect them in real life and stem from this philosophical world view have run into unprecedented crises, and the negative impact on humanity that they have brought about have been fully exposed. The emergence of both “Western Marxism” and postmodernism stemmed from angry dissatisfaction with and passionate critique of such crises and negative impacts. The problem is the two different pathways through which this passionate critique

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had been carried out effectively established these two completely different theoretical systems. In this way, now people have two theoretical systems to refer to for inspiration when facing the crises and negative impacts tied to the modern metaphysical world view as well as the idea of modernity and the modernization movement, namely “Western Marxism” and postmodernism. Once people come to understand the negativity, absurdity and nihilistic nature of postmodernism, and comprehend postmodernism’s condition of “missing the mountain for the molehill,” they will become increasingly aware of how on point, reasonable and satisfying “Western Marxism” is and fully apprehend what is implied between the lines of Western Marxism, namely the correct path that leads humanity progressively forward into the new century. The modern metaphysical worldview and way of thought opposed religion and especially opposed the indelible role religion played in medieval theology while promoting the development of science and materialism, but it moved further and deeper into difficulties as this metaphysical worldview and way of thought confined itself to abstract conceptions of nature and the absolutist world of ideas. Since the middle of the 19th century, philosophers continuously mounted challenges and critiques against this traditional philosophical worldview and way of thought, which extended into the latter half of the 20th century. One can easily see from a broad overview of postmodernist theories and their theoretical pioneers that their attitude toward the metaphysical worldview and way of thought harbors the tendency toward nihilism, relativism and subjectivism: they start off creatiquing the modern metaphysical world view along with modern ontology and proceed to oppose worldviews and ontology itself, but then go to the extreme where they fundamentally dispel philosophy and give up the investigation of metaphysical problems. However, what they did not know is that since the most ancient of times philosophy’s pursuit of metaphysics and philosophy itself as inquiry into conceptions of the world cannot be eliminated. The correct path would be found in getting rid of modern metaphysical ontologies that ossify and rigidify, in breaking free from the modern ways of thought that are distantly separated from reality and practice, and in establishing a new ontology, a new metaphysics, a new philosophical worldview and new way of thinking which could breathe life into the world and reconnect philosophical thought to real life and practice. “Western Marxism” took precisely this correct path. The degree of sharpness and intensity of Western Marxism’s critique of the modern metaphysical worldview and way of thought is at least on par with that of postmodernism’s critique, but Western Marxists did not simply deny the meaning of research on ontological problems and conceptions of the world because of this; on the contrary, they focused on shifting the direction of research from abstract conceptions of

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nature and worlds of ideas that were divorced from reality toward human being’s real world of life and human being’s sensible practical activity. The philosophical basis of the idea of modernity is precisely this modern metaphysical worldview; in other words, the idea of modernity was drawn from this modern metaphysical worldview. The idea of modernity whose core is composed of humanism and rationalism took shape on the basis of the modern philosophical worldview whose aim had been the pursuit of abstract truth, the recognition of identity and the praising of wholeness or totality. Corresponding to the indelible achievements of the modern metaphysical and philosophical worldview, the idea of modernity also left its indelible mark on realizing the industrial civilization and modernization of Western society. Moreover, what coincided with the modern metaphysical worldview gradually falling into traps were the deleterious effects of the idea of modernity becoming increasingly obvious. It is precisely in this context that postmodernism pointed the cutting edge of critique at the two cores of the idea of modernity— humanism and rationalism. The most striking catch phrases of postmodernism are: oppose rationality and dismiss subjectivity. They attribute all the causes of misfortune in modern civilized society to the upholding of the principles of subjectivity and rationality. “Western Marxism” came at the right time to reverse these most harmful theoretical tendencies in human history, this hostility toward both humanity and rationality. The theorists of “Western Marxism” exposed all of the malignant effects that the idea of modernity has engendered in the real world, and in the meantime stressed that the fault does not lay with the idea of modernity itself. They believe that the problem is not whether or not we should uphold subjectivity and rationality, but how to truly restore the essential attribute of human being qua human, how to make rationality play a healthy, orderly and effective role, and concretely speaking, the problem is how to prevent rationality from evolving into pure instrumental rationality or technological rationality in such a way that prevents humanity and human rights from becoming subordinate to instrumental rationality and prevents human being from becoming the slave of rationality. In their view, human being inherently possesses rationality, and human being can only rely on the subject and use reason to correct the shortcomings of rationality and restore the subjectivity of human being. Even though modernity marked by rationality and subjectivity has brought about problems, modernity is still incomplete and humanity can only complete this incomplete case of modernity by ceaselessly correcting the shortcomings of modernity. While modernity is the ideal of the modernization movement, the modernization movement is the actuality of modernity. Actually, the malignant effects of the idea of modernity about which people speak are always expressed

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through the modernization movement. While bringing people material abundance and refinement in material comfort, the modernization movement also brought about extremely malignant side-effects, which have elicited tireless criticisms of the modernization movement such that criticizing modernization has even become fashionable today. Postmodernism was obviously correct in becoming the vanguard of this critique of modernization, which is distinguished by four main features: 1. They ignore the positive things that the modernization movement has given to humanity and negate the modernization movement whole-sale; 2. They don’t undertake a historical analysis of the modernization movement, and do not see that some of the negative side-effects of modernization have a historical birth and development; 3. They insist that all of the problems that emerge in the modernization movement are brought about by modernization itself, and that they are the necessary result of the development of the logic of modernization; 4. They strongly demand returning to a pre-modernized state. The theorists of “Western Marxism” may have noticed the negative side-effects of the modernization movement even earlier and more profoundly than the postmodern theorists, but when unfolding their expositions and critiques of such problems that emerged in the modernization movement, they expressed none of such postmodernist tendencies. While they critiqued the negative side-effects that emerged through the modernization movement, they also eulogized the material civilization that the modernization movement brought to humanity and the new age that it opened for human being in breaking the bondage of so many natural and historical chains. They affirmed that the modernization movement had been the main motive force driving the last 200 years of reforms in human history. They carefully examined the historical genesis and development of the negative side-effects that emerged in the modernization movement, and persuasively demonstrate that all of these problems that emerged during the modernization movement were brought about neither by the modernization movement itself nor by the idea of modernity itself, but by the social environment and especially the social system that has driven the modernization movement. In brief, what they critiqued was not modernization itself, but the capitalistic form of modernization. They believe that most of the downsides of modernization that we may observe today may be circumvented by changing social institutions and their values. They strongly demand that the modernization movement be tied to socialism instead of capitalism, so their critiques of the negative side effects of modernization became arguments for the necessity of the ambitious pursuit of socialism. In summary, whether with respect to the modern metaphysical worldview or from the perspective of the idea of modernity and the modernization

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movement, the boundary between “Western Marxism” and postmodernism is clear-cut, and the opposition between them is obvious. The Western Marxian theorist, A. Wellmer, points out that postmodernism actually would like to “to declare such an end of historical vision: modern vision, European Enlight­ enment vision, ultimately the vision of Greece and Western civilization.”26 Wellmer’s comment on the essence of postmodernism gets right to the point, because all of the negativity of postmodernism rests in this. “Western Marxism” stands on the opposite side of the issue, and in the process of continuously overcoming all of the shortcomings of the plan, Western Marxism desires to push this plan forward by establishing new social institutions. All of the positive significance of “Western Marxism” rests in this. What finally must be pointed out is that all of the positive significance that Western Marxism shows when it is framed in the context of opposing postmodernism is precisely the positive significance of Marxism itself. The theorists of “Western Marxism” were capable of countering postmodernism so effectively and of bringing up such profound insights in the process, because they grasped the basic theory of Marxism. Also, they were good at coupling the basic theory of Marxism with the needs of the times. In the recent era, some scholars in the academic circles of China have written articles explaining again and again that during the 100 years since Marxism emerged misinterpretations of Marx’s philosophy have continuously cropped up revolving around the question of how to treat the philosophy of Marx among Marxists and non-Marxists both. Such misinterpretations include ignoring that Marx’s philosophy goes beyond the modern metaphysical view of the world, understanding Marx’s philosophy by means of modern forms of philosophical thought, and viewing Marx’s philosophy as a philosophy whose starting point is the dualistic subject-object division which establishes the goal of theories about the origin and essence of the world and whose theoretical trademark is essentialism and foundationalism. Actually, these scholars in China were just repeating the ideas of “Western Marxism.” The founders of “Western Marxism” began investigating the boundary between Marxist philosophy and the modern metaphysical worldworld more than 80 years ago, and strived to turn it into an innovative idea so as to tap it and transmit it. Later, almost all of the theorists of “Western Marxism” have now come to follow this path of thought and have continued to insist that the philosophy of Marxism stems from modern philosophy and yet goes beyond modern philosophy and counts as a contemporary way of thought. 26  See also Wang Xingfu: Out of the Dilemma of the Era—Habermas’ Reflection on Modernity, Shanghai Social Sciences Press, 2000, p. 1.

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In the history of the analysis of Marxism, “Western Marxism” was the first and most explicit school with respect to announcing that Marxist philosophy is a modern and contemporary philosophy that goes beyond modern philosophy. In their minds, Marx both stems philosophically from modern philosophy and yet transcends modern philosophy, which is why his attitude is simultaneously affirmative and yet critical toward the idea of modernity rooted in modern philosophy as well as the humanism and rationality constituting the two cores of the idea of modernity, and it is thanks to this critical yet affirmative attitude that he both praises modernity and critiques the negative side effects that endless crop up around it. So, it is not strange to see a fair distribution of both praise and blame of modernization throughout his works. Even more valuable is that when theorists of Western Marxism understand Marx’s philosophy as contemporary philosophy that goes beyond modern philosophy, they do not merge with postmodernism. Because they correctly grasp Marxist philosophy, they would not speak of Marxist philosophy and modern Western philosophy in the same breath., which is to say that while they do not explain Marx’s philosophy on the basis of modern ways of philosophical thought, they also do not argue that Marxist philosophy and modern philosophy are as incompatible as fire and water; they move from opposing the ontology of modern philosophy toward dismantling the ontology of modern philosophy, and move from opposing some of the negative side effects of the idea of modernity and the modernization movement toward abandoning the idea of modernity itself and modernization itself. On the one hand, they make clear-cut distinctions between Marx’s philosophy and those traditional, rigid understandings of Marxist philosophy through showing how Marx’s philosophy overcomes modern philosophy. On the other hand, they counter postmodernism by explaining how Marx’s philosophy does not deny ontological problems themselves due to overcoming modern philosophy and does not exhibit hostility toward the idea of modernity and the modernization movement itself due to critiquing the negative side effects of modernization and the idea of modernity. It is necessary to accept that this is an accurate Marxist position established on the basis of an accurate understanding of Marx’s philosophy. The opposition between “Western Marxism” and postmodernism arises precisely from this fundamental position, and the positive significance of “Western Marxism” also stems from this fundamental position as well.

CHAPTER 20

Personal Fulfillment through Production Rather than Consumption—An Essential Thesis of Ecological Marxism Ecological Marxism is an important school of “Western Marxism”, and its influence on the contemporary world is growing. It came to the fore as the mainstream of “Western Marxism” especially after the dramatic fall of the Soviet Union, and it represents the latest trend in the development of Marxism. In the body of thought of ecological Marxism there are many little-known theoretical viewpoints hidden deeply within it. Stressing that human satisfaction ultimately lies in production instead of consumption is one of such salient viewpoints. Let’s make a brief analysis here. For modern people who are currently infatuated with consumerism, nothing would help better than to understand the profound implications of this proposition.

Focusing on Production Rather than Consumption

Among the ecological Marxists, it was Leiss who gave the earliest and most systematic exposition of the idea that human satisfaction ultimately consists in producing rather than consuming. In his work, The Limits to Satisfaction, he criticizes the idea in modern industrial society, which equates satisfaction with endless material consumption. He points out that modern industrial society is leading people toward such a way of life. For people living in the tall multi-story buildings of cities, the energy supply, food and other necessities as well as the treatment of waste are all reliant upon a massive and complex system. At the same time, people mistakenly believe that continuously growing consumption may seem to compensate for the setbacks suffered in other areas of life, particularly in that of labor; because of this, people frantically pursue consumption to assuage their dissatisfaction with work. Consequently, consumption is equated with satisfaction and happiness; in other words, only quantity of consumption is used as the scale upon which to measure their own happiness. Leiss notes that this equating of consumption with satisfaction and happiness is precisely evidence that modern industrial society is in the process of alienation.

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Leiss insists that we must revise the idea of equating consumption with satisfaction into the following idea, which winds throughout the works of Fourier, Marx and Marcuse: Human satisfaction should be sought after in the activities that humans can engage in, which is to say, satisfaction is ultimately found in the activity of production. He states: “the possibility of satisfaction would be primarily a function of the organization of productive activity, and not-as in our society today-primarily a function of consumption.”1 If people understood the fact that continuously growing consumption cannot possibly compensate for the setbacks suffered in other areas of life, they would think that the prospect of progressive social change depends on the other areas outside of consumption, that is, people can find satisfaction and happiness outside of consumption. Leiss further points out that basic human needs are multifaceted and the means of satisfying those needs are even more abundant; there is fundamentally no need for excessively specialized goods and services to meet those needs. On the level of individual activity, the possibility of satisfaction in an alternative setting would be related to overcoming the extreme specialization of work in the provisioning of goods and services and a consequent limitation of the sphere of commodity exchange.2 People are naturally endowed with the capacities to heal, plant, weave, move, learn, build dwellings and bury the dead, and every one of such capacities satisfies a need. Leiss thinks that focusing attention on the sphere of production rather than on the sphere of consumption is absolutely not merely an issue of turning people’s attention, but rather one of creating an environment that can spur people to directly participate in the activities related to the satisfaction of their own needs, and the process of creating this environment is also precisely the process of solving the ecological crisis. The most effective way of solving the ecological crisis is letting humanity find satisfaction in the sphere of production. The pressure of human demands on the ecological environment has now reached such a degree that we must see human needs as an integral part of the larger system of ecological interactions. Therefore, we must associate the reduction of human being’s demand to consume and the transformation of the consumer way of life with giving rich meaning to all personal labor activities 1  William Leiss: The Limits to Satisfaction, Toronto, 1976, p. 105. 2  Ibid., p. 106.

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and free time activities, and to the furthest extent as possible make people rely on their own two hands to satisfy their own needs. He concludes by saying that the key reason why humankind can gain genuine satisfaction in the sphere of production is because: first, gaining self-realization by means of participating in the direct activity of production makes people truly capable of living creatively, and this kind of life is richly colorful and varied to the degree that people may gain pleasure in this productive activity itself; second, since this kind of production is not undertaken for the sake of supporting vicious consumption, since it breaks the direct link between production and consumption, and since this is production on the basis of decreasing the production capacity of capitalism, the result of this kind of production is not the growing opposition to nature but the establishing of a harmonious relationship with nature, and humankind will feel incomparably more satisfied and happier in this new relationship. Another famous ecological Marxist, Gorz, summarizes the question of whether one should remain intoxicated with gaining satisfaction in the sphere of consumption or should rather seek satisfaction in the sphere of production as the distinction between economic rationality and ecological rationality. He believes that economic rationality has a variety of features, among which the most important is: according to economic rationality the entirety of society revolves around the central activity of consumption. Economic reason tries to guide people toward the consumer path by producing as many things as possible so people can endlessly consume. And in order to do that, rigorous calculations and accounting must be made to maximize productivity and gain profit. Gorz states: to be guided by economic rationality, production must not only be intended for commodity exchange; it must be intended for exchange on a free market where unconnected producers find themselves in competition facing similarly unconnected purchasers.3 Now that production under the guidance of economic rationality is engaged in mainly for the sake of exchange, this kind of production necessarily follows the principle of the More the Better. So, this category “enough” is not merely a cultural category like it is in traditional societies; it becomes mainly an economic category. Its hallmark is breaking through the original principle of “enough is enough” and championing the principle of “The More the Better.” He states: 3  A. Gorz: Critique of Economic Reason, London, 1989, pp. 110–111.

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In place of the certainty of experience that ‘enough is enough’ it gave rise to an objective measure of the efficiency of effort and of its success: the size of profits. Success was no longer therefore a matter for personal assessment and a question of the ‘quality of life’, it was measurable by the amount of money earned, by accumulated wealth. Quantification gave rise to an indisputable criterion and a hierarchical scale which had no need of validation by any authority, any norm, any scale of values. Efficiency was measurable and, through it, an individual’s ability and virtue: more was better than less, those who succeed in earning more are better than those who earn less.4 What he means is that under the rule of economic rationality, profit is the supreme scale of measurement, according to which, how many things the human being consumes and how much wealth the human being has become the sole criteria used to measure whether or not the human being is happy and to what degree. In Gorz’s opinion, Marx’s critique of the capitalist mode of production is the critique of the economic rationality that concentrates attention on the sphere of consumption. So he exposes the harms of economic rationality by borrowing Marx’s idea. He states that in the view of Marx and Engels, as the characteristic of capitalism, economic rationality in that it swept away all values and purposes that were irrational from an economic point of view, leaving nothing but money relations between individuals, nothing but power relations between classes, nothing but an instrumental relation between Man and Nature, thus giving birth to a class of completely dispossessed worker-proletarians, reduced to nothing more than an indefinitely interchangeable labor power and divested of any particular interest.5 According to the Marxian view, promoting economic rationality, on the one hand, engenders a demiurgic, poietic relationship between Man and Nature as a result of mechanization and, on the other, bases the ‘colossal’ power of the forces of production on an organization of labor which strips both work and worker of all their human qualities.6 4  Ibid., p. 113. 5  Ibid., p. 19. 6  Ibid., p. 20.

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As a result of capitalist rationalization, work ceases to be an individual activity and a submission to basic necessities; but at the precise point at which it is stripped of its limitations and servility to become poiesis, the affirmation of universal strength, it dehumanizes those who perform it.7 Here, Gorz insists that the harms of economic rationality according to Marx can be attributed to turning the relationship between human being and human being into a monetary relationship and to turning the relationship between human being and nature into an instrumental relationship, and the crux of the problem is that this deprives the worker of her humanity. In Gorz’s view, the process of realizing the switch from economic rationality to ecological rationality is also the process of people continuously gaining satisfaction in the sphere of production instead of the sphere of consumption. Gorz believes that only by breaking out of the confines of economic rationality and by making the whole of society switch tracks to the sphere of production in seeking satisfaction, can we open up a space of freedom large enough for modern people. In this space, people’s lives are no longer fully occupied by consumption, and are also no longer fully occupied by labor as a mere means to obtain the basic materials of life. People discover that this is a realm of value that cannot be quantified and discover that this is finally the autonomous sphere of life. Once work that is done for the purpose of economics is greatly reduced, autonomous action will become dominant in society. We should drive economic rationality out of leisure time. In this way, leisure is no longer just surplus or compensation, but the indispensible time of life and the reason for living. We have to make leisure overpower labor and make free time overpower non-free time. We have to make such free time become the bearer of all universal values, namely make creativity, joy, the feeling of beauty and play conquer the values of efficiency and profit seeking in labor. Gorz points out that once labor is demoted to subordinate status and free time becomes the bearer of all universal values, there emerges the distant prospect of another possible society. He states: What is involved is the transition from a productivist work-based society to a society of liberated time in which the cultural and the societal are accorded greater importance than the economic: in a word, a transition to what the Germans call a ‘Kulturgesellschaft’.8

7  Ibid. 8  Ibid., p. 183.

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New Concepts for an Overhaul of Current Consumption Patterns

The ecological Marxists not only point directly at contemporary human beings while putting forward the Idea of seeking satisfaction in the sphere of production instead of the sphere of consumption, but also raise several demands as to how to concretely actualize this Idea. These ecological Marxists want people to focus on the field of production, but seeking satisfaction in the field of production does not imply making everyone completely abandon consumption; they simply want people to make major alterations to current consumption patterns in accordance with new ideas. In their view, even though the sphere of consumption cannot become the main place where people obtain happiness, it is impossible for people to leave the sphere of consumption completely, and here there is still the problem of how to guide consumption. Because of this, among the many demands they raise for actualizing the Idea of seeking satisfaction in the sphere of production rather than in that of consumption, a portion of them concentrate on the sphere of consumption. The basic demand that they raise in the sphere of consumption is to break the link between “The More” and “the Better” and instead associate “The Better” with “The Less”. Gorz proposes that as long as we produce more durable products and more things that do not destroy the environment, or even produce more, but more things that everyone can get their hands on, then it is possible to live better by consuming less. He states: In particular they might even escape the grip of economic rationality by discovering that more is not necessarily better, that earning and consuming more do not necessarily lead to a better life, and that there can, therefore, be more important demands than wage demands…… The market-based order’ is fundamentally challenged when people find out that not all values are quantifiable, that money cannot buy everything and that what it cannot buy is something essential, or is even the essential thing.9 In his view, the key is that the concept of “sufficient” must be given the correct explanation. In fact,

9  Ibid., p. 116.

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the category of the sufficient is not an economic category: it is a cultural or existential category. To say that ‘what is enough is enough is to imply that no good would be served by having more, that more would not be better. ‘Enough is as good as a feast’ as the English say.10 Gorz also points out that as long as we really can break the coupling of “The More” and “the Better” in the sphere of consumption, and realize the integration of “The Better” with “The Less”, humanity will then enter the state of mind of “less production, better life,” and this is precisely the main model of life in ideal socialism. Here, what is phrased as “less production” should be correctly described as “people producing according to their imagination rather than on need.” It is precisely producing on the basis of imagination, namely “the economic criteria of maximum productivity and profitability are subordinated to socio-ecological criteria”,11 which therefore enables people to enter a new state of mind, where the market disappears, where everyone feels satisfied and comes together, and each person plans their own life. Gorz thinks that socialism is a society full of equality, and that “less production, better life” will lead directly to social equality. He states that the modern capitalist mode of production brings about economic growth so the masses may enjoy privileges that only the elites were originally able to enjoy, but at the same time, the masses are again excluded from ever more new privileges. The motto of modern capitalist society is: “Things that are just as good to everyone have no value, you have to have a number of things better than others in order to be respected.” This motto is the idea of value that people universally accept in modern capitalist society. Once everyone possesses some product, this item loses value, and only those items that only a minority possesses are noble and worth striving for. The rulers of modern capitalist society are making use of this idea of value and this state of mind just to continue making new demands, to control people and maintain inequality. In accompaniment with the implementation of “less production, better life”, what people produce are those things that everyone genuinely needs, which does not give anyone special privileges and does not reduce anyone’s rights. In such a society, as Marx put it: the free development of each is the condition of the free development of all. Socialist equality is born here. Leiss suggests that severing the tie between “The More” and “the Better” in the sphere of consumption, and realizing the integration of “The Better” with “The Less” is actually the turn from quantitative to qualitative criteria. He draws 10  Ibid., p. 112. 11  A. Gorz: Capitalism, socialism, Ecology, London, 1994, p. 32.

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people’s attention to the illustration of the creation of a stable economy in the book Principles of Political Economy written by John Stuart Mill more than 100 years prior. Mill suggests that economic growth and population growth tend to stabilize. Mill warned people at the time that productive capacity and population tend to rise to a limit but do not need to develop any further. Although Mill acknowledges the existence of the phenomenon of gross inequity between people with respect to opportunities of self-realization and degrees of happiness in life, he stresses that this phenomenon of inequality can only be remedied by a more rational social organization, and we cannot simply pin our hopes on quantitative increases, namely solve problems simply with the help of increases in overall quantity. In his view, increases in quantity cannot necessarily improve the fate of the entirety of humankind. Leiss believes that the correctness of Mill’s views have been “proved,” and he praises Mill’s proposal “that a turn from quantitative to qualitative criteria was the primary desideratum for further social progress.”12 Leiss notes that in the face of the deteriorating environmental situation, there were some people in Western society who finally began to mention Mill’s theory. But he remarks, this recent discussion, however, only tend to confirm Mill’s fear that the idea of the stationary state would be taken seriously only in response to pressing necessity, rather than being freely adopted as a desirable framework for qualitative improvement.13 Leiss certainly disagrees with those in Western society who regard Mill’s theory simply as expedient measures to resolve urgent matters instead of an effective way to move toward an ideal society. In his view, Mill’s solution of focusing on the criteria of quality is based on the following idea: the prospect of human satisfaction must be rooted in creating a sphere of well-operating collective activity and decision-making, where each individual can forge the means to satisfy his or her own needs. He states: “what is most important for this tradition is a change in the mode of expressing and satisfying needs, not a definition or predetermination of an alternative set of needs as such.”14 The key here is that we have to realize the revolution in the structure of demands, that is establish a structure of demands that puts quality of consumption and quality of life first above all else. 12  William Leiss: The Limits to Satisfaction, Toronto, 1976, p. 104. 13  Ibid. 14  Ibid., p. 105.

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Lewis specifically devotes an explanation to those who might worry about whether people will have to once again return to those bitter living environments of the past, which are still characteristic of poor rural areas, after turning from quantitative to qualitative criteria. Leiss remarks that modern civilization is linked to commodities and market exchanges, and modern affluence is established on the foundation of commodities and market exchanges. If you want know whether or not the program of ecological Marxism to reorganize the mode of life will bring about poverty according to Mill’s theory, the answer first of all depends on your attitude toward market exchanges and commodities. He states: we may assume that the degree of significance of commodity production will vary widely according to specific historical circumstance and variations in social organization and personal desires. There need not be any uniform pattern even within a particular society, if that society is sufficiently decentralized to allow wide variations in the choices available to its members. The simple rule governing such choices may be stated as follows: reliance on access to complex manufactured objects through market exchanges is inversely related to the degree of local, direct control over the means of satisfying needs.15 For Leiss, in the program of life that they design, on one hand the degree of direct control over the means of satisfying needs continuously increases and on the other hand the degree of people’s dependence on complex manufactured goods obtained through market exchanges weakens greatly, and these two aspects are precisely the guarantees that make human beings live happier and more prosperous lives. The most influential ecological Marxist Agger describes severing the link between “The More” and “The Better” in the sphere of consumption, and realizing the integration of “The Better” and “The Less” as the “the extinction of alienated consumption.” He confirms that in today’s capitalist society “crisistendencies have been displaced into the sphere of consumption, replacing economic crisis with ecological crisis,” This crisis springs from the inability of capitalism to maintain its present rate of industrial growth required to provision human beings with

15  Ibid., p. 106.

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an endless stream of commodities provided in the interest of mitigating their alienation.16 Agger states that “in our final reading on crisis-theory, we will develop an analysis of what we term ‘alienated consumption.’ ”17 What Agger means by “alienated consumption” is contemporary capitalist society’s attempt to seduce people into mistaking the pursuit of consumption under market mechanisms for genuine satisfaction by distorting the essence of need in order to delay economic crisis, which thereby leads to overconsumption. It appears as people measuring the degree of their own happiness on the basis of how much they consume, the result of which is the genesis of so many demands that exceed nature’s carrying capacity. He believes that the crisis of capitalist society represented by the phenomenon of alienated consumption breeds “the dialectic of shattered expectations,” “a process of sudden consumer disenchantment with capitalist production and consumption and the possible restructuring of our expectations about the meaning of happiness.”18 According to his explanation, “the dialectic of shattered expectations” contains the following four inseparable processes: one, contemporary capitalist society gains its legitimacy from the limitless consumption of commodities that humanity may expect to get, which is to say the legitimacy of contemporary capitalist society is established on the basis of stimulating people’s expectation of limitless consumption; second, since ecosystems are powerless to support limitless growth, this situation where people think erroneously that there is an endless source of supply of commodities cannot possibly persist. Thus, this makes capitalism present crises of supply in periods of industrial prosperity and material abundance, which is to say, the ecological crisis of contemporary capitalist society necessarily turns into a crisis of supply; third, people have already become accustomed to regarding the material abundance that they have been expecting as compensation for their alienated labor, and when the crisis of supply arrives, their expectations shatter, and they start to lose confidence that capitalism can infinitely satisfy human material desires. Henceforth, they start to doubt the whole capitalist system, so they reconsider what people really need; fourth, It is precisely in the process of shattering expectations, where people reconsider what human beings really need, which generates unexpected consequences, namely the destruction of many outworn ideas and values 16  Ben Agger: Western Marxism: An Introduction, p. 272. Goodyear Publishing Co., Inc. California, 1979, p. 316. 17  Ibid., p. 272. 18  Ibid.

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and the genesis of new expectations and ways to satisfy those expectations. It is precisely in those whose expectations have been shattered where new expectations are inspired again. He stresses that the revolution of the structure of human demands severs the link between “The More” and “The Better” and realizes the integration of “The Better” and “The Less”, which is the concrete content of such new expectations.

Seeking Satisfaction in Productive Activity

Let’s take a look at how ecological Marxists implement their idea of seeking satisfaction not in the sphere of consumption but in the sphere of production. The basic demand that they raise is to let everyone have a position where they can develop their capacities at work, and make this work become autonomous behavior, so that workers gain the greatest satisfaction from it. Gorz asserts that the key to making contemporary people truly live a happy life is to make work itself become autonomous behavior, that is, we not only have to drive economic rationality out of leisure time, but also have to deprive economic rationality of every foothold in labor time; we not only have to seek the development of personal freedom outside of labor, but also have to seek the development of personal freedom within labor. He believes what is of utmost importance is not allowing labor to become the means of earning a wage, because if it does so, work is bound to lose its meaning, its motivation and goal. In actuality, what work that people do to get paid achieves is not the goals that people chosen for themselves; it is work designed on the basis of procedures and time tables designed by the people who pay them. He states: “There is widespread confusion between ‘work’ and ‘job’ or ‘employment’, as there is between the ‘right to work’, the ‘right to a wage’ and the ‘right to an income’.”19 In his view, now people universally equate the right to earn money with the right to work, but actually, that you have the right to earn money does not indicate that you have already gained the right to work, and moreover, going beyond economic rationality in the sphere of work is but allowing people not only to have the right to earn money but also to truly gain the right to work. Gorz believes that, in general, there are three levels of labor, that is: the organization of the labor process; the relationship between the production of the product; the content of labor, namely the nature of the actions and the talent and capacity that the labor demands. He stresses that workers should have access to rights on these three levels, and hence have autonomy. Concretely speaking this is 19  A. Gorz: Critique of Economic Reason, London, 1989, p. 221.

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to say: this kind of labor should be self-organized by the worker; such labor is the free pursuit of self-determined goals; such labor should attain the worker’s own goals. Given the current situation where large numbers of people will be driven out of the sphere of economic activity, and only a few of the professional elites will engage in economic work, thereby making the former devolve into the servants of the latter, Gorz highlights the importance of the fair distribution of current jobs. He believes that in the face of dwindling jobs, there are two different solutions: the first is like what is taking place in modern capitalist society, hand the reduced share of jobs to a few professional elites, and let the majority of people go unemployed, then allow the former cheaply buy the labor of the latter, who then serve the former, who in turn enslave the latter; The other solution is, still allow everyone to work even though jobs decrease, and even if working hours decrease to two hours a day, still let everyone have a job. He believes that if [the majority is] excluded from the sphere of economic activity, then what sense would it make to talk about the right to work and the autonomy of work. So, in the present case, the first demand of liberation from work is decreasing the amount of labor time, but everyone must engage in labor, and everyone must have their own job. He states: the Idea of “the liberation from work and the idea of ‘working less so everyone can work’ were, after all, at the origin of the struggle of the labor movement.”20 Gorz warns that people must pay attention to the following facts: Between 1961 and 1988, the size of the industrial working class shrank by 44 per cent in Great Britain, 30 per cent in France, 24 per cent in Switzerland and 18 per cent in West Germany. In the space of twelve years (1975–86), one third or even half of all industrial jobs have disappeared in several European countries. During those twelve years, France industry did away with almost as many jobs as it created between 1890 and 1968.21 During the same period, a great number of jobs have been created in the service sector; But the jobs were part-time and/ or precarious, lowskilled jobs, which offer no opportunities for career development and bear no relation to what constituted the essence and value of work and workers in socialist doctrine. It is as though the industrial working class had declined and been partially supplanted by a post-industrial—largely female—proletariat which, by dint of the precariousness of its condition 20  Ibid. 21  A. Gorz: Capitalism, socialism, Ecology, London, 1994, p. vii.

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and the nature of its tasks, cannot derive from its work either a social identity or a mission to wield economic, technical or political power.22 From the quantitative point of view, working lives are beginning later, ending earlier and being interrupted more frequently. Annual, full-time working hours fell from 2,150 in 1960 to 1,650 in 1990 and a further 150 hours can be deducted from this figure for sick leave. Now, during those thirty years, the annual volume of work (i.e. the total number of hours worked by all the members of the workforce) fell by 28 per cent. Whilst production per hour of work increased threefold and unemployment—or, rather, the impossibility of “earning a living” assumed disquieting proportions.23 After Gorz lists these facts, he asks as an ecological Marxist in this new situation, how does the left wing motivate people to find satisfaction in work? He highlights the following two points: First, he states: “work has changed, and ‘workers’ have changed too.”24 If as an ecological Marxist one must fight for the emancipation of workers, are you merely the ideological spokesperson of those 15 per cent? These people still define themselves chiefly by their work, who feel they are workers first and foremost, and experience their work as an activity that is at least potentially fulfilling and creative. But, does not the ecological Marxist want to make all work a creative and fulfilling activity? What Gorz means is, faced with the fact that those truly engaging in traditional industrial labor are only 15% of the total population, the leftists and ecological Marxists can not merely focus on this portion of people, which is to say can not merely fight for the interests of this portion of people, and can not merely make realizing the liberation of this portion their fight and goal. Second, with respect to those industrial workers still engaging in industrial labor, their true labor time is actually very short, and most of their life activities are unrelated to industrial labor. In this case, there is the question of how to correctly understand the future status of an occupation in a person’s life and society. When society’s growing technology creates more wealth with less labor, decreases in labor-time are inevitable. Not only the number of industrial workers is greatly reduced, the labor time of workers also plummets as well. In this case, let us take one step back to say that even if the object that leftists and 22  Ibid. 23  Ibid., p. VIII. 24  Ibid., p. VII.

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ecological Marxists serve is still predominantly that of industrial workers, they cannot just focus on their labor time, but should focus on the entirety of their life activities, which is to say that the goal of leftists and socialists is not only to make these workers feel liberated during labor time, but to make them feel liberated in their whole lives during non-labor time as well. In this way, Gorz locates the fight and goal of leftists and ecological Marxists in not only making industrial workers but making everyone attain self-realization, and not only making the labor of workers but also making the non-labor activity of workers become autonomous creative activity. Gorz then points out that the key point here is to change the current form of “wage-labor.” If you do not change the current form of “wage-labor,” it remains impossible to make all of everyone’s activity autonomous. He states: do we not have to find a source of activity and mode of social integration to replace wage-labor? Must we not go beyond the society of full employment and plan for a ‘full activity’ society in which each person’s income is no longer the price for which they sell their labor?25 In his view, the society that eliminates the wage-labor model is precisely socialist society, which is the negation of currently existing capitalist system. “The term ‘socialism’ no longer refers to any existing social order.”26 Gorz insists that if leftists and ecological Marxists truly have the goal of making all the activities of everyone autonomous, they cannot avoid getting rid of wage-labor and thoroughly breaking with the currently existing capitalist system. Leiss then points out that, since the currently operating system of production and consumption inhibits the development of people’s talents and capacities, and since human being’s true satisfaction and happiness are completely dependent on the development of such talents and capacities, we have to turn in the opposite direction, that is, we should seek to do everything possible to promote the development of people’s capacities. The main avenue left open to this is to create a variety of conditions that allow people themselves to engage in a variety of activities. Of course such activities are not activities that others order you to do, which cannot be considered true work. True work should be autonomously and creatively realizing your own work. That is to say, this labor is completely different from that often seen on the assembly line or in the office where there is a highly fragmented division of labor and work procedure.

25  Ibid., p. ix. 26  Ibid.

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A highly fragmented division of labor and work procedure renders human development one-sided and lopsided, distorting the human will. Leiss also emphasizes that focusing on the sphere of production and allowing people to gain satisfaction and happiness in the process of engaging in autonomous and creative labor does not entail forcing everyone to adopt a single specific way of life, but rather entails allowing people to have other kinds of choices that are comparatively more attractive than present choices. Today’s investment decisions that focus on consumption can only lead to a single choice, namely a highly intensive market arrangement on the basis of concentrated urban populations. As soon as the focal point shifts to the question of how to make people find satisfaction in productive activity, people may gain access to a more ideal living environment, which is strongly attractive to every individual. If the direction of investment in modern society does not force people to live a single model of life, every individual can have a wide range of freedom of choice. Under these circumstance individual could choose, for example, trade off at diverse levels the satisfactions gained by personal activity in the production of everyday requirements against the satisfactions of consumption in a generalized market setting.27 Leiss believes that concentrating attention on the sphere of production rather than on the sphere of consumption is not merely an issue of shifting people’s attention, but one of creating an environment that can spur people to directly participate in the activities related to the satisfaction of their own needs. We must link together reducing human demand, changing the way of life of elevated consumption and filling every person’s labor activity and free time activity with rich meaning. We must as far as possible make everyone rely on their own two hands to satisfy their own demands. The reason why people can gain satisfaction in this kind of labor is mainly because: one, people attain self-realization by means of participating in directly productive activities, people become truly capable of living creatively a life that is rich and colorful, and people will gain pleasure through such productive activities themselves; two, since this production is not engaged in for the sake of supporting malignant consumption, since the direct link between production and consumption is severed, and since this is production based on weakening the production capacity of capitalism, the result of this kind of production is not the growing opposition 27  William Leiss: The Limits to Satisfaction, Toronto, 1976, p. 108.

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to nature but the establishment of a harmonious relationship with nature, and humanity will feel genuine satisfaction and happiness in this new relationship.

The Implications of the Thesis of Fulfillment through Productive Activity

Previously we introduced in considerable detail the implications and relevant thoughts of the proposition that human satisfaction ultimately lies in production rather than consumption, and in the following we make a brief comment about this. Since entering the civilized state, possibly one of the greatest errors that humanity has made was seeking satisfaction solely in the sphere of consumption related activities and seeing the sphere of production solely as the means to satisfy consumption. But by the time we reach the second half of the 20th century, this error begins to pick up colossal steam. In the long history of human development, there have been many wise philosophers who raised doubts about this way of seeking satisfaction, but it was Marx who truly gave a thorough account of this error, on which grounds he pointed out the correct direction for human happiness and satisfaction. Based on an accurate analysis of human nature and human demands, Marx concludes that human being is not a consumer animal, and seeking material pleasure is a basic human demand, but it is not the essential demand that makes human being truly become human. When human being is engaging in material consumption, in a definite sense, she is only exercising animal functions. But what truly makes human being become human and what makes up the most basic distinction between human and animal is human being’s free self-conscious activity, namely work. Human being is only exercising human functions while engaging in this kind of work. The reason why people can gain satisfaction through such work is because human being realizes her own essence through it. In this way, Marx’s critique of capitalist society also concentrates on this—society distorts human demands, society uses the seeking of material pleasure to substitute seeking the realization of one’s own human essence through labor, and thereby turns what originally should become enjoyable labor into bitter alienated labor. Marx’s most famous saying brilliantly voices his critique of capitalism: As a result, therefore, man (the worker) only feels himself freely active in his animal functions–eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no

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longer feels himself to be anything but an animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal.28 In Marx’s view, the evil of capitalist society is in causing such a reversal: eating, drinking, etc., are obviously animal functions, but could human being totally dedicate herself to pleasure and treat this as human being’s unique function? Labor is obviously a function unique to human being, but human being does not focus on it, but rather treats it merely as a means, which is effectively to treat it as an animal function. Human being evolved out of animals, and because of this she is double natured, possessing both animality and humanity. The problem is when she expresses her animality she mistakes it for that something which human being possesses uniquely and takes pleasure in it as such, but when she truly has to express her humanity, she operates like an animal. This is the tragedy of humanity. On the grounds of this critique of capitalist society, Marx illuminates for humanity the path toward the liberation of labor, believing that human being only genuinely realizes herself on the condition of achieving the liberation of labor, namely on the condition of turning forced, alienated labor that is treated as a means into free, self-conscious activity as an end in itself. Regrettably, this most important theoretical point of view throughout Marx’s body of thought has long been overlooked or ignored by many people including some “orthodox Marxists”. We can say that the theorists who truly read and understood Marx’s thought in this respect were the “Western Marxists.” A book on the history of Western Marxism is a book that carries forward Marx’s thought about the liberation of labor and the critical history of capitalism’s warping of people into consumption machines. They use Marx’s relevant theories to dissect modern capitalist society, and point out that the consumer’s heaven in modern capitalist society does not give the joy that it promises. The way of life that human being lives is one of “having” not “being.” The ecological Marxists fully inherit the tradition of “Western Marxism”, and combine this tradition with the exploration of ways of resolving the ecological crisis. They put forward the proposition that human satisfaction ultimately lies in the sphere of production rather than consumption, which based on new trends constitutes the summation and conclusion of Western Marxian thought and strictly speaking the conclusion of Marx’s thought as well. This proposition very pointedly whips the sickness of the times, and very convincingly shows modern human being the way forward out of this state of delusion human being is currently in. 28  Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 44.

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The ecological Marxists undoubtedly make this proposition predominantly on the basis of the case of modern capitalism, but the meaning of this proposition far exceeds the scope of modern capitalist society. It is equally enlightening for the Chinese who are now running down the road of modernization, trying to get out of poverty, some moving toward comfortable conditions, others toward the hight of affluence. Concretely speaking, this proposition has at least the following four inspiring points. First, on the road of modernization, the Chinese people should not only focus on the sphere of consumption, that is should not only strive to improve their material standard of living. According to the concrete situation in China, we should, of course, put the development of productive forces first above all else. We should further enrich society’s material means of subsistence. But when doing so, we must not forget about developing productivity. Creating material wealth is always just a means, that is a means for satisfying human needs, for realizing the essence of human being, and for urging human beings to attain the end of happiness and satisfaction. We can’t mistake the means for the end in itself, and even with adequate means, such means do not necessarily and automatically serve the end. Here, there is still the question of how to make the means effectively serve the end. In addition, we also must know that rich material subsistence is only one of the means of realizing human nature and of promoting the joy of life, aside from which there are still many other means. Human being can only truly live in happiness when fully equipped with such means. Second, in the sphere consumption, the Chinese people must get rid of the old idea of the more the better, and plant the new idea of enough is enough just as the ecological Marxists propose severing the link between the more and the better. We must pay attention to the quality of consumption, we must not find it always necessary to pursue quantity as the rule, and realize the turn from quantitative criteria to qualitative criteria. In eating and drinking insist on nutrition, in living insist on health, in culture insist on high quality, and in environments praise clean and beautiful. In particular, we have to change those ideas of consumption that seek what is fresh and what is “mine and only mine,” and vigorously offer to consume those durable things that do not fall apart easily. Just consider the fact that the quantity of alcohol that Chinese people consume currently in one year is equal to the volume of the entire West Lake, and you realize that we have already fallen into the depths of consumerism. If we don’t quickly change that current way of satisfying consumption with the more, the better, and if we do not launch a revolution in the sphere of consumption, it is needless to say that resources and the environment will continue to suffer vast destruction, and what will happen here is the reversal

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of the relationship between human being and commodity that occurred in the West, namely where it is not products that are produced for the sake of satisfying human needs but human beings who exist for the sake of making sure products are consumed. Third, we should actually shift the focus to the sphere of production, and on this Chinese piece of earth take the lead in implementing Marx’s Idea of the liberation of labor. Although at present, we can only make a very few small steps, as long as we continue forward in this direction, it would amount to the great fortune of the Chinese people. We must bear in mind that the value of life lies in creation rather than consumption, and reorganize our new way of life under the guidance of this thought. We have to turn the historical activity of building socialism with Chinese characteristics under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party into an activity that practices Marx’s theory of the whole-sided development of human being and that creates new ways of life. The liberation of labor is not a pure utopia; it possesses actual content. We should demand, as ecological Marxism does, to expand the sphere of autonomous human activity, increase the possibilities of self-realization, gradually turn labor as a means into labor as an end in itself, gradually turn labor into a recreational activity, and make those who engage in work obtain maximum satisfaction. Fourth, in the present day, what is crucial for the moment is how to ensure that people have their own job in the situation where the “structural adjustment of industry” is being undertaken and traditional jobs are dwindling by the day. The viewpoint that the ecological Marxists raised about work is very pointed and extremely meaningful, namely still make it such that everyone can work even in the case where jobs are disappearing. They emphasized the need to distinguish the “right to earn money” and “the right to work”, and the idea that we should not use the former to replace the latter is a profound insight. We must not concentrate those traditional jobs in the hands of a very small number of “working elites.” We must not force the majority of people out of traditional jobs and turn them into people who can only engage in service work that revolves around the working elites. For the majority of the laid off and unemployed, it is not enough to provide them with living allowances so that they can survive alone; they do not need to just survive; they still need a world that can prove their own self worth. Practice has proved that the significance of letting everyone have a job is not inferior to letting everyone have something to eat.

CHAPTER 21

Ecological Marxism’s New Reflection on Contemporary Capitalism Before the dramatic dissolution of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, Ecological Marxism (The Red Green Faction of the Ecological Movement) didn’t play a vital role in the ecological Movement which was then dominated by the ecological movement (the Green Greens), let alone in the theoretical circles of the whole Western world. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, however, ecological Marxism entered a phase of rapid development during which time it overtook the other camp and became one of the most remarkable trends of thought. Just consider this process of development and you will find that its expanding influence is proportional to its in-depth reflection on and critique of modern capitalism. The main theoretical achievement of ecological Marxism after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc is that it unfolded an even more radical critique of contemporary capitalism with respect to the connection between the capitalist mode of production and the ecological crisis precisely during the time when many took the opportunity to praise capitalism at the verge of socialism’s collapse. In particular, putting forward the concept of “ecological imperialism” integrated this critique into the study of the problems of globalization.

The Cause of the Ecological Crisis—the Capitalist Mode of Production

Determining that the crisis of capitalist society is in essence the ecological crisis and that this ecological crisis stems mainly from the capitalist mode of production, namely the mode of production that strives to achieve maximization of profit, and moreover, insisting that the profit motive of capitalism necessarily destroys the ecological environment—this is the consistent position of ecological Marxism. The main divergence between ecological Marxism and ecologism is chiefly their divergence with respect to their views on the source that brings about the deterioration of the modern social environment and the ecological crisis. The ecologists try to dodge the capitalist system while ecological socialism aims the spearhead of critique directly at the capitalist system. The ecologists replace the concept of class exploitation with a historical

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concept of hierarchy, thinking that hierarchical power relations which apply to all modes of production are the source of environmental degradation and the ecological crisis. However, ecological socialism, especially the ecological Marxists of the ecological socialist camp insist that the relations of production and class relations are the source of economic, social and political exploitation which in turn directly lead to environmental degradation and the ecological crisis. The former’s critique of environmental degradation and the ecological crisis in modern society basically doesn’t touch upon private ownership and the fundamental system of capitalism, and the latter insists that the capitalist system is the true source of the ecological crisis. In this respect, André Gorz’s Ecology as Politics can best demonstrate the basic stance of ecological Marxism. Gorz uses his viewpoint of political ecology to analyze today’s ecological problems, and concludes that the profit motive of capitalism necessarily destroys the ecological environment and that capitalism’s logic of production can neither resolve ecological problems nor the all-around social crisis closely tied to these ecological problems. He also points out that every enterprise is a complex of such elements as natural resources, production tools and labor power. Under capitalism these factors are combined so as to yield the greatest possible about of profit (which, for any firm interested in its future, means also the maximum control over resources, hence the maximum increase in its investments and presence on the world market).1 He stresses that the profit motive is absolutely in conflict with the ecological environment and impels people to ruin the environment. To be more specific, Corporate management is not, for instance, principally concerned with making work more pleasant, harmonizing production with the balance of nature and the lives of people, or ensuring that its products serve only those ends which communities have chosen for themselves. It is principally concerned with producing the maximum exchange value for the least monetary cost.2 It is capitalism’s logic of production to value cost reduction over environmental protection. Gorz also notices that in contemporary capitalist society, some enterprises take the work of environmental protection seriously. So, he specifically analyzes this phenomenon. In his view, when analyzing this phenomenon, the 1  A. Gorz: Ecology as Politics, Boston, 1980, p. 5. 2  Ibid.

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following two points must be fully appreciated: first, such measures are carried out because there is no choice; second, such measures are quite limited. He states that in some developed capitalist regions, population crowding as well as the pollution of the air and water already reached the extreme point where businesses were forced to deal with harmful gases and waste water in order for the factories there to continue production and realize growth. This is to say that factories now must remold environments and natural resources to suit production, but before these facets were seen as parts of nature that may be arbitrarily exploited. So obviously the motive behind capitalist society’s businesses taking up this concern for environmental protection is still to ensure increased profit. But the problem is that even though apparatuses that can treat pollution are completely necessary, needing to largely increase the investment of fixed assets is contradictory to the goal of making profit. In short, there is a simultaneous increase in capital intensity (in the organic composition of capital), in the cost of reproducing this fixed capital, and hence in the costs of production, without any corresponding increase in sales. One of two things must therefore occur: either the rate of profit declines or the price of the products increases.3 Of course, in the capitalist system, the only option is rasing prices, which will lead into a new vicious circle. Gorz finally draws the conclusion that The incorporation of ecological constraints will in the end have the following results: prices will tend to rise faster than real wages, purchasing power will be reduced, and it will be as if the cost of pollution control had been deducted from the income available to individuals for the purchase of consumer goods.4 And what this entails is the poor, relatively speaking, becoming poorer and the rich richer; inequality will intensify and a host of social problems will arise. Gorz thinks that it is precisely because the profit motive of capitalism necessarily destroys the environment that the ecological movement will necessarily conflict with the whole capitalist system. This is why the ecological struggle is, in its present form, an indispensable dimension of the struggle against capitalism. He not only points out the severity surrounding the ecological movement, but also analyzes where the goal of this struggle at present lies. He thinks that the focal point is in the rulers of capitalist society attempting to profit 3  Ibid., p. 6. 4  Ibid.

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off of shifting and managing the ecological crisis. The ecological movement must attack this utilitarianism. The reality that we are facing is: after capitalism exhausts every means of deceptive and repressive rule, it will start to find its own way out of the ecological dead end, absorbing the needs of ecology by making them applicable to exploitation. In the capitalist system, the interest generated by the cost of protecting the environment already becomes a luxury item that is for the enjoyment of the privileged few and that does not concern the majority. In light of this situation, Gorz raises the following serious question to those dedicated to the ecological movement: Is it capitalist coercion that adjusts to ecology? Or will it be a social, economic and cultural revolution that eliminates capitalist coercion, thereby establishing a new relationship between individual and society and between human beings and nature. Gorz thinks the ecological movement will be led astray if it cannot give the correct answer to this question.

From the Critique of the Profit Motive to the Critique of the Economic Reason of Capitalism

During and after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc, ecological Marxism did not back away from this basic position, but stood firm by squarely facing the objective facts and theoretically producing more profound research. We are still following the traces of Gorz’s thought and examining his research. In 1988, when socialism was on the verge of fracturing in most Eastern Soviet states, Gorz wrote Critique of Economic Reason, in which he attributes the ecological crisis to the profit motive of capitalism, and attributes the latter in turn to the economic reason of capitalism. In this way, he extends his critique of the profit motive of capitalism into the critique of the economic reason of capitalism, which on the more abstract philosophical level investigates the source of the ecological crisis of capitalism. So, what is economic reason? Just take a look at his account in the following paragraph: Computerization and robotization have, then, an economic rationality, which is characterized precisely by the desire to economize, that is, to use the factors of production as efficiently as possible…. For the moment, suffice it to say that a rationality whose aim is to economize on these ‘factors’ requires that it be possible to measure, calculate and plan their deployment and to express the factors themselves, whatever they may be, in terms of a single unit of measurement. This unit of measurement is the ‘unit cost’, a cost which is itself a function of the working time (the

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number of hours worked) contained in the product and the means (broadly speaking, the capital, which is accumulated labor) used to produce it…. From the point of view of economic rationality, the working time saved across the whole of society, thanks to the increasing efficiency of the means used, constitutes working time made available for the production of additional wealth. The working time saved, he writes, ‘allows for the remuneration of those who have lost their jobs’ by employing them to perform other economic activities, or by paying them to perform activities which were previously neither paid nor considered to be part of the economy.5 Now we have a rough idea of what he calls economic reason (economic rationality) which based on calculating and counting is tied to computerization and roboticization; it makes every possible use of the labor time that is saved over from improvements in the means of labor in order make that labor time generate extra value. He points out that in pre-capitalist traditional societies, when people could freely determine the degree of their demands and the extent of their efforts, economic reason was inapplicable. He states, They tend then spontaneously to limit their needs in order to be able to limit their efforts, to match these efforts to a level of satisfaction which seems to them sufficient. This level may clearly vary over time; but nonetheless it is the category of the sufficient which regulates the balance between the level of satisfaction and the volume of work for oneself.6 In those times, people followed the principle of “Enough is Enough” when working and producing. The things that people reaped by plowing and planting on their own piece of earth were entirely used to satisfy the needs of their own family and livestock, and even if they sometimes went into the wilderness or neighboring forests to chop wood, it would only be used as fuel. This is to say that in those times people’s actions were in line with the timing, movement and rhythm of their “livelihood.” As Gorz sees it, the key is in understanding the category of “sufficient.” He states that in that age, the category of the sufficient is not an economic category: it is a cultural or existential category. To say that what is enough is enough is to imply 5  A. Gorz: Critique of Economic Reason, London, 1989, pp. 2–3. 6  Ibid., pp. 111–112.

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that no good would be served by having more, that more would not be better. ‘Enough is as good as a feast’ as the English say.7 Here, Gorz insists that in traditional societies, when economic reason is not in control, the category of “sufficient” is only a cultural category, and what people believe is “enough is enough” and “enough is as good as a feast.” Gorz thinks that the emergence of economic reason is simultaneously the birth of capitalism. Economic reason starts to come into play when people learn how to calculate and count, that is to produce not for the sake of their own consumption but for the sake of the market. He argues, “Economic rationalization begins with counting and calculating”, “But from the moment when I am no longer producing for my own consumption but for the market, everything changes.”8 He also state, Counting and calculating is then the quite essential form of reifying rationalization. It posits the quantity of work per unit of product in itself, regardless of the lived experience of that work: the pleasure or displeasure which it brings me, the quality of the effort it demands, my affective and aesthetic relationship to what is produced. My activities will be decided as a function of a calculation, without my preferences or tastes being taken into account.9 Gorz is not only giving an account of how economic reason is born, but is also giving an account of the concrete content of economic reason. He states: To be guided by economic rationality, production must not only be intended for commodity exchange; it must be intended for exchange on a free market where unconnected producers find themselves in competition facing similarly unconnected purchasers.10 Now that people are guided by economic reason, and production is predominantly engaged for the sake of exchange, this kind of production necessarily follows the principle of the More the Better. So, this category of “sufficient” is not only a cultural category as it was in traditional societies, but has become a predominantly economic category. Its hallmark is breaking through the 7  Ibid., p. 112. 8  Ibid., p. 109. 9  Ibid., pp. 109–110. 10  Ibid., pp. 110–111.

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original principle of “enough is enough” and worshiping the principle of “The More the Better” instead. Gorz states: In place of the certainty of experience that ‘enough is enough’ it gave rise to an objective measure o f the efficiency of effort and of its success: the size of profits. Success was no longer therefore a matter for personal assessment and a question of the ‘quality of life’, it was measurable by the amount of money earned, by accumulated wealth. Quantification gave rise to an indisputable criterion and a hierarchical scale which had no need of validation by any authority, any norm, any scale of values. Efficiency was measurable and, through it, an individual’s ability and virtue: more was better than less, those who succeed in earning more are better than those who earn less.11 In this paragraph Gorz adds emphasis, because this passage rather perfectly states the meaning of economic reason. The principles of economic reason that Gorz brings up are precisely the principle of “calculating and counting”, the principle of efficiency above all else, and the principle of the More the better. In Gorz’s view, Marx’s critique of the capitalist mode of production is the critique of economic reason. So, he first borrows Marx’s viewpoint to expose the harms of economic reason. He states that in the view Marx and Engels, economic rationality is the characteristic of capitalism, in that it swept away all values and purposes that were irrational from an economic point of view, leaving nothing but money relations between individuals, nothing but power relations between classes, nothing but an instrumental relation between Man and Nature, thus giving birth to a class of completely dispossessed worker- proletarians, reduced to nothing more than an indefinitely interchange-able labor power and divested of any particular interest.12 according to Marx’s view, the process of rationalization, on the one hand, engenders a demiurgic, poietic relationship between Man and Nature as a result of mechanization and, on the other, bases the

11  Ibid., p. 113. 12  Ibid., p. 19.

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‘colossal’ power of the forces of production on an organization of labor which strips both work and worker of all their human qualities.13 As a result of capitalist rationalization, work ceases to be an individual activity and a submission to necessities; but at the precise point at which it is stripped of its limitations and servility to become poies is, the affirmation of universal strength, it dehumanizes those who perform it.14 Gorz emphasizes here that according to Marx, the harms of economic reason can be attributed to, on the one hand, turning the relationship between human being and human being into a monetary relationship, and on the other hand turning the relationship between human being and nature into an instrumental relationship, and the core of the problem is depriving workers of humanity. Gorz argues that, “Habermas uses the concept of ‘cognitive-instrumental’ rationality to denote the unity of techno-scientific, economic and administrative approaches.”15 In his view, what Habermas calls “cognitive-instrumental rationality” is actually economic reason, so he borrows Habermas’ critique of cognitive-instrumental rationality to further analyze the harms of economic rationality. He claims: To put it another way, economic rationality, which is a particular form of ‘cognitive instrumental’ rationality, is not only wrongly extended to cover institutional actions to which it is not applicable, it ‘colonizes’, reifies and mutilates the very relational fabric on which social integration, education and individual socialization depend. Habermas sees the reason for this ‘colonization’ in ‘the irresistible dynamic’ developed by ‘economic and administrative sub-systems’, that is hetero-regulation by money and state power.16 Thus, based on Habermas’ critique of “cognitive instrumental rationality” Gorz thinks that the main harm of economic reason is in “colonizing” the lifeworld. He also specifically analyzes what the colonization of the lifeworld consists of. He states: I wanted to demonstrate the common roots of economic rationality and of ‘cognitive-instrumental reason’; these roots being a (mathematical) 13  Ibid., p. 20. 14  Ibid., 19. 15  Ibid., p. 108. 16  Ibid., p. 107.

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formalization of thinking which, codifying the latter into technical procedures, insulates it against any possibility of reflexive self-examination and against the certainties of lived experience. Technicization, reification, monetarization of relationships has their cultural anchorage in this technique of thinking whose operations function without the involvement of the subject and whose absent subjects are unable to account for themselves. This is how this cold civilization is able to organize itself, its cold, functional, calculated, formalized relationships, making living individuals strangers to the reified world which is nonetheless their product, and its formidable technical inventiveness going hand in hand with a decline of the arts of living, of communication and of spontaneity.17 From this passage, we understand that on the surface the ‘colonization’ of the lifeworld is the ‘technicization, reification, monetarization of relationships’, ‘making living individuals strangers to the reified world’; and in greater depth, the ‘formalization of thinking,’ and ‘codifying the latter into technical procedures’. Noted above are the universal harms that run throughout the economic reason of the entire era of capitalism; it is just that these harms become increasingly intense in contemporary capitalist society. But Gorz’s exposition of the harmfulness of economic reason does not stop here. He furthermore analyzes the harms of economic reason in contemporary capitalist society. Economic reason engenders neo-slavery in contemporary capitalist society. Modern people win a lot more free time in accompaniment with the rapid development of technology and productivity. Society already does not need so much labor time to produce the means of material life. But because economic reason still plays a significant role in modern capitalist society, that is, because the whole of society is driven by the principle of “the more the better,” it brings about the unequal distribution of the labor time saved over, that is, an increasingly larger part of the population is continuously driven out of the sphere of economic activity or is marginalized from it, and the other part of elite professionals continue to take the traditional jobs or even more jobs. This conforms with economic reason’s principle of “the more, the better,” raises the productive ­efficiency of labor and creates more and more material wealth. But at the same time, it also widens the polarized division, turning the majority into the slaves of the elites. He states:

17  Ibid., p. 124.

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The unequal distribution of work in the economic sphere, coupled with the unequal distribution of the free time created by technical innovations thus leads to a situation in which one section of the population is able to buy extra spare time from the other and the latter is reduced to serving the former … For a section at least of those who provide personal services, this type of social stratification amounts to subordination to and personal dependence upon the people they serve. A ‘servile’ class, which had been abolished by the industrialization of the post-war period, is again emerging.18 Gorz thinks that there is no significant difference between the elites hiring people to do the work of servants today and the wealthy class hiring domestic servants before. His critique of neo-slavery in contemporary capitalist society can be taken as a warning.

The Relationship between Environmental Protection and the Existing Capitalist Modes of Production

In 1991, Gorz published another book Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology where he further analyzes the relationship between capitalism, socialism and ecological protection. He repeatedly insists that the economic rule that contemporary capitalist society enacts, namely economic reason, opposes ecological reason, and as long as this rule still plays a role, ecological protection remains an empty phrase. He states: Now the economic imperative of productivity is totally different from the ecological imperative of resource conservation. Ecological rationality consists in satisfying material needs in the best way possible with as small a quantity as possible of goods with a high use-value and durability and thus doing so with a minimum of work, capital and natural resources. The quest for maximum economic productivity, by contrast, consists in selling at as high a profit as possible the greatest possible quantity of goods produced with the maximum of efficiency, all of which demands a maximization of consumption and needs, only by such a maximization is it possible to obtain a return on growing quantities of capital. As a consequence, the pursuit of maximum productivity at the enterprise level leads to increasing waste in the economy as a whole. But what 18  Ibid., p. 6.

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appears, from the ecological point of view, as a waste and destruction of resources is perceived from the economic point of view as a source of growth: competition between enterprises speeds up innovation and the volume of sales and velocity of capital circulation increase as a result of obsolescence and the more rapid renewal of products. And what, from the ecological point of view, seems a saving (product durability, prevention of illness and accidents, lower energy and resource consumption) reduces the production of economically measurable wealth in the form of GNP, and appears on the macro-economic level as a source of loss.19 Here Gorz clearly describes for people the distinction between these two kinds of reason: Economic reason pursues the maximum degree of production and consumption without worrying about the reckless exploitation of resources and the destruction of the ecological environment. And, ecological reason tries to minimize the use of labor, capital and resources, while trying to produce durable things with high use values, which satisfy enough of people’s demands. And, hiding behind these two kinds of reason are two completely different motives, namely the profit motive and the ecological protection motive. Enacting ecological reason is unthinkable under the control of the profit motive, because it would necessarily block the sources of growth. Based on this understanding, Gorz repeatedly stresses that if we want to enact ecological reason we must change the profit motive of capitalism, and this means changing the capitalist mode of production into the socialistic mode of production. The latter can and should be tied to ecological reason. Gorz thinks that the rationality of the socialist mode of production exists in the rationality of ecological reason. Gorz thinks that it is impossible to enact ecological protections in the mode of production of the currently existing society, that is the capitalist mode of production. The key to environmental protection is controlling consumption, and a precondition of controlling consumption is fairly and reasonably distributing products. It’s clearly impossible to do this in the current mode of production; He states that the framework and model of consumption of the currently existing society are established on the basis of inequality, privilege and the pursuit of profit. Zero growth or negative growth can only mean stagnation, unemployment and the widening disparity between rich and poor. In the currently existing model of production, once the distribution of products tends toward equal shares, there is simultaneously the possibility of limiting and suppressing economic growth. In the currently existing mode of production, by what 19  A. Gorz: Capitalism, socialism, Ecology, London, 1994, pp. 32–33.

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means and who can distribute those products that have become rare due to limiting their quantity such as limousines, villas with private pools and the thousands of other new products? Every year new products flood the market and degrade the value of the older models, which simultaneously reproduces inequality and hierarchy. But is there anybody who can equally distribute university degrees, management positions and rights of ownership? Gorz insists that in this case, the only way out is to break through the currently existing mode of production and establish a mode of production that can truly embody the principle of fair distribution, namely the socialist mode of production. Gorz points out the overdevelopment of productive capacity and the destructiveness of technologies that takes shape out of this overdevelopment are the causes that engender the crises of capitalist society, and because of this the only way to overcome these crises is establishing a new mode of production. The core of this new mode of production is the carefully arranging energy and resources and reducing as far as possible the scale of consumption. This is also to say that the goal of this new mode of production is not to produce more, but to produce less, from which you can see that as the substitute of capitalism, socialism’s chief feature is producing less. Gorz stresses that it is impossible to enact the principle of “Produce Less, Live Better” in the framework of capitalism. This is the ecological reconstruction of modern capitalist society, which involves the surpassing of capitalism and the opening of socialism. He explains this through the platform of the DDR in 1989. This platform explicitly demands the minimum amount of labor, capital and resources to produce the least amount of durable goods with high use values. Gorz lists several contents of this platform: The ecological restructuring of our economy, from product design to the consumption and recycling of materials,—concerns all forms of production and transformation of energy, and demands the ecological restructuring of the chemical industry, transport and agriculture. These activities must grow which secure the basic elements of life and improve its quality—which promote self-determination and autonomous creative activities. Those activities which threaten the natural foundations of life must diminish and disappear. Technical innovation must not only serve ecological restructuring and rationalization, it must also raise the productivity of labor, make possible shorter working hours, and free us from alienated labor.20 20  Ibid., pp. 31–32.

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Gorz sums up the demands of the 1989 platform of the DDR as: “the economic criteria of maximum productivity and profitability are subordinated to socialecological criteria”.21 He then follows with an analysis, arguing that these demands may seem realizable in capitalist society on the surface, but since it cannot change the basic tendency of capitalist development, these demands would corrupt or die in the process of implementation. These demands can only be effectively implemented in socialist systems, since the basic goals of socialist development agree with such demands. Gorz insists that such demands that involve “producing less” but “living better” in the 1989 platform of the DDR involves imposing “new and radical limitations” upon the economic reason of capitalism.22 He thinks that the DDR actually posited “produce less, live better” as the basic symbol of future socialism.

Capitalist Countries are Largely Ecologically Imperialist Countries

Actually, after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the ecological Marxists unfolded in-depth critiques of contemporary capitalism from the ecological perspective. Among such theorists, there were veterans like Gorz, and some rising stars who did even better. The British theorist, David Pepper, is a very prominent one. His book Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice was published in 1993. In this book, he expresses his strong dissatisfaction with Western eco-centrists who attribute the cause of the ecological crisis to people not giving central importance to ecology in the sphere of ideas and who think that environmental protection can only be accomplished through the implementation of eco-centrism. He insists that we should look for the cause of the ecological crisis in the capitalist mode of production itself, and concretely speaking, human behavior that destroys the ecological balance of nature is determined by the capitalist mode of production. He also sees the exploitation of nature as an organic part of capitalist exploitation. In his view, the capitalist system determines the existence of ecological problems that the capitalist system itself cannot resolve in capitalist society. First of all, the only goal of capitalist production is pursuing profit, and as long as it is capitalism, it will necessarily put profit in command, which determines that it will need to continuously plunder nature and turn nature into the object of profit. Today where the average profit rate is dropping, capitalist enterprises need to ensure the profit of the business through enhancing the utilization of natural 21  Ibid., p. 32. 22  Ibid., p. 31.

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resources. This means that the capitalist system will continuously swallow up the natural foundation upon which it depends for survival, that is, this system will necessarily breed ecological contradictions. Then, there is the tendency toward “the externalization of costs” in capitalism, which is to say that under the control of the laws of the market, capitalist enterprises are unwilling to calculate what it costs to clean up environmental pollution into the cost of production, but do everything in their power to externalize this cost and shift it to society. Generating ecological problems is perfectly normal in the capitalist system, precisely because capitalist enterprises cannot sacrifice business to protect the environment. In society today, there are many people dreaming about green capitalism, while Pepper argues that this dream is unrealizable because of the existence of the ecological contradiction of capitalism. He states: “The ecological contradictions of capitalism make sustainable, or ‘green’ capitalism an impossible dream, therefore a confidence trick.”23 Pepper also makes an exposition stating that since ecological problems are unresolvable for the capitalist system, the latter tries to shift and alleviate contradictions through the ecological plunder of developing countries. The currently existing capitalist states are largely ecological imperialist states. He critiques some of the developed capitalist states for relocating some high consuming, high polluting, labor intensive companies to developing countries, and even for disposing of waste in those countries, plundering their soil, clean air, water and other natural resources. He states: “And since environmental quality is linked to material poverty or affluence, increasingly as Western capitalism sustains and ‘improves’ itself to become the world’s envy by siphoning off third world wealth”.24 He borrows a metaphor from Peter Greenaway’s novel, the Cook, the Thief, Wife & Her Lover to explain this: the hotel is so sumptuously decorated but it decorates rooms and kitchens that are dirty to the point of nauseating. What Pepper means is that even though capitalist society somewhat improves the state of the ecological crisis, it is only the result of shifting this ecological crisis elsewhere. In the scope of the entire world, the ecological crisis still exists and is even getting worse. In Pepper’s view, since the root of the ecological crisis is the capitalist system and the unchangeable profit motive of this system, the only way out of the ecological crisis is to change this system, that is change the capitalist system into the socialist system. Of course, what he calls socialism is not socialism in the traditional sense, but ecological socialism. 23  David Pepper Eco-Socialism: from Deep Ecology to Social Justice, London and York, Routledge, 1993, p. 95. 24  Ibid., p. 96.

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“Sustainable Development” is Impossible under Capitalism

James O’Connor is another ecological socialist who newly emerged after the disintegration of the USSR to critique contemporary capitalism. His book Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism (1977) profoundly analyzes and critiques contemporary capitalism from the ecological perspective. The most striking example is his analysis of the question: whether sustainable capitalism is possible or not. A systematic answer to the question, “Is an ecologically sustainable capitalism possible?” is, Not unless and until capital changes its face in ways that would make it unrecognizable to bankers, money managers, venture capitalists, and CEOs looking at themselves in the mirror today.25 He points out that however ‘sustainability’ is defined, the short answer to the question “Is sustainable capitalism possible?” is “No,” while the longer answer is “Probably not.” He categorically states: Capitalism tends to be self-destructing and in crisis; world economy makes more people hungry, poor, and miserable; the masses of peasants and workers cannot be expected to endure the crisis indefinitely; and nature, however “sustainability” is defined, is under attack nearly everywhere.26 He thinks that contemporary capitalism is facing a double contradiction, that is, the contradiction between capital and human being and that between capital and nature, Capital’s capacity to successfully deal with not only the ‘first’ but also the ‘second contradiction’ is discounted, due to the nature of the liberal democratic state and capital itself”, the very uncertain political- hence economic and ecological—consequences of a general economic depression are underlined, “the prospects of global economic management are as dim as those of global environmental regulation.”27

25  James O’Connor: Natural Causes—Essays in Ecological Marxism, Nanjing University Press, 2003, pp. 382–383. 26  Ibid., p. 377. 27  Ibid.

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He recognizes that his claim will be widely criticized by politicians and spokesmen of big businesses. So, to verify this claim, he has to explain how capitalism works: When it works as it should, why does it work, and when it’s in trouble, why does it get into trouble? On the grounds of the three-part analysis below, O’Connor draws the conclusion: contemporary capitalism needs to get out of economic crisis but realizing sustainable development is impossible. First, the precondition of any sustainable economic entity is a global political economy which can decide on and regulate the inherent contradictions of capitalism. This means that if contemporary capitalism is to be able to sustainably develop, it must have on the global scale or at least amongst the G7 the capacity to implement macroscopic economic controls, which is international Keynesianism. It is easy to see if you look at the condition of this international Keynesianism, ‘world capitalism may be much less sustainable than most economists think’. First, the systems of national Keynesian regulation have weakened or self-destructed since the late 1970s, Second, the central role of the United States in global economy until the post-cold war period—as a kind of world cash register—is ending. These facts suggest ‘that in a period in which a consumerist United States can no longer absorb the world’s surplus commodities’. The prospects of global regulation today, organized in a truly cooperative spirit, are as poor as those of national regulation in the overproduction crisis of the 1890s, namely, zero.28 Second, sustainably developing capitalism demands all of the three conditions of production, namely human labor force, environment and municipal infrastructure. It emerges at the right times and places in the appropriate quantity and quality at the virtually appropriate price. Everyone knows that severe bottlenecks in the supply of these three conditions will endanger the survival of individual units of capital, and even whole departments or the entire national capitalist order. Because of this, on the whole, these bottlenecks will threaten the sustainability of capitalism due to raising costs and weakening capital’s capacity to adjust. So, “the limit of growth” does not first manifest itself as the absolute shortage of labor power, raw material, clean water and air, urban space and the like, but will rather manifest itself as costly labor power, costly resources and costly infrastructure and urban space, which constitutes an enormous threat to the profitability of capital: 28  Ibid., pp. 385–386.

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Supply-side bottlenecks or shortfalls pose especially difficult problems for capitalist enterprises and policymakers when the economy is weak, or faces a demand-side crisis or fresh competition from other countries.” “the value of claims on the surplus or profits grows much faster than the real value of fixed and circulating capital. This tends to make a bad economic situation worse, as it causes growing indebtedness and the danger of a financial implosion.29 Third, among all the developed capitalist countries, those state organizations that devote themselves to ecological, municipal and social planning or the environmental planning mechanisms of NGO’s do not exist. With respect to some Idea of ecological capitalism or some Idea of sustainable capitalism, to this day no clear theoretical statements have been made about it, let alone imagining that it could emerge in some institutionalized infrastructure. In the liberal democratic states, the political logic of pluralistic agreement often impedes the development of comprehensive environmental, municipal and social planning. The logic of state administrative departments or bureaucratic organizations is undemocratic, because of which the motive of environmental protection and other problems originate from below. Moreover, the expansionist logic of capital is anti-ecological, anti-urban planning and anti-social. In the process of development of cases of political solutions to the crisis of productive conditions, there are still contradictions between these three kinds of logic when integrated together. Thus, the systematized “capitalist solution” to these contradictions is unreachable. Every day, therefore, new headlines announce another health care crisis, environmental crisis, and urban crisis. In many regions, the ultra-image we have is of an increasingly illiterate labor force, many of whom are homeless because of low wages and high rents, living in fear in a polluted city, immobilized by gridlock, and unable even to obtain clean water.30 O’Connor further analyzes the ecological effects that the economic crisis of contemporary capitalism necessarily engenders. He insists that if capitalism does not have sustainability from the perspective of international macroeconomic regulations, then a global crisis, the universal devaluation of the value of capital and some form of economic depression will be inevitable. The problem is what are the ecological effects that this depression will bring about. Since the 29  Ibid., pp. 389, 390. 30  Ibid., pp. 394, 395.

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overproduction of capital will add enormous economic pressure on demand, this will also compel individual units of capital to throw their efforts into externalizing their costs even more in order to reestablish profit. This just means that capital transfers more costs to the environment, land and society. There is a kind of war going on between capital and environmental movements. The point is what kind of effect will the war have on ecology? He points out: there is also the possibility, however slight, that a real economic depresssion might be the occasion for a general program of environmental restoration. He listed a large amount of evidence to prove this.31 In his view, the key is that environmental destruction is tied to certain political systems, and in the current capitalist political system, economic crisis necessarily causes ecological crisis. He states: Most of the center-right and rightist governments that governed most of the world between the late 1970s and the early 1980s through the late 1990s are incapable of steering capitalist development in ways that improve the conditions of life, labor, the cities or the environment. These governments are too intent on expanding the ‘free market’ and international division of labor; deregulating and privatizing industry; forcing economic ‘adjustment’ on the South and’ shock therapy’ on the old socialist countries, hence marginalizing up to half the population of some third world countries, and pretending that the ‘market’ and neoliberalism generally will solve the growing economic crisis. By and large, things are likely to get worse before they get better.32 The above passage is clear and unambiguous. It clearly and exhaustively exposes the current condition and essence of contemporary capitalism. This passage could be seen as the summary of ecological socialism’s view of contemporary capitalism. One important thing we have to remember here is O’Connor’s famous statement: things are likely to get worse before they get better.

31  Ibid., pp. 395, 396. 32  Ibid., p. 399.

CHAPTER 22

An Ecologically Friendly Civilization is an Essential Goal of Chinese Socialism The 17th CCP National Congress solemnly raised the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics and distinctly laid out the strategic task of constructing ecological civilization in front of the entire party and nation. So, what kind of relationship at bottom does socialism with Chinese characteristics share with the construction of ecological civilization? Did the 17th CCP National Congress accidentally write this new concept of ecological civilization into the congressional political report while formulating socialism with Chinese characteristics? We think that if you want to truly clarify the great significance of contemporary China’s construction of ecological civilization, you must first clarify its intrinsic relationship to socialism with Chinese characteristics, which is to say, you must first clearly understand that constructing ecological civilization expresses the essence of socialism with Chinese characteristics. And, an important path to understanding the intrinsic link between building ecological civilization and socialism with Chinese characteristics is doing so through the medium of relevant theories from ecological Marxism. While ecological Marxists argue that the capitalist mode of production is the main source of the ecological crisis, they also repeatedly state that only the socialist mode of production can possibly allow human beings to get out of the ecological crisis. Inspired by the ecological Marxist account of the necessary connection between socialism and ecological civilization, we explain below why building ecological civilization expresses the essence of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Creating Environmental Standards for Chinese Socialism

When people talk about socialism with Chinese characteristics, they often only focus on the Chinese characteristics part, but in fact Chinese characteristics is said here in the sense of a distinguishing particularity, while socialism is said here in the sense of a general commonality, and the distinguishing particularity of Chinese characteristics cannot be separated from the common essence of socialism. Although talking about socialism in abstraction from the Chinese characteristics part runs the risk of repeating the mistake of viewing socialism

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as an unchanging model and dogmatic textbook theory, talking about the Chinese characteristics part in abstraction from socialism runs the risk of committing the mistake of turning socialism with Chinese characteristics into capitalism with Chinese characteristics. When discussing socialism with Chinese characteristics, the party’s 17th congress appropriately insisted that socialism with Chinese characteristics must adhere to the basic principles of scientific socialism. Now that socialism with Chinese characteristics adheres to the basic principles of scientific socialism, the essential characteristics and core values of socialism that Marxism reveals are also precisely the essential characteristics and core values of socialism with Chinese characteristics. And, we must place the construction of ecological civilization at the core of the construction of socialism to be precisely in accordance with the essential characteristics and core values of socialism which Marxism reveals. We did not realize this before, which only shows that our understanding of the essential characteristics and core values of socialism is very superficial, but now that we clearly write ecological civilization onto the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, this shows that we have had a new breakthrough in raising our understanding of the essential characteristics and core values of socialism to an entirely new level. Humankind already had the capitalist system by Marx’s time. Why did Marx still demand people to surpass this system and establish the socialist system? Obviously in Marx’s view, the latter and the former are two completely different systems, and the latter is far superior to the former. This superiority is mainly reflected in the prospect that the latter will lead human beings to a more human way of life. Some people think of Marxism as a philosophy which insists that the main driving force of the human being is material benefit and the desire to continuously increase one’s own material welfare and make material life increasingly more comfortable. Based on this understanding, they also assert that Marxism critiques and overthrows capitalism solely in order to economically improve the working class, and Marxism wants to abolish private property solely in order to enable the workers to obtain the things that the capitalists now possess. This is also to say, Marxism’s starting point in replacing the capitalist system with socialism is: that way of life under the capitalist system where human beings belong to things cannot be fully achieved, and that another social system, namely the socialist system, must be established to fully achieve that way of life. Actually, this way of understanding the goal of Marxism is superficial, because the goal of Marxism is precisely is to make human beings break the chains of economic determinism, make human beings fully recover their own humanity, and make human beings live in unified, harmonious relationships with their partners and the natural world; this

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way of understanding the key points of Marxism’s critique of capitalism is also wrong, because Marxism’s critique of capitalism does not stop completely at the injustice of the capitalist distribution of wealth, nor at the poverty in which the working class lives, but also hits on the point that the humanity of those living under the capitalist system cannot be realized in full, and that human beings become “crippled monsters.” Marx once gave a profound exposition of the distortion of human needs and human nature in capitalist society, stating: people (workers) is only using his animal functions—eating, drinking, sex, living up there, modified, and so when they come to feel that they are free, but in the use of human performance, they feel they are but animals. Animal things become human things, and human things become animal stuff.1 In Marx’s view, the evil of capitalist society lies in causing such a reversal: functions such as eating, drinking and fornicating are distinctly animal functions, but human beings fully dedicate themselves to enjoying such functions and treat them as uniquely human, and meanwhile a function that is solely and distinctly human such as work is not taken seriously and instead is treated merely as a means, which in actuality is already viewing work as an animal function. Human being evolved out of animals, and because of this necessarily possesses duality, namely human being possesses both animality and humanity. The problem is that when human being expresses her animality she mistakenly enjoys it as something uniquely human, but when she truly wants to express her humanity, she acts like an animal. This is the tragedy of human being in capitalist society. Marx found that the goal of the way of life in capitalist society is to fulfill animalistic functions, so he had to establish a new social system, namely, the socialist system in which the goal of human being’s way of life is to fulfill human functions. Socialism and capitalism are two fundamentally opposed social systems, and human being’s ways of life in these two social systems are also opposed to one another. Socialism must eliminate the poverty that cripples human being’s dignity, but does not conclude because of this that socialism is for the sake of enriching material life. Unlike capitalist society, socialist society does not lead human being to become an “economic animal” who only knows how to fulfill himself with respect to material life. The aim of socialism is not to make the way of life under capitalist conditions develop more, but to create a new way of life. We think that the essential characteristics 1  Marx and Engels: Selected Works, Vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, p. 44.

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and core values of socialism ought to be understood on the basis of this train of thought. If the essential characteristics and core values of socialism consist of creating a way of being, which, unlike the capitalist way of life, aims at realizing the whole-sided development of human being and truly fulfilling functions and needs that solely belong to human being, and if socialism with Chinese characteristics adheres to the core values and essential characteristics of this kind of socialism, then the Chinese people will necessarily regard the construction of ecological civilization as an important strategic task in the process of engaging in the great enterprise of socialism with Chinese characteristics. The reason is extremely simple: one of the most important conditions of the formation of a new way of life is establishing a harmonious relationship between human being and nature, namely creating ecological civilization. It is simply unimaginable that people could have the power to create that new way of life and exhibit the essential characteristics and core values of socialism under conditions where human being and nature live in sharp opposition to one another and where human beings rashly and greedily seize things from the natural world. The essential characteristics and core values of socialism are fully consistent with those of ecological civilization. So, If our argument about the essential characteristics and core values of socialism here is convincing and clear, then as long as socialism with Chinese characteristics is indeed a specific kind of socialism, it remains implicitly obvious that establishing ecological civilization is the basic content of this form of socialism. Because of its insistence on scientific socialism, socialism with Chinese characteristics possesses the essential characteristics and core values of socialism, and at the same time, it also shows vivid ethnic color by dint of possessing Chinese characteristics. We have already proven that this kind of socialism necessarily constructs ecological civilization by demonstrating that it possesses the essential characteristics and core values of socialism, but if we analyze its Chinese characteristics even further, it will prove even more clearly that ecological civilization must be the hallmark of this kind of socialism. The “Chinese characteristics” part is tied to the initial stage of socialism. Socialism with Chinese characteristics is “Socialism in the initial stage.” “Socialism in the initial stage” correctly locates the historical precondition, present condition and extent of development of Chinese socialism, which is also the historical basis of saying socialism with Chinese characteristics possesses “Chinese characteristics.” China’s leaders and the Chinese people recognize that socialism with Chinese characteristics has been in the initial stage for a long period, which grounds socialism with Chinese characteristics in reality, and it is precisely the reality in China which determines that China’s construction of

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socialism needs not only the general stress on socialism but also the particular emphasis on the great significance of ecological civilization. What are the real conditions in China which form the basis of socialism with Chinese characteristics? Simply put, it is too many people and not enough land. We may completely look at the word “land” here as a synonym standing for all natural capital, which includes natural resources, the environment, and ecology. Obviously, China stands in the world as the place most lacking in natural capital. Nations in the world can be divided up into the following four types: First, there are the sparsely populated nations like Australia, Canada and Russia; Second, there are nations that have few people and little land like Singapore; Third, there are nations with many people and a lot of land like the United States; Fourth, there are nations with many people but little land like China. In comparison with the first three types of nations, China is seriously lacking in innate conditions with respect to natural capital. The many nations of the first three types achieved industrialization, urbanization and modernization under ample conditions of natural capital according to the classic model of development of industrial civilization, namely the model of “develop first, fix later” as well as the model of economic growth above all else without considering the natural environment, but at the same time they have paid the heavy costs of destroying the natural environment and of engendering the ecological crisis. We are also faced with the mission of developing in the direction of industrialization, urbanization and modernization, but given the inherent shortage of our natural capital, if we are to develop ourselves according to the model of development of the Western industrialized nations, the price that we will pay will be even more severe. We simply cannot pay such a price, and I’m afraid that the price has already sent us to ruin before we even enjoyed the fruits of industrial civilization. The natural capital originally at the disposal of the Western industrialized nations is so ample that even if such natural capital takes a hit in the process of industrialization, these nations can still repair it, but since the natural capital originally at our disposal is so insufficient, the moment even a little bit of capital is lost, we truly no longer have enough land to stand on. This is a very simple and clear fact, but the question is whether or not we can squarely face up to it. What the old China has left us is a poor family property, upon which we are now building modernized socialism. In this case, we must keep a clear head. We have no reason to squander, and we have no capital to waste. The only right path we can take is working hard and striving to build a resource-saving and environmentally friendly society. It is worth celebrating that socialism with Chinese characteristics squarely faces this basic reality, and promotes the task of building ecological civilization in the process of developing toward industrial civilization, or in other words, develops

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industrial society according to the demands of ecological civilization. While others achieve industrial civilization first and only later propose building ecological civilization, socialism with Chinese characteristics looks squarely at the problem of ecological civilization in the very process of developing industrial civilization. In a certain sense, as long as socialism with Chinese characteristics is indeed a socialism that is at once filled with Chinese characteristics and grounded in the real conditions of China, then it will necessarily write the new concept and new Idea of ecological civilization proudly on its own flag.

Scientific Development Means “Green” Development

Socialism with Chinese characteristics has been in the process of forming, but it only became systematized formally when Hu Jintao as the general secretary of the CCP Central Committee put forward the idea of scientific development. The idea of scientific development is the core content of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Proposing the idea of scientific development vividly and concretely had the effect of demonstrating the essential characteristics and core values of socialism with Chinese characteristics as a contemporary form of scientific socialism. Proposing the idea of scientific development marked socialism with Chinese characteristics as beholden to the basic principles of scientific socialism and as grounded in the real conditions of China. In the report of the 17th National Congress of the CCP, General Secretary Hu Jintao pointed out that “the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics” must “thoroughly implement the idea of scientific development”, and scientific development is “the major strategic thought that the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics must uphold and implement,” which gives the most brilliant account of the intrinsic link between the idea of scientific development and socialism with Chinese characteristics. Since the idea of scientific development was put forward as the core content of socialism with Chinese characteristics, what scientific development ultimately connotes became the object of many interpretations. People have attempted to “plug” a lot of content into the idea of scientific development, but undoubtedly, the original intention behind the idea of scientific development is to propose the basic strategy of development for socialism with Chinese characteristics as seeking “comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable” development. This is adequately demonstrated in the idea of scientific development put forward by Hu Jintao as the general secretary of the Party Central Committee. In October 2003, the CCP Central Committee convened the 16th Third Plenary Session and clearly put the idea of scientific development on the

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agenda. The meeting highlighted the dialectical relationship between quantity and quality as well as that between speed and efficiency in development, and the conference determined China’s development as a comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable kind of development. In March 2004, the CCP Central Committee held a session on population and environmental work, where General Secretary Hu Jintao elaborated on the intension and basic demands of scientific development, putting forward the five “overall plans” and four “musts”, which concretely unfolded the strategy of comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development. “The Outline of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan” adopted by the Fourth Session of the Tenth National People’s Congress in March 2005 as well as “the Government Work Report” by Premier Wen Jiabao both made concrete arrangements and comprehensive accounts of how we should implement the idea of scientific development, among which appears the most unforgettable goal of “building a resource-saving and environmentally friendly society.” General Secretary Hu Jintao dedicated a part of the discussion to thoroughly implementing the idea of scientific development at the 17th Congress of the CCP, where he once again profoundly stressed that we must resolutely adhere to a comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable kind of development. We must comprehensively promote the coordination of every aspect and every phase of the construction of the economy, politics, culture, society and modernization, and moreover promote the coordination of relations of production and productive forces and of the superstructure and economic base in accordance with the overall arrangement of the enterprise of socialism with Chinese characteristics. We must resolutely adhere to the path of development of a civilization of productivity, rich life and excellent ecology, and realize the unity of speed and good structural quality along with the coordination of economic development with the environment, population and resources, so that people may collectively produce life in a good ecological environment to achieve the sustainable development of the economy and society. Looking back at the process of proposing the idea of scientific development, is the point not already clear that the core content of the idea of scientific development is the basic development strategy of socialism with Chinese characteristics, that is, comprehensive and sustainable development? The idea of scientific development is a good solution to this problem of “why and how to develop” socialism with Chinese characteristics. Development is an eternal theme that humanity has always faced since the beginning of history. Development is also a global theme that every nation in today’s world undertakes with overbearing pain and overwhelming longing. The soul of scientific development is in “transforming”, that is, in transforming that model of development, which originally disjoined and even opposed economic growth

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to social equality and environmental protection, into a new model of development. Generally speaking, whether it is the Western industrialized nations which rushed into modernization early on or it is the underdeveloped developing nations which are struggling to catch up to the former, both misunderstand the problem of development, that is they both see development as the increase of material wealth, and both have chosen that model of development which obtains economic growth at the cost of destroying the ecological environment, or rather, that model of getting economic growth in exchange for high investment, mass consumption and mass pollution. After the founding of the new China, China embarked on the path of socialism, but the model of development that China has chosen and continues to choose is the model of development that the Western industrialized nations have been and are still implementing. One could say that the resource problems and environmental problems that have emerged in China are largely due to the choice of this model of development. Here, examples such as consumption of natural resources, consumption of energy and emissions of gaseous waste are sufficient to illustrate the point in question. According to 2003 statistics, with respect to the consumption of natural resources, China consumed 31%, 30%, 27% and 40% of the world’s consumption of coal, iron ore, steel and cement respectively with only a GDP accounting for 4% of the world. Over the past 50 years since the founding of the new China, our GDP has grown by over a multiple of 10, while our consumption of mineral resources has grown by over a multiple of 40. The utilization coefficient of China’s use of irrigation water in agricultural production is about half of the international advanced level, while the gross output of amount of water used in industrial production is about ten times the advanced level. China’s energy consumption, thermal power generation, steel industry and cement manufacturing were 22.5%, 21% and 45% higher than the international advanced level. With respect to gas emissions, what has followed the high investment and mass consumption of natural resources is the inevitable result of high levels of gas emissions. China’s wastewater discharge per unit GDP is four times higher than that of the international advanced level, while solid waste emissions are more than 10 times higher. From these three figures, we cannot only see the severity of destruction that the implementation of the traditional model of development has waged on the Chinese environment, but can also see that even if we implement the same model of development as the one chosen by the developed Western industrial nations, due to the different conditions in China the consequences are much more severe and harmful. In this sense, transforming the traditional model of development is far more urgent for contemporary China than it is for the developed Western nations, which can alleviate their ecological crisis by “diverting” and “transferring” the

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adverse consequences to the developing countries. We do not have conditions at our disposal to follow suit, nor should we. Our only option is to “transform”, that is, we should solve these increasingly severe ecological problems by “transforming” our model of development. One could say that the idea of scientific development came about at the critical juncture where China had most urgently needed to transform the model of development it was following. The moment of proposing the idea of scientific development marked the point where socialism with Chinese characteristics found its own path of development. Changes in the external conditions and internal conditions of the development of socialism demand that today’s socialism must break free of that original model of development that focused one-sidedly on economic development, and simultaneously must introduce a new model of development to adapt to the times. Meanwhile, the current international environment and the reality of socialist development will also create the conditions for this new model of development. This new model of development was first proposed and implemented in China, which of course, is no chance event. Socialism with Chinese characteristics chooses scientific development as a development strategy, which means that the development of China is not dark but green, and that the rise of China is not a darkening but a greening. What we are calling the dark development and the darkening is precisely making the ecological environment whose fragility is historically unprecedented carry this development, while the contradictions between human beings and nature rapidly widen and ecology runs into severe deficit synchronically with this rise and development. We have to admit that we were originally on the journey of the darkening and the rise of darkness, and it is precisely because we have been on this journey that we have been developing and rising far beyond the degree of development of Western industrial civilization according to whose standard we have been aspiring, while still tasting all the costs and consequences of this dark development and rising darkness. Obviously, it is not that us Chinese do not want to develop and rise; rather we do not want dark development and rising darkness. The dark development and rising darkness of China is not only a disaster for the Chinese people, but also a misfortune for people around the world. If China continues to adhere to the path of dark development, that tune which some people in the Western world have been humming about the Chinese threat and the Yellow Peril will not turn out to be pure fiction. Indeed, the whole world will not be able to survive a darkening China. The idea of scientific development guides us toward transforming this dark development and darkening into a green development and a greening. What we are calling green development is the comprehensive, coordinated and sustainable development that the idea of scientific development

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advocates. The basic principles are: high efficiency and low consumption, high quality and low density, high standards and low emissions, non-toxicity and harmlessness, cleanliness and health, achieving the mutually beneficial coupling of green industrialization, green urbanization and environmental protection, and achieving the win-win goal of development and environmental protection. Are these principles not the main contents of ecological civilization? It is in this sense that we say that the path of green development is precisely the path of building ecological civilization. The China Modernization Strategy Research Group and the China Modernization Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Sciences launched the China Modernization Report of 2007, which describes in detail the green development and green rise of China or the blueprint for building ecological civilization in China. If we can truly realize this blueprint in China, it will not only become the gospel of the Chinese people but also everyone’s gospel around the world. The day this blueprint is realized in China is the day socialism with Chinese characteristics is established. We the Chinese people have already resolutely chosen socialism with Chinese characteristics as the great banner to guide our path forward, and choosing socialism with Chinese characteristics as our own banner also means choosing our own development strategy of building ecological civilization.

A Harmonious Society Founded on Harmony between Humanity and Nature

In the political report of the 17th CCP National Congress, General Secretary Hu Jintao gave a profound account of the intrinsic connection between socialism with Chinese Characteristics and building harmonious society, stating: “social harmony is the essential attribute of socialism with Chinese characteristics”, constructing harmonious socialist society is the long-term historical task that runs through the entire historical enterprise of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Regarding the building of harmonious society as the basic task of the construction of socialism reflects both the new understanding that contemporary CCP members have with respect to the development of human civilization and the laws of constructing socialism, and moreover, displays the new strength of governing capacity that contemporary CCP members have developed under new historical conditions. This deepening of understanding and strengthening of capacity obviously have great significance for both the development of Marxist theory and the movement of socialism around the whole world. Throughout the ages, there have many notable figures who tirelessly sought social equality, peace and harmony both in China and parts throughout the

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rest of the world. In the Western world, from Plato and Aristotle of the ancient Greek and Roman ages and Augustine of the medieval age to Descartes, Spinoza and Hegel of the modern age and even to such utopian socialists as Saint Simon, Fourier and Owen, the ideal goal that each one of these great masters proposed was none other than building a harmonious society. In China, Confucianism, Taoism and Chinese Buddhism, each of which manifest traditional Chinese culture, have each expressed the ideal goal of pursuing a harmonious state of life. From ancient times to the present, the call for the harmonious coexistence of human society has converged into a powerful impetus. People always raise the ideal of harmony as the flag leading the charge against the lack of harmony. Undoubtedly, the Central Committee of the CCP with Hu Jintao as the core putting forward the scientific proposition of constructing a harmonious socialist society rightly inherits the ideas of social harmony found in Chinese and foreign thinkers throughout history. But we must notice that the basic intension and main characteristic of the ideal of social harmony that contemporary CCP members pursue is not simply the inheritance of the traditional ideal of social harmony, but goes beyond it, reaching a new unprecedented state of mind and being. This is mainly manifested in the fact that the harmonious society we want to construct is the harmonious society of socialism, and this harmonious society must express the socialist essence of our system, which is to say that the precondition of realizing this harmony is socialism. We have to clarify this point, because we see around us in today’s capitalist societies that despite attempts to ease the contradictions and achieve harmony through continuous readjustments, and despite greater potential of productivity, an effective way to achieve harmony is still always lacking due to the contradictions inherent in the capitalist system, which shows that the socialist system is vital to the building of a harmonious society. We know that the creators of Marxism sharply critiqued the ills of disharmony in modern industrial civilization and simultaneously argued for the necessity of humanity transcending disharmonious industrial civilization, pointing out the dawn of a new harmonious civilization. The concept of civilization was first proposed by the European enlightenment scholars of the 17th and 18th centuries. The civilized society of which they spoke mainly referred to the industrial civilization they had been facing. On the one hand, they praised industrial civilization as a social form opposed to ignorance and barbarism; on the other hand, they again swung the whip at industrial civilization, cursing it as the antithesis of the natural state of man. They were not without reason to see industrial civilization as the antithesis of the natural state of man. From the etymological perspective, “civilization” comes from the Latin words civilis and civatas: the former means “citizens”; the latter means “citizenship”. From

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this it is clear that industrial civilization was determined from the beginning as human being breaking away from the state of nature and entering bounded social life. The founders of Marxism inherited the Enlightenment’s critical attitude toward industrial civilization, and grounded this critique in the scientific perspective of materialist history. We can see that an important aspect of Marx’s critique of the disharmony of industrial civilization was the critique of industrial civilization’s destruction of the harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature, and his vision of the future harmonious civilized society is mainly the vision of humanity and nature coexisting in harmony. In the Marxist view, communism is such a harmonious civilized society. Marx stated: “this communism, as fully developed naturalism, equals humanism, and as fully developed humanism equals naturalism; it is the genuine resolution of the conflict between man and nature and between man and man.”2 He also stated that “Thus society (refer to communism—Note cited) is the complete unity of man with nature—the true resurrection of nature—the consistent naturalism of man and the consistent humanism of nature.”3 In these two paragraphs from Marx, we can see clearly that the important content of the future harmonious civilized society, namely, communist society, is the realization of “the complete unity of man with nature”. We are giving a rather detailed account of the founder of Marxism and the content of the Enlightenment critique of industrial civilization along with the content of the Enlightenment vision of the new harmonious civilization of the future in order to explain the following point: when Hu Jintao as the general secretary of the CCP Central Committee regarded constructing a harmonious society as the main task of socialism with Chinese characteristics, he actually takes the CCP beyond industrial civilization in establishing the basic goal of constructing ecological civilization. In the view of the Enlightenment scholars and the founders of Marxism, a harmonious society is necessarily tied to ecological civilization and not to industrial civilization, because the basic mark of a harmonious society is achieving harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature. The fact is, when General Secretary Hu Jintao described the main content of harmonious socialist society, he emphasized the “harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature.” People often say that “harmonious society” encompasses three aspects: harmony between human being and human beings (or harmony between human being and society), harmony between human being and her own self (or harmony among human being’s main functions and 2  Marx and Engels: Collected Works, Vol. 3, People’s Publishing House, Chinese, 2nd edition, p. 297. 3  Ibid., p. 301.

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needs), and harmony between humanity and nature. These three aspects are organically linked together and each one is indispensable to the other two, but harmony between humanity and nature occupies a prominent position among them. Without harmony between humanity and nature, harmonious socialist society would be groundless and could not be said to exist. In a certain sense, the harmony between human being and human being and harmony between human being and her own self are contained in the harmony between humanity and nature. Although harmony between humanity and nature necessarily presupposes as its own social conditions harmony between human being and human being along with harmony between human being and her own self, there is no doubt that harmony between humanity and nature necessarily becomes the foundation of the harmony between human being and human being as well as harmony between human being and her own self, and moreover will also become the foundation of the entire civilized system of society. When Hu Jintao as the General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee regarded building harmonious socialist society as the basic task of socialism with Chinese characteristics, he naturally and logically put realizing harmony between humanity and nature as well as establishing ecological civilization on the agenda. Taking the path of harmonious development is but taking the path of ecological civilization, and the society of an ecological civilization is the most ideal harmonious society. The whole structure of harmonious society is clearly presented before us in the body of thought of socialism with Chinese characteristics. In this whole structure, not only is there an overall plan of urban and rural development, that is, a concentrated plan to develop the countryside and resolve the problems that farmers have; not only is there an overall plan of regional development, that is, a concentrated plan to help backward regions and promote coordinated development between regions; not only is there an overall plan of economic and social development, that is, a concentrated plan to solve social problems; not only is there an overall plan to develop domestically and open up to the outside world, that is, a concentrated plan to coordinate domestic markets and promote domestic development in the process of expanding openings to the outside world, but there is also an overall plan to develop harmony between humanity and nature, a concentrated plan to conserve resources and protect the environment. In this overall structure, not only is there material civilization, that is, highly efficient production, continuously improved technology, and plentiful material life; not only is there political civilization, that is, advanced political ideas, a sound political system and rational political behavior; not only is there spiritual civilization, that is, growth in the popularity of science, continuously elevating morality and mind-shaping arts, but there is

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also ecological civilization, that is, the realization of a high degree of harmony between humanity and nature. Precisely because there are these five plans and four facets of civilization in this overall structure, the process of promoting socialism with Chinese characteristics is also the process of achieving harmony between humanity and nature in China. The organic bond between humanity and nature that people so eagerly expect to rebuild stops the economy and society from splitting away from natural ecology and harmonizes them in the direction of common prosperity. That the natural world can recover, that humanity and nature can coexist, live and prosper symbiotically with one another in a harmonious condition—we hope all of this can be achieved first on this ancient land of China under the great banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

Promoting Human Fulfillment through the Unity of Humanity and Nature

Yet, there is still no other socialism in the world that openly holds to putting people first like socialism with Chinese characteristics. In the political report of 17th Communist Party Congress, General Secretary Hu Jintao not only reiterated that socialism with Chinese characteristics is resolutely people-oriented, but also asserted that putting people first entails promoting the whole-sided development of human being. This shows that what the proponents of socialism with Chinese characteristics call “putting people first”—as the ideal and core value of this kind of socialism—is but having the orientation to realize the free, whole-sided development of human being. There is no doubt that the founders of Marxism always stressed the key importance of the free, whole-sided development of human being in their account of the theory of scientific socialism. Marx and Engels speak familiarly to us all here: “The all-round realization of the individual”;4 “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all”,5 “The free development of individualities”, and hence not the reduction of necessary labor time so as to posit surplus labor, but rather the general reduction of the necessary labor of society to a minimum, which then corresponds to the artistic, scientific etc. 4  Marx and Engels: Collected Works, Vol. 3, People’s Publishing House, Chinese, 1st edition, p. 330. 5  Marx and Engels: Selected Works, Vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 294.

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development of the individuals in the time set free, and with the means created, for all of them.6 Although the creators of Marxism have long regarded the free and whole-sided development of individualities as the fundamental goal of socialism, some socialists have for a long time been reluctant and unwilling to emphasize this point in the past practice of socialism. When mentioning the whole-sided development of human being, they often regard it as something that only emerges once human being enters the stage of communist society, instead of seeing it as real socialism striving to create the conditions and practice of gradually approaching the goal through reaching intermediary goals. This makes the ultimate goals of real socialism severely disjointed from the aims that people currently value while living in real socialism, which results in, on the one hand, the ultimate goals of socialism weakening in influence, and on the other hand, in the way of life of those living in real socialism losing their sense of direction. The reality that the socialist enterprise of the 20th century has suffered serious setbacks has made the members of the CCP seriously raise the question of whether or not we should continue to adhere to the ultimate goals of socialism when reconsidering the future and fate of socialism. That the CCP Central Committee with General Secretary Hu Jintao as the head have already asserted that socialism with Chinese characteristics must hold to putting people first and to realizing the free, whole-sided development of human beings means that the CCP continues to regard the ultimate goals of socialism as the aims real socialism values. This is a wise move based on deep inward reflection on the failures of the world socialist movement at the end of the 20th century and on a calm analysis of the current condition and orientation of socialism in contemporary China. The CCP has realized that with respect to the specific tasks of economic, cultural and social projects, real socialism can only accomplish in a given historical stage what a given historical stage can accomplish, and moreover, trying to surpass a given historical stage is equivalent to once again committing the great utopian error, but when accomplishing the specific tasks of a given stage, we must align them with the ultimate goals of socialism, which is to say we must subordinate these specific tasks to the ultimate goals of socialism and tie their completion to the realization of the ultimate goals of socialism, otherwise we will be unable to distinguish these specific tasks from those of the capitalist nations and what we do will seem indistinguishable from what those under capitalism do, in which case the CCP will fail to 6  Marx and Engels: Collected Works, Vol. 46, People’s Publishing House, Chinese, 1st edition, p. 225.

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represent the interests of the broader majority and moreover fail to reflect the CCP’s struggle to realize the goal of communism. Since socialism with Chinese characteristics puts people first, people may use ordinary language to express its basic connotations: First, the people are the agents of such a socialism, that is, living people who strive to exist and develop in society are the agents who push the socialist enterprise forward; Second, the driving force of socialism is human being, that is, without the positive activity of some billion human beings who invest themselves in the construction of socialism, the socialist enterprise would lose all signs of vitality; Third, the foundation of such a socialism is human being, that is, all of the problems of development of socialism unfold around this foundation of human being; Fourth, the standard of socialism is human being, that is, the measure of whether or not socialism is successful is whether or not the majority of human beings under the system have benefited, and if so, to what degree; Fifth, the end of such a socialism is human being, that is, its aim is clearly and distinctly striving for the happiness of every human being in the system. Actually, the understanding of the meaning and implications of socialism with Chinese characteristics as striving for the values of putting people first stops merely at the level of understanding that socialism with Chinese characteristics begins with human being and unfolds around this central axis of human being, and this still misses the point. The key lies in the need to further clarify the following question, namely what kind of human being at the end of the day serves as the agent, driving force, foundation and aim of socialism? The value of putting people first to which socialism with Chinese characteristics holds dearly, puts which aspect of people first? When Hu Jintao, acting as the general secretary of the CCP Central Committee, spoke about this value of putting people first, he added it to his account of realizing the whole-sided development of human being, which is deeply meaningful. This shows that as the core value of socialism with Chinese characteristics, putting people first means putting the whole-sided development of human being first. Taking this step forward to understand putting people first as putting the whole-sided development of human being first is greatly important. If people only focus on satisfying human needs in the material sphere, if people only direct human being toward becoming a consumer animal, and if people completely equate human being’s way of being with “possessing”, the result is the one-sided development and alienation of human being that we often see today in some of the industrialized nations. The famous representative of “Western Marxism,” Marcuse, gave a profound account of this in the book One-Dimensional Man, according to which the more society puts people first the greater the possibility society will negatively impact people, because it will take people down a

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wrong path. In a certain sense, as Marcuse points out in One-Dimensional Man, nations that cannot be said to have already achieved industrialization but in which human beings still exist in alienation have entirely cast human beings aside in the construction of the economy and society. The key is that they only see human being as an economic animal whose mind fully aims at the satisfaction of material desires. When Hu Jintao as the General Secretary of the CCP Central Committee put forward the value of “putting people first” he was not only pointing at these industrialized nations for not starting with the interests of the broader masses of people, but was also taking aim at these industrialized nations for making human being become a “one-dimensional man” who develops one-sidedly or one-dimensionally. In this way, it is still insufficient to construe the significance of the CCP determining the end value of socialism with Chinese characteristics in “putting people first” as making the enterprise of the construction of socialism return to the track of “serving the people.” We should further understand this significance as continuously satisfying the multidimensional needs of human being and as realizing the whole-sided development of human being. As the end value of socialism with Chinese characteristics, the deepest meaning and most basic connotation of putting people first is the compound whole-sided, that is, promoting the mutually inclusive and respectively harmonious development of all the many sides and dimensions of human being. Only understanding it in this way can ensure grasping the true spirit of the end value of socialism with Chinese characteristics. As long as the implication of putting people first as the end value of socialism with Chinese characteristic is understood in the sense of realizing the whole-sided development of human being, then the status of promoting the harmonious coexistence of humanity with nature according these values is self-evident and perfectly clear. Eliminating the opposition between humanity and nature and accomplishing the unity of naturalism and humanism are indispensible phases of realizing the whole-sided development of human being, and we could even say, compose the foundation and precondition of realizing the whole-sided development of human being. The founders of Marxism folded the relationship between humanity and nature into the history of society. They argue from the ontological perspective that the relationship between human being and nature is that of part to whole. Human being is an active being who like other animals must rely on nature to survive. In their view, if the ecological system of nature is destroyed, humanity will fall into disaster, and vice versa, if humanity and nature establish a harmonious relationship, the liberation that human being achieves is the liberation of the whole, the happiness that human being gains is the happiness of the whole, and the development that human being acquires is whole-sided development. Marx once

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explained through distinguishing the natural philosophies of Democritus and Epicurus that as long as human being grasps the objective reason of the natural world and establishes intrinsic connections between humanity and nature, she can reach the “freedom within it.” He put it this way: “Nature, as far as itself, it is not a human body, is an inorganic body of man. People live on nature. In other words, nature is the human body that people must associate with it in order not to die.”7 Marx here views the natural world as the human body itself, in which case, the revival and development of nature is also the revival and development of the whole human being. Engels also put it this way: we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign people, like someone standing outside nature—but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.8 As long as we, as Engels put it, always remember that “we together with our flesh, blood and mind all belong to nature”, and remember that our mastery of nature is not the mastery of something that has nothing to do with us, but is the mastery of us human beings, we may further understand that what the reviving of nature and the protecting of the ecological environment means for us is not only found in the relationship between humanity and nature, but in human being’s whole activity and meaning of being as well. Through these accounts we can clearly see that acting as the General Secretary of the Central Committee Hu Jintao posits the end value of socialism with Chinese characteristics as putting people first, which actually posits the end value as realizing the whole-sided development of human being; and to posit realizing the whole-sided development of human being as the end value is precisely to posit realizing the elevated unity of complete harmony between humanity and nature as our most valued pursuit. Here, we argue that building ecological socialism expresses the essence of socialism with Chinese characteristics on such following premises: socialism with Chinese characteristics at once holds to the basic principles of scientific socialism and is also grounded in the reality in China; it posits “scientific development as the basic development strategy; it posits building harmonious 7  Marx and Engels: Collected Works, Vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 45. 8  Marx and Engels: Collected Works, Vol. 20, People’s Publishing House, Chinese, 1st edition, p. 519.

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society as the basic historical task and posits the end value and ideal of socialism with Chinese characteristics as putting people first.” We here give an account of all of these different premises, but actually all of these premises are inextricably tied to one another, which is to say that all of these characteristics and implications of socialism with Chinese characteristics compose an organic whole, and when Hu Jintao as general secretary of the CCP explains the characteristics and implications of socialism with Chinese characteristics, he also synthesizes them together into a whole, on the foundation of which he examines their intrinsic connection to building ecological civilization from the holistic perspective, so now this intrinsic connection shines much more clearly and lively before us all.

CHAPTER 23

The Strategic Choice for the Construction of Ecological Civilization under Chinese Socialism The concept of national development strategy appeared in the world in the 1960’s. The ordinary reading understands the term “national development strategy” to mean the use of all aspects of national strengths, and the strategy adopted in order to achieve the overall goal of the nation. Now that we have already posited constructing ecological civilization as the overall goal of the nation, what development strategy are we going to design to achieve this goal? Looking throughout the world today, many nations are exploring development strategies for the construction of ecological civilization, and since we are implementing the construction of ecological civilization under the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and since we are implementing the construction of ecological civilization in a unique historical context of cultural customs, geographical locations, natural conditions, economic levels and social systems that differ widely from many industrialized nations, the strategy for building ecological civilization that we have chosen will not and also should not be entirely the same as those adopted by these industrialized nations. Ecological Marxists not only profoundly reveal and fiercely critique the increasingly intense ecological crisis of today but also give extensive accounts of how to get out of the ecological crisis. So, the relevant theories of ecological Marxism are worth learning from as we investigate strategies for constructing ecological civilization under the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics.

The Three Strategies That we Can Not and Should Not Choose

We can divide ecological, geomorphological and climate changes up into natural and human-made phenomena. Any of such changes brought about by the three major causes, namely changes in cosmic activity, earth activity and ecosystems can be regarded as natural phenomena, and those changes brought about by human activities should be regarded as human-made phenomena. Since the birth of humankind, the effects of human activities on ecosystems and the Earth’s environment have been increasing. Human life has been around for 2.5 million years, the first 2.49 million of which date minimal

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human influence on ecosystems and the Earth’s environments, and there is evidence of little difference between the roles that humans and the other animals of the ecosystem play in the environment. Since the agricultural revolution, the human impact on ecosystems and the Earth’s environment started to expand, but this effect was also small compared to the industrial revolution. After carrying through with the industrial revolution, humankind’s transformation and conquest of nature have become its basic ideas, so the ecosystem and the Earth’s environment have run into unprecedented destruction. The extent of the damage that human activity has waged on the ecosystem and the Earth’s environment is directly proportional to the degree of harmony between humankind and nature. Obviously, in comparison with the industrial stage of civilization, humanity was much closer and friendlier to nature during both the stages of agricultural civilization and hunting and gathering civilization. Precisely because this is so, the moment some hear that we have to construct ecological civilization, they immediately recall agricultural civilization and hunting and gathering civilization, and think that constructing ecological civilization entails returning to pre-industrialized and pre-modernized times. In the 1970s, the theory of “anti-modernization, anti-industrialization and anti-productivity” appeared in the environmental movement in the Western world, and the eco-centrists who believe in this theory have determined that pollution and resource destruction are the inevitable products of industrialization, and that environmental and ecological degradation mark the end of the modernization process. They believe in “back to the jungle” romanticism and advocate the return to “idyllic” life in order to establish “ecological Utopia” as the ideal of society. There are some of us here who echo the romantic sentiments of Western eco-centrists, which is reflected in certain theoretical articles and some literary works as well. They do not understand that ecological civilization is a new human civilization that is to be built on the foundation of industrial civilization, and do not understand that what we call the building of a harmonious relationship between humanity and nature can only be successful under the premise of fully enjoying the fruits of modernization. Whereas although prior to industrial civilization it was basically harmonious between humanity and nature, and on the whole, there were no fundamental, overall conflicts, this harmony was of a low level. What we need today is not a low level of harmony, but a higher level of harmony. In their view, to build ecological civilization today, we must abandon all the efforts we are making to achieve modernization, urbanization and industrialization. Obviously, we cannot possibly abandon industrial civilization for the sake of ecological civilization, and we cannot possibly avoid enjoying all the fruits of modernization for the sake of ecological civilization. We get modernization at the cost of sacrificing

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ecological civilization, but similarly, we cannot achieve harmony between humanity and nature at the cost of sacrificing modernization. Therefore, we cannot make such a choice. The path we take in constructing ecological civilization cannot be one that leads backwards. The Song dynasty poet Xin Qiji had once depicted such a scene: “Startled by magpies leaving the branch in moonlight, I hear cicadas shrill in the breeze at midnight, the ricefields’ sweet smell promises a bumper year; listen, how frogs’ croaks please the ear!” We may quote this poem to express the desire for humankind to live in harmony with nature, but we should know that it is no longer possible for humankind to return to this day. It seems that the Chinese people cannot give up the pursuit of modernization. Modernization as well as the industrial civilization that is built on the foundation of modernization in a certain sense constitute the only pathway of human development. The problem is that so far both the modernization that humanity has implemented and the industrial civilization that humanity has established conflict with nature and destroy the ecological environment. This is the path of pollute first and straighten it out later, destroy first and rebuild it later that the developed industrial nations have already taken. This is to say, achieve modernization first, then decide what to do later, wait till industrial civilization is built up, then think about ecological civilization later. Because ecological civilization is the new civilized state of humanity following industrial civilization, humanity must move according to this sequential order of industrial civilization first and ecological civilization later. Some of us here repeatedly insist that it is entirely unavoidable that China is on the path of repeating the old refrain that the other developed industrial nations have already sung. In the journey to achieve modernization, therefore, destroying the environment is a cost that we must necessarily pay. Between environmental protection (ecological balance) and modernization we can only choose one, and cannot get a combination of the two. Of course, we can only choose to achieve modernization at the present moment, and hence can only look on hopelessly as the environment is destroyed. The moment they hear that it is necessary to build ecological civilization, they assert that this is only an ideal of ours, something desirable but unreachable. We can talk about it, even plan it out, but by no means can we put into practice in China now. Their basic strategy is to concentrate whole-heartedly on achieving modernization and building up industrial civilization now, while temporarily suspending ecological civilization and speaking about the construction of ecological civilization in the “future tense.” At the end of the day, can we implement this strategy? It all depends on whether or not we can carry through with this path. We the Chinese people are effectively still in the initial stages of modernization, and industrial civilization

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in the classical sense of the term is still unformed, but we already face serious environmental pressures today. The environmental pressures we face today are much greater than the pressures that the developed industrial nations faced in the initial stages of modernization. If we continue to place environmental protection out of consideration, and meanwhile put all of our effort in the sprint toward modernization, such pressures will increasingly amount. Here, let us look at some numbers. In accordance with the model of development of industrial civilization, assume environmental pressure per unit GDP remains constant. In this relatively ideal scenario, in 2020 China’s actual environmental pressure will be 3.4 times that of the year 2000; in 2030 it will be 6.4 times that of the year 2000; in 2050 it will be 8.1 times that of the year 2000; and in 2100 it will be 18 times that of the year 2000.1 Obviously, the course of China’s modernization cannot possibly bear such great environmental pressures. If such is the case, that such enormous environmental pressures will crush China is beyond doubt, and large-scale environmental disasters will be unavoidable! Truly as we have already pointed out above, in choosing this development strategy it is very likely that without yet fully enjoying the fruits of modernization the heavy costs will already ruin us. Then again, we choose this development strategy on the basis of recognizing that this is the path taken by the prosperous citizens of the developed industrialized nations, namely on the grounds that this is a path of success. But in fact, whether this pathway of development, this model of development can succeed in a developing nation like China merits skepticism, and setting this question aside, it is still even questionable that a clear judgment can be made as to whether it has already been completely successful in the developed industrial nations. The people in the industrialized nations face a series of global problems, such as global warming and the destruction of the ozone layer, and have gradually formed a consensus that this path of development, this model of development is unsustainable even where they reside, and it could even be said that it is unsuccessful. If this pathway of development, this model of development is completely successful on their own soil, why are they still eager to unfold the so-called “second modernization?” Since this development strategy is not entirely successful on their own soil, why would we replicate it here? There is an Indian proverb that once warned people: when pruning branches way up in a tree, don’t saw off the branch you are standing on. This model of development is the model for pruning branches and sawing off even that branch that supports oneself, that is the model for cutting off

1  See He Chuanqi: Strategy Choice of China’s Ecological Modernization, Contained Theory and Modernization, Vol. 5, 2007, p. 10.

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one’s own last pathway of life. How could us Chinese people know that this is undoable and still do it? Advanced industrial nations have achieved modernization by sacrificing ecological civilization, and the degree to which they have modernized should be proportional to the degree to which the environment has deteriorated. But the reality of the situation is that although some of the ecological conditions in the developed industrial nations also warrant our worries, they are still faring far better than those in developing nations overall. Compare China to these developed countries. Above we listed some numbers. Here we again will list some numbers. 40 of China’s urban air pollution indicators in 2001 were 5 times that of developed nations, 26 indicators of China’s industrial energy density and rural health center penetration rate were 2 times the level of developed industrial nations, 40 indicators of China’s urban waste treatment rate were 2 times that of the level of developed industrial nations. 3 indicators of China’s natural resources consumption per GNI were more than 50 times those of the major industrial nations, making up the largest relative disparity between China and the developed nations. 4 indicators of industrial waste density were more than 10 times those of developed industrial nations, and 11 indicators of agricultural fertilizer density were more than 2 times those of developed industrial nations. To be even more concrete, in 2003 China’s natural resource consumption per GNI was more than roughly 100 times that of Japan’s, France’s and South Korea’s put together, and about 30 times more than that of Germany, Italy and Sweden put together; In 2002 China’s industrial waste air density was about 20 times that of Germany, and more than 10 times that of Italy, South Korea, Britain and Japan put together; China’s urban air pollution in 2002 was about 7 times that of France, Canada and Sweden, and more than 4 times that of the United States, Britain, Canada and Australia.2 In today’s world there is the ranking of an ecological modernization index, some developed industrial nations basically rank at the top of the index, and roughly all of the developing nations rank behind them, where China ranked 100th out of the world’s 118 nations. How did this scenario come about? This does not prove that the environmental impact of all nations that are similarly modernizing and developing must certainly be greater than that of developed industrial nations. The secret is that developed industrial nations “transfer” and “pass on” to developing nations a part of the destruction of the ecological environment that the nation originally should bear itself in the process implementing modernization. It can be said that developing nations do not enjoy the fruits of modernization but bear the costs of modernization, while the developed industrial nations 2  Ibid., pp. 9–10.

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enjoy the fruits of modernization but to certain degrees do not bear the costs. These developed industrial nations have “transferred” and “passed on” the negative effects of modernization to developing nations at least 3 times: The first time was when the early industrialized nations openly stole the resources of other nations through launching colonial wars in order to satisfy the demand that large-scale industrial production had for natural resources. Colonies became important supply reservoirs of raw materials and cheap labor for these advanced industrialized nations; The second time was after the Second World War, when industrialized nations started to develop overseas markets by means of capital exports during the collapse of the colonial system; these industrialized nations sent raw material mining, producing and refining operations one by one overseas by means of capital exports, and later, technology exports; The third time was after the dawn of the 1980s, when Western developed nations with the US in front started to transfer labor-intensive industries overseas and also transfer a part of their resource-intensive and capital-intensive industries to developing countries by means of adjusting the structure of the industries. As an example, the UK government’s Energy White Paper says that by 2050, the UK steel industry will move overseas for production to meet its promise to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 60 per cent. The problem is that while the developed industrial nations can execute the “transfer” strategy to alleviate the ecological crisis, can we do the same in the process of constructing ecological civilization? If we can do that, can we not only continue our modernization but also avoid getting caught in the ecological crisis at the same time? The reality is that various factors preclude us from choosing this “transfer” strategy. First, we are a socialist country, and the nature of our system determines that we cannot do so; second, the staggering economic size of China is far too massive, so massive that joining the ranks of all those nations “transferring” across the world, would bring about unprecedentedly serious consequences, and obviously such consequences would be injurious to ourselves as well; last, actually the amount of space that remains left over after so many years of these industrialized nations having insisted on the “transfer” strategy is already running out, the cake has been largely divided up amongst them. It seems that China basically does not have the conditions to construct ecological civilization through executing the “transfer” strategy. In summary, we can conclude that we should not stop the pace of modernization in order to achieve harmony between humanity and nature and return to the pre-modern state; we also should not view constructing ecological civilization as something solely to be done in the future, while insisting on the path of traditional modernization and completely disregarding its destruction of ecological civilization. We should not, as the developed industrial nations

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have been doing, “transfer” and “pass on” the destruction of the natural environment and the other negative effects caused by modernization to other nations and regions, and let others suffer the natural world’s punishment of humankind in our stead.

The Viable Strategy of Ecologically Oriented Modernization

Since we decided we should enjoy the fruits of modernization without destroying the ecological environment, and at least minimize the harm wrought on the ecological environment in the process of modernization, we can’t make the three choices mentioned above, but must develop new strategies. It seems our only option is to integrate industrial civilization with the construction of ecological civilization. In other words, we are still committed to achieving modernization, but this kind of modernization must not damage the ecological environment as a precondition. This is a new type of modernization. We may call it ecologically oriented modernization, or more simply “ecological modernization.” This new ecologically oriented modernization is the right strategic choice that we can make. Though no one has taken this path before, we the Chinese people must take it. Many industrialized nations are now also implementing ecological civilization, but their implementation of ecological civilization, at best, is only the ecological reform of the fruits of modernization that they already enjoy. Obviously, what we are doing is completely unlike what they are doing. We still do not have the achievements of all-around modernization ready-made in our hands, and we want the win-win of achieving modernization while protecting ecology in the process of creating modernization. We want to simultaneously build ecological civilization in the process of building industrial civilization. We will implement modernization in the sense of ecological civilization while other nations are implementing it according to the traditional model. Whereas the developed industrial nations only act in the sense of better late than never, we will strike pre-emptively. This development strategy of ecologically oriented modernization basically connotes the decoupling of economic development from environmental degradation, and making efforts to complete the ecological transition of the model of modernization, where the management of the ecological environment changes from the emergency response type to that of preventive innovation. Of course, the decoupling of economic development from environmental degradation can only be relative at the very beginning, and having achieved this relative decoupling means that the growth rate of economic pressure per unit GDP is less than zero, or in other words, the environmental pressure that

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is brought about by every unit of GDP no longer grows year by year. Having achieved relative decoupling, our effort still needs to move in the direction of absolute decoupling. So-called absolute decoupling is an annual growth rate of environmental pressure being less than zero, and an annual rate of decline of environmental pressure per unit GDP being greater than the annual GDP growth rate, that is, if absolute decoupling is achieved, the pressure on the environment will not increase with the growth of GDP, but on the contrary, will decrease, and the margin of decrease will be greater than the margin of increase. It is estimated that if the annual rate of decline of environmental pressure per unit GDP exceeds 4%, then it may be possible to drop back to year 2000 levels by 2050.3 Of course, to promote decoupling between economic development and environmental degradation is only negatively handling the relationship between the environment and the economy, and the strategy of ecologically oriented modernization does not stop here at this negative level, but also aims at positively catalyzing the mutually beneficial coupling of the environment and the economy. Modernization basically connotes industrialization and urbanization, and effectuating the strategy of ecologically oriented modernization through industrialization and urbanization means realizing green industrialization and green urbanization. According to the account of the China Modernization Report 2007—Ecological Modernization Study, the strategic goals of so-called green industrialization include: in 2000, the “three transformations” of the economy, that is, “dematerialization,” “greenification” and “ecologization” reached the global elementary level, and all the environmental pressure indicators were relatively decoupled from economic growth; in 2050, the three transformations of the economy will reach the global intermediary level, and the economy will completely decouple from energy, resources, material and pollution, and some environmental indicators will be benignly coupled with economic growth, achieving an environmental and economic win-win. Its basic tasks are: the three transformations of the economy rise from global low level to global intermediary level, and the key environmental indicators are fully coupled to economic growth; the rates of resource and material production increase by 10 to 30 times, industrial and economic waste density decrease by about 90%, industrial wastewater and waste treatment rates basically reach 100%; make up for and eliminate the environmental damage left over by history, reduce and eliminate new environmental damage brought about by the process of transformation, and complete the ecological transformation of the model of economic development. Its strategic measures are: continue 3  Ibid., pp. 10–11.

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implementing new types of industrialization strategies, take the green path of industrialization; promote the reengineering of traditional industrial processes, accelerate the development of environmentally protective industries to reduce industrial pollution; implement pollution control projects, and gradually remove the pollution remaining in the key areas and key industries; promote the recycling economy, reduce resource consumption, build a resource-saving economy; implement green service projects, accelerate the development of economic services, and promote the three transformations of the economy. The strategic goals of so-called “green urbanization” are: in 2050, the human habitat will reach the global advanced level, urban air quality will reach the national first level standard, green living and environmental security will reach the global intermediary level, and social progress completely decouples from the environment. Its basic tasks are: the three transformations of society rising from the global low level to the global intermediary level, social progress and environmental degradation are completely decoupled, and the key environmental indicators are completely coupled to the quality of life; the penetration rate of safe drinking water and sanitation facilities reach 100%, urban domestic sewage and waste treatment rates reach 100%, service consumption per capita increase by 50 times, environmental risks decrease by 20 times, urban air quality reaches national highest level standards; make up for and eliminate environmental damage left over by history, reduce and eliminate new environmental damage brought about by the process of social transformation, complete the ecological transformation of the model of social development; and, establish environmentally friendly ecological society. Its strategic measures are: implementing new urbanization strategies to improve the living environment, developing green energy and green transportation; establishing ecological compensation mechanisms, exercising ecological service functions, sharing the fruits of modernization; improving natural disaster mitigation mechanism, executing urbance service functions, protecting environmental safety; implementing green consumption projects, and expanding green product market space. The main difference between ecologically oriented modernization or “ecological modernization” and the kind of ecological construction projects promoted in today’s advanced industrial nations is that the former is based on prevention, innovation and structural change. It focuses on sustainable ecological reconstruction, the establishment of ecological modernity, and in the process of ecological reconstruction, it gives full play to the role of modern science and technology. It adopts accurate perspectives on environmental challenges, and not only views environmental challenges as crises, but also as opportunities. It manages natural resource and environmental risks, addresses

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the contradictions between economic growth and environmental management by creating new environmental agendas that transcend conflicts and interests, and creates institutions for environmental management. It continues to introduce forward-looking environmental policies for prevention. It uses the principles of industrial ecology, which establishes participatory environmental management strategies. Of course, promoting the decoupling of economic development from environmental degradation is only negatively handling the relationship between the environment and the economy, and the strategy of ecologically oriented modernization does not stop at this negative level, but also positively promotes the mutually beneficial coupling between environment and economy. “Ecological modernization” is a positive ecological revision of classical modernization. The basic principles of ecological modernization include the principles of prevention, innovation, efficiency, non-equivalence, dematerialization, greenification, ecologization, democratic participation, pollution fees and win-win scenarios between economy and environment. The process of implementing “ecological modernization” is the process of carrying out these principles organically, comprehensively and harmoniously.4 The development strategy of “ecologically oriented modernization” not only goes against the strategy of going back to pre-modernized times, but also resists the strategy of high investment, high pollution and high consumption in exchange for economic growth and the realization of modernization, and even more so rejects and overcomes the “transfer” strategy universally adopted by the developed industrial nations. It is not based on “transferring” but on “transforming,” which on the linguistic level although only differs from the former with respect to one suffix, means something widely different. To transform means to start fresh, to start up anew, that clear weather comes when the storm peaks. The content of such transformations are plentiful, including the transformation of the conception of development and the idea of development, the transformation of the theory and method of development as well as the transformation of the model of economic growth, the transformation of the system of socio-economic operations and operating mechanisms, and even the transformation of working styles and measuring standards. “Ecologically oriented modernization” will never give up the pursuit of modernization, but undoubtedly, measuring with traditional modernization standards may possibly result in retarding the pace of modernization. Now that we are implementing ecologically oriented modernization, we must 4  See Kong Fande et al. Review of China Modernization Report 2007—Research on Ecological Modernization, Contained Journal of Environmental Management Cadre College of China, No. 3, 2007, pp. 3–4.

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simultaneously do something and also do nothing with respect to the series of modernization measures that were originally implemented, that is, continue to advance a part of it, and at one and the same time discontinue another part altogether. In a certain sense, we can call this a strategic retreat in the process of implementing ecologically oriented modernization. This strategic retreat is the expression of reason, which Lenin once vividly described: “suppose a man is climbing a very steep mountain that has not been surveyed. Assuming that he overcame unheard of difficulties and dangers, climbed a much higher place than the previous man, but has not yet reached the top. Now, it is not only difficult and dangerous, and simply impossible to move forward according to the original direction and route. He had turned to go down, find another relatively distant but eventually possible road to climb to the top.”5 Our implementing ecologically oriented modernization is just as Lenin put it, namely we know that it is not only difficult and dangerous, but simply impossible to move forward according to the original direction and route, and so we turn to go down, implementing the “strategic retreat”, and at the same time, find the other relatively distant but eventually possible road to climb to the top. Also as Lenin put it, “the retreat is not terrible”, “the terrible is fantasy and self-deception”.6 We choose ecologically oriented modernization, which shows that although in a certain sense we retreat, we do not fall into the trap of fantasy and selfdeception, but we find a new way to make environmental protection and economic development a win-win situation, and in this sense, we do not retreat, but advance. In summary, we can conclude that the strategy to build ecological civilization under the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics that we should choose is the implementation of ecologically oriented modernization, integrating the construction of industrial civilization with the construction of ecological civilization in order to achieve green industrialization and green urbanization.

5  Lenin, Collected Work, Vol. 42, People’s Publishing House, 1987, p. 447. 6  Lenin, Lenin manuscript, Vol. 4, People’s Publishing House, 1978, p. 304.

CHAPTER 24

Challenges for the Construction of an Ecologically Friendly Civilization Guided by the spirit of the 17th CCP Congress, the Chinese people have embarked on the path of constructing ecological civilization. The construction of ecological civilization as our basic development strategy is defined as making new reflections on the current global economic and social development initiatives and changing them accordingly. If such initiatives fail to follow through with the implementation of this new strategy, and “ecologically oriented modernization” is not appropriately adjusted, then the construction of ecological civilization in China will end in futility. Therefore, to construct the new strategy of ecological civilization, we absolutely cannot just read some superficial articles, but rather must confront the bigger problems that really impact the construction of ecological civilization. Whether or not the Chinese people today truly have the resolve to build ecological civilization and implement ecologically oriented modernization as the basic strategy to build civilization depends mainly whether we have the courage to directly face such major problems under the guidance of Marxism, and have the courage to challenge some inveterate trends of thought. The theory of ecological Marxism profoundly and vividly describes today’s dilemma, in which humanity is unwilling to give up a rich material life, but is simultaneously trying to free itself of the ecological crisis. Today the Chinese people have personal experience with the human predicament and “dilemma” that ecological Marxism describes. Here we follow the ideas of ecological Marxism, dissect our “dilemma,” and determine how to get out of it.

Capital: Utilizing and Restricting

Since the opening reforms, the achievements of China’s modernization have been tied to the full utilization of capital. A majorly important aspect of these so-called “reforms” involved giving legitimacy to the existence of capital in China, and a majorly important aspect of the so-called “opening” involved welcoming the influx of international capital into China. In China, capital operates just like it does in other places around the world, using its all-conquering power to arrange, assemble and order everything around us, yet this time, cleanly

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without otherness or other. China is currently undergoing a profound process of civilization, whose driving force is no doubt capital. The Chinese people today are enjoying the fruits of civilization, and in a certain sense are enjoying the fruits of capital as well. Today it goes without saying that the owners of capital in China have deeply tapped the utility of capital, but even the capital owners’ opposed party, the employed workers, find ways to enjoy something from capital as well. People attribute the earth-shaking changes that have occurred in China over the past 30 years to the success of the opening reforms, but in a certain sense credit has gone to capital’s account. It is precisely against this background that many Chinese people have fallen into a mood for blindly worshipping capital, thinking that the achievements of modernization that China has already won are all thanks to capital and are inseparable from capital. In order to build ecological civilization, in order to implement this new development strategy of ecologically oriented modernization, we need time to reflect on everything we are currently engaged in, and these people are too unlikely to think hard about precisely what kind of relationship there is between the expansion of capital and the currently severe ecological crisis, and therefore will not think hard about what kind of adjustments we have to make to our attitude toward capital in order to reach our new goal. Actually, even though capital in contemporary China has brought about such easily visible positive effects as economic growth and increased material wealth, capital also has negative side-effects that are growing daily. Among all of the negative side-effects of capital, there is the destruction of the natural environment. The basic principle of capital is that of proliferation, and seeking the maximization of profit is but the essence of capital. If capital did not have acquiring interest as its motive and goal, it would fail to be the capital that it is. Also, in the process of seeking profit, capital is the insatiable greed that turns down no measure or means to acquire it. The economy will necessarily not consider protecting the ecological environment so long as capital is the agent operating it. In a certain sense, capital is the incarnation of greed and fear. At first we may have not really understood why these people would put the polluted ecosystem out of consideration and ignore the calls for people to protect the environment as if it were a mosquitoe buzzing near their ears, but now after thinking about it, the reason is very simple; it is because they are “capital personified,” and can only be driven by a principle, which is to realize the maximization of capital interest. We could say that the robbing and plundering of nature is the necessary result of capital’s principle of proliferation. Looking back on these thirty years of recent Chinese history, we the Chinese people have truly experienced that the workings and expansion of capital greatly catalyzes productivity and results in the large-scale accumulation of wealth and social progress,

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but regardless of whether it is in terms of the motive or working mechanisms, it is always a process of the ecological environment facing decimation. Capital is essentially opposed to ecological civilization. Capital has its own unsurpassable limits. Marx’s critique of capitalism is a critique of capital, and he unfolds the critique gripping tightly to the limits of capital. According to Marx’s demonstration, even if capital is reasonable for some time, this does not mean that it will forever be reasonable, or rather, does not mean capital will forever be unsurpassable, and this is determined by capital’s own limits. Marx reveals that the capitalist mode of production has the power to break all limits, but it is only free and unrestricted within its own limits, and the development of capital will ultimately be limited by itself, and moreover, it is actually in the process of continuously creating the conditions to break its own limits. Marx put it this way: The real barrier of capitalist production is capital itself. It is that capital and its self-expansion appear as the starting and the closing point, the motive and the purpose of production; that production is only production for capital and not vice versa, the means of production are not mere means for a constant expansion of the living process of the society of producers.1 The limit of capital is that it makes acquiring profit become the motive and purpose of production. Capital has this limit; its destruction of the ecological environment is only natural. In this way, there appears before us the following predicament: the enterprise of modernization is nothing without capital’s support, and without the role that capital plays, the enterprise of modernization would become a building suspended in mid-air. However, the essence of capital is to seek the maximization of profit, but in order to seek the maximization of profit, it necessarily puts the ecological environment out of consideration, and so, how do we deal with capital? It is key that we always remember this point that the modernization we are about to implement is not traditional modernization, but rather ecologically oriented modernization, so we cannot completely prostrate ourselves before the feet of capital, and while we utilize capital we also must restrict capital. Although we cannot change the essence of capital, we can implement all kinds of restrictions like ethically constraining the workings of capital and make capital’s destruction of the natural world drop to the 1  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 46, People’s Publishing House Chinese 2nd edition, p. 278.

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lowest possible level. If our goal were only constructing ecological civilization, we would have reason to not consider the problem of restrictions on capital. According to industrial civilization’s own demands we are currently not utitilizing capital too much, but too little, and our development of capital is not too fast but too slow. However, if our goal is not just industrial civilization but also ecological civilization, or rather the integration of industrial civilization with ecological civilization, the we cannot only utilize capital but also have to restrict capital and seek a point of equilibrium between utitilizing and restricting. Of course, in order to realize ecological civilization merely restricting capital is not still not enough, for ultimately transcending capital is also necessary. As long as capital exists, it will destroy the ecological civilization, and implementing restrictive measures only lowers the degree of destruction, and in no way fundamentally uproots such destruction. When ecological civilization is truly established it may very possibly be the day that capital is completely transcended. So, in order to construct ecological civilization we not only have to integrate the utilization of capital with restrictions on capital, but also have to synthetically combine the utitilization of capital with the overcoming of capital. What needs to be explained here is, the existence of capital in China certainly still has its rationality, but we cannot think that we only have to wait for the reasonableness of capital to completely and exhaustively disappear and only then go about considering how to overcome capital. Just as the genesis of alienation and the elimination of alienation is the same historical process, the utilization of capital and the overcoming of capital is also the same historical process. Since we have already set the construction of ecological civilization as the goal that we are fighting for today, we should put transcending capital on the daily agenda. In actual fact, looking through all of the economic and social policies that our country’s government is adopting, not all of them are implementing the principles of capital and fully utilizing capital; rather many of them already fall under the scope of transcending capital and overcoming capital. In summary we can draw the conclusion that in order to implement ecologically oriented modernization, we still have to restrict and transcend capital while we utilize it, and make capital’s pitiless destruction of the natural environment for the sake of maximizing profit drop to the lowest possible degree.

Technology: Development and Control

Ever since modernization came into this world, science and technology have ascended to the highest status. Just as Serge Moscovici pointed out: for most,

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science on the upside is always right and on the downside will never be wrong, and it is this arbitrary belief that makes science intolerant to criticism.2 That people so worship science and technology is certainly not without reason, because what accompanies scientific and technological progress is the rapid development of modernization, which not only brings about highly efficient production and ample material wealth, but also brings about a rich spiritual life and the hope of humanity’s liberation. Hailed by Marx as the true ancestor of British materialism and the whole of modern experimental science, the great scientist Bacon came to the insight that science is the best instrument for a “great revival” and shouted out that “knowledge is power” at the very beginning when the light of modern science had just begun to rise over the horizon. As science and technology became the number one productive force, their pushing of modernization and human progress became more and more apparent. In this situation, our nation now implementing the strategy of reviving the nation through scientific education and pinning the hope of national prosperity upon the development of science and technology is entirely legitimate. The question is, is the impact of science and technology upon human affairs completely positive? Because modernization’s own effect upon humanity is double sided, science and technology’s pushing of modernization and the impact upon humanity that it brings about have both an upside and a downside. The actual case is that science and technology is a double edged sword, which in on one side gives humanity happiness and joy and in another respect brings humanity suffering and anguish. The problem is that some Chinese people today basically do not see the downside of science and technology, which in their eyes are just “angels;” they do not see they are sometimes “demons.” Moran once sharply pointed out that this doubt removing, wealth generating, conquering and stubborn science also increasingly makes us face serious problems, this science which liberates humanity simultaneously carries the frightening possibility of enslaving humanity, this vital knowledge also brings the threat of extinguishing humanity, and the development of the wealth-generating aspect of science is tied to the development of the harmful and even lethal aspect of science.3 So, where do the harmful and even lethal aspects of science and technology manifest? Mainly in violating the laws of nature and in warping the natural course of events, in generating irremovable pollution that amasses by the 2  Serge Moscovici: Also Charm of Nature: Thoughts on Ecological Movement, Zhuang Chenyan translation, Joint Publishing Co. 2005, p. 7. 3  Edgar Morin: Complex thought: conscious science, Chen YiZhuang translation, Peking University Press, 2001, p. 395.

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day, and in the threats that the wide application of nuclear technology and bio-engineering pose to human survival. We see the grave opposition between scientific technology and the natural environment in the setting where the former damages the latter. Consistent with their unwillingness to look squarely at the negative effects of science and technology on humanity, they disdain talking about the role that science and technology ultimately play in the severe destruction of the ecological environment in China today. Herbert Hauptman’s sharply exposes the severity of damage that science and technology are waging on the ecological environment, noting that all-around scientists spend about two million hours a year on the work of destroying this planet, that 30% of the scientists, engineers and technicians in this world engage in research with the purpose of advancing military affairs, and that in case that there are no ethical constraints, science and its products could destroy society and its future. He furthermore argues that measured with centuries as units, we observe the lightning fast development of science and technology on one hand and the glacial progress of human mentality and behavior on the other, and this imbalanced conflict between science and conscience, technology and morality has already reached the point where if they do not resolved with powerful means as quickly as possible, even if they do not succeed in obliterating the planet, they will still threaten the survival of the entire human race.4 Some scientists also became aware of the grave consequence their work was wreaking on the natural world and humanity, and so rose to stop what they were doing. In 1988, nearly one hundred prominent scientists signed the “Buenos Aires Oath,” solemnly promising to the world that they will never again participate in any technological activity that disturbs or destroys the ecosystem, and are calling for the greening of technology. So, in the process of implementing ecologically oriented modernization we also run into the predicament of how to deal with science and technology. Modernization is inseparable from the development of science and technology, but science and technology are often function as tools that destroy the ecological environment. Can we not succeed in turning them into tools that only benefit and never harm either the ecological environment or humanity? If we can succeed in this, there remains hope for implementing ecologically oriented modernization and constructing ecological civilization. Here, the key is that we must understand that science and technology are themselves neutral tools that may become either beneficial or harmful depending on what kind of ideas and values are in the minds of those who are using them and what 4  Herbert Hauptman: Scientists responsibility in the 21st century; Paul Schiltz: the 20th century humanitarian, Xiao Feng translation, Oriental Press 1998, pp. 3, 4.

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purpose they are used for. Granted there is absolutely no merit whatsoever to insisting like some Western Marxists and postmodernist thinkers that science and technology, and especially science and technology as the number one productive forces are guilty of “original sin” and that the development of science and technology is of necessity positively correlated with the destruction of nature, it is no less one-dimensional to assert like those blind worshipers of science and technology that science and technology are naturally progressive, and that the direction of scientific and technological development necessarily coincides with the direction of ecological civilization. These two opinions are obviously wrong. In fact, there is nothing “good” or “evil” to speak of in science and technology themselves. In this respect, there is a huge difference between technology and capital, which is neither neutral nor a “being in-itself,” but embodies a relation of production. This is to say, capital is itself opposed ecological civilization due to the nature of its essence. And, science and technology are in a certain sense “beings in themselves,” whose impact on the ecological environment in real life is not determined by themselves but by those who use them. So, our basic attitude toward capital is restrict and transcend it while utilizing it in order to implement ecologically oriented modernization, while our basic attitude toward science and technology should be steer and control them while developing them. What our holding this attitude toward capital brings about is nothing more than restricting the degree to which capital destroys the natural world, and what our holding this attitude toward science and technology brings about is possibly turning them in to solely beneficial rather than harmful tools when forging the relationship between technology and nature. Those one hundred scientists who signed the Bueno Aires Oath proposed that they have to use their own actions to certify that scientific work not only can contribute to cleaning up pollution and developing alternative resources relying on their own technical expertise, but also can contribute to revealing the technical cognitive sources of ecological crisis and furthermore to establishing the thought of ecological technology and to implement green technology. The reason why these scientists have so much confidence is that as long as science and technology are used under the guidance of the right values, they become the powerful and positive driving force of no that traditional modernization but that particular, new kind of modernization, “ecological modernization.” We can conclude that in order to implement ecologically oriented modernization, we not only have to develop science and technology, but also drive and monitor science and technology, and thereby make science and technology as much as possible become the benign tools for and powerful means of building ecological civilization.

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Production: Expansion and Reform

Comrade Deng Xiaoping remarked that “development is of paramount importance,” which some people understand to mean “economic development is of paramount importance.” They reduce economic development to the expansion of production, which colloquolly is to say “make the cake bigger.” The pushing forward of modernization is the process of continuously expanding production; of this there can be no doubt. Even if the modernization that we now want to implement is “ecologically oriented modernization,” continuously expanding production and developing the economy is still a fixed compass. The problem is do we have to make corresponding changes with respect to the organization of the mode of production in switching from traditional modernization to implementing ecologically oriented modernization? According to the traditional mode of modernization, the process of production is that of continuously growing wealth, and the more wealth produced the better, the more the better. Early in 1925, Leopold criticized this “more the better” way of organizing production, using the analogy of desperately building houses without considering in any way the limitations of space to describe it: “it might be ‘development’ to build houses on the first, and the second, and the third, and the fourth, and even the fifth, but when we build houses on the last one, we forget what houses are for. The sixth house would not be development at all, but rather it would be mere short-sighted stupidity. “Development” is like Shakespeare’s virtue, “which grown into a pleurisy, dies of its own too-much.”5 He thinks that if humankind wants to live on the earth in a safe, healthy, poetic and enduring way, it is necessary to change this way of organizing production. Edward Abbey thus calls this mode of organizing production “production for the sake of production” and “growth for the sake of growth,” which he believes is the ideology of the cancer cell and will make modern civilization go from bad to worse, leading to the crisis of overproduction and overdevelopment, ultimately making humanity become its “sacrifice.”6 Here the problem we want to solve is, in the process of implementing ecologically oriented modernization, how do we make production expand and grow continuously while preventing it from becoming “overproduction,” which like a cancer cell threatens the ecological environment and human being’s own survival. Our production is production in the system of socialism, 5  Quoted from Wang Nuo: Ideological and Cultural Roots of the Ecological Crisis—Core Issues of Contemporary Western Ecological Thoughts, contained in Journal of Nanjing University, 2006 No. 4, p. 40. 6  Ibid.

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and our mode of production is the socialist mode of production, so before we answer this question, we have to recall for a moment Marxism’s exposition of the socialist mode of production. Marx gives many elucidations of the essential characteristics of the socialist mode of production, the most basic of which involve two aspects: one is the objective demand that socialist production is coordinated growth in specific proportions. He states that the amounts of products corresponding to the differing amounts of needs demand differing and quantitatively determined amounts of society’s aggregate labor. It is self-evident that this necessity of the distribution of social labor in specific proportions is certainly not abolished by the specific form of social production; it can only change its form of manifestation. Natural laws cannot be abolished at all. The only thing that can change, under historically differing conditions, is the form in which those laws assert themselves.7 Marx’s statement here tells us, the objective demand and general law of socialist production is development coordinated according to proportion, but there is a massive difference between the degree of realization in different social forms, and the socialist mode of production can better realize growth of social production according to proportion. Two is implementing conscious social adjustments to the process of production. Marx points out that there is no social form that can stop the labor time society distributes from adjusting production in this or that way and the difference between capitalism and socialism is whereas in the formere there is no conscious social adjustment of production,8 while the latter socially adjusts the entirety of production.9 According to Marx’s exposition, socialism must eliminate the anarchic state of inside of social production and make conscious social adjustments of production. What must be explained is, these two big features of the socialist mode of production are established on the basis of the purpose of socialist production. According to Marx, socialist production is autonomous associated production and directly social production, in correspondence with which socialist production is no longer value and surplus value but producing more, better products used for directly and more perfectly satisfying the needs of life of every member of society. 7  Marx and Engels, Selected Works, vol. 4, People’s Publishing House, 1995, p. 580. 8  Ibid., p. 581. 9  Marx and Engels, Selected Work, vol. 1, People’s Publishing House, 1995, p.85.

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The founders of Marxism brought up the concept of all-sided production, which we may borrow to more profoundly understand Marxism’s theory of the socialist mode of production. According to Marx’s exposition, the human being’s production is not completely the same as the animal’s production. The distinction is found in the all-sidedness of human being’s production, which is to say that a human being cannot like an animal undertake production solely for its own bodily needs, that is, “an animal only produces what it immediately needs for itself or its young.”10 Human being has to organize production for the needs of society or the all-around development of human being. Marx also points out that the basic hallmark of the all-sidedness of human being’s production is whereas “an animal only produces itself … man reproduces the whole of nature.”11 Human being not only has to be concerned with the needs of her own survival and development in the process of production, but also has to be concerned with the needs of the survival and growth of other natural creatures, which is to say that she has to ensure the needs of normal movement of natural biological beings that are non-human and make the production of natural ecosystems proceed and grow regularly. The process of human production should include the process of reproducing nature. Human being’s all-sided production will realize the unity of the human scale and the natural scale. An animal only produces according to the scale of what that species to which it belongs needs, while human being may produce according to the scale of any species. Because of this, in the practice of human being’s all-sided production, two scales should always be playing a role simultaneously. The so-called human scale means the need and good of human being’s own survival and growth acting as the ultimate purpose and measurement of value of human being’s practice of production. The so-called natural scale means the needs and good of the survival and growth of non-human species acting as the ultimate purpose and measurement of value of human being’s practical activity of production. If we organically combine these two scales we can ensure the coordinated growth of social production and the production of natural ecosystems. Marx points out, in the process of undertaking all-sided production, human being knows how to produce according to the standard of every species, and knows how to apply everywhere the intrinsic standard to the object. For this reason, she also builds in accordance with ­aesthetic

10  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, People’s Publishing House, Chinese 1st edition, p. 96. 11  Ibid., p. 97.

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standards.12 Nature has aesthetic value, and that mutually coordinated and harmonious transformation that natural environments show is itself the ecological beauty of nature. This beauty of nature is not only for humanity it is also for its own sake. When human being were to develop, refine and sculpt nature according to the laws of natural ecosystems and the laws of beauty, she would make the original beauty of natural ecosystems even more perfect. Because of this, we should make human being’s all-sided production become a process of beautifying nature according to the laws of beauty.13 In Marx’s view, only the socialist mode of production can realize this all-sidednesss of human production. We have no need and it is also impossible under the current historical conditions to comprehensively implement that socialist mode of production and that all-sidedness of human production about which Marx spoke. However, they do provide beneficial inspiration for our solution to this predicament of how to organize production in the process of implementing ecologically oriented modernization. Looking on, since we have already made the resolution to get out of the traditional model of inspiration and implement ecologically oriented modernization, that original mode of organizing production absolutely must change. This is to say that we cannot just expand and grow production in the process of implementing ecologically oriented modernization, but also have to continuously change and adjust production, and what must first be changed and adjusted is the purpose of production. The production that we implement for the sake of realizing ecologically oriented modernization cannot be production simply for the sake of production, and even less so can it be production solely for the sake of value and surplus value; this production should explicitly first be production for the sake of satisfying human needs, and such needs must be genuine human needs, which is to say needs tied to the all-around growth of human being. In addition, production implemented for the sake of realizing ecologically oriented modernization also needs to adjust according to the natural scale, that is, we need to continuously satisfy the needs and good of the survival and growth of non-human biological species. This production should as far as possible become what Marx called all-sided production, but the key is we must restrict the production that we implement within the range of the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. There is a massive difference between production in the development of traditional modernization and production in the development of ecologically oriented 12  Ibid. 13  See Liu Sihua: Principles of ecological Marxism Economics, People’s Publishing House, 2006, pp. 239–240.

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modernization, which is the former does not consider the carrying capacity of the ecosystem, whereas the latter must be limited within the range of the carrying capacity of the ecosystem. This is just like a car that is speeding ahead, which must have both accelerator and brakes. Production in the course of traditional modernization is just like a car equipped with an accelerator but without brakes. Driving in a car with an accelerator and no brakes is to run head on into death, and for this reason the ultimate scenario of the traditional model of modernization is inevitably death. Our implementing ecologically oriented modernization is actually but installing brakes in that car, which is to say installing ecological limits in that model of production, thereby enabling that car to have both accelerator and brakes, and henceforth continue driving forward. Of course, what needs to change with respect to organizing production while implementing ecologically oriented modernization is not only the purpose of production but also the form of production. Marx adds to the socialist mode of production the features of consciously adjusting and coordinating growth according to proportion. In the context of ecologically oriented modernization, the production that we are engaging in must strive in this respect for consciously adjusting and coordinating growth according to proportion, otherwise it would fail to attain the goal that we have given socialist production and could not possibly construct ecological civilization. That we are implementing the socialist market economy does not mean that we may reject the government’s conscious adjustment of the production process nor does it mean that production no longer needs to be coordinated according to proportion. Adding this modifier “socialist” in front of the market economy means that our model of the market economy is distinct from that extreme model of the market economy implemented by some capitalist nations. The distinction is, we integrate socialism into the market economy, which is to say we combine the market principle with the principles of conscious adjustment and coordination according to proportion. In this way, we need to make changes to the socialist market economy in order to implement ecologically oriented modernization, changes which do not fundamentally negate or totally overturn it, but changes which merely demand the full expression of some ingredients of socialism contained in the socialist market economy. In summary, we may conclude that we not only need to further expand production but even more so change and adjust production in order to implement ecologically oriented modernization, thereby making production not only serve the satisfaction of human being’s genuine needs, but also serve the purpose of satisfying the needs of survival and growth of non-human biological species.

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Consumption: Stimulus and Guidance

Many people in China today look to the expansion of domestic demand to sustain economic development. They believe that investment, exports and domestic demand are the three main wheels driving the growth of the Chinese economy. When the front two wheels cannot possibly turn any faster, the extra thing we can do is make this wheel of domestic demand turn faster. To expand domestic demand is actually to stimulate the material desires of the Chinese people and to make everyone consume as much as possible. Expanding domestic demand may well be an effective way to promote economic growth. The purpose of traditional modernization is to continuously promote economic growth and continuously increase GDP, so it always needs to stimulate consumption, even if this means manufacturing phony needs. What we are now implementing is not traditional modernization, but rather ecologically oriented modernization, and the question we need to ask is whether this policy of inveterately expanding and stimulating consumption needs to change and how to change it. At first, this question was not hard to answer, but because ecologically oriented modernization does not want people to stop enjoying a rich material life, but on the contrary presupposes a rich material life, it also needs to use consumption to push production and create plentiful means of material life, and therefore disorients pepole’s sense of direction with respect to consumption, thereby making this originally easy to answer question become a hard one indeed. Now the entire world is taking the path of consumerism, and the growth of our nation is actually heading in the same direction. Some people believe that what China is now implementing is already consumerism, while others insist that China is focusing on consumption but that consumerism has not yet taken on in China. Even if we agree with the latter’s judgment, our minds are fully aware: by pinning economic development on the stimulation and expansion of consumption, it is only a matter of time before consumerism prevails. In the process of implementing ecologically oriented modernization, whether we can continue to rely on the basic strategy of expanding domestic consumption and promoting consumerism entirely depends what this basic strategy and what this consumerism has already ultimately brought us and will bring to us. When General Secretary Hu Jintao brought up constructing ecological civilization the 17th CCP Congress, he made the hallmark, intension and goal of ecological civilization a consumption model fundamentally shaped by “conserving energy resources and protecting the ecological environment.” We believe that the General Secretary would not have spoken in this way if our current consumption model already fit that of ecological civilization like a

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glove and if shaping this consumption model of conserving energy resources and protecting the ecological environment were not essential for the construction of ecological civilization. So, General Secretary Hu Jintao’s declaration here implies a critique of the current condition of consumption and moreover implies an affirmation of how significant shaping that model of consumption is for constructing ecological civilization. Here, perhaps it would help wake up our brains to quickly recall Marx’s critique of capitalist society. Some people always think that Marx wants to critique and overturn capitalism solely because the working class and broader majority of working people in this society live in poverty and cannot satisfy their material needs, solely because the distribution of wealth in this society is unfair. This way of understanding Marx’s critique of capitalist society is not groundless, but is certainly shallow and one-sided. Actually, Marx’s critique of capitalism is much rather that this society on one hand makes human being’s work degenerate into compulsory, alienated and meaningless labor, and on the other hand, leads human being to become a crippled monster who only knows material consumption. He thus exposes this, saying that under the conditions of capitalism, everyone does everything possible to conjure up a new need in another person in order to compel him to make a new sacrifice, encaging him in a new dependency, and pushing him to endulge in a new kind of pleasure. In this society, “the expansion of production and needs becomes the inventive and ever calculating slave of inhuman, refined, unnatural and imaginary appetites,” and in order to reach the goal of increasing his own wealth, the “industrial eunuch flatters his despot more basely or uses more despicable means to stimulate his dulled capacity for pleasure in order to sneak a favor for himself than does the industrial eunuch—the producer—in order to sneak for himself a few pieces of silver.”14 You can also look at Marx’s even more incisive exposition of this warping of human needs in capitalist society, As a result, therefore, man (the worker) only feels himself freely active in his animal functions—eating, drinking, procreating, or at most in his dwelling and in dressing-up, etc.; and in his human functions he no longer feels himself to be anything but an animal. What is animal becomes human and what is human becomes animal.15 14  Marx: Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, People’s Publishing House, 1979, pp. 85–86. 15  Marx and Engels, Collected Works, vol. 42, People’s Publishing House, Chinese 1st edition, p. 94.

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In Marx’s view, the original sin of capitalist society is engendering such a reversal, where human being is fully focused on enjoying nothing but clearly animal functions like eating, drinking and procreating, treating them like functions unique to human being, while not focusing the slightest on the functions that clearly only belong to human being like work, treating it instead as merely a means, which effectively is already to see it as an animal function. Human beings evolved out of animals, and therefore are necessarily two-fold, possessing both animality and humanity. The problem is when human being exhibits his animality, she mistakenly enjoys it as something that uniquely belongs to human being, and when she truly needs to express her humanity, she acts like an animal. This is the human tragedy in capitalist society. What Marx is pointing to here is the capitalist society in which he lived, but actually, what he described as human being becoming a crippled monster who only knows material consumption is already exhibited to perfection in today’s capitalist society, and is also exhibited to different degrees in developing countries like ours. The harm that consumerism brings about is not only the warping of humanity but also the massive destruction of the ecological environment. Under the drive of consumerism, what people believe in is the principle of “the more the better” “the rarer the better.” Among the entirety of society’s consumption there are three “mores:” buy more, use more, waste more. The only standard of measurement of someone living better or worse is how many things he possesses and how many things he consumes. “Better” is not only tied to “more,” but is also tied to “rarer.” People not only seek more, they also seek rarer. What does rarer mean? Those things that everyone has are no good, and only those things that I uniquely posses are good. Seeking the more and the rarer is precisely the hallmark of consumerism. So, where do both more and rare things come from? Of course, they are taken from Nature. Large quantities of consumed products are made on the basis of eating up massive quantities of natural resources and energy. In the later half of the 20th century, the sum of all the things that this generation robbed from the natural world and consumed is greater than the sum of all the things that all previous generations plundered and consumed combined. The process of implementing consumerism is also the process of destroying the ecological environment. Human being’s greed for matter being called up and stimulated is tightly linked to the destruction of the natural world, and indeed there is a direct correlation between the two. Ghandi once said there is more than enough in this world to satisfy human need, but we cannot satisfy human greed. After the people’s greed in a society is evoked and stimulated, it becomes a society overflowing with material desires, and once it falls into such a state, it will necessarily rush head on to the bottom line of ecological capacity without consideration

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for anything. What capital would such a society still have to talk of ecological civilization. Hu Jintao’s talk of constructing ecological civilization by first reshaping the model of human consumption is certainly insightful. We ought to without hesitation change the current model of consumption, which today is mutually exclusive with ecological civilization. Specifically, in dealing with consumption, we not only need to stimulate it, we also have to guide it, that is, we need to guide consumption to meet the demand of constructing ecological civilization. First of all we need to guide people to satisfy their all-around needs, and specifically their spiritual and cultural needs. Human consumption involves material consumption as well as cultural consumption, and we must greatly increase the proportion of cultural consumption in the entire sphere of consumption. Cultural consumption is an everyday activity of a higher level, which can better satisfy our spiritual and cultural needs. This satisfaction of spiritual and cultural needs is at least as important as the nourishing role that consuming physical materials has for human being’s physical needs. Second, we need to guide people to sever the link between the more and the better with respect to consumption, and instead strengthen the bond between the better and the less. As long as we produce more durable and environmentally friendly things, or rather produce more things that everyone can obtain, then we consume less but live better, which is possible. As long as we can break this bond between the more and the better with respect to consumption, guiding consumption to meet the demands of ecological civilization is a revolution that changes the structure of human needs, that is, we need to establish a structure of needs that puts quality of consumption and quality of life first. In summary, we can conclude that we not only need to stimulate consumption and expand consumption to promote economic growth, but also have to guide consumption and prevent it from breaking the bottom line of ecological capacity in order to implement ecologically oriented modernization.