Marx and Nature A Red and Green Perspective Paul Burkett
MARX AND NATURE:A RED AND GREEN PERSPECTIVE Copyright Paul Burkett, 1999.All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information, address St. Martin s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010. ISBN 978-1-349-41490-1 ISBN 978-0-312-29965-1 (ebook) DOI 10.1057/9780312299651 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Burkett, Paul. 1956 May 26 Marx and nature : a red and green perspective / Paul Burkett. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Communism and ecology. 2. Marx, Karl. 1818 1883. I. Title. HX550.E25B87 1999 304.2 dc21 98-42328 CIP Design by Letra Libre First edition: February, 1999 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For My Mother and Father
This page intentionally left blank
Contents Preface and Acknowledgements Introduction 1 Part I Nature and Historical Materialism 1. Requirements of a Social Ecology 17 2. Nature, Labor, and Production 25 3. The Natural Basis of Labor Productivity and Surplus Labor 33 4. Labor and Labor Power as Natural and Social Forces 49 Part II Nature and Capitalism 5. Nature, Labor, and Capitalist Production 57 6. Capital s Free Appropriation of Natural and Social Conditions 69 7. Capitalism and Nature: A Value-Form Approach 79 8. Reconsidering Some Ecological Criticisms of Marx s Value Analysis 99 9. Capitalism and Environmental Crisis 107 10. Marx s Working-Day Analysis and Environmental Crisis 133 Part III Nature and Communism 11. Nature and the Historical Progressivity of Capitalism 147 12. Nature and Capitalism s Historical Limits 175 13. Capital, Nature, and Class Struggle 199 14. Nature and Associated Production 223 Notes 259 References 297 Index 309 vii
This page intentionally left blank
Preface and Acknowledgements In reconstructing Marx s approach to nature under capitalism and communism, this book responds to three common criticisms of Marx: 1. Marx fell prey to a productivist or Promethean vision under which (a) capitalist development of the productive forces allows human production to completely overcome natural constraints; (b) communism is projected as extending and rationalizing capitalism s drive toward complete human domination over nature; and (c) both capitalism and communism demonstrate an inevitable antagonism between humanity and nature. 2. Marx s analysis of capitalism excludes or downgrades the contribution of nature to production; this applies especially to Marx s labor theory of value. 3. Marx s critique of the contradictions of capitalism has nothing to do with nature or with the natural conditions of production. The primary motivation of this book is to address these three claims and their most common corollaries in systematic, textually informed and politically useful fashion. I will argue that Marx s approach to nature possesses an inner logic, coherence, and analytical power that have not yet been recognized even by ecological Marxists. Over the past several years, when asked about the subject of this work, my answer has normally been: Green and Red. In a way, this response sums up my intellectual debts. I first became interested in environmental issues during my undergraduate days at Kalamazoo College, where in 1977 I wrote a senior thesis entitled An Environmental Economist s Case for Organic Revolution. I want to thank Bob Brownlee and the late Louis Junker for their inspiration and encouragement at that time, which planted the seeds of the Green in the present work.
viii Marx and Nature I began seriously studying Marxism while pursuing a graduate economics degree at Syracuse University. This interest was encouraged most of all by the late Jesse Burkhead, an outstanding teacher of the history of economic thought who was a beacon of intellectual openness to many Syracuse graduate students. Given my earlier interests, it was inevitable that I would never see Marxism as an alternative to environmentalism but rather as a particular kind of environmentalism, one that considers people-nature relations from the standpoint of class relations and the requirements of human emancipation. For a number of reasons of a personal, political, and professional nature, however, only recently was I able to investigate this way of thinking in a scholarly fashion. My return to the Green by way of the Red has been greatly helped by John Bellamy Foster, who was kind enough to read and offer comments on the rough notes leading to this book. John has been a constant source of inspiration and encouragement in my work. My gratitude is extended to my colleagues at Indiana State University for granting the leave time needed to finish this book. I also want to thank my immediate family members for putting up with me during the writing of it.thank you, Suzanne, Shaun, Patrick, and Molly. Although I owe much to the above-mentioned individuals, any errors or shortcomings in the book are my responsibility alone. Portions of several chapters have previously appeared in scholarly journals. I thank their respective publishers for permission to reprint from Science & Society, Fall 1996 (Chapter 7); Nature, Society, and Thought, in press (Chapter 9); Monthly Review, in press (Chapter 12); Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, December 1995 (Chapter 13); and Organization & Environment, June 1997 (Chapter 13). Finally, a stylistic note. Many of the passages quoted in this book contain emphasized words and phrases.to avoid cluttering up the presentation with an endless stream of qualifiers, it is simply indicated here that all emphases are in the original unless noted otherwise. Terre Haute, Indiana October, 1998