John Bellamy Foster

Author: John Bellamy Foster

  • Metabolism, Energy and Entropy in Marx’s Critique of Political Economy

    “Stoffwechseel, Energie und Entropie In Marx’ Kritic der Politischen Ökonomie” (“Metabolism, Energy, and Entropy in Marx’s Critique of Political Economy: Beyond the Podolinsky Myth”—edited and translated version of work based on previous articles, Burkett listed first) in Kijan Espahangizi und Barbara Orland, ed., Stoffe in Bewegun (Burlin: Diaphanes, 2014), 95-120.

    Until recently, most commentators, including ecological Marxists, have assumed that Marx’s historical materialism was only marginally ecologically sensitive at best, or even that it was explicitly anti-ecological. However, research over the last decade has demonstrated not only that Marx deemed ecological materialism essential to the critique of political economy and to investigations into socialism, but also that his treatment of the coevolution of nature and society was in many ways the most so- phisticated to be put forth by any social theorist prior to the late twentieth century. Still, criticisms continue to be leveled at Marx and Engels for their understanding of thermodynamics and the extent to which their work is said to conflict with the core tenets of ecological economics. In this respect, the rejection by Marx and Engels of the pio- neering contributions of the Ukrainian socialist Sergei Podolinsky, one of the founders of energetics, has been frequently offered as the chief ecological case against them. Building on an earlier analysis of Marx’s and Engels’s response to Podolinsky, this article shows that they relied on an open-system, metabolic-energetic model that adhered to all of the main strictures of ecological economics – but one that also (unlike ecological economics) rooted the violation of solar and other environmental-sustainability conditions in the class relations of capitalist society. The result is to generate a deeper understanding of classical historical materialism’s ecological approach to economy and society – providing an ecological-materialist critique that can help uncover the systemic roots of today’s “treadmill of production” and global environmental crisis.

  • Marx and the Rift in the Universal Metabolism of Nature

    Marx and the Rift in the Universal Metabolism of Nature

    “Marx and the Rift in the Universal Metabolism of Nature,” [PDF], Monthly Review, vol. 65, no. 7 (December 2013), pp. 1-19. DOI: 10.14452/MR-065-07-2013-11_1

    The rediscovery over the last decade and a half of Marx’s theory of metabolic rift has come to be seen by many on the left as offering a powerful critique of the relation between nature and contemporary capitalist society. The result has been the development of a more unified ecological world view transcending the divisions between natural and social science, and allowing us to perceive the concrete ways in which the contradictions of capital accumulation are generating ecological crises and catastrophes.… Yet, this recovery of Marx’s ecological argument has given rise to further questions and criticisms.

    Translations:

     

  • The Epochal Crisis

    The Epochal Crisis

    “The Epochal Crisis,” [PDF], Monthly Review, vol.65, no. 5 (October 2013), pp. 1-12. DOI: 10.14452/MR-065-05-2013-09_1

    It is an indication of the sheer enormity of the historical challenge confronting humanity in our time that the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, sometimes now called the Second Great Depression, is overshadowed by the larger threat of planetary catastrophe, raising the question of the long-term survival of innumerable species—including our own. An urgent necessity for the world today is therefore to develop an understanding of the interconnections between the deepening impasse of the capitalist economy and the rapidly accelerating ecological threat—itself a by-product of capitalist development.

    Translations:
    • German-language translation Das Argument 305 (2013): 871-80.
    • Spanish language translation by Carlos Valmaseda in Mientras Tanto (May 2014)

     

  • The Fossil Fuels War

    The Fossil Fuels War

    “The Fossil Fuels War”, Monthly Review vol. 65, no. 4 (September 2013), pp. 1-14. DOI: 10.14452/MR-065-04-2013-08_1

    Only a few years ago governments, corporations, and energy analysts were fixated on the problem of “the end of cheap oil” or “peak oil,” pointing to growing shortages of conventional crude oil due to the depletion of known reserves. The International Energy Agency’s 2010 report devoted a whole section to peak oil. Some climate scientists saw the peaking of conventional crude oil as a silver-lining opportunity to stabilize the climate—provided that countries did not turn to dirtier forms of energy such as coal and “unconventional fossil fuels.”… Today all of this has changed radically with the advent of what some are calling a new energy revolution based on the production of unconventional fossil fuels. The emergence in North America—but increasingly elsewhere as well—of what is now termed the “Unconventionals Era” has meant that suddenly the world is awash in new and prospective fossil-fuel supplies.

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition (January 2014), pp. 133-51.
    • Swedish language edition in Röda rummet (the Red room), 2013.

     

  • The Cultural Apparatus of Monopoly Capital

    “The Cultural Apparatus of Monopoly Capital: Critical Views from the 1960s—An Introduction” [PDF], (coauthored with Robert W. McChesney, Foster listed first), Monthly Review vol. 64, no. 8 (July-August 2013), pp. 1-32.

    The past half-century has been dominated by the rise of media to a commanding position in the social life of most people and nations, to the point where it is banal to regard this as the “information age.” The once-dazzling ascension of television in the 1950s and ‘60s now looks like the horse-and-buggy era when one assesses the Internet, smartphones, and the digital revolution. For social theorists of all stripes communication has moved to center stage. And for those on the left, addressing the role of communication in achieving social change and then maintaining popular rule in the face of reactionary backlash is now a primary concern.… political economists of communication, including one of us, identified themselves as in the tradition of radical political economy, but with a sophisticated appreciation of media that had escaped.… [the stellar critique of journalism produced… by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky]. Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy were occasionally held up by political economists of communication as representing the sort of traditional Marxists who underappreciated the importance of media, communication, and culture.… We were never especially impressed by this criticism. To us, Monopoly Capital, and the broader political economy of Baran and Sweezy, far from ignoring communication, provided key elements for a serious study of the subject.

    Reprints:
    • Reprinted in Savaş Çoban, ed., The Media and the Left (Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2014), pp. 67-103;
    • Reprinted in Robert W. McChesney, Blowing the Roof Off the Twenty-First Century: Media, Politics, and the Struggle for Post-Capitalist Democracy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2014, 188-218.
    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition (May 2014), pp. 53-68.

  • Introduction to the Second Edition of The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism

    “Introduction to the Second Edition of The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism” [PDF], Monthly Review vol. 65, no. 3 (July 2013), pp.107-134.

    The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxian Political Economy was initially written thirty years ago this coming year as my doctoral dissertation at York University in Toronto. It was expanded into a larger book form with three additional chapters (on the state, imperialism, and socialist construction) and published by Monthly Review Press two years later. The analysis of both the dissertation and the book focused primarily on the work of Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy, and particularly on the debate that had grown up around their book, Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order (1966). In this respect The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism was specifically designed, as its subtitle indicated, as an “elaboration” of their underlying theoretical perspective and its wider implications.… Three decades later much has changed, in ways that make the reissuing of The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism in a new edition seem useful and timely. The scholarly research into Baran and Sweezy’s Monopoly Capital has expanded enormously in the intervening years, most notably with the publication of the two missing chapters of Monopoly Capital—one on the theoretical implications of their analysis for economics, the other on culture and communications—and through research into their joint correspondence. The Great Financial Crisis and the resurfacing of economic stagnation have engendered new interest in this tradition of thought. Under this historical impetus the theory itself has advanced to address new developments, particularly with respect to the understanding of stagnation, financialization, and the globalization of monopoly capital.

  • Marx, Kalecki, and Socialist Strategy

    Marx, Kalecki, and Socialist Strategy

    “Marx, Kalecki, and Socialist Strategy”, Monthly Review vol. 64, no. 11 (April 2013), pp. 1-14. DOI: 10.14452/MR-064-11-2013-04_1

    A historical perspective on the economic stagnation afflicting the United States and the other advanced capitalist economies requires that we go back to the severe downturn of 1974–1975, which marked the end of the post-Second World War prosperity. The dominant interpretation of the mid–1970s recession was that the full employment of the earlier Keynesian era had laid the basis for the crisis by strengthening labor in relation to capital. As a number of prominent left economists, whose outlook did not differ from the mainstream in this respect, put it, the problem was a capitalist class that was “too weak” and a working class that was “too strong.” Empirically, the slump was commonly attributed to a rise in the wage share of income, squeezing profits. This has come to be known as the “profit-squeeze” theory of crisis.

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition (January 2014), pp. 59-77.
    • Chinese translation forthcoming in Foreign Theoretical Trends, vol. 3 (2014)
    • Spanish translation in Revista Sin Permiso, April 12, 2013, www.sinpermiso.info.

     

  • Class War and Labor’s Declining Share

    Class War and Labor’s Declining Share

    “Class War and Labor’s Declining Share”, (coauthored with Fred Magdoff; Magdoff listed first), Monthly Review vol. 64, no. 10 (March 2013), pp. 1-11. DOI: 10.14452/MR-064-10-2013-03_1

    Given [the] background of high unemployment, lower-wage jobs, and smaller portions of the pie going to workers, it should come as no surprise that, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, nearly 50 million people in the United States live in poverty (with income in 2011 below $23,021 for a family of four) while another 50 million live between the poverty level and twice the poverty level—one paycheck away from economic disaster. Thus, the poor (those in poverty or near poverty), most of whom belong to the working poor, account for approximately 100 million people, fully one-third of the entire U.S. population.… Wage repression and high unemployment are the dominant realities of our time. A vast redistribution of income—Robin Hood in reverse—is occurring that is boosting the share of income to capital, even in a stagnating economy. Is it any wonder, then, that for years on end polls have shown a majority of the population agreeing with the statement that the United States is on the wrong track and not headed in the right direction?

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition (October 2013), pp. 29- 41.

     

  • Toward a Global Dialogue on Ecology and Marxism

    “Toward a Global Dialogue on Ecology and Marxism: A Brief Response to Chinese Scholars,” [PDF] (John Bellamy Foster) Monthly Review, vol. 64, no. 9 (February 2013), pp. 54-61.

    I would like to thank Zhihe Wang, Meijun Fan, Hui Dong, Dezhong Sun, and Lichun Li for doing so much to promote a global dialogue on ecological Marxism by summarizing some of the insights and concerns of Chinese scholars in this area, focusing in this case on my work in particular. The various questions, challenges, and critiques raised in relation to my work and that of related scholars are all, I believe, of great importance to the development of theory and practice in this area. I am therefore providing a brief set of responses to the problems raised, which I hope will be helpful in the further promotion of this global dialogue on ecology and Marxism.

  • James Hansen and the Climate-Change Exit Strategy

    James Hansen and the Climate-Change Exit Strategy

    “James Hansen and the Climate-Change Exit Strategy,”, Monthly Review, vol. 64, no. 9 (February 2013) pp. 1-19. DOI: 10.14452/MR-064-09-2013-02_1

    The world at present is fast approaching a climate cliff. Science tells us that an increase in global average temperature of 2°C (3.6° F) constitutes the planetary tipping point with respect to climate change, leading to irreversible changes beyond human control. A 2°C rise is sufficient to melt a significant portion of the world’s ice due to feedbacks that will hasten the melting. It will thus set the course to an ice-free world. Sea level will rise. Numerous islands will be threatened along with coastal regions throughout the globe. Extreme weather events (droughts, storms, floods) will be far more common. The paleoclimatic record shows that an increase in global average temperature of several degrees means that 50 percent or more of all species—plants and animals—will be driven to extinction. Global food crops will be negatively affected.

    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Monthly Review, Turkish edition, no. 33 Istanbul: Kalkedon, 2013).
    • Norwegian translation in Vardøger no. 35 (May 2015): 98-116;