John Bellamy Foster

Category: Articles

Articles

  • Capitalism and Ecology

    Capitalism and Ecology

    “Capitalism and Ecology: The Nature of the Contradiction,” Monthly Review vol. 54, no. 4 (September 2002), pp. 6-16. DOI: 10.14452/MR-054-04-2002-08_2

    The social relation of capital, as we all know, is a contradictory one. These contradictions, though stemming from capitalism’s internal laws of motion, extend out to phenomena that are usually conceived as external to the system, threatening the integrity of the entire biosphere and everything within it as a result of capital’s relentless expansion. How to understand capitalism’s ecological contradictions has therefore become a subject of heated debate among socialists. Two crucial issues in this debate are: (1) must ecological crisis lead to economic crisis under capitalism?, and (2) to what extent is there an ecological contradiction at the heart of capitalist society?

     

  • Environmental Sociology and the Environmental Revolution: A 25th Anniversary Assessment

    “Environmental Sociology and the Environmental Revolution: A 25th Anniversary Assessment,” [PDF], Organization and Environment, vol. 15, no. 1 (March 2002), pp. 55-58. DOI: 10.1177/1086026602151005

    It is a great honor to be asked to respond to articles by individuals who can all be rightly considered to be founders of environmental sociology, legendary figures in the field. If I have something distinctive to add to this symposium, it mostly arises out of my own standpoint as a respresentative of what I like to think is the second wave of environmental sociology. Environmental sociology arose in the 1970s and then waned for a time in membership and influence in the early and mid 1980s. In the late 1980s, however, new interest was sparked in the field as a result of the globalization of environmental issues, with growth of world concern about the destruction of the ozone layer, global warming, and species extinction (see Dunlap, 1997, p. 28-29). At the same time, these years saw the emergence of new kinds of radical environmentalism, incorporating the environmental justice movement, ecofeminism, and ecosocialism. Environmental sociology is much more divers than it was 25 or even 10 years ago— and that fact has to be a crucial part of any quarter—century assessment. I was to reflect here, then, not only on the past but also on the future of environmental sociology— its condition of long-term health.

     

  • Monopoly Capital and the New Globalization

    Monopoly Capital and the New Globalization

    “Monopoly Capital and the New Globalization,” Monthly Review, vol 53, no. 8 (January 2002), pp. 1-7. DOI: 10.14452/MR-053-08-2002-01_1

    We live at a time when capitalism has become more extreme, and is more than ever presenting itself as a force of nature, which demands such extremes. Globalization—the spread of the self-regulating market to every niche and cranny of the globe—is portrayed by its mainly establishment proponents as a process that is unfolding from everywhere at once with no center and no discernible power structure. As the New York Times claimed in its July 7, 2001 issue, repeating now fashionable notions, today’s global reality is one of “a fluid, infinitely expanding and highly organized system that encompasses the world’s entire population,” but which lacks any privileged positions or “place of power.”

    Reprints:
    • Also appeared as a chapter in Doug Dowd, Understanding Capitalism (London: Pluto Press, 2002).
    • Spanish edition, Entender el Capitalismo (Barcelona: Bellaterra, 2003). 
    Translations:
    • Chinese translation by Xgui Chen in Foreign Theory Dynamics, 6 (2003).

     

  • Imperialism and ‘Empire’

    Imperialism and ‘Empire’

    “Imperialism and ‘Empire,” Monthly Review, vol. 53, no. 7, pp. 1-9. (December, 2001) DOI: 10.14452/MR-053-07-2001-11_1

    Only a little more than a month ago at this writing, before September 11, the mass revolt against capitalist globalization that began in Seattle in November 1999 and that was still gathering force as recently as Genoa in July 2001 was exposing the contradictions of the system in a way not seen for many years. Yet the peculiar nature of this revolt was such that the concept of imperialism had been all but effaced, even within the left, by the concept of globalization, suggesting that some of the worst forms of international exploitation and rivalry had somehow abated.

    Translations:

     

  • Marx’s Ecological Saving Grace: His Materialism

    “Marx’s Ecological Saving Grace: His Materialism,” [PDF], Imprints, vol. 5, no. 2 (Winter 2000-2001), pp. 173-87. (Review of Jonathan Hughes, Ecology and Historical Materialism.)

    Criticisms of Marx for his alleged anti-environmentalist views are commonly voiced today not only by liberals and Green thinkers, but also within the eco-socialist discourse that has arisen over the last two decades. Such criticisms have been leveled, ofter with little evidence to back them up, by such diverse figures as Laszek Kolakowski, Anthony Soper and Alain Lipiets, In an article recently published in the eco-socialist journal Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, Lipietz, a leading representatives of the French regulation school, declared that Marx underestimated ‘the irreducible character of … ecological constraints’ and adopted ‘the Biblico-Christian ideology of the conquest of nature.’ At the same time he insisted that Marx tended to reduce ‘the natural history of umanity to the transformative activities of men,’ thereby ignoring nature’s own ‘ecoregulatory activities’ (a criticism first raised by Benton). Finally, Marx is faulted for claiming that ‘nature is the inorganic body of man,’ and ignoring that it is ‘just as well that of the bee or the royal eagle.’

  • Ecology Against Capitalism

    Ecology Against Capitalism

    “Ecology Against Capitalism,” (John Bellamy Foster) Monthly Review, vol. 53, no. 5 (October 2001), pp. 1-16. DOI: 10.14452/MR-053-05-2001-09_1

    In a 1963 talk on “The Pollution of Our Environment” Rachel Carson drew a close comparison between the reluctance of society in the late twentieth century to embrace the full implications of ecological theory and the resistance in the Victorian era to Darwin’s theory of evolution: As I look back through history I find a parallel. I ask you to recall the uproar that followed Charles Darwin’s announcement of his theories of evolution. The concept of man’s origin from pre-existing forms was hotly and emotionally denied, and the denials came not only from the lay public, but from Darwin’s peers in science. Only after many years did the concepts set forth in The Origin of Species become firmly established. Today, it would be hard to find any person of education who would deny the facts of evolution. Yet so many of us deny the obvious corollary: that man is affected by the same environmental influences that control the lives of all the many thousands of other species to which he is related by evolutionary ties (Lost Woods: The Discovered Writing of Rachel Carson, pp. 244-45).

    Translations:
    • Chinese translation in Contemporary Academic Thought Series, Shanghai Translation House, 2006.

     

  • Environmental Politics: Analyses and Alternatives


    Review Essay on special Autumn 2000 issue of Capital and Class on environmental politics, [PDF], Historical Materialism, no. 8 (Summer 2001), pp. 461-77.

    Writing about the relative neglect of Volumes Two and Three of Capital within the socialist movement of her day, Rosa Luxemburg observed that Marx’s critique of capital and his contribution to social science as a whole constituted one ‘titanic whole’ with an ‘immeasurable field of application’. It propelled him far beyond the immediate needs of the class struggle (exemplified by the theory of exploitation in Volume I), and caused him to explore other aspects of capitalism in Volumes II and III, such as the reproduction schemes, competition between capitals, the distribution of surplus value, etc. – issues that seemed to transcend the most pressing struggles of the social movement. Yet, history and the development of the movement, Luxemburg contended, would lead to renewed appreciation of Marx’s intellectual corpus: ‘Only in proportion as our movement progresses and demands the solution of new practical problems, do we dip once more into the treasury of Marx’s thought in order to extract therefrom and to utilize new fragments of his doctrine.’

  • The Dialectic of Organic/Inorganic Relations

    “The Dialectic of Organic/Inorganic Relations: Marx and the Hegelian Philosophy of Nature,” [PDF], (coauthored with Paul Burkett, Foster listed first), Organization and Environment, vol. 13, no. 4 (December 2000), pp. 403-25. DOI: 10.1177/1086026600134002

    Ecological thinkers have suggested that in applying an “organic/inorganic” distinction to humanity-nature, Marx embraced a dualistic and antagonistic conception of the human-nature relationship. The authors confront this view by considering how Marx’s various applications of the concepts organic and inorganic were shaped not only by standard scientific usage but also by Marx’s engagement with Hegel’s natural philosophy and the historical struggle between materialism and teleology. They find that Marx’s usage was based on an explicit disavowal of all mechanistic and dualistic views of the human-nature relationship. In Marx’s mature works, all fixed oppositions between organic and inorganic gave way to a fully dialectical understanding of ecological processes. Marx’s growing concern with the “metabolic rift” between humanity and nature generated by capitalist production led him to link the question of communism with that of ecological sustainability. Their analysis thus sheds light on the opposition between idealist and materialist visions of ecology.

  • Capitalism’s Environmental Crisis

    Capitalism’s Environmental Crisis

    “Capitalism’s Environmental Crisis—Is Technology the Answer?,”(John Bellamy Foster) Monthly Review vol. 52, no. 7 (December 2000), pp.  1-13. DOI: 10.14452/MR-052-07-2000-11_1

    The standard solution offered to the environmental problem in advanced capitalist economies is to shift technology in a more benign direction: more energy-efficient production, cars that get better mileage, replacement of fossil fuels with solar power, and recycling of resources. Other environmental reforms, such as reductions in population growth and even cuts in consumption, are often advocated as well. The magic bullet of technology, however, is by far the favorite, seeming to hold out the possibility of environmental improvement with the least effect on the smooth working of the capitalist machine. The 1997 International Kyoto Protocol on global warming, designed to limit the greenhouse-gas emissions of nations, has only reinforced this attitude, encouraging many environmental advocates in the United States (including Al Gore in his presidential campaign) to advocate technological improvement in energy efficiency as the main escape from the environmental mess.

    Reprints:
    • Published in a different version in Tokyo in Hitotsubashi Journal of Social Sciences, vol. 33, no. 1 (July 2001), pp. 143-50.
    Translations:
    • Turkish translation in Emperyalizmin Yeniden Keşfi (Istanbul, Turkey: Kalkedon Publications (January 2006).

     

  • Henry Salt, Socialist Animal Rights Advocate: An Introduction to Salt’s ‘A Lover of Animals

    “Henry Salt, Socialist Animal Rights Advocate: An Introduction to Salt’s ‘A Lover of Animals,” [PDF], (coauthored with Brett Clark, Clark listed first), Organization and Environment, vol. 13, no. 4 (December 2000), pp. 487-92.

    Henry S. Salt (1851-1939) remains largely unknown today, despite his central role in social and humanitarian movements throughout the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Salt is briefly mentioned in passing when discussing the history of animal rights activism, but serious consideration of his philosophical position has not been conducted. General interpretations of Salt often recognize that he was a socialist, and animal rights are seen as an additional interest of his. Likewise, animal rights advocates view him as an animal rights activist who happened to be a socialist. But for Salt, these positions were not separable. A philosophical understanding of materialism provided the foundation for Salt’s commitment to a wide range of humanitarian causes.