John Bellamy Foster

Category: Journal Articles (Refereed)

Journal Articles (Refereed)

Ecological Imperialism and the Global Metabolic Rift

“Ecological Imperialism and the Global Metabolic Rift: Unequal Exchange and the Guano/Nitrates Trade,” (coauthored with Brett Clark (Clark listed first), International Journal of Comparative Sociology, vol. 50, no. 3-4 (2009), pp. 311-34.
DOI: 10.1177/0020715209105144

The concept of ecological imperialism is seemingly unavoidable in our time. Obvious cases are all around us. One is the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which is at least partly over oil. Instances of ecological imperialism do not, however, stop with Iraq. Whether it is the renewed scramble for Africa, the flooding of the global commons with carbon dioxide, or biopiracy aimed at Third World germplasm, ecological imperialism is operating within a global economy predicated on accumulation. While the appropriation of resources from distant lands has taken place throughout human history, the origins and ongoing growth of capitalism are dependent upon further ecological exploitation and ecological unequal exchange.

January 1, 2009
The Sociology of Ecology

“The Sociology of Ecology: Ecological Organicism versus Ecosystem Ecology in the Social Construction of Ecological Science, 1926-1935” [PDF], (coauthored with Brett Clark (Foster listed first), Organization & Environment, vol. 21, no. 3 (September 2008), pp. 311-52. DOI: 10.1177/1086026608321632

Environmental sociology has been divided in recent years by a debate between realists and constructionists centering on the knowledge claims of ecological science. Following a consid- eration of this debate and its relation to both environmental sociology and the “sociology of ecology,” a “realist constructionism” is advanced, taking as its concrete case the conflict in the 1920s and 1930s between Jan Christian Smuts’s organicist ecology and Arthur Tansley’s ecosystem ecology. A central analytical issue (derived from Marx and Engels) is the “double transfer” of ideas from society to nature and back again and how this was manifested in the early 20th-century ecology in the form of a justification for ecological racism/apartheid.

September 1, 2008
Classical Marxism and the Second Law of Thermodynamics

“Classical Marxism and the Second Law of Thermodynamics: Marx/Engels, the Heat Death of the Universe Theory, and the Origins of Ecological Economics” [PDF], (coauthored with Paul Burkett, Foster listed first), Organization and Environment, vol. 21, no. 1 (March 2008), pp. 1-35. DOI: 10.1177/1086026607313580

Ever since Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen (1971) wrote his magnum opus, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, the entropy law (or the second law of thermodynamics) has been viewed as a sine qua non of ecological economics. Georgescu-Roegen argued strongly that both the entropy law and the first law of thermodynamics (conservation of matter–energy) were incompatible with ortho- dox neoclassical economics. The relation of ecological economics to Marxian economics, however, was much more ambiguous. Attempts to explore the history of ecological–economic ideas, following Georgescu-Roegen’s contributions, immediately brought to the fore the close relationship between those thinkers who had pioneered in ecological–economic thinking and classical Marxism.

March 1, 2008
The Critique of Intelligent Design

“The Critique of Intelligent Design: Epicurus, Marx, Darwin and Freud and the Materialist Defense of Science,” [PDF], (coauthored with Brett Clark and Richard York, Foster listed second), Theory and Society, vol. 36 (December 2007), pp. 515. DOI: 10.1007/s11186-007-9046-9.

A new version of the age-old controversy between religion and science has been launched by today’s intelligent design movement. Although ostensibly concerned simply with combating Darwinism, this new creationism seeks to drive a “wedge” into the materialist view of the world, originating with the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus and manifested in modern times by Darwin, Marx, and Freud.

December 1, 2007
Metabolism, Energy, and Entropy in Marx’s Critique of Political Economy: Beyond the Podolinsky Myth
“Metabolism, Energy, and Entropy in Marx’s Critique of Political Economy: Beyond the Podolinsky Myth,” [PDF], Theory and Society, vol. 35, no. 1 (February 2006), pp. 109-56. DOI: 10.1007/s11186-006-6781-2.

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 sophisticated to be put forth by any social theorist prior to the late twentieth century.

Translations:
- German translation in Prokla 159 (June 2010), pp. 217-40 (Part 1), (Part 2) in Prokla 160 (September 2010), pp. 417-36.
February 1, 2006
The Treadmill of Accumulation

“The Treadmill of Accumulation: Schnaiberg’s Environment and Marxian Political Economy,” [PDF], Organization and Environment, vol. 18, no. 1 (March 2005), pp. 7-18. DOI:10.1177/1086026604270442

Allan Schnaiberg’s “treadmill of production” model has formed the single most influential framework of analysis within environmental sociology in the United States. Schnaiberg’s work is often characterized as “neo-Marxist,” but its actual relation to Marxian political economy has been left obscure. The following article examines Marx’s treatment of the treadmill as the crudest historical expression of the capitalist mode of production; the roots of Schnaiberg’s analysis in Baran and Sweezy’s conception of monopoly capital and Gabriel Kolko’s conception of political capitalism; the later divergence of the treadmill theory and Marxian political economy; the disappearance of the explicit critique of capitalism in the joint work of Schnaiberg and Kenneth Alan Gould; and the reconvergence of these traditions in the current phase of environmental sociology characterized by the debate with ecological modernization. The treadmill model demonstrates that the choice between barbarism and civilization is not simply a question of the organization of the human relations within society but also a question of the organization of the human relation to the environment.

March 1, 2005
Ecological Economics and Classical Marxism

“Ecological Economics and Classical Marxism : The ”Podolinsky Business” Reconsidered,” [PDF], (coauthored with Paul Burkett, Foster listed first), Organization and Environment, vol. 17, no. 1 (March 2004), pp. 32-60. DOI: 10.1177/1086026603262091

This introduction to “Socialism and the Unity of Physical Forces” reassesses Sergei Podolinsky’s place in the history of ecological economics together with Marx and Engels’s reaction to Podolinsky’s work. The authors show that contrary to conventional wisdom, Podolinsky did not establish a plausible thermodynamic basis for the labor theory of value that could have been adopted by Marx and Engels. Moreover, Marx and Engels did not neglect nor abruptly reject Podolinsky’ s work as is commonly supposed but took it seriously enough to scrutinize it deeply in the spirit of critique. Although verifying Podolinsky’s right- ful place as a forerunner of ecological energetics, the authors’ analysis highlights the severe limitations imposed by his energy reductionism and closed-system thinking as compared to Marx and Engels’s metabolic and open-system approach.

Reprint(s):

Forthcoming reprint in Robert Ayres and Steve Keen, ed., Energy and Economic Theory (Northamption, MA: Edward Elgar, 2015.

March 1, 2004
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.

December 1, 2000
Marx’s Theory of Metabolic Rift
“Marx’s Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology” [PDF], American Journal of Sociology, vol. 105, no. 2 (September 1999), pp. 366-405. DOI: 10.1086/210315

This article addresses a paradox: on the one hand, environmental sociology, as currently developed, is closely associated with the thesis that the classical sociological tradition is devoid of systematic insights into environmental problems; on the other hand, evidence of crucial classical contributions in this area, particularly in Marx, but also in Weber, Durkheim, and others, is too abundant to be convincingly denied. The nature of this paradox, its origins, and the means of transcending it are illustrated primarily through an analysis of Marx’s theory of metabolic rift, which, it is contended, offers important classical foundations for environmental sociology.

Reprints
- R. Scott Frey, The Environment and Society: A Reader (Boston: Allyn and Bacon, 2000, 2003).
- Reprinted in Michael Redclift and Graham Woodgate, ed., New Developments in Environmental Sociology. (Aldershot, U.K., Brookfield, VT: Edward Elgar, 2005), pp. 55-94.
September 1, 1999
The Crisis of the Earth: Marx’s Theory of Ecological Sustainability as a Nature-Imposed Necessity for Human Production
“The Crisis of the Earth: Marx’s Theory of Ecological Sustainability as a Nature-Imposed Necessity for Human Production” [PDF], Organization and Environment, vol. 10, no. 3 (September 1997), pp. 280-97. DOI: 10.1177/0921810697103003

Any systematic, forward-looking ecological vision must include three elements: (a) a theory of ecological crisis and its relation to human production; (b) a concept of sustainability as a nature-imposed necessity for production; (c) a vision of the transcendence of ecological crisis that establishes sustainability as a core part of any future society. All three elements are to be found in the work of Karl Marx. Marx `s analysis of the crisis of the earth (or soil) in the mid-nineteenth century led him to a concept of sustainability that was central to his vision of communist society. Because this concept of sustainability was rooted both in a critique of capitalism and a vision of a future society, it has a richness and complexity all its own. A close examination of Marx `s concept of sustainability therefore offers important insights into the possibilities for the creation of a more sustainable social order.
Reprints:
- Chapter 6 in Craig H. Humphrey, Tammy L. Lewis, and Frederick H. Buttel, ed., Environment, Energy, and Society: Exemplary Works (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2003), pp. 120-36.
September 1, 1997