“Nature,” wrote Raymond Williams in Keywords, “is perhaps the most complex word in the language.” It is derived from the Latin natura, as exemplified by Lucretius’s great didactic poem De rerum natura (On the Nature of Things) from the first century BCE. The word “nature” has three primary, interrelated meanings: (1) the intrinsic properties or […]
Marx’s Theory of Working-Class Precariousness
By John Bellamy Foster on April 1, 2016 in Articles, Journal Articles (Refereed), Other Major Scholarly Journal Articles
Worker Precariousness has become a major issue globally. Much of this, however, is divorced from the central role that this concept played in Marx’s critique of political economy. This article traces the notion of precarious labor back to its classical roots in historical materialism, including Marx’s general law of accumulation and his reserve army of […]
Is Democratic Socialism the American Dream?
National income can be likened to a pie. If between one year and the next the pie gets bigger, everyone can have a bigger slice. But if, instead, the size of the pie stays the same, a bigger slice for some can only mean a smaller slice for others.… This helps us understand the present […]
The Opt Out Revolt
In the United States today, the age of monopoly-finance capital and neoliberal politics, all aspects of social life are being financialized at breakneck speed, while the economy as a whole and employment remain lackluster. Financial flows of whatever kind are converted into “securitized” assets to be leveraged by Wall Street speculators. The data of private […]
Ecology
“Ecology,” in Marcello Musto, ed., The Marx Revival (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 20.
Marx and the Earth: An Anti-Critique
A decade and a half ago John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett introduced a new, revolutionary understanding of the ecological foundations of Marx’s thought, demonstrating that Marx’s concepts of the universal metabolism of nature, social metabolism, and metabolic rift prefigured much of modern systems ecology. Ecological relations were shown to be central to Marx’s critique […]
Marxism and Ecology
By John Bellamy Foster on December 1, 2015 in Articles, Other Major Scholarly Journal Articles, Translated
To link Marxism and ecological transition may seem at first like trying to bridge two entirely different movements and discourses, each with its own history and logic: one having mainly to do with class relations, the other with the relation between humans and the environment. However, historically socialism has influenced the development of ecological thought […]
The Great Capitalist Climacteric
Humanity today is confronted with what might be called the Great Capitalist Climacteric. In the standard definition, a climacteric (from the Greek klimaktēr or rung on the ladder) is a period of critical transition or a turning point in the life of an individual or a whole society. From a social standpoint, it raises issues […]
Afterword: The Making of Scandinavian Ecosocialism
“Afterword: The Making of Scandinavian Ecosocialism,”[PDF] in The Politics of Ecosocialism, ed. Kajsa Borgnäs, Teppo Eskelinen, Johanna Perkiö, and Rikard Warlenius (London: Routledge, 2015), 195-203.
The New Imperialism of Globalized Monopoly-Finance Capital
It is now a universal belief on the left that the world has entered a new imperialist phase.… The challenge for Marxian theories of the imperialist world system in our times is to capture the full depth and breadth of the classical accounts, while also addressing the historical specificity of the current global economy. It […]
