John Bellamy Foster

Tag: Capitalism Nature Socialism

Capitalism, Nature, Socialism (Journal)

  • Hesitations Before Ecology: David Harvey’s Dilemma

    “Hesitations Before Ecology: David Harvey’s Dilemma,” [PDF], Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, vol. 9, no. 3 (1998), pp. 55-59. (Review essay on David Harvey’s, Nature, Justice, and the Geography of Difference.) DOI: 10.1080/10455759809358816

    Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference is an ambitious work that considers everything from dialectics to globalization. It is a difficult book to assess because over the course of much if not most of the work Harvey deliberately avoids the closures – not just in concepts but in arguments and synthetic vision as well – that characterize most analytical work, almost as if he wants to preserve the kind of unresolved social, historical and ecological tensions that he so admires in Raymond William’s novels.

  • Sustainable Development of What?

    “Sustainable Development of What?” [PDF], Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, vol. 7, no. 3 (September 1996), pp. 129-32.

    The 1992 Earth Summit in Rio marked a turning point in world history. Faced with the reality of a planetary ecological crisis, all the countries of the world joined in declaring their support for “sustainable development” — or the goal of striking a balance between present development and the potential for future development, the latter requiring some degree of protection of the earth’s resources.

    Translation:

  • Market Fetishism and the Attack on Social Reason

    “Market Fetishism and the Attack on Social Reason: A Comment on Hayek, Polanyi and Wainwright,” [PDF], Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, vol. 6, no. 4 (December 1995), pp. 101-107. DOI:10.1080/10455759509358654

    In an age when the rationalist tradition of the Enlightenment is under attack, it is perhaps worth recalling that the arch-conservative economist, Friedrich Hayek, the leading intellectual figure of the free market right, made one of the sharpest attacks ever to be directed at the idea that reason can play a useful role in shaping human affairs. In The Fatal Conceit: The Errors of Socialism, Hayek writes:

    The basic point of my argument — that morals, including, especially, our institutions of property, freedom, and justice, are not a creation of man’s reason but a distinct second endowment conferred on him by cultural evolution — runs counter to the main intellectual outlook of the twentieth century. The influence of rationalism has indeed been so profound and pervasive that, in general, the more intelligent an educated person is, the more likely he or she now is not only to be a rationalist, but also to hold socialist views (regardless

    of whether he or she is sufficiently doctrinal to attach to his or her views any label, including ‘socialist’). The higher we climb up the ladder of intelligence, the more we talk with intellectuals, the more likely we are to encounter socialist convictions. Rationalists tend to be intelligent and intellectual; and intelligent intellectuals tend to be socialists….One’s initial surprise at finding that intelligent people tend to be socialists diminishes when one realizes that, of course, intelligent people will tend to overvalue intelligence, and to suppose that we

    must owe all the advantages and opportunities that our civilization offers to deliberate design rather than to following traditional rules, and likewise to suppose that we can, by exercising our reason, eliminate all remaining undesired features by still more intelligent reflection, and still more appropriate design and “rational coordination” of our undertakings. This leads one to be favorably disposed to the central economic planning and control that lie at the heart of socialism.

  • The Limits of Environmentalism Without Class: Lessons from the Ancient Forest Crisis of the Pacific Northwest

    “The Limits of Environmentalism Without Class: Lessons from the Ancient Forest Crisis of the Pacific Northwest,” [PDF], Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, vol. 4, no. 1 (March 1993), pp. 11-41. DOI: 10.1080/10455759309358529.

    Many prominent environmentalists today have adopted a political stance that sets them and the movement that they profess to represent above and beyond the class struggle. For example, Jonathon Porritt, the British Green leader, has declared that the rise of the German Greens marks the demise of “the redundant polemic of class warfare and the mythical immutability of a left/right divide.” According to this outlook, both the working class and capitalist class are to blame for the global environmental crisis (insofar as it can be traced to capitalist rather than socialist modes of production), while the Greens represent a “new paradigm” derived from nature’s own values, one that transcends the historic class problem. By removing themselves in this way from the classic social debate, these Green thinkers implicitly em race the dominant “we have seen the enemy, and it is us” view that traces most environmental problems to the buying habits of consumers, the number of babies born, and the characteristics of industrialization, as if there were no class or other divisions in society.

    Reprints
    • Published in 1993 as a pamphlet issued jointly by Monthly Review Press and the Center for Ecological Socialism.
    • Expanded and updated version published in Daniel Faber, ed. The Movement for Environmental Justice in the United States (New York: Guilford Press, 1998), pp. 188-217.
    Translations
    • Italian translation of original, “I Limiti Dellámbientalismo Senza Classi. Un Esempio Che Viene Dalle Foreste,” Capitalismo, Natura, Socialismo, no. 9 (October 1993) pp. 32-53.

  • The Absolute General Law of Environmental Degradation Under Capitalism

    “The Absolute General Law of Environmental Degradation Under Capitalism,” [PDF] Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, vol. 3, no. 3 (September 1992), pp. 77-82. DOI:10.1080/10455759209358504

    James O’Connor has asked us to consider the relationship between what he has termed the “first and second contradictions” of capitalism. I would like to refer to the first contradiction, following Marx, as ‘the absolute cereal law of capitalist accumulation.” The second contradiction may then be designated as “the absolute general law of environmental degradation under capitalism.” It is characteristic of capitalism that the second of these “absolute general laws” derives its momentum from the first; hence it is impossible to overthrow the second without overthrowing the first. Nevertheless, it is the second contradiction rather than the first that increasingly constitutes the most obvious threat not only to capitalism existence but to the life of the planet as a whole.

    Translations:
    • Translated and published in Spanish as “La Ley General Absoluta de la Degradacion Ambiental en el Capitalismo,” Ecología Politica (September 1992), pp. 167-73.
    • Spanish translation later reprinted in Economía Politica, no. 11, Jan.-Feb. 1997.
    • Translated and published in Italian as “La Legge Assoluta, Generale del Degrado Ambientale nel Capitalismo,” Capitalismo, Natura, Socialismo, no. 6 (November 1992).