John Bellamy Foster

Tag: International Critical Thought

  • The Earth-System Emergency and Ecological Civilization: A Marxian View

    “The Earth-System Emergency and Ecological Civilization: A Marxian View”, International Critical Thought (2017), vol. 7, no. 4:439–458. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/21598282.2017.1357483. [PDF]

    The Holocene epoch in geological history of the last 10,000–12,000 years has given way to a new geological epoch which natural scientists are calling the Anthropocene, marked by humanity’s emergence as the main driver of change in the Earth system as a whole, threatening the future of civilization, a majority of ecosystems on the planet, and the human species itself. From a historical-materialist perspective, this planetary emergency constitutes a crisis of civilization. Human civilization arose in the relatively benign environment of the Holocene. In contrast, the Anthropocene is an epoch of increased ecological constraints and dangers, marked by what has been called the Great climacteric, objectively requiring the creation of a new more sustainable society, or ecological civilization. The making of such an ecological civilization is closely linked to the long revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism.

  • Marxism in the Anthropocene: Dialectical Rifts on the Left

    “Marxism in the Anthropocene: Dialectical Rifts on the Left,” International Critical Thought vol.6, no. 3 (2016): 393-421. DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2016.1197787. [PDF]

    Natural scientists have pointed to the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch, with the precise dating not yet decided, but often traced to the Great Acceleration of the human impact on the environment since 1945. Thus understood, the Anthropocene largely coincides with the rise of the modern environmental movement and corresponds to the age of planetary crisis. This paper looks at the evolution of Marxian and left contributions to environmental thought during this period. Although Marx’s ecological materialism is now widely recognized, with the rediscovery of his theory of metabolic rift, the debate has recently shifted to ecological dialectics, including dualism, monism, totality, and mediation, generating a conflict between ecological Marxism and radical ecological monism. It is argued here that only an ecological Marxism, rooted in a materialist dialectic of nature and society, is able to engage effectively with the Great Climacteric that increasingly governs our times.