John Bellamy Foster

Tag: Organization and Environment

  • 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.

  • 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.

  • The Environmental Conditions of the Working Class: An Introduction to Selections from Fredrick Engles’ The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844

    “The Environmental Conditions of the Working Class: An Introduction to Selections from Frederick Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844,” (coauthored with Brett Clark, Clark listed first), Organization & Environment, vol. 19, no. 3 (September 2006), pp. 375-88. DOI: 10.1177/1086026606292483

    Both urban sociology in general and urban environmental justice studies began with Frederick Engels’s seminal work “The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844“. Engels provided a walking tour of the environmental conditions in the manufacturing establishments and slums of the factory towns of England, together with a similar view of London. He addressed conditions of widespread pollution and helped lay the grounds for the development of social epidemiology. He connected this to his “Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy” that influenced his even more famous collaborator Karl Marx. For Engels, “The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844″ was to be the first of a series of connected analyses of ecology that stretched through more than half a century and included “The Housing Question” and “Dialectics of Nature,” making him one of the most important but underappreciated contributors to the development of environmental thought.

  • 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.

  • 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.

     

  • 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.

  • Robbing the Earth of its Capital Stock

    “Robbing the Earth of its Capital Stock: An Introduction to George E. Waring’s ‘Agricultural Features of the Census of the United States for 1850,’” [PDF], Organization and Environment, vol. 12, no. 3 (September 1999), pp. 293-97. DOI: 10.1177/1086026699123004

    In his influential Letters to the President on the Foreign and Domestic Policy of the United States, U.S. economist Henry Carey (1858) quoted at length from a talk by an “eminent agriculturist” who had provided rough calculations for the whole United States of the loss of soil nutrients resulting from the failure to recycle organic matter. In that statement, as quoted by Carey, the dire, long- term ecological consequences of the shipment of food and fiber in a one-way movement from country to town were raised:

    What with our earth-butchery and prodigality, we are each year losing the intrinsic essence of our vitality. . . . The question of the economy should be, not how much do we annually produce, but how much of our annual production is saved to the soil. Labor employed in robbing the earth of its capital stock of fertilizing matter, is worse than labor thrown away. In the latter case, it is a loss to the present generation—in the former it becomes an inheritance of poverty for our successors. Man is but a tenant of the soil and he is guilty of a crime when he reduces its value for other tenants who are to come after him. (quoted in Carey, 1858, pp. 54-55)

  • Introduction to John Evelyn’s Fumifugium

    “Introduction to John Evelyn’s Fumifugium,” [PDF], Organization and Environment, vol. 12, no. 2 (June 1999), pp. 184-86.

    John Evelyn (1620-1706) is perhaps best known today as one of the greatest diarist of the 17th-century England. He is also remembered, however, as one the figures behind the formation of the Royal Society of London in 1662 and the greatest proponent of conservation in his age. In his Sylva, Or a Discourse of Forest-Trees and the Propagation of Timber in His Majesties Dominions (1664), the first official publication of the Royal Society (a work that went through four editions in Evelyn’s lifetime), he complained of the “prodigious havoc” wreaked on the English forests by the demands of shipping, glasswork, iron furnaces, and the like. He observed,

    This devaluation is now become so Epidemical, that unless some favorable expedient offer it self, and a way be seriously, and speedily resolv’d upon, for the future repair of this important defect, one of the most glorious, and considerable Bulwarks of this Nation, will, within a short time be totally wanting to it. (Evelyn,1664, pp. 1-2)

  • William Morris’ Letters on Epping Forest: An Introduction

    “William Morris’ Letters on Epping Forest: An Introduction,” Organization and Environment, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 1998), pp. 82-84. DOI: 10.1177/0921810698111005

    In the initial entry for this section, we are publishing “Three Letters on Epping Forest” written by William Morris (1834-1896). Morris was an English artist, master craftsperson, designer, port, socialist, and forerunner of modern ecological thought. His designs for furniture, wallpaper, fabrics, stained glass, and other decorative arts revolutionized Victorian sensibilities spawned the late nineteenth century arts and crafts movement. Hence, he earned a reputation as one of the outstanding figures of his century.

  • ‘William Morris’ Letters on Epping Forest: An Introduction

    “William Morris’ Letters on Epping Forest: An Introduction,” [PDF], Organization and Environment, vol. 11, no. 1 (March 1998), pp. 82-84. DOI: 10.1177/0921810698111005

    In the initial entry for this section, we are publishing “Three Letters on Epping Forest” written by William Morris (1834-1896). Morris was an English artist, master craftsperson, designer, poet, socialist, and forerunner of modern ecological thought. His designs for furniture, wallpaper, fabrics, stained glass, and other decorative arts revolutionized Victorian sensibilities and spawned the late nineteenth century arts and crafts movement. Hence, he earned a reputation as one of the outstanding figures of his century.