Tag: Theory and Society

“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.