Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective

by Na Na

There may still be disagreement about the threat to human survival posed by society?s environmental impacts, but no one can doubt that individual eco-systems and the global biosphere are both increasingly shaped by human production and consumption. This book shows that Marx?s treatment of natural conditions possesses an inner logic, coherence, and analytical power which has not been previously recognized. The power of Marx?s approach stems from his consistent treatment of human production in terms of the mutual constitution of its social form and material content. While recognizing that production is structured by historically developed relations among producers, Marx also insists that production as a social and material process is shaped and constrained by natural conditions, including the natural condition of human bodily existence. Paul Burkett shows that it is Marx?s overriding concern with human emancipation that impels him to approach nature from the standpoint of materialist history, sociology, and critical political economy.

Genres: Ecology, Environment, Economics, Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory

322 pages, Hardcover

First published February 15, 1999

Reviews

[Evelyn R · Rating 3 out of 5]

A perfect book to finish on Xmas Day, considering it's both Red and Green.

1. The book is Marxology, that is, a book interpreting and defending Marx (and Engels).
2. Burkett mostly succeeds in showing there is nothing necessarily anti-ecological about Marx's conception of communism. Associations of free producers operating production according to use value rather than abstract exchange value––intrinsic worth and need rather than profit––can be better common, social administrators of resources than weird capitalist beings that feast and grow infinitely.
3. The author does not, however, establish that Marx did not exhibit certain anti-ecological tendencies in parts of his work. Nor does he establish that Marx's communism is the most effective or powerful ecological/political theory, and in defending it against criticism, demonstrates that there are many valid and live problems with Marx's ideas for those who want to uphold Green politics.
4. Read this book if you are specifically interested in dialogue about Marx & Engels themselves and not a full treatment of Marxism's history of ecological or anti-ecological theory and activity.

[Martin Empson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marx and Nature is a challenging, but very important book for all those concerned with developing and acting on the ecological insights in Marxist theory. Its republication is long over-due, but should offer new readers the opportunity to grapple with Paul Burkett's analysis, and build on the ideas here. It has a new foreword by John Bellamy Foster which locates the book in the wider debates that have arisen among Marxist thinkers since its publication.

In Marx and Nature Paul Burkett takes up a number of arguments that are made regarding Marx's ecological thinking. A common criticism, that Marxism is "Promethean" in its vision of the development of the forces of production is challenged very effectively here. Burkett notes though, it is not just anti-Marxists who make this criticism, but it also occurs from among Marxists too. Burkett quotes Michael Lowy for instance, suggesting that

"There is a tendency in Marx... to consider the development of the forces of production as the principal vector of progress, to adopt a fairly uncritical attitude toward industrial civilisation, particularly its destructive relationship to nature."

Burkett effectively challenges this view through the book. He does this by returning to the very core of Marx's ideas, and showing how, at almost every stage of Marx's intellectual development, the question of human relationships to nature is key.

Full review: http://resolutereader.blogspot.co.uk/...

[Ollie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book years ago and remember struggling with it immensely. When I finished reading it I didn't know how to go about writing a review, put it off, and now its been years. I left my read copy in plain sight to remind myself of it and I gotta say, it doesn't conjure up happy thoughts. Looking through it, I can see all the underlining I did to really try and understand what Paul Burkett was trying to get at. Even so I can't really tell you what the book was about.

The main problem with Max and Nature is that it's written in such an academic way that the layman will have a hard time understanding it. One of the advices I got early on in my graduate career was to write and speak so that the fewest amount of people in the room will understand you. Burkett seems to have gotten the same advice and taken it to heart.

The sentences and themes in Marx and Nature are written in long, wordy, jargonny, convoluted, and what seems at times purposefully confusing sentences like Burkett is daring his audience to understand what he's getting at. If you don't believe me, I'll let one of these gems do the talking for me:

"Hence, even allowing for the "less industrial" character of advances capitalist societies, it is crucial to not throw out the baby of control over production conditions with the bathwater of the one-sidedly industrialist vision of revolution."

I underlined this sentence and wrote "Wow!" in the margins.

What a sad sack of a sentence. But now my review is written. I can forget about this book and finally be at peace.

[Γιώργος Πισίνας · Rating 5 out of 5]

Εξαιρετικό βιβλίο το οποίο όπως λέει και ο ίδιος ο συγγραφέας έχει μαρξολογικο χαρακτήρα.
Σίγουρα του αξίζει το ότι θεωρείται κλασικό στον χώρο της μαρξιστικής οικολογίας. Νομίζω πως είναι απαραίτητο ανάγνωσμα οποιοδήποτε λίγο περισσότερο ασχολείται με μαρξιστική πολιτική οικονομία.

Αγαπημένο στοιχείο, το ότι σπάει πλήρως μια προβληματική αντιμετώπιση στον μαρξισμό ως μιας οικονομικής θεωρίας που περιορίζεται στη ανάλυση των ταξικών διακρίσεων. Πέραν των όποιων αλλων διαφόρων απαντήσεων που δίνει σε διάφορες προβληματικές αναγνώσεις του Μαρξ.

[Shovan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book ever written on the question of marxism and the environment - I challenge you to disagree. Everyone should read this book. It comprehensively breaks down the marxist approach to nature theoretically. Unlike the other books on the question I've read which I've found a bit lacking, this does what it sets out to do without any fluff but just a great application of the marxist method on questions that are increasingly relevant today. 10/10

[Roberto Yoed · Rating 2 out of 5]

While it is a good book, it is a 100 pages long: the same argument is repeated over and over.

Also, it doesn't go in depth on the philosophical analysis of Marx (something Bellamy Foster will do a year later in his 'Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature').

I'd recommend this as an introduction on how marxism and ecology are related (but tread with caution: the author takes his time but in the end is anti-soviet).

[Mikael Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

En utmärkt och riggorös undersökning av kompatibiliteten, ja rentav nödvändigheten av en ekologisk analys av kapitalismen. Enda man kan klaga på är den substantialistiska värdeteori, det ständiga inskjutande av demokrati samt en arbetaristisk tendens. Men trots dessa brister vill jag säga att det är denna bok är ett måste för varje seriöst ekologiskt intresserade och engagerade person.

[Fabian Slaats · Rating 4 out of 5]

Soms te moeilijk, anders een 5