Capitalism in the Anthropocene: Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution

by John Bellamy Foster

Over the last 11,700 years, during which human civilization developed, the earth has existed within what geologists refer to as the Holocene Epoch. Now science is telling us that the Holocene Epoch in the geological time scale ended, replaced by the onset of a new, more dangerous Anthropocene Epoch, which began around 1950. The Anthropocene Epoch is characterized by an “anthropogenic rift” in the biological cycles of the Earth System, marking a changed reality in which human activities are now the main geological force impacting the earth as a whole, generating at the same time an existential crisis for the world’s population.
What caused this massive shift in the history of the earth? In this comprehensive study, John Bellamy Foster tells us that a globalized system of capital accumulation has induced humanity to foul its own nest. The result is a planetary emergency that threatens all present and future generations, throwing into question the continuation of civilization and ultimately the very survival of humanity itself. Only by addressing the social aspects of the current planetary emergency, exploring the theoretical, historical, and practical dimensions of the capitalism’s alteration of the planetary environment, is it possible to develop the ecological and social resources for a new journey of hope.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics, Environment, Politics, Ecology, Sociology

576 pages, Paperback

Published August 23, 2022

About the author

John Bellamy Foster is a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon, editor of Monthly Review and author of several books on the subject of political economy of capitalism, economic crisis, ecology and ecological crisis, and Marxist theory.

Reviews

[Rhys · Rating 5 out of 5]

A group of essays well crafted into a cohesive and interesting narrative of what could be called eco-socialism and the emergence of the environmental proletariat:

Twenty-first-century revolutionary praxis necessarily operates within a wider field combining the struggles for socialism and ecology. It represents a new materiality of hope, rooted in the movements of hundreds of millions, potentially billions, of people, seeking to transcend the oppressions of class, race, gender, environmental injustice, and imperialism emanating from the empire of capital. These struggles necessarily entail new revolutionary vernaculars arising in specific historical and cultural contexts, embodying environmental as well as economic realities. In this sense, there is not a single model of proletarian revolution. Rather, today’s movements toward socialism and ecology encompass peasant and Indigenous struggles while converging in complex ways with the struggles of a still expanding industrial (and post-industrial) working class confronting a rapidly changing environment engendered by capital’s creative destruction.

In all such instances, it is the combined materiality of the economy and the environment that now determines the terrain of resistance and revolt. Struggles that begin from an ecological basis, the most inclusive expressions of the material conditions shaping people’s lives, are as vital as economic struggles, and as crucial in the end in defining the class structure of society. Genuine revolutionary movements necessarily combine the two, shaping the nature and culture of social agency in our time. Today the catastrophes unleased by capitalism embrace not only the economy but the entire environment of the planet, leading to the emergence everywhere of what can be called an environmental proletariat" (p.527).

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Anthropocene is quite a long time, and most of its time it's badly documented about who ruled what, and how were they dressing. Now, meteorology, ecology, after all, these are easy once you have a preaching license from the State.