The present investigation derives much of its significance, with respect to
the reinterpretation of Marx, from the light that it throws on various
natural anomalies, hitherto unexplained, in Marx’s intellectual
development: Why did Marx write his doctoral thesis on the ancient
atomists? What were the roots of his materialist critique of Hegel (given
the superficial nature of Feuerbachian materialism and the philosophical
inadequacies of political economy)? What was Marx’s relationship to the
Enlightenment? How does one explain the fact that in The Holy Family Marx
expressed great esteem for the work of Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke? Why did
Marx engage in the systematic study of natural and physical science
throughout his life? What lay behind Marx’s complex, continuing critique of
Malthusian theory? How do we explain the sudden shift, from friend to foe,
in Marx’s attitude toward Proudhon? Why did Marx declare that Liebig was
more important than all of the political economists put together for an
understanding of the development of capitalist agriculture? What
explanation are we to give for Marx’s statement that Darwin’s theory of
natural selection provided "the basis in natural history for our view"? Why
did Marx devote his last years principally to ethnological studies, rather
than completing Capital? Answers to these and other vexing questions that
have long puzzled analysts of Marx’s vast corpus are provided here, and
strongly reinforce the view that Marx’s work cannot be fully comprehended
without an understanding of his materialist conception of nature, and its
relation to the materialist conception of history. Marx’s social thought,
in other words, is inextricably bound to an ecological world-view.
(Concluding paragraph in the introduction to John Bellamy Foster's "Marx's
Ecology: Materialism and Nature")
Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/
