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Dr. W wrote:
> http://climateandcapitalism.com/2016/06/06/in-defense-of-ecological-marxism-john-bellamy-foster-responds-to-a-critic/
Back in 2007, I reviewed one of Foster's earlier books, "Marxism and
Ecology: Materialism and Nature" (2000). The review can be found at
http://www.communistvoice.org/40cMarx.html. It shows the relevance of Marxism
to fighting the current environmental crisis, but it also shows the flaws in
Foster's work. (Not that Jason Moore is any better.) Foster is fond of fancy
philosophical phrases like "metabolic rift", but obscures crucial issues
brought to the fore by the environmental crisis . The subjects covered in the
review:
* The writings of Marx and Engels
* Alongside and after Marx and Engels
* Lenin and the early Soviet Union
* Stalinist and state capitalist ecocide
* Marxism and global warming
* --Not market methods, but direct regulation of production
* --Class basis of environmental destruction
* --The nature of state regulation
* --Bringing the masses into the environmental struggle
* Foster's Marxism without teeth
>From the last paragraph of the review:
"... Foster's book is harmed by the lack of the very materialism he preaches
about: it is an idealist, and even elitist, history of materialism, a
doctrine which can only really thrive when it becomes a force among the
masses.Nevertheless, his book does show that Marx and Engels were concerned
with environmental issues. ... [and] he does end up giving a certain
panorama of the views and polemics of a number of people of historical
interest. ... But what he doesn't do, despite the title of his book, is
give a picture of what Marxism really means for ecology. Foster would drown
Marxism, a revolutionary doctrine with many sharp edges, in a sea of bland,
philosophical generalities. So to actually see what Marxism says to do about
the environment today, one has to go elsewhere. "
-- Joseph Green
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