Phil's point is strongly supported by a quite impressive recent book on
Marx's relationship to ecology:
Foster, J. B. (2000). Marx's ecology: Materialism and nature. Monthly Review
Press.
Here are a couple of commentaries on the book:
"When I first saw John Bellamy Foster's new book I thought, `Oh no, not
another great, thick, fat book on Marx!' But as soon as I started to read, I
found it hard to put down. It has given me a new understanding of the
totality of Marx's materialism and his development of the dialectic of human
society and nature" -R.C. LEWONTIN, Harvard University
"John Bellamy Foster brilliantly expands our understanding of Marx's
thought, proving that Marx understood alienation to encompass human
estrangement from the natural world. Foster criticizes the current version
of environmentalism that equates Marxism and modernity with the denigration
of nature and points towards a sophisticated and less nostalgic
environmentalism which sees capitalism, not modernity, as the essential
problem to be addressed." -BARBARA EPSTEIN, University of California, Santa
Cruz
Cheers,
Yrjo Engestrom
> From: Phil Graham <phil.graham@mailbox.uq.edu.au>
> Reply-To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Date: Tue, 24 Apr 2001 02:45:02 +1000
> To: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Subject: Re: dominance "over" nature
> Resent-From: xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
> Resent-Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2001 09:47:28 -0700 (PDT)
>
> At 08:25 AM 4/23/01 -0700, Paul Dillon wrote:
>> One of the fundamentally valid (IMHO) criticisms of dialectical materialism
>> and what Marx himself wrote is that he and his followers adopted a position
>> that viewed the natural world ("nature's storehouse") as a raw material for
>> human use but did not understand human specific, historical existence within
>> nature in any systematically ecological way.
>
> That is an *entirely false* statement about Marx's position on the relation
> between nature, ecology, and humanity. Read _Philosophical and Economic
> Manuscripts_ for the most comprehensive account thereof --- the whole
> thing. He saw people as a force of nature, a part of nature, wholly within
> nature. Also, equating Marx with "his followers" is utterly fallacious at
> so many levels as to be absurd. Would you count Stalin in there? Me?
> Trotsky? Ernest Mandel? Who is this group -- "his followers" -- with this
> singular perception of "nature's storehouse"?
>
> Phil
>
>
>
>
>
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