In a message dated 4/25/2001 4:05:44 AM Central Daylight Time,
yengestr@ucsd.edu writes:
> 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
>
Forgive me for stating the obvious but, Marx is dead, yet we are now being
told what it was he really thought about nature and man's use thereof. Marx
may have been the catalyst for other great thinkers to expound upon nature as
a resource but nature was a minimal part of Marx's theory. Marx was
concerned with who controlled resources and how that controlled a person's
role in life. I do not have the depth of understanding of Marx as neither
Paul nor Phil and yes Gary that would mean I do not know Che, which places me
in the unique position of playing this particular piano. Both Paul and Phil
are correct, that is the dialectic. Within the belief that nature is a
resource is the belief that it is Nature's storehouse (God's gift to humans)
as well as an extension of humans (mother earth). To take either one side or
the other is understandable, Marx's brilliance is evident in the fact that
150 years after he wrote the words it can still be argued that he meant one
side of this dialectic or the other.
What do you think?
Eric
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