>Date: Sat, 18 Nov 2000 09:39:40 -0800 (PST)
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>From: John Bellamy Foster <jfoster@OREGON.UOREGON.EDU>
>Subject: final responses
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>To: psn-seminars@csf.colorado.edu
>Sender: psn-seminars-owner@csf.colorado.edu
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>
>[...]
>
>Jason writes that, "The trick, Foster argues, is to integrate dialectically
>the category of metabolism into Marx's critique of capital(ism). But this
>maneuver can be executed only (that is, only in a dialectical manner) by
>returning to the development of Marx's materialism. To do otherwise is to
>decompose Marx's thinking into a set of concepts which can be mobilized to
>suit particular political and intellectual pursuits rather than to renew
>Marx's materialism from the point of view of totality (to borrow a phrase
>for Lukacs). I think, perhaps, this is one way to consider John Mage's
>question regarding the significance of 'materialism' as a 'dividing line.'"
>I've quoted this because Jason has captured the logic underlying the form of
>inquiry undertaken in MARX'S ECOLOGY perfectly here. I would only add that
>it is not just metabolism (and the idea of sustainability to which it is
>connected) that needs to be integrated, but also the concept of coevolution.
>
>I also agree with Jason that the concept of metabolic rift provides a basis
>for understanding the historical conditions that have led to successive
>agricultural crises in the history of capitalism. MARX'S ECOLOGY only deals
>with one of these periods--the crisis of the soil in the mid-nineteenth
>century associated with the second agricultural revolution. But THE
>VULNERABLE PLANET refers to a longer historical problem in this respect.
>Jason is certainly right that this is a key to the rise of the world system,
>and his piece "The Metabolic Rift in World-Historical Perspective" in the
>June 2000 issue of ORGANIZATION & ENVIRONMENT should be looked at by all who
>are concerned with this problem.
>
>Anthony emphasizes the importance of dialectical materialism and says that
>MARX'S ECOLOGY is only a beginning and that much more is needed to counter
>"deep ecological ahistoricism, essentialism and romanticism. For example, a
>dialectical materialist history of nature/society admits analysis of the
>role of capital, colonialism, gender and ethnicity in creating 'regimes of
>nature' (Arturo Escobar's phrase). Within the environment movement the
>question for the future will change from 'how can we protect nature,' in
>which anti-humanist 'wilderness' functions as the apical expression of
>nature, 'to what sort of nature shall we have? Rephrasing the question as
>'whose nature shall we have?' exposes the issue of shaping, creating and
>protecting nature to democratic struggle….A dialectical materialist
>treatment of nature enhances the left's ability to treat nature as an arena
>of political struggle and opens up 'nature' to democratic contestation.
>Capitalist nature, noteworthy only for its aesthetic poverty and its
>ecological irrationality, may indeed be replaced by a people's nature." I
>think these are brilliant comments and point toward a more coherent and
>effective radical political ecology.
>
>Anthony also says that "an emphasis on the human metabolism with nature may
>obscure what differentiates humanity from nature." This is an interesting
>point. My own view is that the concept of metabolism, which helps us
>understand physical flows and interactions, is not enough. We also need a
>concept of coevolution, which helps us to explore the human making of its
>relationship with nature in a complex, dialectical process.
>
>Tom Mayer says that whenever dialectic is mentioned in the analysis that
>everything descends into mysticism, fluff and empty platitudes disguised as
>profundity. He says that my attempt to define dialectic was a failure.
>Since Tom is an analytical Marxist, and sees dialectic as the chief obstacle
>to the development of a serious Marxist approach to materialism and science
>I expected nothing else (nothing more nor less) from him in this respect.
>Since one participant in the seminar asked for a definition of dialectic
>(which of course is not the sort of thing that is easily defined since it is
>a complex method) I tried my best to accommodate for the purposes of the
>seminar, not by providing a full definition, but by giving a set of keys
>that would allow some introductory understanding, and provide a foundation
>for further inquiry (much as I do with my students). The three keys that I
>provided were: that truth is a whole but can only be understood through its
>becoming (which establishes the necessity of historical forms of thinking),
>the proposition that all categories of thought and being are relations (and
>the notion of internal relations), and finally the concept of contradiction.
>This is not a full definition of dialectic, as I have said. But anyone who
>incorporated these intellectual keys to a dialectical method into his/her
>analysis would be in a position to develop more penetrating and more
>all-encompassing social (and indeed scientific) insights. On the
>application of dialectic to science and its importance in countering
>reductionism I would recommend Richard Levins and Richard Lewontin, THE
>DIALECTICAL BIOLOGIST.
>
>I am sure that none of this will satisfy Tom. He is committed to other
>methods--say of analytical philosophy. I have yet to see results with
>analytical Marxism, however, that come anywhere near that of dialectical
>Marxism. Indeed, what strikes me about analytical Marxism is that it falls
>so easily into such old traps as methodological individualism and
>technological determinism. Moreover, even at its best--one example I gave
>is Johnathan Hughes' ECOLOGY AND HISTORICAL MATERIALISM--there seems to be a
>paucity of content, resulting from an aversion to historical forms of
>reasoning. But it has to be said again that analytical Marxists, unlike
>most "Western Marxists" (following Perry Anderson's designation) are
>distinguished by their insistence on materialism. Tom is exemplary in that
>respect. And since MARX'S ECOLOGY was more about materialism than the
>dialectic, this explains, I think, Tom's own interest in the book. So it is
>exciting to have him participating in this discussion. Looking at this all
>ironically I might say that Tom would have us take two steps forward with
>respect to materialism, and one step back with respect to the dialectic.
>
>I found it peculiar that Tom (who sees this related to my fuzzy dialectical
>thinking) said that I attributed racism to the development of evolution. In
>the arguments that arose in the seminar I contended that evolutionary
>theory, when it developed under Darwin, was mostly a force against racism.
>Darwin's science, I claimed, was mostly free from racism. And that Darwin
>was mostly anti-racist in his political stances: he protested against both
>slavery and lynching. Malthus, who rejected evolutionary theory (something
>that Darwin didn't understand about Malthus but Marx did) was also free in
>his extant writings, I argued, from any explicit racism--though he evidenced
>universal hatred toward the poor, justifying their misery and the shortness
>of their lives, and even proposing to take action to make these conditions
>worse (an argument that proved easily compatible with racism). Logically, I
>made no necessary connection between evolutionary (or non-evolutionary)
>thought and racism. Nor do I think I said that dialectics is proof against
>racism. For one thing Hegel was very dialectical, yet extremely racist in
>his PHILOSOPHY OF HISTORY (where he was influenced by Marx's teacher
>Ritter). Racism, as Tom says, has to be explained by social and cultural
>causes. I agree and if I were to write an account explaining the sources of
>racism I would adopt this approach. I would disagree, however, with Tom's
>statement that "Compelling evidence against scientific racism, such as the
>genetic unity of the human species, only became possible in more recent
>times." There was already plenty of historical evidence, in the history of
>civilization, as Bukharin noted, to refute scientific racism. I do believe
>that dialectical thinking (Bukharin in this case being an example) was a
>protection against the reductionist fallacies that scientific racism
>generated. One can see this in reading Gould's brilliant work THE
>MISMEASURE OF MAN. At every step of the way, scientific racists, in order
>to attempt to "prove" what could never be proven because it defied any
>comprehensive logical and empirical analysis, were forced into reductionism
>and reification. The dialectic IS a methodological protection against this,
>though not foolproof-witness Hegel. Though here one might be tempted to
>blame idealism.
>
>What I think Tom may have in mind, in his criticisms of me in this respect,
>is that I questioned Gould's claim that Wallace was simply a cultural and
>not a biological racist, by pointing to the fact that Wallace in his famous
>paper on human evolution had argued that the brains of whites (due to his
>theory of gene-culture coevolution) had developed beyond that of other
>races, while the body had remained the same for both. (It seems here that
>Wallace was contradicting the correlation of growth hypothesis.) He then
>used this biological racist argument to justify exterminism. Thus racism
>infected his science, as spiritualism did later on. But in arguing that
>Wallace was a biological racist, I was not saying that his racism arose out
>of his evolutionary theory. Rather it has to be explained socially,
>culturally and psychologically. Moreover, I would argue that evolutionary
>theory is not easily applied to this end--that is, only through reductionism
>(such as breaking with the correlation of growth) and ultimately
>spiritualism--that is, by breaking the dialectic--was he able to construct
>such an argument. It was then a reflection of the alienated bourgeois,
>white consciousness. Dialectic allows us to understand such splitting off.
>
>I was very tickled by Tom's reference to Baran and Sweezy and the tendency
>for surplus to rise. But then I think of that too as a dialectical
>proposition. What made Paul Sweezy's writing so great was not a rejection
>of dialectic (far from it) but a commitment to clarity (there is no
>contradiction here to my mind." By the way the quote at the beginning of
>MONOPOLY CAPITAL is "the truth is the whole."
>
>I agree entirely with Howard Sherman that "Dialectics is a useful
>methodological approach that tells one to ask questions based on relations
>and historical perspective." He adds that "I have always been skeptical
>about the Dialectics of nature because it sounds like there are universal
>laws of nature in all time and space. I believe however that Foster has a
>reasonably appropriate methodological approach to ecology, which is not
>meant to be a set of universal laws." Howard's skepticism is a skepticism
>that I have shared. Certainly, the dialectic was sometimes explained as a
>set of universal laws. One might argue then, as Howard does, that the
>dialectic has only epistemological significance. This is what I have called
>"weak dialectics" in MARX'S ECOLOGY. But, as Howard knows, there is also a
>suggestion there that a "strong dialectics" can be supported, and indeed is
>a crucial aspect of critical realism. This is the significance of
>understanding dialectic in terms of emergence (I can't go into this here,
>but those with untold amounts of intellectual stamina could turn to
>Bhaskar's DIALECTIC, THE PULSE OF FREEDOM). In a world where relations and
>process are everything, where the material, and the object of our senses is
>always in flux, in emergence, where being is becoming, a dialectical
>epistemology is forced upon us by our ontological condition, as beings in
>this world (also in a process of becoming). It is reductionism (in all its
>varieties), I believe, that represents the development of a one-sided,
>crippled, alienated human epistemology--an anti-human way of thinking. In
>other words, dialectic is not simply a useful method or epistemology. It is
>a necessity of our praxis; a way of being in touch with a reality always in
>flux. It is not properly understood as prone to universal laws, because it
>understands the universe as emergence.
>
>I would like to thank both Howard and Louis for sending in their reviews of
>MARX'S ECOLOGY. Neither review is published and Louis thinks him might not
>be. I know of another review of the book that has been rejected by one
>publication (on the grounds that it was too favorable to the book). I like
>to think that the reason that these reviews are encountering such resistance
>is because MARX'S ECOLOGY challenges the canon of "Western Marxism" as it
>has developed since the 1920s; that is, because of its emphasis on
>materialism, and its emphasis on Epicurus (and thus criticism of the
>tendency to see Hegel alone as the key to Marx's early development).
>Obviously, under these circumstances, there will be some Marxists that will
>reject the book out of hand. At any rate, both Louis and Howard wrote
>reviews that bring out much of what I think is most important in the
>book--and of course in much more succinct fashion than the book itself.
>While Howard focuses on the Marx-Darwin relation, Louis pays particular
>attention to Marx's relation to Epicurus and Morgan, and the ecological
>contributions of Bukharin and Luxemburg.
>
>Jose has a lot of interesting things to say. I was naturally interested in
>his criticisms of the heavy use of endnotes in MARX'S ECOLOGY. He says this
>interferes with his reading, though it is hard for me to understand why
>since endnotes are easily ignored. I am not a big worshiper of
>footnotes/endnotes. At MONTHLY REVIEW we try to do war on both. But in
>this case an established canon is being challenged, and radical
>reinterpretations of Marx are being offered (such as the influence of
>Epicurus on his thought). If you are going to challenge a canon (a word
>incidentally that we have derived mainly from Epicurus) you have to
>substantiate your arguments. This is the nature of MARX'S ECOLOGY. If the
>reader is not interested in substantiation, and is willing to take things on
>faith, then of course they can ignore the notes--or they can defer the
>perusal of them until later. It is true that Francis Wheen doesn't use a
>lot of endnotes in his biography of Marx. But his biography doesn't
>challenge the canon (simply introduces some personal details into an
>otherwise orthodox story) and his main source is readily available to
>everyone (THE COLLECTED WORKS). So this is hardly a fair comparison. Jose
>has was, he said, only 80 pages into the book and while he found the
>discussion of Epicurus, Lucretius and Darwin interesting, was still
>wondering if this would add up to something that would justify the title
>"Marx's Ecology." I hope it did add up for him. It is encouraging at any
>rate to have the book subjected to such close scrutiny.
>
>I agree with Jose that Georgescu-Roegen is very important. I was also very
>intrigued by Jose's references to the Pannekoek and the cynics.
>
>I read John's long ruminations but had a hard time understanding it all. I
>found the following sentence intriguing: "The legacy of materialism in
>Epicurus is an inspiration and a fascinating history, but the antiquity of
>the question is a warning that such questions can endure to defy the beliefs
>of entire civilizations." Exactly! I can't say I understand the admiration
>for Lamarck. Nor do I understand the point that Darwin's natural selection
>theory demands "ethical monism." It is a mistake in my view to reduce
>natural selection to "survival of the fittest"--though Darwin partly gave
>into Spencer's pressure in this respect, in the later editions of the book.
>Survival of the fittest, by the way, is a truism at best. Since the
>"fittest" in evolutionary theory can have no other meaning than those that
>survive.
>
>Alan Potkin brings in Liebig's law of the minimum and its relation to global
>warming. He makes the correct point that global warming is most adverse to
>the South. Michael Perelman also explains that global warming has regional
>effects--and suggests that this is very complex and that the idea that
>global warming is going to improve agricultural productivity even in the
>North is doubtful. Kari says that when we talk about regional development
>and agricultural productivity we also have to look at how we are using the
>land. Barkley argues that on balance there will be more losers than gainers
>with respect to global warming.
>
>MacDonald raises questions about Mao's impact on ecology. While I agree
>this can be questioned, I also agree with Chris Brady that Maoism tried to
>deal with the town-country division.
>
>Elliott has much more to say that is interesting on contingency. I like his
>statement, "I wondered whether our essential contingency might be viewed as
>a condition of being undetermined but constrained. In other words, things
>are self-moving (i.e., freely varying, autonomous entities) operating within
>a multitude of limiting contexts." This captures a lot, I think, but one
>must not stress too much autonomy and lose sight of the relations.
>
>Charles explains that we need to have an ecological approach that emphasizes
>mode of reproduction as well as mode of production. This is one of the
>holes in MARX'S ECOLOGY, since it was undeveloped in the period under
>examination--though a more extensive study of Marx's ETHNOLOGICAL NOTEBOOKS
>and Engels' ORGINS OF THE FAMILY would help here.
>
>Michael Dreiling says that the issues of contingency and complexity raised
>by ecology mean that "political strategy is certainly bound up rather
>tight." He raises the issue of the breadth of the alliances we need to
>confront these problems.
>
>George says he is still troubled about one thing. How does morality arise
>out of nature? Obviously, nature doesn't produce morality. What makes
>morality possible is freedom, and for a materialist this is conditioned
>freedom. Epicurus' philosophy was all about establishing this-this was its
>ultimate object. And it is clear that Marx found this very attractive.
>Ethics, by the way, for Epicurus does not derive from eternal principles, as
>in Plato, but is socially determined. He argues in his analysis of justice
>that justice is a social and historical product, changing with changed
>conditions. As for political principles Epicurus was the originator of the
>concept of the social contract. But if freedom is the prerequisite for
>morality, morality (and freedom) are empty if not placed in material context.
>
>Carol asks, based on a talk that I gave at the Rethinking Marxism conference
>in Amherst last Fall, if I was suggesting that an alliance with the Greens
>should be avoided. This relates to the issue of What is Not to Be Done. I
>think political alliances need to be very broad, so I would of course not be
>against a Red-Geeen alliance. But theoretically and strategically in
>guiding praxis we have to aim at absolute clarity. I am very doubtful of
>the Red-Green synthesis that some have proclaimed in the name of ecological
>Marxism-and even more so Marxism's political and theoretical subordination
>to political ecology as suggested by Alain Lipietz. The truth is that while
>ecology is vital for social transformation, Green theory is weak, in my
>view, even from an ecological standpoint (not to mention social theory as
>such). It is primarily an ethical, spiritualistic viewpoint, that revolves
>around such dualisms as ecocentric versus anthropocentric and has a poverty
>of content even with respect to ecological elements-especially where the
>social and the ecological interact. Evolution is often ignored in Green
>theory, and so are the kinds of relations that Marx dealt with in his
>concept of metabolic rift. Materialism (theoretical materialism) is often
>seen as the enemy. Science is all too often viewed as the enemy. My view
>is that we can do better than that. We should not try to graft Green theory
>as it exists onto Marxism, nor should we subordinate Marxism to Green
>theory. Even the notion that Marxism can be added to Green theory in order
>to historicize it is questionable. My view, like it or not, is that we have
>to reconstruct Marxism itself, based on its revolutionary potential, which
>meant that it contained radical elements that have been downplayed or
>ignored. We should primarily dig here (in Marxism and materialism) not
>there (in Green theory) if we want to produce a powerful social ecology that
>can serve as a guide to praxis and that has a meaningful relationship to
>science. As for what is to be done, there is really only one thing we have
>to do: challenge the social relations of capitalism. The problem isn't so
>much about what needs to be done to solve our social and ecological
>problems, but what needs to be done in order to overcome the barriers
>imposed by capital. Mario seems to be thinking along similar lines with his
>comments on how to overcome the bourgeois specter within the movement.
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