On Foster's Ecological Marxism

The problem field and philosophical cornerstone of Ecological Marxism are different from those of traditional Marxism and of western Marxism, thus Ecological Marxism as a new philosophical formation different from traditional Marxism and Weston Marxism, is developing in North American, especially in U.S.A The theme of this dissertation is to generalize and analyze the thoughts of John Bellamy Foster's Ecological Marxism, and to compare it with James O'connor's Ecological Marxism thoughts to stand out the features of Foster's thoughts, so that reveal initially Ecological Marxism's general characteristics.This dissertation consists of five parts: Introduction, Chapter One Chapter two, Chapter Three and Chapter Four.In Introduction, this dissertation points out that the social and historical sources that Ecological Marxism raised from are the environmental and ecological problems that the well developed industrial society and its currently consumer culture resulted in, and the theoretical sources that Ecological Marxism originated from are the thoughts reflected in the works of Marx and Marxism about nature and the relation between nature and society. In addition, the Introduction briefly introduces the representatives of theoretical formations in Ecological Marxism in North American and the differences of their common characters with the two types of Marxism of 20th century. Finally, the second half engages in a brief introduction of Foster's research activities and academic background.By researching, the Ecological Marxism thoughts of Foster can be concluded from three aspects: Philosophy — Carding and constructuring materialism of Marx; Environmental Sociology — the theory of Metabolism Rift; Reality Critics— the relation between Capitalism and ecology. Accordingly, the dissertation reveals the detailed concerns of these three aspects in the subsequent three Chapters.In Chapter One the first respect is analyzed. Starting with Marx's Dissertation, Foster traces the source of Marx's materialistic thoughts back to Greece philosopher Epicurus. Foster observes, Epicurus' materialism, which rejects teleology, determinism, and reductionism and implies evolution by explaining nature through itself deeply, profoundly affected the young Marx who is in the period of Hegelism, Foster believesthat Epicurus' materialism had been internalized in Marx's thought, though Marx seldom refers to Epicures after his Dissertation was finished. All above is concerned with the epistemology of materialism. Subsequently, Foster analyzes the impacts that Feabach's materialism of humanity and naturalism on Marx's materialism of ontology, that is, existence essence of nature and nature as human basics. However, the ecological materialism or natural materialism that has the ecological intension must not have been thoroughly finished until Marx researched on Political Economics and the nature sciences of his own era such as Liebig's chemistry and Darwin's evolution; at last the fruits are embodied in not only Marx's historical materialism but also in materialism view of nature or natural philosophy. Foster sees this clue as his research basics and puts forward his contemporary ecological materialism's connotations and the view of nature - society. The connotation of his contemporary ecological materialism's includes four ecological laws. His contemporary view of nature - society is concerned with the effects that existence technologies exerted on the development of human society, Human evolution and the evolutionary relation between human and nature by the form of labor. Foster's detailed thought about the view of nature - society is reflected through the evolution of work or modern gene - culture co-evolution.In Chapter Two the second aspect is analyzed. After Foster researches on the threerevolutionaries in Agricultural history from the 19th century to the early 20th century,he cards Marx's thought about metabolism rift, and tentatively constructs Marx's theoryof metabolism rift and uses it to explain why there has been metabolism rift between thehuman and soil in Capitalism system, and the reason and effect of antagonism betweencity and country. Foster also points out the primitive accumulation of capitalism and theendless requests of capitalists for profit are the fundamental social reason why human,nature and the relation between human and nature all alienated. Further more, Fostercontends that there are elements of modern sustainable thought in Marx's thought. Atlast, Foster points out that for shrinking the expanding rift between human and nature atpresent to realize idea shared reasonable management of associated producers onmaterial relation between human and nature in communism, the theory of metabolismrift must be labeled as the theoretical basics of Environmental Sociology that raisedthirty years ago for making a thorough study on the relation between human and itsliving environment.Chapter Three is devoted to analyzing the critics of capitalism that Foster carriedon from the respects of technology, system and social movements etc. Foster contends, the measures of using technology in the form of capitalist and lying on the market and price to regulating the use of environment and resources under capitalist will not be able to deal with the environmental and ecological problems all human being faces. The unity of the old social movements based on classes and the new social movements named as feminism, environment movement, the city space movement and movement for peace and justice etc. will carry out the third revolutionary in human history - the environment revolutionary, which will really realize the harmonious developing between human and nature and the all individual and all human's freedoms.In Chapter Four, the dissertation briefly introduces O'connor's Ecological Marxism and the debate on key theoretical thoughts of the opposite side of Foster's Camp and O'connor's Camp. The reasons for such an arrangement are (1) to offer a consultant system in the ecological Marxism to research on Foster's ecological Marxism; (2) to introduce O'connor's thought; (3) to summarize the general characteristics of Ecological Marxism to obtain the theoretical and methodological inspirations in helping our own research through the contrast. Finally, the dissertation evaluates Foster's thoughts and elucidates the significance to our country at present.