The Critique Of Contemporary Capitalism And The Green Road To Liberation

While the industrial civilization has brought forward abundant materials,prosperous culture and democratic politics unprecedentedly since the Enlightenment,it increasingly deepened the domination of society over Nature. Nature turned into thesociety's enemy and was plundered ruthlessly. When ecological crisis highlighted therevolt of nature, the mankind began to take the world-challenging problem about howto live with nature harmoniously into consideration. As a new school of WesternMarxism, Ecological Marxism made a profound analysis of contemporary capitalismecological crisis from the perspective of historical materialism, which has positiveinfluence in academic field due to its theoretical profundity. To give close attention toBen Agger, a main scholar for Ecological Marxism, and to interpret his relevantthoughts become an important theme for the study of Ecological Marxism.From the middle of1970s till now, Ben Agger has made great achievements,publishing more than ten books and many papers. He retains the framework of Marx'sdialectical method, adheres to the humanism tradition of the Frankfurt School'scritical theory and positively learns from critical social theory such as leftistpostmodernism, feminism and cultural study. Basing on them, he explored the causeof capitalist ecological crisis, its social root and its solution. His thoughts ofEcological Marxism include the explanation for the meaning of Marxism, thedefinition of contemporary capitalist ecological crisis, the critique of contemporarycapitalism, the strategies of socialist revolution as well as the imagination ofecological socialism.Marx's dialectical method and the Frankfurt's critical theory have been revisedby Ben Agger for many times. In his eyes, Marxism is best seen as a general criticaltheory that aims to realize comprehensive liberations. From the perspective of thisMarxism, he defines the historical context of capitalist ecological crisis as modernityand firmly believes the ecological crisis rooted in capitalist internal contradictions andinterlocking with others social crises is a serious social problem that couldn't be resolved by capitalism itself. Considering the total source of capitalist ecologicalcrisis lies in capitalist system, he recognizes capitalism as a totalizing social systemwhich aggravates the alienation. In terms of the totalizing logic of capitalism, BenAgger rearticulated Frankfurt School's domination as all hierarchies of productionover reproduction, making a total critique of capitalism severely. Apart from that, hecriticized capitalist economic growth, ideologies, cultural industry, bureaucraticpolitics, racism and sexism multi-dimensionally.As a result of comprehensive critique of contemporary capitalism, Ben Agger notonly profoundly explored the social source of capitalist ecological crisis, but alsoproclaimed its historical fate directly. His claim for revolution builds on Marxianthought about capitalism would be surpassed by non-alienation communism viasocialist revolution. In this aspect, neither did he approve Max Horkheimer'spessimism, nor agree to traditional mode of socialist revolution. Following HerbertMarcus' notion of "new sensitivity" praised highly for embodying individual subjectof socialist revolution as well as "new social movements" theorized by JurgenHabermas for embodying collective subject, Agger inclined to non-threatening socialchange and elaborated its possibilities and strategies at present. He emphasized socialchanges should take the following measures: guidance by Marxism, connecting theoryand practice, beginning in people's everyday life, changing the self, limiting economicgrowth and democratizing power. In his opinion, the ideal promise for socialistrevolution is a non-alienated society, in which the liberated human beings liveharmoniously with nature. Although ecological socialism was named "ecologicallysane socialism","a good society of democratic dialogue","slowmodernity as Utopia"successively by him, he identities its essential characteristics as steady-state economy,democratic dialogue intersubjectively and individual praxis freely.Being a new Left, Agger was greatly influenced by Frankfurt School's theoryand practice, thus, his academic thoughts has a close relation to Frankfurt School. Asregards for this relationship, his ecological Marxism could be seen as a reconstructedcritical theory from Frankfurt School and classified into the third-generation criticaltheory. Playing a transiting role in the course of Ecological Marxism, Agger's thoughts made the school widely known. Moreover, his Ecological Marxism not onlypromoted the development of western Marxism by returning to Marxian dialecticalmethod and reconstructing critical theory, but also extended the study agenda ofMarxism when facing contemporary capitalist social reality. However, his thoughtsabout Ecological Marxism are imperfect with utopianism, which can be found in histruncating the scientific dimension of Marxian dialectical method, misunderstandingthe validity of Marxian crises theory, shortening the existence of the commodityproduction, overestimating the transforming potentiality in populism and rejecting thehistorical necessities of proletarian dictatorship. Currently, Ben Agger works as hardas before, accordingly, his thought about Ecological Marxism continues. In this sense,it's an ongoing theme to have a systematic study which follows Agger's academiccareer.