Ecological Dimensions Of O’connor’s Natural Conditions Of Production

The serious destruction of "natural conditions of production" in the world and the launch of the campaign to protect "natural conditions of production" prompted O ’Connor to pay attention to and reconstruct "natural conditions of production" more than 100 years after Marx’s death.Combining with the development practice of the "new social movement",especially the environmental protection movement,he critically absorbed Marx’s theory of production conditions and Polanyi’s social theory,forming a natural condition thought of production that is both critical and realistic.The entrance path of his thoughts is a holistic view of environmental history,which includes not only the development history of the environment itself in a strict sense,but also the environmental dimension in political,economic and cultural history.The main contents of his thoughts are the definition of the natural conditions of production in the sense of "second nature",the emphasis on the two characteristics of "autonomous operation of nature" and "ultimate purpose of nature",and the excavation and construction of "natural productivity" and "natural relations of production".The criticality of his thoughts is reflected in the social criticism of the science and technology and the national subject of the interaction between the human system and the natural system under different social system backgrounds.The integrity of his thoughts is embodied in a thorough progressive analysis of the relationship between capitalism and nature,socialism and nature,and ecological socialism and nature.The limitation of his thoughts is that it reflects the lack of dialectical examination of the interaction between human systems and natural systems to a certain extent,thereby relatively weakening the impact of capitalism on the environment,and even weakening the comprehensiveness of the whole ecological crisis.The second is that O ’Connor’s judgment that Marx’s productivity theory lacks the clue of "nature" is untenable.The third is that he does not realize that the natural conditions of production are the unity of limited and infinite,the unity of reality and potential,and the interaction between human system as the natural conditions of production and the production system of human society,thus leading to incomplete,incomplete and incomplete understanding of the ecological crisis as a developmental crisis.The theoretical significance and academic value of his thoughts lie not only in the important exploration and development of Marx’s ecological productivity theory,but also in the supplement and improvement of the ecological dimension of the productivity theory(also known as "traditional productivity theory")of the industrial civilization form that has been characterized by modern western subjective metaphysics for more than 300 years.Its practical significance lies in helping us to attach importance to the "triple protection" of the natural environment of production,natural conditions and human nature at the theoretical level of politics,economy,society and ideology,helping us to pay more attention to the environmental consequences on scientific and technological issues,holding more environmental rationality at the national level,helping us to keep enough system awareness when understanding ecological issues,and helping us to solve ecological crises without lack of necessary environmental justice.In short,whether as an ecological philosophy theory or a theory of human social development,O ’Connor’s thought of natural conditions of production itself is a constructive and enlightening excellent achievement and beneficial attempt.