The Return Of Use Value: Kovel’s Ecological Socialism Thought And Its Contemporary Enlightenment

In the second half of the twentieth century,a series of ecological problems caused by capitalist production became increasingly serious,the Western ecological movement flourished,and Western ecological ideas emerged endlessly.Joel Kovel is one of the important representatives of contemporary American ecological socialism theory,committed to developing a worldwide ecological socialism movement.Based on Marxist theory,Kovel’s ecological socialism thought profoundly criticizes the ecological crisis of capitalism and creatively constructs the ecological socialism theory,which contains useful ecological ideas with important theoretical reference value for building socialist ecological civilization in China.The research theme of the thesis is Kovel’s ecological socialism thought and its inspiration for the construction of modern ecological civilization in China.Through an in-depth study of Kovel’s writings and related papers,the article examines the realistic background,theoretical origin and development process of the formation of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought,outlines the main contents of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought,which constructs ecological socialism that returns to use value on the basis of criticizing capital and its system.Finally,based on a dialectical analysis of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought,the article analyzes the inspiration of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought on the construction of modern ecological civilization in China,in connection with the actual situation of the development of ecological civilization in China.The article is divided into five parts:The first part is an introduction,provides an overview of the background,significance,key and difficult points,and current research status of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought.The second part examines the realistic background,theoretical origin,and development process of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought.Since the 1950 s,global ecological issues have become increasingly serious,with the rapid development of ecological movements in the West,and the neglect of use values in capitalist societies has also deepened.Influenced by the ecological and communist ideas of Marx and Engels,O’Connor’s theory of the second contradiction and the "use-value turn",the second law of thermodynamics and the theory of evolution,Kovel gradually formed the idea of ecological socialism to solve the ecological crisis,which has been continuously improved with the development of the times.The third part outlines the main content of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought.Kovel critiques the ecological crisis of capitalism and ecological reformism from both practical and theoretical dimensions,analyzes the manifestation and logic of the ecological crisis of capitalism,and reveals the unsustainability of the capitalist system.The ecological crisis of capitalism is very serious,mainly manifested by global warming,increased environmental pollution,depletion of natural resources,and deepening ecological imperialist aggression,all of which have their roots in the anti-ecological profit-seeking,expansionist,and human alienation of capital,while ecological improvement theory proves the ineffectiveness of the capitalist way to stop the ecological crisis.It is on this basis that Kovel proposes the construction of ecological socialism,advocating an ecological socialist revolution,emphasizing the use value centered production method,and establishing a free association of producers.The fourth part evaluates the rationality of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought from theoretical contributions and theoretical limitations.On the one hand,the theoretical contributions of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought are discussed in three aspects: deepening the ecological critique of capitalism,adhering to the socialist principles of building an ecological society,and enriching the ecological construction theory of scientific socialism.On the other hand,the theoretical limitations of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought are analyzed in terms of the failure to thoroughly implement Marxism,the debatable eco-centrism position,and the utopian color of the ecological socialism construct.The fifth part discusses the inspiration of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought to the construction of ecological civilization in China from the triple dimensions of economy,politics and culture.Economically,it is necessary to adjust the traditional industrial structure,transform the mode of economic development,and promote the ecological development of production methods;Politically,it is necessary to guard against ecological imperialism aggression,safeguard ecological justice and promote common development;Culturally,it is necessary to resist the erosion of consumerist culture,return to the value of use,and establish scientific ecological values.The main innovations of this article are as follows:Firstly,taking the category of "use value" as the core,it makes a thorough and systematic comprehensive analysis and elaboration of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought;The second is to analyze the enlightenment of the beneficial components of Kovel’s ecological socialism thought to the construction of modern ecological civilization in China,taking into account the real problems of ecological construction in China.