A review of "The Ecological Revolution: Making Peace with the Planet"
John Bellamy Foster is the editor of Monthly Review,
Paul Sweezy's old magazine. Monthly Review is Marxist and (perhaps) Maoistic.
Foster believes that contemporary ecological and Green thought can be
fruitfully combined with classical Marxism. Indeed, he claims that Marx himself
was in some important respects a Green thinker.
Needless to say, this is very unconvincing. Foster has found a few references to ecology here and there in the voluminous corpus of Marx and his co-thinker Engels, which he repeats over and over again, but the main thrust of Marxism is obviously anti-ecological, as can be seen in "The Communist Manifesto". Foster claims that many other Marxist thinkers were somehow ecological as well, including Kautsky, Bukharin, Luxemburg, Vernadsky and even Lenin, but this too is unconvincing. That Lenin was a conservationist and created a natural reservation in the southern Urals proves nothing. That Yankee imperialist Teddy Roosevelt was also a conservationist, yet Foster doesn't use him as an example of a "Green" thinker (and quite rightly so).
Frankly, Foster really has no case. If there was a Green current in Marxism, how come almost nobody has discovered it by now? Why were the preoccupations of the Marxist movement non-ecological already during Marx' and Engels' lifetimes, if ecology played an important part in their political message? Why is Foster forced to resort to William Morris and some Fabians when he wants to find socialist thinkers who were more consistently Green? Neither Morris nor the Fabian Society were Marxists.
Another problem is the following: according to Marx, the working class is *the* revolutionary class. But the working class is (obviously) tied to heavy industry. Yet, Foster seems to believe that heavy industry must be, if not abolished, then at least considerably diminished as part of the revolutionary transformation of society. But how can the working class or the labour movement as traditionally conceived be a force for such a Green transformation? In the last chapter, Foster admits that the hope for an ecological revolution at present only exists in the "periphery", i.e. the Third World. He mentions Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and a few cities or states in Brazil and India as examples. But none of these real or perceived revolutions are Marxist in the classical sense. Hugo Chavez may have the support of many workers in Venezuela, but he is at bottom a nationalist populist. It's not a co-incidence that he models himself on Simon Bolivar (who was scorned by Marx). Foster hasn't explained how the labour movements in the Western world, or in the Third World for that matter, can become vehicles for a Eco-regionalist, steady-state, low-energy economy.
It seems that Marxism really can't be greened after all.
Needless to say, this is very unconvincing. Foster has found a few references to ecology here and there in the voluminous corpus of Marx and his co-thinker Engels, which he repeats over and over again, but the main thrust of Marxism is obviously anti-ecological, as can be seen in "The Communist Manifesto". Foster claims that many other Marxist thinkers were somehow ecological as well, including Kautsky, Bukharin, Luxemburg, Vernadsky and even Lenin, but this too is unconvincing. That Lenin was a conservationist and created a natural reservation in the southern Urals proves nothing. That Yankee imperialist Teddy Roosevelt was also a conservationist, yet Foster doesn't use him as an example of a "Green" thinker (and quite rightly so).
Frankly, Foster really has no case. If there was a Green current in Marxism, how come almost nobody has discovered it by now? Why were the preoccupations of the Marxist movement non-ecological already during Marx' and Engels' lifetimes, if ecology played an important part in their political message? Why is Foster forced to resort to William Morris and some Fabians when he wants to find socialist thinkers who were more consistently Green? Neither Morris nor the Fabian Society were Marxists.
Another problem is the following: according to Marx, the working class is *the* revolutionary class. But the working class is (obviously) tied to heavy industry. Yet, Foster seems to believe that heavy industry must be, if not abolished, then at least considerably diminished as part of the revolutionary transformation of society. But how can the working class or the labour movement as traditionally conceived be a force for such a Green transformation? In the last chapter, Foster admits that the hope for an ecological revolution at present only exists in the "periphery", i.e. the Third World. He mentions Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and a few cities or states in Brazil and India as examples. But none of these real or perceived revolutions are Marxist in the classical sense. Hugo Chavez may have the support of many workers in Venezuela, but he is at bottom a nationalist populist. It's not a co-incidence that he models himself on Simon Bolivar (who was scorned by Marx). Foster hasn't explained how the labour movements in the Western world, or in the Third World for that matter, can become vehicles for a Eco-regionalist, steady-state, low-energy economy.
It seems that Marxism really can't be greened after all.
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