Why Ecosocialism Needs Marx

Abstract

In his recent foreword to the second edition of Paul Burkett's Marx and Nature, John Bellamy Foster reflected on a significant change in left attitudes toward Marx's ecology: "Today Marx's understanding of the ecological problem is being studied in universities worldwide and is inspiring ecological actions around the globe." This worldwide recognition of Marx's ecological critique of capitalism without doubt owes much to Burkett's Marx and Nature (1999) and Foster's Marx's Ecology (2000). Yet the new interest in ecological Marxism did not originate solely with these books. Rather, as their new co-authored book Marx and the Earth documents, over the last fifteen years Burkett and Foster have meticulously refuted the many criticisms of Marx from so-called "first-stage ecosocialists"…. It should be noted that, whatever their disagreements with Marx, the first-stage ecosocialists were also deeply critical of capitalism. So why are Foster and Burkett arguing with their potential comrades? Furthermore, some of the issues taken up in Marx and the Earth might appear abstruse at first glance—why bother debating them at such length?… [A] patient reader will soon recognize the book's importance and the significance of the issues at stake.

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