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Rolf Peter Sieferle on Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature

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Rolf Peter Sieferle on Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature John Bellamy Foster. Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000. x + 310 pp. $48.00, cloth, ISBN 978-1-58367-012-5. Reviewed by Rolf Peter Sieferle Published on H-Environment (December, 2001) Marx's ecology? When I fnished my PhD-The‐ Marx could have been one of the founding fathers sis on Marx some 25 years ago under the impres‐ of the ecological movement if there had not been sion of the ongoing environmental discussion I two misinterpretations. One came from intellectu‐ came to the conclusion that Marx would not have als like Lukács, Korsch, Adorno, Horkheimer, or much to say for our future problems. As students Gramsci who read Marx in the idealistic tradition we had started to read Marx in search of an ex‐ of Neo-Kantianism or Lebensphilosophie, in planation for imperialism, for capitalist exploita‐ strong opposition to positivism and scientism. tion and for alienation. Then the visions of an im‐ This Western reading was complemented by a minent environmental crisis and of limits to crude mechanistic interpretation of Marx which growth entered the political scene. In this situa‐ prevailed in communist Eastern Europe. The tion the Marxist categories did not help us to un‐ "real" Marx disappeared between these two alter‐ derstand these new issues. On the contrary, for natives with the consequence that he remains ab‐ some of my fellow students Marxism became a sent from the environmentalist ancient gallery. great obstacle for comprehension. Some even in‐ For a start, Foster shows that Marx was a terpreted the new environmentalism as a kind of thinker in the tradition of materialistic meta‐ capitalist conspiracy, as a distraction from essen‐ physics reaching back to Epicurus or Lucretius, tial social problems. but this of course is part of the standard interpre‐ The Western Marxism of the 1960s and 1970s tation and needs not be emphasized specifically. shared the anti-naturalistic intellectual bias Marxist orthodoxy (reaching back to Marx and which dominated social and cultural studies since Engels themselves) used to stress the fundamental the beginning of the twentieth century. Foster opposition between "idealism" and "materialism". tries to reconstruct a different Marxist tradition "Materialism" as a metaphysical or ontological po‐ which goes back to the origins of mid-nineteenth sition insists on the primacy of matter in motion century social and scientific thought. In his view, and negates the existence of supernatural agents. H-Net Reviews This, however, is just one alternative for thinking sical political economists had perceived "land" about nature and it does not necessarily coincide (or "the natural agent," as John Stuart Mill called with any "progressive" or "rational" inclination. it) as an unsurmountable limit to the economic The basic problem was how the emergence of or‐ process. Economic growth or the "progressive der out of chaos can be explained. "Materialism" state" of the economy would sooner or later reach favours chance, while "idealism" claims the exis‐ a stationary state whence a further increase of tence of some agent of design. It is, however, not wealth would not be possible. The polemical point particularly plausible to maintain that highly im‐ of this argument had already been stressed by probable states of order (like organisms or ecosys‐ Thomas R. Malthus in 1798. The fniteness of tems) are the results of mere chance. As long as available land stood in sharp contrast to the natu‐ no self-organizing procedure (like natural selec‐ ral (if unchecked) possibility of exponential popu‐ tion) can be identified that reduces possibilities lation growth. It is true for any population that its materialism stands on shaky grounds. further (possible) increment is a function of its Thus early modern materialism had great dif‐ size and its growth rate (what Malthus called "geo‐ ficulties in explaining the emergence of life out of metrical ratio"), while its subsistence is based on dead matter. The ancient concept of spontaneous land of limited scope. For Malthus this had the generation (generatio aequivoca) lost its plausibil‐ consequence that any social reform aiming at the ity when Malpighi and other virtuosi showed that redistribution of land would be counterproduc‐ life was always the result of life. Materialist tive because a growing population would soon be thinkers of the eighteenth century like Maupertu‐ reduced to a state of general destitution. Thus so‐ is had to introduce specific "vital" forces to save cial progress would be self-destructive, and only a their basic proposition. They had to assume some stable social stratification could produce a bal‐ fortuitous constellation, some fulguration which ance between population and limited natural re‐ produced life. In this situation it was more elegant sources. and economic to accept the basic argument of nat‐ With Malthus physical nature had entered the ural theology that there was some supernatural scene of political thought as a major theoretical design that created order out of chaos. This as‐ weapon of the conservative, counter-utopian posi‐ sumption did not necessarily lead to fruitless the‐ tion. Nature in whose name social reform could ological speculations but could be seen as a mere be demanded in the eighteenth century had hypothesis which allowed empirical research. It changed sides. It had become a strong ally of the was only in the context of Darwinian natural se‐ social and political status quo. The "facts" on lection that materialism could become plausible which classical political economists insisted, those again because now a mechanism could be identi‐ "professors of the dismal science" (Thomas Car‐ fied by which order could produce itself. But this lyle), demonstrated the existence of a harsh equi‐ was a matter of the late nineteenth if not of the librium of nature which could not be surmounted twentieth century. In the early nineteenth century by acts of volition. materialism was a special creed without much ex‐ Malthus, Ricardo and other political econo‐ planatory force. mists of the early nineteenth century provided a So Marx's decision for a materialistic ontolog‐ severe nuisance for social reformers and social‐ ical position was heuristically not very helpful in ists in England and on the continent. Especially the frst place. But there was an epistemological "parson" Malthus was the object of hatred, and obstacle for his perception of society's relation‐ large parts of Marx's work on political economy ship to nature which was much more severe: clas‐ must be understood as a rejection of his theory. 2 H-Net Reviews Marx, however, could not merely switch to an ide‐ and one element of this transformation was a fun‐ alistic optimism as young Friedrich Engels did damental change of agriculture: it was dynamized who wrote in 1844: "The productive forces pos‐ and denaturalized. Soil was not longer perceived sessed by mankind are immense. The productivity as an element of an eternal fow but it was seen as of soil can be increased without any limits (ins a stock which could be consumed and exhausted. Unendliche) by the application of capital, labour On the other hand, it became thinkable that it was and science." Marx had to realise that the logical refilled from other stocks, be it guano, be it miner‐ consequences of this proposition would be ab‐ al fertilizer processed with the help of fossil fuels. surd: One day it would be possible to feed all The strength of Foster's book lies in the recon‐ mankind from grain grown in a single fowerpot. struction of Marx's struggle with these new issues So there must be some limits to human popula‐ which he analyzed as society's metabolism. Marx tion growth, and overpopulation remained a spec‐ did not only read Liebig and other soil scientist tre which haunted socialists well to the end of the but dealt with physiology and geology, too. The nineteenth century. concept of social metabolism helped him to un‐ As a materialist Marx had to cope with the in‐ derstand one major issue which was widely dis‐ sight that the core of Malthus's argument was cussed in the second half of the nineteenth centu‐ right: that there were natural limits to the eco‐ ry: Population growth and urbanization broke up nomic process and that these limits must some‐ the old cycles of soil chemistry. Mineral matter in‐ how become sensible to humans. Malthus wrote corporated in food was exported to cities. Sanita‐ under the impression of natural limits to agrarian tion resulted in dumping these soil nutrients into production which became incorporated into polit‐ rivers. So rivers were polluted and soil was de‐ ical economy as the law of diminishing returns graded as a result of the same process. In Marx's since the early nineteenth century. Marx, howev‐ view, one solution might have been to decentral‐ er, lived in a different situation. Foster demon‐ ize urban dwellings, to reverse the seperation be‐ strates that he could use arguments provided by tween town and country. the new emergent science of soil chemistry, espe‐ Marx's philosophy of history is based on one cially by Justus Liebig. In contrast to older theo‐ central proposition: that planning as a direct rule ries of soil (and rent) it became clear that the pro‐ of reason is superior to more "objective", hetero‐ ductivity of soil was not an inherent, unchange‐ geneous or spontaneous forms of coordination able quality but could be influenced by human ac‐ (like "the market"). In the last resort, Marx re‐ tivties in both directions: soil could be degraded mained optimistic and he was not forced to give and improved, so differences in soil productivity up his anti-malthusian cornucopian view. The were not merely a result of natural conditions but problems of social metabolism could be solved were elements of a historical process.
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