Marxism and Ecology Pamphlet For Web

Marxism
& Ecology
Capitalism, socialism and the future of the planet
A Socialist Worker pamphlet by Martin Empson
Contents
Introduction...................................................................................... 1
Humans and the natural world....................................................... 4
Capitalism.......................................................................................... 6
Marx and Engels............................................................................. 10
Marx, Malthus and the myth of overpopulation........................ 14
Class and social justice................................................................... 21
Sustainability................................................................................... 24
Revolution....................................................................................... 26
Conclusion...................................................................................... 30
Endnotes.......................................................................................... 31
Further reading............................................................................... 33
Cover illustration:
Martin Empson is the author of Land and A Socialist Worker Liubov Popova
Labour: Marxism, Ecology and Human History pamphlet by Martin untitled textile
and ‘Kill all the Gentlemen’: Class Struggle Empson design on William
and Change in the English Countryside. Design: Ben Windsor Morris wallpaper,
He edited the new book System Change First published: 2009 for Historical
not Climate Change: A Revolutionary Second edition: 2016 Materialism 2010
Response to Environmental Crisis. This third, updated, by David Mabb
He is based in Manchester and is a long- edition: July 2019
standing socialist and environmental activist.
Marxism and Ecology 1
Striking school students demonstrate outside Parliament in Cape Town, South Africa
Introduction
T he human race faces an
environmental crisis like nothing
we have ever lived through before. At
place between 2014 and 2018. The twenty
warmest have happened in the last 22
years. 2018 was the 42nd consecutive
its heart is climate change. The way that year in which temperatures were higher
gases like carbon dioxide in the earth’s than the 20th century average. Global
atmosphere trap heat is known as the temperatures have increased, on average,
“greenhouse effect” and without it life on by 0.08°C per decade since 1880. But this
earth would be impossible. has accelerated with an increase of 0.18°C
But as a result of the burning of fossil per decade since 1981.1
fuels such as coal, oil and gas, we are These increases are having a profound
releasing more and more greenhouse effect on our planet.
gases into the atmosphere. A recent UN report said that one
As the make-up of the atmosphere million species (1 in 8) are threatened
changes, an ever greater amount of heat with extinction. Extreme weather events
is trapped in the atmosphere, warming such as hurricanes and droughts will
the planet up. This process has already increase both in frequency and strength.
dramatically altered our world. For instance, a 2015 study by NASA
The five warmest years on record took concluded that droughts in the south west
2 Marxism and Ecology
and central plains of the United States would cause 250,000 extra deaths a year
could be drier and longer than at any from malaria, diarrhoea, heat stress and
time in the last 1,000 years. malnutrition from 2030 to 2050.
As ice on land melts, and ocean water But in a further study published in
expands as it warms, sea levels will rise the New England Journal of Medicine
by between 1 and 2 metres by 2100. scientists called this figure “conservative”
Coastal cities, agricultural areas and and argued that factors such as
freshwater supplies around the world population displacement or agricultural
will be threatened. Unless billions of yields dropping would lead to much
pounds are spent on flood defences, higher casualties. The study suggested
millions of people will be threatened. The that a net increase of 529,000 deaths
human impact of global warming will be by 2050 would be linked just to climate
shocking. Already millions of people have related reductions in food availability.3
been affected. In December 2015 Bolivia’s But climate change is not a steady,
second largest lake, Lake Poopó, was gradual process, where the situation
declared evaporated. Thousands of people progressively gets worse. The natural
lost their livelihoods. The glaciers whose processes that a warmer earth unleashes
meltwater fed the lake have retreated and will make the greenhouse effect worse.
this, combined with unsustainable use For instance, the permafrost in
by the mining industry and agriculture, Siberia has trapped millions of tonnes of
created an environmental disaster.2 greenhouse gases since the last ice age.
In the southern summer of 2015-2016, But these gases are starting to be released
Southern Africa saw unprecedented as the permafrost starts to melt. The
droughts. Millions of people faced earth’s polar ice caps act as giant mirrors,
starvation. Lesotho declared a state of reflecting some of the sun’s energy back
emergency in the face of the drought, into space. As the ice melts more energy
with 80 percent of its rural population gets trapped in our atmosphere, further
facing disaster. warming the earth and leading to more
South Africa was also badly hit—its ice melting. Scientists call these processes
government estimated that it would cost “feedback mechanisms”.
£1.5 billion to import the maize needed The task of limiting further emissions
to mitigate the effects of the drought. of greenhouse gases is urgent if we are
As climate change worsens, millions to avoid reaching a climatic “tipping
more people will face famine, extreme point”, the moment when global warming
weather, floods and heat waves. Wars accelerates out of control, threatening the
over resources such as water will spread. very existence of humanity as well as the
Diseases like malaria will arrive in other living organisms on the planet.
areas which have never previously been But climate change is only the
affected. A World Health Organisation sharpest expression of a much wider
report calculated that climate change environmental crisis we face. Almost no
ecological niche has been left untouched been, perhaps with minor adjustments,
by human society. From pollution in the but effectively changing very little. The
depths of the seas to the melting snow problem is not seen as being caused by
caps on the highest mountains, every the very nature of our society, but only by
imaginable eco-system on earth is being particular aspects of how things are done.
undermined or destroyed. This is most clearly shown by the
A million or more hectares of Stern Review on the Economics of
Amazonian rainforest is “slashed and Climate Change. Published in 2006,
burned” every year, despite its crucial this report was commissioned by the
importance in absorbing atmospheric British government and remains one
carbon dioxide. Waste from our society of the largest and most extensively
clogs up the natural world to such an researched studies of its type. For Lord
extent that in 2010, 8 million tons of Stern, “Climate change presents a unique
plastic entered the world’s oceans, a figure challenge for economics: it is the greatest
that is expected to increase until “peak and widest-ranging market failure ever
waste” is reached in 2100.4 seen”.5
The mounting signs of environmental Stern was a former chief economist
crisis have renewed attention on the and vice-president at the World Bank
relationship that humans have with the and, despite the hopes of some in the
world around them. For some this is environmental movement, this statement
about the impact of our own individual didn’t mean he was abandoning free
lives. We are encouraged to live more market ideas. Rather it reflected his
in harmony with the world, recycling, belief that market mechanisms hadn’t
reusing and restricting our activities to been given free enough rein to deal with
avoid damaging the planet. But the effect climate change. At the heart of Stern’s
that we have as individuals pales into solutions are free market mechanisms
insignificance when compared to the known as “carbon trading”, which have
damage wrought by the multinationals been shown to do nothing to reduce
and by government policies. We need to emissions, but do make huge profits for
examine the relationship between our the corporations involved.6
society as a whole and the natural world Socialists argue that the environmental
upon which it depends. destruction we are seeing is the
Yet the dominant view of how to solve consequence of the particular political
the crisis promoted by the mainstream and economic system that we live
political parties, trade unions, NGOs under: capitalism. The greatest critics of
and governments is through reform of capitalism, Karl Marx and his life-long
our existing society. So they advocate collaborator Friedrich Engels, argued that
more of the same— finding technical or capitalism simply wasn’t sustainable. They
economic mechanisms that allow us to devoted their entire lives to the struggle
continue behaving exactly as we have for the revolutionary transformation of
society, for the creation of a new world, action to stop environmental devastation.
based on need rather than profit; where In this pamphlet I will look at how
the natural world is seen as something to the ideas of Marx and Engels explain
be acted on and utilised, but also to be how human society has related to
protected and cherished. the environment at different stages
For Marx and Engels human society in our history, at why capitalism is so
couldn’t be separated from the natural environmentally damaging and why
world—capitalism exploited and placing Marxist ideas back at the heart
destroyed human beings, but it also of the debate about what sort of society
ravaged the environment. we need to save us from ecological
This thinking runs like a thread destruction is so urgent.
through their books and articles. Writing
a century and half ago, Marx and
Engels couldn’t predict the enormous
scale of the environmental crisis that Humans and
we face today, but their ideas provide
a vital framework for understanding the natural
why capitalism now threatens the very
existence of human society.
world
Unfortunately, the Marxist contribution
to the understanding of human beings’
relationship to the natural world has been
M arx begins by making an
elementary point, but one whose
far-reaching significance is often ignored.
largely forgotten or dismissed by many No human society can exist without
who want to save the planet. a relationship with the natural world
In part this is because of the crimes— around them: “Mankind must first of
including the environmental crimes—of all eat, drink, have shelter and clothing,
those who claimed to govern in the name before it can pursue politics, science, art,
of Marx and Engels, particularly in the religion”.7
former Soviet Union. Fashioning tools to act on nature in
But it is also because most order to meet these elemental needs is as
environmental campaigners hope to save old as mankind itself. The archaeologist
the world within the context of existing Francis Pryor tells us that the earliest
society, rather than believing in the need humans in what became the British
for revolutionary change. Isles made flint implements and hand
Recent years have seen the emergence axes 650,000 years ago, tools similar
of renewed environmental activism. to those recovered from sites in Africa
Hundreds of thousands of school which date back a million years. These
students have taken part in strikes and tools were produced in vast numbers for
in the UK Extinction Rebellion’s protests hunting animals for food, chopping wood
have seen mass arrests as they demand for shelter and fuel, and skinning and
preparing furs and skins for clothing.8 live without being subject to endless toil,
As Engels put it, “we by no means a minority was able to assert control
rule over nature like a conqueror over a over the means of production. Society
foreign people, like someone standing was split into classes with a ruling class
outside nature—but that we, with flesh, exploiting those who directly produced
blood and brain, belong to nature, and the necessities of life.
exist in its midst”.9 How a society organises The rulers owe their position in society
production is bound up with two distinct to the particular way that production is
elements. Alex Callinicos has provided a organised, and thus have an interest in
useful summary of Marx’s argument: maintaining the status quo. They resist
changes that might alter the relations of
Production has two aspects, material production and undermine their own
and social. Firstly it is the activity position. History is littered with examples
through which men and women seek of societies which were unwilling or
to meet their needs by acting on and unable to change the way society was
transforming nature. organised, leading to social collapse.
This implies a certain organisation For Marxists then, human society
of production, the possession of the is inextricably linked to the natural
appropriate tools, and so on. world, but it also reacts back upon that
Secondly, production is a social world. Because the impact of humans
process, in which people cooperate to on their surroundings is related to the
produce the things they need. particular method by which production is
It always involves social relations organised, the scale of the changes to the
between those taking part, relations natural world has changed throughout
which, crucially, concern the control history.
of the process of production and the Even with ancient tools humans
distribution of its products. could and did permanently alter their
Marx calls the first, material surroundings. It is likely, for instance,
aspect, the forces of production, and that the people archaeologists call Clovis
its second, social aspect, the relations hunters helped drive the mammoth to
of production.10 extinction in North America, at a time of
environmental change 12,000 years ago.11
For most of our history humans lived in However, this pales into insignificance
small communities producing very little when compared to the changes wrought
over and above the minimum required to by later human societies. Armed
survive. In these “primitive communist” with flint axes and wooden spears
societies, as Marx called them, the tools ancient humans could help destroy a
of production were held in common. species already weakened by changes
But as society became capable of to its natural world, but they couldn’t
producing a surplus, allowing some to fundamentally alter even finely balanced
ecosystems on a large scale. disappeared as the natural world that

Later societies had the power to do they relied on changed and their societies
this because their method of social proved unable to adapt. But in these
organisation gave them both the cases only the localised society vanished,
freedom to utilise resources on larger leaving nothing behind but remains for
scale projects and to produce more archaeologists to examine.
powerful tools. The clearing of forests for Under capitalism we have reached a
agriculture or raw materials is something situation where changes to the natural
that many societies have engaged in. In world made by our civilisation have
early societies only small regions would threatened entire ecological systems.
need to be cleared, which would naturally Now, through climate change, the
recover over a period of time. continued existence of human civilisation
More productive civilisations could is called into question.
make the changes permanent. The
ancient Greeks caused the silting up of
their ports and harbours because the
clearance of woodland for agriculture led
Capitalism
to the erosion of soil. Much of Europe
was deforested during the Middle Ages
as populations expanded—a process
C apitalism first arose on the western
edge of Europe, rapidly spreading
throughout the world. This new method
that rapidly accelerated when, in the of organising society required a radical
15th century, European powers built break with previous methods of social
large fleets of wooden sailing ships to organisation.
further their colonial ambitions. By the Before capitalism the dominant form
18th century wood in Europe was scarce of society in Europe was feudalism. Rich
enough to require the clearance of forests landlords exploited the vast majority of
in the United States for material to build the peasant population. Most peasants
the vessels for the slave trade.12 were tied to their lord’s land. Control of
But the arrival of capitalism has land was the driving force behind the
created a new, and potentially much innumerable wars throughout the Middle
more dangerous, situation. In some Ages, as the lords fought to defend their
earlier civilisations the changes that own land, or to seize control of that of
humans effected on their surroundings, others.
often combined with a changing climate The exploitation at the heart of
or natural environment, led to the feudalism was certainly brutal— peasant
disappearance of those societies. life was far from an idyllic country
In his book Collapse Jared Diamond existence. Life was short and people rarely
shows how civilisations as varied as the left the immediate area where they were
Mayans in Southern America, the Easter born. Life was also dominated by back-
Islanders and the Vikings in Greenland breaking work, which saw the majority of
the product of the peasant’s labour taken the exploitation of their workforce—the
by the lord. But this exploitation by the source of all their profits in the first place.
lord was overwhelmingly for his own In any sane society the introduction of
consumption. new machinery would result in improved
So the limits of the exploitation of living conditions or a reduction of the
the serfs were the needs of the lord and working week but under capitalism
his entourage. While this might often improvements like this are only about
have been excessive and conspicuous maximising exploitation to stay ahead of
consumption, the exploitation at the the competition.
heart of feudal society was effectively The need to accumulate wealth, simply
limited by what the lord could eat. for the sake of it, rather than in the
Under capitalism things are interest of meeting people’s needs, means
fundamentally different. The vast that capitalism relates to the natural
majority of people do not live on the land world differently to previous societies.
and, unlike medieval serfs, workers under This is something that Marx and Engels
capitalism are not tied to their jobs or clearly identified when they wrote about
their land. Rather than giving a section how capitalism exploited the natural
of the results of their work to their boss, world:
under capitalism the worker is paid a
wage for doing a particular job. Workers For the first time, nature becomes
must sell their ability to work—their purely an object for humankind,
labour power—to get the essentials to purely a matter of utility; ceases to
survive. be recognised as a power for itself;
Crucially, the central motive behind and the theoretical discovery of its
the exploitation of workers under autonomous laws appears merely
capitalism is not the consumption of as a ruse so as to subject it under
the ruling class or an individual boss human needs, whether as an object
(though, of course, this is far from of consumption or as a means of
overlooked); it is rather the endless production.14
pursuit of profit for the sake of profit. In
the words of Karl Marx, “Accumulate, Under capitalism the natural
accumulate! That is Moses and the environment is merely something to be
prophets!”13 exploited for profit, or a rubbish dump
Production is organised by separate for the system’s unwanted by-products.
competing companies. each company Look at how everything from nuclear
is driven by the need to stay ahead of waste to sewage is thrown into the
its rivals, living in fear of a competitor oceans, or how greenhouse gases are
getting ahead of them. No capitalist pumped into the atmosphere, while
can afford to stand still. They must forests are chopped down and arable
continually find new ways to increase land is rendered unusable by short-term
agricultural practices. In the rush to make as quickly as possible might make more
profits, only short-term concerns are of profits than maintaining a sustainable
importance. As Engels put it: forest, but the long-term consequences
can be disastrous.
As individual capitalists are engaged Any company that attempts to work
in production and exchange for the around this, perhaps by spending
sake of the immediate profit, only the more to be more ethical or investing
nearest, most immediate results must in more sustainable practices, will be
first be taken into account. at a disadvantage compared to their
As long as the individual competitors who are able to produce
manufacturer or merchant sells goods or services at lower costs, and
a manufactured or purchased will face bankruptcy unless they too are
commodity with the usual prepared to cut corners.
coveted profit, he is satisfied and Humans have always produced
does not concern himself with waste, but under capitalism the scale has
what afterwards becomes of the become staggering. Heather Rogers has
commodity and its purchasers. shown that “in the United States over the
The same thing applies to the last 30 years, rubbish output has doubled.
natural effects of the same actions. Today almost 80 percent of US products
What cared the Spanish planters are used once, then thrown away”.16
in Cuba, who burned down forests Indeed, it is capitalism that has
on the slopes of the mountains and created the very problem of garbage.
obtained from the ashes sufficient Previously, people were either so poor
fertiliser for one generation of very that their few belongings were used
highly profitable coffee trees—what over and over again, or the products
cared they that the heavy tropical they owned were designed to be used
rainfall afterwards washed away the repeatedly.
unprotected upper stratum of the When commodities are reused
soil, leaving behind only bare rock!15 they are not being bought again, so
companies invented disposable products,
Yet short-term actions which are rational disguising this as convenience, in order
for an individual business or industry to sell more products and make more
often have longer-term irrational money. The logical conclusion of this
consequences for the planet as a whole. was built-in obsolescence—either the
The continued burning of oil, for commodity stopped working after a few
instance, keeps the profits rolling in for years or it went out of fashion.
the oil multinationals, but in the long In the 1920s this repeated purchase
term the waste by-products in the form of goods began to be marketed as a “life
of greenhouse gases threaten accelerating affirming activity”. According to one
climate change. Chopping down trees marketing consultant at the time:
It is the ambition of almost every billion. Contrast this to the US$26.2

American to practise progressive billion required, by 2020, for responding
obsolescence as a ladder by to the HIV and AIDS epidemic; funding
which to climb to greater human that has been reduced by 7 percent by the
satisfactions through the purchase wealthy nations in 2015/2016.20
of more of the fascinating and In his great work Capital Karl Marx
thrilling range of goods and services pointed to the way capitalism wastes what
being offered today.17 he called the “excretions of consumption”,
by which he meant “natural waste matter
The car industry took this to its logical discharged by the human body, remains
conclusion in the 1950s: “The change in of clothing in the form of rags, etc”. These
appearance of models each year increases were “of the greatest importance for
our sales,” said one Ford executive, agriculture”:
encouraging car owners to replace their
vehicles as often as possible.18 yet, there is enormous waste of them
But it’s not simply through a desire to in the capitalist economy. In London,
sell more products that capitalism wastes for instance, they find no better
resources. Because companies are in use for the excretion of four and a
competition with each other, there is no half million human beings than to
overall logic to production. contaminate the Thames with it at
This means that production is heavy expense.21
irrational and unplanned, creating
waste at all levels—overproduction on The very design of our cities accentuates
the one hand and wasted resources on the waste and environmental destruction
the other. Workers and factories churn capitalism causes—people commute
out products that aren’t needed, or long distances for work or education,
aren’t affordable to the very people who burning valuable raw materials to do so.
need them. Whole industries absorb Two-thirds of energy that is generated
tremendous materials, energy and in power stations is wasted because it is
labour with limited social benefit. generated at huge centralised plants, great
The economist Michael Kidron distances from where it is needed.22
estimated that for the year 1970, 60 For mainstream economics, nature
percent of US production could be is considered to be outside of its
classed as waste19 —resources diverted calculations. As the Marxist ecologist
to the arms industries, advertising or John Bellamy Foster points out, “The
luxury consumption for the rich. The air pollution caused by a factory is not
amounts wasted are staggering—global treated as a cost of production internal
military expenditure was US$1.8 trillion to that factory. Rather it is viewed as an
in 2018; the total amount spent on external cost to be borne by nature and
advertising in the same year was US$543 society”.23
However, this does not mean that we the cost to the natural world mean that
should oppose economic development as capitalism in the long term can only be
not being in the interests of the planet. seen as an unsustainable society.
Those living in the poorest regions
of the world desperately need further
economic development, but the question
for us must be what kind of growth and Marx and
development is needed.
Historically, “accumulation has been
Engels
‘subsidised by a global environment…
the history of the last 500 years has
therefore been a history of unsustainable
T he contribution of Marx and Engels
to the debate on ecology has been
distorted by the terrible environmental
development”, as Bellamy Foster puts it.24 record of the Soviet Union and the Eastern
There is no reason why development Bloc countries that governed in the name
needs to follow the destructive, of socialism. But these regimes had little
unsustainable path that has been taken to do with the vision that Marx and
in the developed world. Engels had of a society with the governing
The more thoughtful capitalists do principle “From each according to his
see the problem. Heads of business and ability, to each according to his needs”.
government understand that they need Much of Marx and Engels’ ideas on
to tackle the environmental crisis. what we now call ecology have been
But what is rational for the system rescued and developed recently by writers
as a whole, and in the long term, is not like John Bellamy Foster, though as we
necessarily rational for different parts of shall see later, they should be considered
it which after all are in competition with very much part of the genuine Marxist
each other. tradition.
Look at the first international treaty We have seen how central to the
designed to tackle climate change, the Marxist idea of history is the relationship
Kyoto Protocol. that humans have to the natural world
This committed industrialised nations around them. however, Marx developed
to reducing emissions by 5 percent by a far more nuanced understanding of
2012. Yet even this unambitious target how this relationship to the environment
was too much for the United States shaped social life under capitalism. To
government, which refused to ratify understand this, we need to have a look
the treaty, saying this would damage its at another important concept that Marx
economy. developed—the theory of alienation.
The short-term nature of capitalism, We live in a world where the industrial
the competition at the heart of the and technological achievements have
system and the resultant inefficiencies created opportunities unimaginable to
together with the externalisation of our ancestors, yet they don’t live up to
the promise. Modern agriculture has contrary: Machinery, gifted with

the potential to feed billions of people, the wonderful power of shortening
yet almost a sixth of the population and fructifying human labour, we
are undernourished. We regularly put behold starving and overworking it;
astronauts and satellites into space, yet The newfangled sources of wealth, by
over a billion people survive on less than some strange weird spell, are turned
a dollar a day. As Marx put it: into sources of want; The victories
of art seem bought by the loss of
Labour produces works of wonder character.26
for the rich, but nakedness for the
worker. It produces palaces, but only Marx described this process as
hovels for the worker; it produces alienation—the way in which, under
beauty, but cripples the worker; it capitalism, the essence of what makes us
replaces labour by machines but human, our ability to work collectively
throws part of the workers back to to shape the natural world around us,
a barbaric labour and turns the is taken from us. We are left without
other part into machines. It produces control of our lives, and the products of
culture, but also imbecility and our labour become turned against us as
cretinism for the worker.25 hostile forces.
In his Economic and Philosophical
Despite our ability to dominate the Manuscripts of 1844 Marx identified
natural world, society seems ever more four aspects to alienation: the separation
unstable and dangerous. The products of of the worker from (1) the product of
human labour seem to dominate rather his or her labour, (2) from the labour
than liberate us. Speaking in 1856, Marx process itself, (3) from our human
summed up this contradiction: nature and (4) from each other.
Workers are alienated from the
On the one hand, there have started object, or even the service, they produce,
into life industrial and scientific because the result of the work is owned
forces, which no epoch of the former and controlled by someone else—the
human history had ever suspected. capitalist. Marx summed up the way the
On the other hand, there exist objects that a worker produces end up
symptoms of decay, far dominating their life:
surpassing the horrors
recorded of the latter The worker puts his life into the
times of the Roman object and this means that it no
empire. longer belongs to him but to the
In our days, object. What the product of his
everything seems labour is, that he is not. So the greater
pregnant with its this product the less he is himself.
The externalisation of the worker other. We compete against each other for
in his product implies not only that jobs, for pay rises, for promotion. We are
his labour becomes an object, an set against each other to divide and rule
exterior existence but also that it us. Moreover, our relations with other
exists outside him, independent and people are governed by the selling and
alien, and becomes a self-sufficient buying of commodities.
power opposite him, that the life that Remember how Marx and Engels
he has lent to the object affronts him, argued that the basis of the organisation
hostile and alien.27 of every society is how it provides the
basic necessities of life? Well, under
From this flows the second part of Marx’s capitalism, thousands of people are
theory, the way in which workers are involved in the production of the clothes
separated from the very process of labour we wear, the food we eat, the vehicles we
itself. We have no say in how we work or drive or the houses we live in.
the working conditions we labour under. Yet we are isolated from them and our
The process of work is not simply out only knowledge of them is through the
of our control, but is actually in the hands purchase of the products of their labour.
of forces hostile to the workers’ interest— We don’t relate to the rest of humanity as
the bosses and managers who have every fellow human beings. We relate to them
interest in making us work harder, for less as part of the productive process—they
pay and for longer hours. become competitors, inferiors or superiors.
Modern production lines have In conclusion then, alienation is the
intensified this process because the separation of workers from their own
worker is further separated from the labour and the active role that labour
products of his or her labour by playing plays in the transformation of nature.
only a small part of a much larger Workers, under capitalism, are thus
operation. alienated from the natural world. But it is
In the past a skilled craftsman would upon the natural world that our societies
have made a product from start to finish; are based.
in modern factories workers repeat the Marx observed in the Economic and
same process over and over again as they Philosophical Manuscripts:
create a single part of a larger product.
Workers have simply become another cog That man lives from nature means
in the machine. that nature is his body with which
The third point Marx makes is that the he must maintain a constant
very thing that makes us human—our interchange so as not to die. That
capacity for social labour—has been taken man’s physical and intellectual life
from us. Work, far from being a creative depends on nature merely means
act, is transformed into its very opposite. that nature depends on itself, for
Finally, we are alienated from each man is part of nature.28
Later in his life Marx developed this point, understanding of how agriculture
using the concept of the “metabolism” reduced the fertility of soil as plants grew
between humans and nature to “give a and removed nutrients like nitrogen and
more solid and scientific expression of this potassium from the ground.
fundamental relationship, depicting the He developed this understanding
complex, dynamic interchange between into an attack on the way in which the
human beings and nature resulting from organisation of agriculture systematically
human labour”.29 robbed the soil of its fertility—soil
nutrients “were carried away in produce
Labour is, first of all, a process year after year”.
between man and nature, a process While Liebig certainly hoped to
by which man, through his own use fertiliser, artificial and natural, to
actions, mediates, regulates and replenish the worn out soil, he also
controls the metabolism between believed that a more rational form of
himself and nature.30 agriculture was needed. As John Bellamy
Foster has written:
Marx developed this understanding by
looking at one of the great environmental Liebig argued—based on the
issues of the 19th century, the depletion condition of the Thames—that the
of soil fertility. In the developing capitalist two problems of the pollution of
nations of Europe and North America the cities with human and animal
increasingly intensive agriculture had excrement and the depletion of the
led to “worn out soil”, and there was a natural fertility of the soil were
huge rise in demand for fertiliser—by the connected, and that organic recycling
mid-part of the 19th century, the trade that would return nutrients to the
in guano (sea bird excrement) was worth soil was an indispensable part of a
huge amounts of cash, with farmers in rational urban-agricultural system.32
Europe so desperate “that they raided
the Napoleonic battlefields…for bones to Karl Marx developed the ideas of Liebig
spread over their fields”.31 and others into a deep critique of
The chemical industry capable of capitalist agricultural methods.
manufacturing artificial fertilisers hadn’t The increased centralisation of
yet developed to the extent needed to populations into large urban centres was
help world agriculture and so important at the heart of the problem—food grown
was the need for new sources of fertiliser in the country was taken to the towns and
that an era of “guano imperialism” arrived cities and as sewage was dumped into the
as nations annexed tiny islands rich in the rivers or sea, the nutrients were lost to
natural product of sea birds. agriculture.
The German chemist Justus von Marx understood that it was possible
Liebig developed the first modern to “improve” the soil if agriculture
was rationally organised, but he also favourable to, and worthy of, their
understood that “capitalist production… human nature. But it nonetheless still
disturbs the metabolic interaction remains a realm of necessity. Beyond
between man and the earth”. he it begins that development of human
continued: energy which is an end in itself,
the true realm of freedom, which,
all progress in capitalist agriculture however, can blossom forth only with
is a progress in the art, not only of this realm of necessity as its basis.35
robbing the worker, but of robbing
the soil; all progress in increasing the In other words, capitalism has laid the
fertility of the soil for a given time is basis for a more sustainable future, but it
a progress towards ruining the more is only in a different society, one where
long-lasting sources of that fertility.33 the rift between people and nature has
been healed, that people will be free to
Marx’s analysis of capitalist agriculture develop further, unrestricted by the limits
led him to believe that a genuinely placed on them by capitalism.
sustainable agriculture couldn’t exist
under capitalism:
The conscious and rational treatment Marx, Malthus

of the land as permanent communal
property is the inalienable condition and the myth of
for the existence and reproduction of
the chain of human generations.34
overpopulation
Thus there was a “metabolic rift” between
humans and nature under capitalism. For
O ne of the most important debates
that Marx and Engels engaged with,
and which has a relevance to today’s
Marx, this rupture could only be healed discussions about the future of the planet,
when a society organised the relationship was about the world’s human population.
between people and nature differently. Today the debate on population
levels is inseparable from the question
Freedom in this field can only consist of sustainability. Jonathan Porritt is an
in socialised man, the associated environmentalist and President of the
producers, rationally regulating their charity Population Matters (previously
interchange with nature, bringing known as the Optimum Population
it under their common control, Trust). Population Matters claims on their
instead of being ruled by it as by the website that “our population has become
blind forces of nature; and achieving so large that the Earth cannot cope” and
this with the least expenditure of that “England is the most overcrowded
energy and under conditions most large nation in the EU”. 36
“Population growth, plus economic The spirit of oppression, the spirit

growth, is putting the world under of servility, and the spirit of fraud,
terrible pressure”, says Porritt. these are the immediate growth of
Overpopulation is a “common sense” the established administration of
argument for many environmentalists property… In a state of society, where
and naturalists. For instance, David men lived in the midst of plenty, and
Attenborough and James Lovelock are where all shared alike the bounties
also patrons of Population Matters. of nature, these sentiments would
Putting the blame on population levels inevitably expire.38
can end up diverting criticism from the
real causes of social and environmental Against this vision of a society based on
problems. Marx and Engels understood something other than property relations,
this and went to great lengths to challenge Malthus believed that because the only
this common sense idea. limitations of population were vice (in
In 1798 the Reverend Thomas Malthus Malthus’s time it was commonly believed
published the first in a series of essays that promiscuity reduced fertility) and
arguing that population growth would suffering (plague, sickness, famine) an
always outgrow the available food. egalitarian society was impossible:
His name has become shorthand
for the argument that the world is, or Man cannot live in the midst of
is getting, overpopulated and that the plenty. All cannot share alike the
planet has limited food and natural bounties of nature. Were there
resources and cannot support this no established administration of
growing population. By extension in property, every man would be
the era of global warming, some argue obliged to guard with force his
that the larger the population, the more little store. Selfishness would be
greenhouse gas emissions. triumphant.
Despite the modern interpretation
of his arguments, Malthus went to For Malthus, his belief in the inherent
great lengths to avoid using the word selfishness of people made the system
“overpopulation”.37 For him, this was not of private property necessary to rein in
the central point of the debate. the excesses of the population—a more
Malthus wrote his essays in the equal society could only bring suffering
aftermath of the French Revolution. He and was thus to be prevented. Such a
was taking part in a polemical argument society was doomed to failure because
about whether or not an egalitarian people would simply have more and more
society was possible. In particular children until the food ran out, and mass
Malthus was seeking to challenge the starvation led to social collapse.
ideas of the radical writer and thinker At the heart of Malthus’s ideas was a
William Godwin who believed that: contemptible attitude to poor, working
people. Marx described the “fundamental This attitude led Malthus to believe that
meanness” at the centre of the Reverend’s charity itself was a problem, as it simply
writing. But he and Engels also pointed kept poor people alive in poverty. Writing
out that Malthus’s ideas were unscientific. about the starvation in Ireland in 1817,
There was no evidence for Malthus’s Malthus argued that there should be no
key thesis that population grew at a relief for the hungry, but that instead the
geometrical rate (ie 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and so poor should be forcibly removed from the
on) when unchecked, outstripping the land into the cities.42
food supply which only increased at an It is these sentiments that led many
arithmetical rate (1, 2, 3, 4, 5).39 people to criticise Malthus. The radical
Malthus’s arguments were directed at William Cobbett wrote about Malthus,
blaming the poor for their situation. Thus “I have, during my life, detested many
he insisted that there should be no state men; but never anyone so much as
assistance for the destitute. you”. However, despite the theoretical
After all, if it was the natural order of limitations of Malthus’s ideas, they
things for population to outstrip available rapidly became part of orthodox
food, then there was no point trying to establishment ideas.
feed those who were hungry. Few who Marx and Engels responded to Malthus’s
use Malthus’s arguments on population ideas with gusto, and their writings
today would approve of his belief that the constantly refer back to Malthus’s essays,
poor were incapable of moral restraint. while recognising that his ideas had come
Yet in the 1803 edition of his essay, to play an important role in ruling class
Malthus went further, saying: ideology. here is Marx, writing in 1865:
With regard to illegitimate Take for instance, Malthus’ book On

children…they should on no account Population. In its first edition it was
whatever be allowed to have any nothing but a “sensational pamphlet”
claim to parish allowance… The and plagiarism from beginning to
infant is, comparatively speaking, end into the bargain. And yet what
of no value to society, as others will a stimulus was produced by this libel
immediately supply its place… 40 on the human race!43
Later he continues: Engels’ summed up Malthus’s arguments

thus:
We cannot, in the nature of things,
assist the poor, in any way, without The earth is perennially
enabling them to rear up to overpopulated, whence poverty,
manhood a greater number of their misery, distress and immorality
children.41 must prevail; that it is the lot, the
eternal destiny of mankind, to exist
Not because the limits of

production—even today and with
present day means—are exhausted.
No, but because the limits of
production are determined not by the
number of hungry bellies but by the
number of purses able to buy and to
pay. Bourgeois society does not and
cannot wish to produce any more.
The moneyless bellies, the labour
which cannot be utilised for profit
and therefore cannot buy is left to the
Specious Malthusian arguments about death-rate.46
population have become very influential
in too great numbers, and therefore The brutal reality of this has been seen
in diverse classes, of which some again and again where famine has struck.
are rich, education, and moral, and Some 20 years before Engels wrote the
others more or less poor, distressed, words above, the potato blight devastated
ignorant and immoral.44 the staple food crop of Ireland. About
a million and a half people died and a
No wonder Malthus’s writings became further million emigrated to find food
the “pet theory for the genuine English and work.47
bourgeois…since it is the most specious During the worst of the famine, the
excuse for them”.45 major preoccupation of the British
Both Marx and Engels took up government was that famine relief must
Malthus’s basic arguments in detail. not undermine the price of food on the
They pointed out how Malthus had open market.
contradicted himself by admitting As millions starved, prices rocketed.
that there were occasions when food The government’s official position
production had increased to match the was that famine offered traders an
rise in population. But they also pointed opportunity to make profits. Speculators
out that improvements in science, made fortunes out of corn while the
production processes and agricultural government refused to intervene. Sir
techniques had massively increased the Charles Trevelyan, the Treasury assistant
amounts of food that could be produced. responsible for famine relief, again and
Engels approached the question of again refused to allow the sending of food
hunger from a radically different point to the starving, fearing the impact on
of view to mainstream commentators. If private business.
there is not enough food, “why is too little The disaster that hit Ireland was not
produced?” he asked: natural. Other countries suffered from
potato blight, but did not experience In the 1970s famine struck the West
mass starvation. The disaster was a result African Sahelian nations. All but one
of the relationship between the British of those nations produced enough to
state and the Irish people that had left feed their populations. In the 1980s,
them impoverished and reliant on a 31 countries suffered drought in sub-
single crop, coupled by the refusal of the Saharan Africa, yet only five suffered
government to allow relief for fear of famine.49
upsetting those who profited out of the Again the problem wasn’t population
sale of food. or food shortages, but rather that the
In 1847, in the midst of the famine, available food didn’t go to those who
Ireland produced a bumper harvest of needed it. Often countries that have high
grain. “The face of the country is covered levels of malnutrition export food—India,
with ripe corn, while the people dread for instance, exported millions of dollars’
starvation… The grain will go out of worth of wheat and rice in 1995, despite
the country, sold to pay rent”, wrote the over 200 million of its population going
government officer in charge at Limerick. hungry.50
Many people who died as a result The similarities with the Irish Famine
of the famine could have survived if are obvious, particularly in the way the
the authorities had done more to help. richer nations have made the situation
The British government, from 1845- worse. The United Nations Hunger Task
1850 spent just over £7 million on Force has shown that it would have been
famine relief. This contrasts with the possible to halve the number of people
£20 million given to West Indian slave starving in the world by 2015 if the
owners as compensation following the developed nations gave just 0.7 percent
emancipation of the slaves in the 1830s, of their Gross National Product in aid.
or the £70 million that was spent on the These countries must “also reform trade
Crimean War a few years later.48 practices that hurt farmers in hungry
The death and displacement of countries, and stop dumping cheap
millions of Irish people were not the agricultural products on these vulnerable
result of a simple failed harvest, they markets”.51 It also means that crops
were a consequence of colonialism and should not be grown to produce highly
economic policies that put profit before profitable “bio-fuels” when they could be
people. feeding the starving.52
During every great famine since the The world also has a huge potential to
Irish Famine, there have been those grow far more food than we do currently.
who argued that starvation is a result of According to a 2009 report by
overpopulation. Yet this was not true of United Nations Food and Agriculture
Ireland in the 1840s and it hasn’t been Organization, the amount of crop land
true of famines that have hit the world across the world could be more than
since then. doubled. Much of this land is in Africa
and Latin America. A second report increase is not automatic, but related
shows even more potential: to wider social context, particularly a
country’s wealth.
At the moment only ten percent of Feeding 10 billion people is possible,
the Guinea Savannah zone, a vast but doing it sustainably will require
area of around 600 million hectares a transformation in how we grow
of land from Senegal to South Africa, and distribute food. In particular, the
with 400 million hectares suitable for industrialised agriculture favoured by the
farming, is actually cropped.53 developed world must be transformed
into a more sustainable model. A number
Two hundred years after Thomas Malthus of studies show that this is possible.55
wrote his original tract, the world is a But simply producing more food will
very different place. Yet his arguments not guarantee that everyone will be fed.
resurface as economic and environmental To do this means the poorest must be
crisis threaten to engulf the planet. able to afford to eat. This is a political and
The population of the planet currently economic question, not one simply of
stands at 7.6 billion and growing, yet the population size.
rate of expansion continues to fall. Most The relationship between sustainability
of the expected population growth is in a and population is also not a direct one. As
small number of countries. authors Ian Angus and Simon Butler have
Between 2019 and 2050 half of world pointed out, there is “no correspondence
population growth will be in just nine between emissions and population
countries. Between 2019 and 2050 density”. Countries with high emissions
populations are expected to decrease in such as Australia, Canada and Russia
55 countries or areas, with 26 of those often have very low population densities.
seeing reductions at least ten percent. They also point out that, “Broadly
Global fertility rates (the average speaking, the countries with the highest
number of children per woman) have emissions are those whose population is
fallen from 3.2 in 1990 to 2.5 in 2019 and growing most slowly or even declining,
expected to drop to 2.2 in 2050. while countries with the lowest emissions
The replacement level, to avoid have the highest population growth
population decline in the absence of rates”.56
migration is 2.1. But despite a slowdown Environmental author and journalist
in world population growth as fertility Fred Pearce has argued the question is
levels decline, total population is likely to actually about the sort of society that a
be 9.7 billion in 2050.54 person lives in, not overall population:
What these figures highlight is that
as living standards improve, and as If we look just at the richest billion
education and access to medical facilities people on the planet, their average
also improve, birth rates drop. Population consumption of resources and
production of waste today is 32

times that of the average for the
remaining almost six billion…the
poorest three billion or so people on
the planet (roughly 45 percent of the
total) are currently responsible for
only 7 percent of emissions, while the
richest 7 percent (about half a billion The richest 10% are responsible
people) are responsible for 50 percent for half of global emissions
of emissions. followed Malthus’s arguments in the
A woman in rural Ethiopia can 19th century. This is the belief that the
have ten children and her family wealth of a nation is fixed, rather than
will still do less damage, and being determined by particular historical
consume fewer resources, than the conditions. As Marx put it:
family of the average soccer mom in
Minnesota or Manchester or Munich. overpopulation is…a historically
In the unlikely event that her ten determined relation, in no way
children live to adulthood and all determined by abstract numbers
have ten children of their own, the or by the absolute limit of the
entire clan of more than a hundred productivity of the necessaries of life,
will still be emitting only about as but by the limits posited rather by
much carbon dioxide each year as specific conditions of production…
you or me.57 how small do the numbers which
meant overpopulation for the
In the run up to the Paris climate talks in Athenians appear to us!59
December 2015 an Oxfam report reached
similar conclusions. As Malthus’s name is again used to argue
The poorest half of the world’s that there are not enough resources to
population are responsible for 10 percent support the world’s population, we must
of global emissions, and live in regions reply by pointing out that the problem
most at risk from climate change. is not shortages, but rather it is an
The richest 10 percent are responsible economic system that cannot deliver to
for half of global emissions. Someone in those in need.
the “1 percent” has an emissions footprint Today those who use such arguments
about 175 times larger than someone in end up blaming ordinary people for the
the poorest 10 percent.58 economic and environmental problems
Those who argue that the world of the system, just as Malthus did. Just as
is overcrowded today and that there Marx and Engels rejected this “libel on
are only limited natural resources are the human race” over 150 years ago, so
falling into the same trap as those who must we today.
The consequences of environmental
Class and changes are made worse by the unequal

nature of society. There is no reason
social justice why unseasonably cold or hot weather
should be lethal, yet with every degree
I t has long been accepted that the

poorest nations in the world suffer
disproportionately from the impact
the temperature falls below the winter
average, there are 8,000 extra deaths in
Britain. Most of these are pensioners
of environmental crisis. however, it is unable to afford to heat their homes.
a mistake to think that it is only the The figure is far worse than much colder
developing nations of the world that will countries like Russia or Finland where
suffer. The global threat from climate people are better prepared.60
change will impact on every country in Summer heat waves kill thousands of
the world, but its effects will not be felt people across the world but again it is
equally. As Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the poorest in society who suffer most.
the United Nations’ Intergovernmental A 2005 study showed that of the 6,200
Panel on Climate Change, said in 2007, Americans hospitalised that year due to
“It’s the poorest of the poor in the world, excessive heat, those at highest risk were
and this includes poor people even in the poor, the elderly or the uninsured.
prosperous societies, who are going to be The unequal impact of environmental
the worst hit.” disaster was shown when hurricane
However, it isn’t just climate change Katrina destroyed New Orleans, killing
that threatens the poorest in society. almost 2,000 people. Local and national
environmental problems often affect the government refused to evacuate the city
poor in society most because they cannot fully. This meant that the poorest, those
afford to escape them. If you are rich you without cars, without somewhere to go,
can afford to live somewhere away from a or reliant on welfare cheques were left to
factory belching dirty fumes. Money can fend for themselves.
buy you clean drinking water. When those trapped in the city after
When describing Manchester in 1843, the storm turned to breaking into shops
Engels made the point that not only were for food and drink, they were demonised
the rich able to live outside the slums, by the government and the media, despite
with the wealthiest removed to “remoter the fact that it was clear that no aid was
villas with gardens” or living “in free, coming from outside.
wholesome country air”, but they also The unequal impact of climate change
insulated themselves from the full horror means that those at the bottom of society
of working people’s lives because the have the most to gain from the struggle
roads they travelled on were designed to for a better and more sustainable society.
hide the slums behind the shops lining In particular, workers must be at the
the roads. centre of this battle.
Often, however, those who campaign runaway climate change, yet there is
over environmental issues have seen no discussion where the remaining 60
working people as the problem. percent of reductions should come from.
Sometimes it is said that those who By concentrating on individual solutions,
don’t try and live “greener” lives are we are distracted from the bigger social
as much to blame as the governments changes that must be made.
and corporations that create ecological Our contributions as individuals
problems. Those of us living in the pale into insignificance compared to the
developed world are told we should make way giant corporations have caused the
sacrifices to reduce the environmental problem.
impact of our lives. 100 companies are responsible for 71
For instance, Jonathan Porritt percent of greenhouse gases emitted since
has argued that “each individual is the beginning of the industrial era. Just
responsible for their own carbon 25 “corporate and state owned entities”
footprint”. But this isn’t necessarily true. are responsible for 50 percent. 61
It isn’t surprising that many people Three companies, ChevronTexaco,
drive cars, for instance, given the way ExxonMobil and BP, are responsible for
that successive governments in the 3.5 percent, 3.2 percent and 2.5 percent of
UK have undermined public transport global emissions between 1751 and 2010.
through privatisation and encouraged car Half of these emissions came in the last
use. Globally the single biggest cause of 25 years.62 In 2015 Volkswagen was found
carbon emissions is power generation. Yet to have configured software in its cars to
as individuals we have little impact over detect when they were being tested and
government energy policy. improve performance. Millions of cars
But sometimes asking ordinary people were fitted with a “defeat device” that
to change their lifestyles to save the enabled them to claim lower emissions.
planet has far worse consequences. Take We should not accept the argument
Al Gore’s 2006 film about climate change, that we should make sacrifices to reduce
An Inconvenient Truth. At the end of emissions.
the film viewers are asked to respond as By focusing simply on how we live
individuals. To change our light-bulbs, our lives, we end up blaming individuals
inflate our car tyres more and shop at for the problem. This is particularly
green businesses. important when we look to those who
Environmental activist and journalist work in carbon intensive industries. If we
Derrick Jensen has argued that even are to reduce emissions, what does this
if everyone in the United States did mean for the future of the coal, aviation
everything that Al Gore suggested, and car industries?
emissions would drop by only 22 percent. Some say that we should simply
US emissions must be reduced by 70 close down whole factories. George
percent to 80 percent if we are to avoid Monbiot argued that it was wrong to
give government subsidies to save the more environmentally friendly products

car industry. Instead he argued that isn’t necessarily a difficult task. During
“recession reduces the number of cars on 2009 when three car component plants
the roads, this opens up the possibility of run by Visteon were closed, the workers
setting aside motorway lanes for intercity at the Enfield plant occupied to try and
coach travel, catalysing the public save their jobs. The Enfield plant made
transport revolution”.63 plastic parts. The injection moulding
Monbiot is right to argue that the method used could easily have been
government should pour money into converted to making other components.
projects to improve transport and reduce This is something the workers themselves
emissions. But his strategy would mean argued in a press release during the
the immediate closure of car plants. occupation:
Ignoring the thousands of workers
whose jobs are at risk will result in them Our skills—we can make anything
being alienated from the environmental in plastic—should be used to make
movement. This is why the question of increasingly needed parts for green
social justice is so important to the debate products: bike and trailer parts, solar
about a future sustainable society. panels, turbines, recycling bins, etc.
If we are to win working people to be
part of the movements that will challenge Similarly, the workers at the Vestas
the priorities of capitalism we need to be wind turbine plant on the Isle of Wight
demonstrating that their interests are part who occupied and campaigned against
of those movements. its closure understood that this wasn’t
Socialists argue that car factories simply a battle for their jobs; it was about
shouldn’t simply be shut down, but must the future of the planet.
be converted to produce more socially Without working people power
useful products—such as vehicles for stations cannot generate electricity,
public transport. factories cannot make goods, raw
It is why we must campaign for materials cannot be mined, collected or
compensation, training, new jobs and distributed, children do not get educated,
new opportunities for anyone who loses and our workplaces and cities would
out as industries and workplaces are not get cleaned. This gives workers, as a
made more environmentally friendly. class, immense power—the power to stop
One example of how this can be done production, to halt the very processes that
is shown by the “One Million Climate drive capitalism and to stop the profits of
Jobs” report, produced by the Campaign the bosses.
Against Climate Change trade union Marx and Engels understood that
group and supported by seven British capitalism, which brought together large
trade unions. numbers of workers in giant factories
The conversion of factories to make and workplaces, had also created the
very force which could transform more efficient and production methods
society. As they put it in The Communist improved.
Manifesto, capitalism produces its own A sustainable city would have
“gravediggers”. massively improved public transport
But what would the new society that systems, reducing reliance on the
workers could create look like? inefficient, dangerous and polluting car.
There would be better provision for
cyclists and pedestrians and over time we
Sustainability would redesign our towns and cities to
ensure that the era of the long commute
J ohn Bellamy Foster has come up

with a three-fold definition of what
sustainability means. Firstly, the rate of
was over. Longer distance transport
would be shifted towards fast, efficient
and cheap railways—run in the interest of
utilisation of renewable resources has to the passengers, rather than the profits of
be kept to the rate of their regeneration. the rail companies.
Secondly, the rate of utilisation of Collective social institutions, like
non-renewable resources must be kept crèches and laundrettes, should become
at the rate of their replacement by much more common, rather than relying
alternate sustainable resources. Thirdly, on individual households to provide
pollution and habitat destruction cannot for people’s needs. This would further
exceed the “assimilative capacity” of the improve energy use, as the amount of
environment.64 waste and the materials that go towards
Such sustainability is not incompatible producing all the household appliances
with industrial civilisation. George was reduced.
Monbiot wrote his 2006 book Heat These social changes wouldn’t just
explicitly to show that it was possible for benefit the planet, but would dramatically
the rich nations to maintain an industrial improve almost every aspect of our
society and cut their greenhouse gas lives from the commute to work to the
emissions by 90 percent, by 2030.65 overcrowded, badly built housing that so
Some aspects of how a sustainable many working people rely on. Our cities
society could look are quite would become less polluted and roads
straightforward. less dangerous. Free crèches would help
Instead of relying on fossil fuels for to allow women, who take the majority of
the majority of its energy, a sustainable the burden of childcare, access to better
society would generate the bulk of its jobs and better pay.
energy needs from renewable sources. While many of these changes might in
Such a society would also have reduced principle be compatible with capitalism,
its total energy needs dramatically. a truly sustainable society would be
Buildings would be better insulated, one where production was organised
wasteful industries eliminated or made rationally in the interest of people and
planet, rather than in the interest of the finished product. It might be the local
profit. In short, this means production community experiencing more traffic,
must be planned. or more pollution. Contrast this with
For many people, the idea of a the way communities are ignored in the
planned economy brings to mind the production process under capitalism.
“bureaucratic command economy” of Planning cannot occur just on a
the former Soviet Union, where a few local level. Production decisions at each
unelected and unaccountable individuals workplace would be made in conjunction
made all the decisions. with other workplaces on a city-wide,
Rather than produce for people’s national and even international level to
needs, this led to inefficiency, waste ensure overall co-ordination.
and environmental disasters like Under capitalism each country tends
Chernobyl or the draining of the Aral to organise its own production in its
Sea. So it is understandable that the own interest. But a more rational society
idea of planning worries some people. would recognise the unequal distribution
In Heat, for instance, George Monbiot of natural resources and ensure that
argues that, “The need to tackle climate every area had access to the materials
change must not become an excuse for they need. At the same time, we would
central planning.” But there is a radically end the irrationality of producing goods
different vision of what planning means. where wages are the lowest and shipping
Alex Callinicos has described a planned them thousands of miles around the
economy as “an economic system, where globe. If we want to seriously deal with
the allocation and use of resources are the problem of climate change and its
determined collectively on the basis of consequences then planning on an
democratic decision-making procedures international scale is called for.
central to which is the majority A rationally organised world would
principle”.66 be able to decide what reductions were
Rather than a few people making required and then ask every industry,
decisions, genuine planning can only city and workplace to come up with
occur if there is the widest and best strategies for reducing emissions. Every
informed debate possible about all individual would be part of deciding how
aspects of production. to implement the required changes, as
Decisions about production need to be part of a discussion with their colleagues,
taken by all those whose work will go into feeding back information and suggestions
the finished goods, with input from those to those bodies overseeing the planning.
who will use the end-product and those Planning production would mean
who live near to the factories. eliminating over-production and
After all, those affected by a change of reducing waste and inefficiency and
production in a workplace won’t simply would concentrate resources on
be those who work there, or those using producing better, longer lasting products
rather than the most profitable.

The logic of capitalism is to divide
the whole world into private property.
Revolution
Decisions about the use and allocation
of resources can only be made
democratically if private property isn’t
C apitalism has developed in such a
way that it has the burning of fossil
fuels for energy at its heart. Indeed,
the predominant form of ownership. without the highly concentrated energy
Planning requires social ownership of the this provides, it is unlikely that human
means of producing wealth. But planning civilisation could have reached the
is also required to ensure that the planet levels of technological and industrial
isn’t destroyed in the short-term interests development it has today. Today almost
of production. nothing happens without coal, oil or
Marx made this point in Capital: natural gas—about 80 percent of the
world’s energy comes from these sources.
From the standpoint of a higher Of the top ten global corporations in
economic form of society, private 2018, eight made their profits from the
ownership of the globe by single extraction of oil, the production of energy
individuals will appear quite as or the manufacture of vehicles.68
absurd as private ownership of one So any challenge to the fossil fuel
man by another. even a whole society, system would mean challenging the
a nation, or even all simultaneously vested interests of the most powerful
existing societies taken together, are corporations on the planet and the state
not the owners of the globe. that protects those interests.
They are only its possessors, These corporations have proved adept
its usufructuaries [temporary at stopping or minimising changes that
beneficiaries], and, like boni threaten the centrality of oil. To give just
patres familias [good heads of two examples, corporations spent billions
households], they must hand it down trying to discredit climate change science,
to succeeding generations in an while the auto-industry has undermined
improved condition.67 legislation that would enforce the
production of less polluting vehicles.
Unfortunately, the people who own and Despite all the talk from oil companies
control the factories and workplaces, about investment in solar energy, the
the mines, forests and farms, won’t just truth is that they have billions of dollars
give them up. They want to hold on to of investment sunk into oil production,
their wealth and power. They will have which will remain the central source of
to be challenged by a mass revolutionary their profits. Solving the environmental
movement that can redistribute the land crisis will require challenging the fossil
and factories to those best able to run fuel corporations.
them. The changes needed to reduce
implement effective action.

As Naomi Klein has pointed out,
in 2013 the oil and gas industry spent
US$400,000 daily lobbying US politicians
and US$73 million in the federal
campaign and political donations during
the 2012 election cycle.69
Even in the unlikely event that
capitalism does solve climate change,
the restoration of the “metabolic rift”
between humans and the natural world
cannot happen under capitalism.
So our unsustainable relationship
with the natural world will continue to
Hurricane Katrina indicates a gloomy future for
threaten future environmental crises and
many American cities. But the US government workers will continue to be alienated
still refuses to implement effective action. from the natural world around them. This
emissions enough to avoid runaway means that we must replace capitalism
climate change might be possible under with a different system—socialism.
capitalism. But whether or not they can Marx and Engels understood that a
be implemented is another question. socialist world would have an entirely
The powerful multinational different set of priorities to those of
corporations that make their profits capitalism.
from the fossil fuel industry donate The struggles that take place over
millions of pounds to political parties in environmental issues today aim to both
governments around the globe. win changes now, and to put ecological
But even more than this, each state issues at the heart of future mass
seeks to promote the profitability of the movements. even campaigns over small
corporations that are linked to it, fearing issues such as recycling in workplaces or
that failure to do so will mean losing out for improved public transport can help
in economic competition to its rivals. give confidence to workers to take up
In the long run this might even make it bigger environmental issues, as well as
vulnerable to military challenges from its improving the world we live in today.
competitors. So governments will use all Every time people challenge the
their powers to avoid any challenge to the existing system, we see the potential for a
status quo. new, rational society, organised and run
Even in the face of the enormous crisis by working people. Even in the smallest
caused by climate change, governments strike men and women have to organise
have constantly bowed down to the picket lines, fundraising and spreading
interests of corporations and refused to the action. In the factory occupations
that took place against the closure of exercised on the wild elements
Visteon and Vestas, we saw how the among the youth, in the wisdom
workers involved take up issues of global with which so many of them
importance, discussing, debating and handled the problem of Soviet
showing how the world could be run troops. And, not least, in their
differently. striking resemblance to the workers,
The bigger the scale of the struggle, peasants, and soldiers’ councils
the more organisation is needed. When which sprang up in Russia in the
revolutionary movements arise, workers’ 1905 revolution and in February
organisations contain the seeds of a new 1917, these committees, a network
way of running society. of which now extended over the
From the Paris Commune to the whole of Hungary, were remarkably
Russian Revolution, and in every uniform.
revolutionary struggle since, working They were at once organs of
men and women have invented new insurrection—the coming together
democratic organisations—committees of delegates elected by factories
or workers’ councils comprising elected and universities, mines and army
workplace delegates that have helped units—and organs of popular
them take control of their own lives. self-government which the armed
In the midst of revolution these people trusted.
bodies have organised strikes and Of course, as in every real
demonstrations. But they have also revolution “from below” there
organised to make sure that people don’t was “too much” talking, arguing,
starve and are kept informed of the bickering, coming and going, froth,
latest news, and have looked after the excitement, agitation, ferment.
distribution of essential supplies. This is one side of the picture.
Take a look, for example, at Peter The other is the emergence to
Fryer’s description of the functioning of leading positions of ordinary men,
the Gyor Revolutionary Council during women and youths, whom the AVH
the Hungarian Revolution in 1956, one [the political police] domination
of hundreds of such bodies that sprang had submerged.
up as working people took part in their The revolution thrust them
millions in a great uprising against forward, aroused their civic pride
Soviet control: and latent genius for organisation,
set them to work to build democracy
In their spontaneous origin, in out of the ruins of bureaucracy.70
their composition, in their sense
of responsibility, in their efficient It is this sort of revolutionary
organisation of food supplies and organisation that forms the basis for
civil order, in the restraint they the democratic planned economy that
must be at the heart of the sustainable that could serve the joint objectives of
society we need, and demonstrates how wilderness protection and scientific
the revolutionary process energises and research.” 71
gives confidence to ordinary people to But the rise of Stalin transformed
start to control their own lives in their this again. One Stalinist planner called
own interests. for “a profound rearrangement of the
The highest point of working class entire living world…all living nature
struggle was the seizing of power by the will live, thrive and die at none other
workers in Russia in October 1917. than the will of man and according to
There, for a brief period of time, his plans”.72
workers ran their own factories and A revolution isn’t simply needed
workplaces, taking decisions about to make the ruling class give up their
production in the interest of society, wealth and power, necessary though
rather than for the profits of the bosses. that is. Under capitalism workers are
But the isolation of the Russian alienated, divided and feel powerless.
Revolution, the military attacks that The revolutionary process, the
the capitalist powers launched against experience of organising, struggling and
the fledgling workers’ state and Russia’s debating together, is the only way those
incredible economic backwardness ideas and feelings can be transformed
meant that the revolution was diverted on a mass scale.
down the path of bureaucratic control. As Marx put it, only in a revolution
It became a society run in the interest of will the working class in “ridding itself
a new class of bureaucrats rather than of all the muck of ages” become “fit to
ordinary people. found society anew”.
The victory of Stalin with his In the new socialist society people
doctrine of “socialism in one country” would be motivated not because they
was a gigantic defeat for the Russian are forced to sell their labour power
working class. His belief in the rapid to survive, but because they are part
and unrestricted expansion of industry of a society that is organised in their
meant that it was also a disaster for interest. The motive for production
the environment. In the immediate would be human need with the interests
aftermath of the Revolution the new of the planet at its heart, rather than the
workers’ government organised to create profits of a tiny number of bosses and
protected areas of the environment. blind economic growth.
Ian Rappel explains that “across The overthrow of capitalism will not
the USSR, the pre-revolutionary create a sustainable society overnight.
interest in nature reserve development Marx pointed out how, after a successful
was encouraged by Lenin and the revolution, the new society inherits
Bolsheviks to protect vast swathes of many aspects of capitalism that will need
land as zapovedniki—nature reserves to be dealt with over time:
Conclusion
I t is increasingly unlikely that capitalism
will solve the current environmental
crisis. But socialists don’t simply sit back
and wait for the revolution. We believe in
fighting for change today. Every victory
for the environmental movement is one
that makes the world a better place,
but it is also one that strengthens the
confidence of ordinary people to change
the world.
What we are dealing with here is This is why we are involved in
a communist society, not as it has mobilising people to demonstrate for the
developed on its own foundations, best possible international agreements on
but on the contrary, just as it emerges emissions reduction.
from capitalist society, which is It is why we argue that trade unions
thus in every respect, economically, must put environmentalism at the core
morally and intellectually still of their policies. It is why we support
stamped with the birth marks of campaigns against fracking, incinerators
the old society from whose womb it and for renewable energy expansion. It is
emerges.73 why we are part of campaigning for One
Million Climate Jobs.
Since the productive apparatus that exists Marx and Engels’ writings don’t simply
under capitalism has been created and give us a good explanation of why the
designed in the interest of creating profit, world is as it is. They are also a guide
much of it would have to be radically to action. Their ideas help to point the
altered and rethought and some of it will blame at the whole system and offer a
need to be scrapped entirely. strategy for changing it.
There would be much work to be Over the coming years we are likely
done by those who had created this new to see huge movements for change.
society to redesign our cities, our transport Socialists aim to be at the heart of those
networks, our industries, our food struggles, working with people from
production and our distribution systems all sorts of campaigns and traditions,
to ensure they run in the interest of the arguing for strategies that can change the
majority of people and the future of the system for good. The more of us there are
planet. But it is only after we have replaced the better we can do this. The very future
capitalism that the full potential to create a of the planet is at stake. Join us today.
sustainable future can be explored. To join go to bit.ly/JoinSWP
16) Heather Rogers, 24) John Bellamy Foster,
Endnotes
“Garbage Capitalism’s “Sustainable Development
Green Commerce”, of What?” in Ecology
Socialist Register (Merlin Against Capitalism
Press, 2007), p231. (Monthly Review, 2002),
p80.
1) National Centres 17) Heather Rogers, Gone
for Environmental 9) Frederick Engels, “The Tomorrow: The Hidden 25) As above, p136.
Information, (NOAA), Part Played by Labour in Life of Garbage (The New
Global Climate Report, the Transition from Ape Press, 2005), p113. 26) Karl Marx, Speech at
May 2019 to Man”, in The Dialectics the Anniversary of the
of Nature (Lawrence & 18) As above, p114. People’s Paper, April 14,
2) “Bolivia’s second largest Wishart, 1946), p292. 1856 available at www.
lake dries up and may be 19) Michael Kidron, marxists.org/archive/marx/
gone forever, lost to climate 10) Alex Callinicos, The “Waste: US 1970”, in works/1856/04/14.htm
change”, The Guardian, 22 Revolutionary Ideas of Karl Capitalism & Theory
January 2016 Marx (Bookmarks, 1983), (Pluto Press, 1974). 27) Karl Marx, “Economic
pp83-84. and Philosophical
3) Andy Haines and others, 20) Figures from Manuscripts”, in Karl
“The Imperative for Climate 11) Steven Mithen, After www.statista.com/ Marx, Early Texts
Action to Protect Health”, the Ice: A Global Human statistics/236943/global- (Blackwell, 1971), p135.
New England Journal of History, 20,000-5000BC advertising-spending/
Medicine, January 2019 (Phoenix, 2004), pp246- and www.avert.org/ 28) As above, p139.
257. professionals/hiv-around-
4) Jenna Jambeck and world/global-response/ 29) John Bellamy Foster,
others, “Plastic waste inputs 12) Marcus Rediker, The funding Marx’s Ecology (Monthly
from land into the ocean”, Slave Ship: A Human Review, 2000), p158.
Science, February 2015. History (John Murray, 21) Karl Marx, Capital:
2008), p53. Volume Three (Progress 30) Karl Marx, Capital:
5) Nicolas Stern, Stern Publishers, 1978), p101. Volume One, p283.
Review, Executive 13) Karl Marx, Capital:
Summary (2006), p1. Volume One (Penguin, 22) Greenpeace, 31) John Bellamy Foster,
1990), p742. “Decentralising Power: An “Liebig, Marx and the
6) See for instance, Larry Energy Revolution for the Depletion of Soil Fertility”,
Lohman (ed), Carbon 14) Karl Marx, Grundrisse 21st Century”, July 2005. in Ecology Against
Trading: A Critical (Penguin, 1973), p410. Capitalism, p156.
Conversation on Climate 23) John Bellamy Foster,
Change, Privatisation 15) Frederick Engels, “The The Vulnerable Planet 32) As above, p158.
and Power (What Next Part Played by Labour in (Monthly Review, 1999),
Project & The Corner the Transition from Ape p123. 33) As above, p161.
House, September to Man”, in The Dialectics
2006). Ian Rappel’s of Nature (Lawrence & 34) As above, p161.
article “Natural Capital: Wishart, 1946), p295.
a neoliberal response 35) Karl Marx, Capital:
to species extinction”, Volume Three (Progress
International Socialism Publishers, 1978), p820.
Journal, 160: Autumn 2018
looks at similar “market 36) See https://
mechanisms” in the context populationmatters.org
of the biodiversity crisis.
37) John Bellamy Foster,
7) As Engels summarised “Malthus’ Essay on
Marx’s outlook in his funeral Population at Age 200”,
speech for Marx (1883). See in Ecology Against
www.marxists.org/archive/ Capitalism, p140.
marx/ works/1883/death/
burial.htm. 38) Thomas Malthus, An
Essay on The Principle of
8) Francis Pryor, Britain BC: Population (1st edition),
Life in Britain and Ireland chapter 10, part 5.
Before the Romans (Harper
Perennial, 2004), p18.
39) John Bellamy 62) Suzanne Goldberg,

Foster, Ecology Against “Just 90 Companies caused
Capitalism, p139. two-thirds of man-made
global warming emissions”,
40) Second Essay, “An The Guardian, 20
Essay On the Principle of November 2013.
Population”, quoted in J
B Foster, “Malthus’ Essay 63) George Monbiot, “Car
on Population at Age 200”, scrappage scheme will
p143. pour good money after
bad”, The Guardian, 6
41) As above. February 2009.
42) John Bellamy 64) John Bellamy Foster,

Foster, “Malthus’ essay The Vulnerable Planet: A
on Population at Age Short Economic History of
200”, in Ecology Against the Environment (Monthly
Capitalism, p145. Review Press, 1999), p132.
43) Letter from Marx to 65) George Monbiot, Heat:

Schweitzer, 24 January How to Stop the Planet
1865, K Marx and F Engels, Burning (Penguin, 2006),
Selected Correspondence pxii.
(Lawrence & Wishart,
1934), p170. 66) Alex Callinicos, An
Anti-Capitalist Manifesto
44) Frederick Engels, The 52) Biofuels are offered as 56) Ian Angus and Simon (Polity, 2003), p122.
Condition of the Working a zero carbon alternative Butler, Too Many People?,
Class in England (Granada, to oil, yet serious questions p42. 67) Karl Marx, Capital:
1982), p309. remain as to whether Volume Three (Progress
they reduce carbon 57) Fred Pearce, Publishers, 1978), p776.
45) As above. emissions. See Okbazghi PeopleQuake: Mass
Yohannes The Biofuels Migration, Ageing 68) Fortune 500 2018 list,
46) Letter from Engels to Deception: Going Hungry Nations and the Coming available at fortune.com.
Lange, 29 March 1865, in on the Green Carbon Population Crash (Eden
Selected Correspondence Diet, (Monthly Review Project Books, 2010), 69) Naomi Klein, This
(Lawrence & Wishart, Press, 2018) and www. p242. Changes Everything (Allen
1934), p199. biofuelwatch.org.uk. Lane, 2014), p149.
58) “Extreme Carbon
53) Available at www. Inequality”, Oxfam Media 70) Peter Fryer, Hungarian
47) Cecil Woodham-Smith, fao.org/news/story/en/ Briefing, December 2015, Tragedy, quoted in Chris
The Great Hunger: Ireland item/20964/icode/. www.oxfam.org. Harman, Class Struggles
1845-9 (Hamish Hamilton, in Eastern Europe 1945-83
1964), p411. 54) World Population 59) Quoted in John (Bookmarks, 1988), p134.
Prospects, 2019 Bellamy Foster, “Malthus’
48) Figures quoted in revision, United Nations Essay on Population at Age 71) Ian Rappel, Natural
Sharman Apt Russell, Department of Economic 2000”, in Ecology Against Capital: A Neo-liberal
Hunger: An Unnatural and Social Affairs Capitalism, pp145-146. Response to Species
History (Basic Books, Extinction, International
2005), p226. 55) Ian Angus and Simon 60) Figures from Tracy Socialism Journal, Autumn
Butler, Too Many People? McVeigh, “Flu and 2018.
49) Esme Choonara Population, Immigration, winter freeze set to kill
and Sadie Robinson, and the Environmental thousands”, The Observer, 72) Quoted in Joel Kovel,
Hunger in a World of Crisis (Haymarket, 2011), 11 January 2009. The Enemy of Nature (Zed
Plenty (Socialist Worker p81. See also the discussion Books, 2007), p225.
pamphlet, 2008), p8. in my book Land and 61) Tess Riley, “Just 100
Labour: Marxism, Ecology companies responsible for 73) Karl Marx, “Critique
50) As above, p2. and Human History 71% of global emissions, of the Gotha Programme”,
(Bookmarks, 2014), study says”, The Guardian, K Marx and F Engels,
51) Sharman Apt Russell, pp165-205. 10 July 2017. Selected Works (Lawrence
Hunger: An Unnatural & Wishart, 1991), p305.
History, p212.
challenging study of the

Further reading centrality of nature to Marx’s
thinking.
Because of the worsening Heather Rogers’s Gone Ian Angus and Simon
of the environmental crisis Tomorrow: The Hidden Life Butler’s Too Many People?
there have been many of Garbage is a fascinating Population, Immigration
recent books that have study of capitalism’s waste and the Environmental
examined the impacts of problem. Crisis tackles contemporary
climate change and the lack Malthusians.
Richard Heinberg’s book Fred Pearce’s
of action. Here are some
on fracking Snake Oil PeopleQuake looks at similar
suggestions for further
and Andrew Nikiforuk’s themes with plenty of useful
reading.
Tar Sands show the statistics.
My own book Land and
consequences of the Fred Magdoff and Brian
Labour: Marxism, Ecology
expansion of extreme energy. Tokar’s book of essays
and Human History develops
many of the themes in this Andreas Malm’s Agriculture and Food in
pamphlet. Fossil Capital and Ian Crisis covers many important
The recent book I edited Angus’s book Facing issues relating to food,
System Change not Climate the Anthropocene: Fossil climate and capitalism.
Change: A Revolutionary Capitalism and the Crisis of Karl Marx’s short work
Response to Environmental the Earth System are both A Critique of the Gotha
Crisis contains a series of notable works by Marxists Programme includes some
articles by Marxists from that examine capitalism’s thoughts on how socialist
around the globe looking fossil fuel economy from society might work.
at different aspects of the its origins to the current Alex Callinicos’s An Anti-
ecological crises and their environmental crisis. Capitalist Manifesto argues
solutions. that democratic planning is
All of John Bellamy Foster’s
Naomi Klein’s This Changes writings on the environment essential for any society that
Everything: Capitalism vs repay reading, in particular replaces capitalism.
the Climate is an excellent his collection of essays in Michael Albert’s book
introduction to current Ecology Against Capitalism Parecon discusses in some
climate science and has is a brilliant introduction to a detail how such an economy
helped to reframe the variety of topics. might work.
debate in the movement His Marx’s Ecology looks Joseph Choonara’s book
around “System Change not at the development of Unravelling Capitalism is
Climate Change”. ecological thought at the an excellent introduction to
heart of Marx’s writings Marx’s political economy
Ian Rappel’s article and Alex Callinicos’s The
and his The Ecological
“Capitalism and Species Revolutionary Ideas of Karl
Revolution is a reassertion
Extinction” in International Marx is very accessible
of the revolutionary socialist
Socialism 147 is a sobering introduction to Marxism.
tradition in the context of
examination of the current
environmentalism.
biodiversity crisis known as
Paul Burkett’s Marx
the “sixth extinction”.
and Nature: A Red Green
Perspective is a more
About this pamphlet

W hat did Karl Marx contribute
to our understanding of our
environment? The answer is a great
deal. Marx condemned capitalism
not just for its exploitation of men
and women, but for producing a
dangerous “metabolic rift” between
humans and nature.
Join the Socialist
Marx’s approach offers vital Workers Party
insights to all those who believe If you agree with what you
tinkering with capitalism won’t stave have just read, we’d like you
off devastating climate change. to join us. The SWP offers
As the threat of environmental you a chance to fight back
crisis grows, many thousands of against the system that brings
us climate chaos, economic
people have taken to the streets to
crisis, poverty, war, racism and
demand action on climate change. injustice – and to help bring
One of the most popular slogans about a socialist future.
has been “system change not climate We have branches around
change”. Britain which meet regularly and
In this updated pamphlet Martin get involved in all the strikes,
Empson explores why capitalism is campaigns and protests in
their area. There is most likely
so destructive to the planet and what
a branch near you. If you would
a sustainable society would look like.
like to join us, or if you would
...................................................................................................................... simply like to know more about
To order more copies of this what we do, get in touch:
pamphlet write to:
[email protected]
National Office (Pamphlets), 020 7840 5602
PO Box 74955, London E16 9EJ. swp.org.uk
You can also call 020 7840 5600
or email [email protected]
......................................................................................................................
Subscribe to Socialist Worker £2.50
Socialist Worker aims to be a tool
for activists. Every week it puts a
socialist case against racism, the
austerity, war and privatisation.
Subscribe at: socialistworker.co.uk

Marxism and Ecology Pamphlet For Web

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Marxism and Ecology Pamphlet For Web

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Marxism and Ecology Pamphlet For Web

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Marxism

Humans and the natural world....................................................... 4

Marx and Engels............................................................................. 10

Marx, Malthus and the myth of overpopulation........................ 14

Class and social justice................................................................... 21

ecosystems on a large scale. disappeared as the natural world that

It is the ambition of almost every billion. Contrast this to the US$26.2

the promise. Modern agriculture has contrary: Machinery, gifted with

The conscious and rational treatment Marx, Malthus

“Population growth, plus economic The spirit of oppression, the spirit

With regard to illegitimate Take for instance, Malthus’ book On

Later he continues: Engels’ summed up Malthus’s arguments

Not because the limits of

production of waste today is 32

The consequences of environmental

Class and changes are made worse by the unequal

I t has long been accepted that the

give government subsidies to save the more environmentally friendly products

J ohn Bellamy Foster has come up

rather than the most profitable.

implement effective action.

16) Heather Rogers, 24) John Bellamy Foster,

39) John Bellamy 62) Suzanne Goldberg,

42) John Bellamy 64) John Bellamy Foster,

43) Letter from Marx to 65) George Monbiot, Heat:

challenging study of the

About this pamphlet

You might also like