Marx and nature : a red and green perspective / Paul Burkett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Burkett, Paul, 1956 May 26-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Communism and ecology.

Marx, Karl, 1818-1883.

Marx, Karl.

Physical Description:

viii, 312 pages ; 22 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

New York : St. Martin's Press, 1999.

Summary:

In Marx and Nature, Paul Burkett reconstructs Marx's approach to nature, society, and environmental crisis. There may still be disagreement about the threat to human survival posed by society's environmental impacts, but no one can doubt that individual ecosystems and the global biosphere are both increasingly affected by human production and consumption. This book shows that Marx's treatment of natural conditions possesses an inner logic, coherence, and analytical power that has not been previously recognized. The power of Marx's approach stems from his consistent treatment of human production in terms of the mutual constitution of its social form and material content. While recognizing that production is structured by historically developed relations among producers, Marx also insists that production as a social and material process is shaped and constrained by natural conditions, including human bodily existence. Burkett shows that Marx's overriding concern with human emancipation impels him to approach nature from the standpoints of materialist history, sociology, and critical political economy. Marx's value analysis, though, places him squarely in the camp of the growing number of ecological theorists questioning the ability of monetary and market-based calculations to adequately represent the natural conditions of human production and development.

Contents:

Preface and Acknowledgements vii

Part I Nature and Historical Materialism

1. Requirements of a Social Ecology 17

2. Nature, Labor, and Production 25

3. The Natural Basis of Labor Productivity and Surplus Labor 33

4. Labor and Labor Power as Natural and Social Forces 49

Part II Nature and Capitalism

5. Nature, Labor, and Capitalist Production 57

6. Capital's "Free Appropriation" of Natural and Social Conditions 69

7. Capitalism and Nature: A Value-Form Approach 79

8. Reconsidering Some Ecological Criticisms of Marx's Value Analysis 99

9. Capitalism and Environmental Crisis 107

10. Marx's Working-Day Analysis and Environmental Crisis 133

Part III Nature and Communism

11. Nature and the Historical Progressivity of Capitalism 147

12. Nature and Capitalism's Historical Limits 175

13. Capital, Nature, and Class Struggle 199

14. Nature and Associated Production 223.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [297]-308) and index.

ISBN:

0312219407

OCLC:

39765266