Marx's Theory of Metabolism

Marx's Theory of Metabolism

• Marx's ecological interests, long overlooked, are vital in understanding today's global ecological crisis
• Initially, Marx's focus was perceived as promoting the domination of nature through technology, with environmentalism being dismissed as anti-working class

Shift in Perspective

• Soviet Union's environmental disasters, like the Aral Sea collapse and Chernobyl, questioned socialism's ability to ensure sustainability
• The collapse of actually existing socialism led to further ecological damage under neoliberal globalization
• Ineffectiveness of the market-based solutions revived the interest in Marxian economics

Rediscovering Marx's Ecology

• Istvan Mészáros's theory of social metabolism paved the way for rediscovering Marx's ecology
• Mészáros's work helped clarify the three dimensions of metabolic rift within Marx's critique of political economy
• Understanding these shifts shows why capitalism adapts to economic and ecological challenges, but never resolves underlying contradictions

Suppression and Revival of Marx's Ecosocialism

• Marx was accused of a Promethean attitude for glorifying human conquest over nature
• Critics argued Marx ignored natural limits and focused on industrial technology
• Environmentalists criticized Marx's historical materialism for failing to address environmental degradation under existing socialism

Modern Interpretations of Marx

• Despite accusations of productivism, scholars are rediscovering Marx's ecological critique
• Paul Burkett and John Bellamy Foster highlight Marx's ecological consciousness
• Marx's analysis of Justus von Liebig's theory of the robbery system of agriculture leads to the importance of metabolism

The Concept of Metabolism

• Foster explains Marx saw metabolic rifts as capitalism's consequence of distorting the human-nature relationship
• Marx highlighted the need for a qualitative transformation of production to heal the universal metabolism of nature
• Marx’s post-capitalist vision is reinterpreted as ecosocialism, overcoming the Red and Green divide

Obstacles to Recognizing Marx's Ecological Insights

• Marx's critique of political economy was unfinished, with volumes II and III of Capital published after his death
• Scholars relied on Engels's editions, overlooking Marx's study of natural sciences and environmental issues
• David Riazanov, founder of the Marx-Engels Institute, dismissed Marx's later work on natural sciences as pedantic

II. Rediscovering Marxian Ecology

• István Mészáros highlighted Marx's concept of metabolism as crucial for understanding his political economy
• Mészáros discussed environmental issues under capitalism in the 1970s, culminating in his work Beyond Capital (1995)
• In 1971, Mészáros began the first Deutscher Prize Memorial Lecture by referencing Isaac Deutscher's warning about nuclear war and then extended it to ecological destruction under capitalism

Basic Contradiction of Capitalism

• Mészáros argued that capitalism inherently links advance with destruction and progress with waste
• Capitalist production undermines the material conditions necessary for societal prosperity
• This stood in contrast to orthodox Marxism which naively promoted the development of productive forces under capitalism

Biophysical Limits

• Finite resources create limits to capital accumulation
• Capital seeks to overcome these limits, intensifying destructiveness
• Social control is needed to end capitalist waste for human survival, clashing with capitalist production’s basic logic
• He called for a qualitatively different organization of social production by freely associated producers

Marx's Concept of Metabolism and Its Suppression

• Marx defined labour relative to the metabolism between humans and nature
• Human metabolic interaction with nature is a necessity that cant be suspended and labor can only change it, not create it from nothing
• Labour and nature are essential, humans depend on nature and are constrained by natural laws

Production and Social Metabolism

• Concrete ways humans' metabolize vary significantly based on environment, like climate, location, and resource availability
• "social mediation” is needed, which is communication, norms, institutions, etc.
• These are the second-order mediations of historically specific social reproductive systems

Capitalist Production

• The valorization of capital is put above all else
• This is different to pre-capitalist societies where peoples needs came first
• Capital expands limitlessly and reorganizes the entire world

Absolute Limit of Nature

• Capital cannot overcome nature and constantly aims to relativize in its attemot to become absolute
• Capitalist organization of social metabolism is incompatible with nature, and the relationship breaks down with the fundamental problem of an asymmetrical relationship when ecological crisis happens
• Capital is now destructive and threatens all of society and the limits of capital finally become discernible

Problems of Constant Expansion

• Attempts to expand result in a destructive affect. The capital system is in decline while in only one sense is it advanced – capable of only sustaining destructive behavior
• Inspired by Lukács's theory of metabolism, Mészáros said society is part of the universal metabolism, but society beings new emergent properties and laws

III. Three Dimensions of Metabolic Rift

• Mészáros's theory was developed by John Bellamy Foster (2000) and Paul Burkett (1999) with a focus on disruption of ecological processes
• Analyses in marine ecology and climate change studies confirm Marx's theory of metabolic rift

Labor and Valuation

• Human and nature are reorganized so capital valorization can prevail
• This revolves around abstract labor, which is uniquely capitalist
• Labor and processes of nature are abstracted for the value of what abstract labor can produce

Capitalist Theory

• Value organizes the metabolism between humans and nature but cannot reflect the biophysical processes correctly
• This transformation of the material world has destructive consequences for human nature
• Based on Marx, two fundamental factors of production are problematized: labour power and natural forces

Alienation of Labor

• Alienation of labor = alienation of nature + capital effects scale of economy, space, and time
• Metabolic rift shows up in three different ways.
• disruption to natural cycles is one way
• ex. soil exhaustion from faming practices

Agriculture and Replenishment

• Capitalism means nutrients in the ground get used too quickly
• Inorganic substances are part of plant growth
• Justus von Liebig said respect "law of replenishment", that the correct ammount of nutrients are placed back in the correct place

Modern Production

• Modern production means more focus is put on short term and hurts the soll
• Market competition creates the situation of increased land usage and more resources being used
• Large scale agriculture is intensified and makes for metabolic issues and cycle disturbance
• Marx praised Liebig for noticing exploitation and the destructive side to modern farming

Capitalism Disturbs Interaction of Man and Earth

• It interrupts this by not letting important elements return and hinders a healthy soil
• This destroys parts needed for humans survival and progress

Value and The Lack There Of

• Value isn't always in full scope and is a priority of infinte accumulation

Spatial Rift

• Marx value Liebig because he offered a starting point to understanding The German Ideology and critical analysis of the social divison
• Products go to places, but what remains of the products has issues returning to original soil
• The relation of town and country can be regarded as an violent process of massive spread and wealth of the working class population in cities

IV. Three Dimensions of Metabolic Shift

• Increases in social productivity coincide with decreases in productivity thanks to exploitation
• Capital uses all tools it can access the correct amount of resources, energy food, etc.
• Marx said we should try to be at one with nature and have a goal for everyones well being

"Every Barrier Appears a Barrier to Overcome

• Capital always needs new tech, develops areas, and expands to overcome issues with new values
• They shift wealth somewhere else instead of healing something broken
• This reaction is caused by what is going on economically
• They do this instead of putting a stop to things

Shift

• There are tree ways to shift
• Technology, Spatial, and Temporal
• These are related because if one thing has problems, you just relocate

V. Rosa Luxemburg's Theory of Metabolism and Its Oblivion

• Bill McKibben said, it's not that were running out of power, were running out of what is important even faster.
• The earth's south is damaged to have things for the north

Luxemburg's Theory

• A unequal relationship is there because the people in charge just want to accumulate more and take advantage
• Luxemburg formulated on volume two that Marx assumed English capitalism wasn't dependent on the extraction and non-capitalist communities
• Marx just cared about economic expansion and his idea was to make more connections through relations
• People take up the concept of metabolism because they want it to explain an uneuqal trade Labor is not there from the start it comes from pre capitalism Capitalists need it but take more from pre existing situations and in short, ruin them and they don't share Society is there but takes at unequal portions Capitalism doesn't want intrusion