Marx and Nature—A Red and Green Perspective

There may still be disagreement about the threat to human survival posed by society’s environmental impacts, but no one can doubt that individual eco-systems and the global biosphere are both increasingly shaped by human production and consumption. This book shows that Marx’s treatment of natural conditions possesses an inner logic, coherence, and analytical power which 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 the natural condition of human bodily existence. Paul Burkett shows that it is Marx’s overriding concern with human emancipation that impels him to approach nature from the standpoint of materialist history, sociology, and critical political economy.

Paul Burkett teaches economics at Indiana State University, Terre Haute.