Immigrants : Materialism and Nature

by Foster, John Bellamy

• ISBN13: 9781583670125
• ISBN10: 1583670122
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-03-01
• Publisher: Monthly Review Pr

Summary

Progress requires the conquest of nature. Or does it? This startling new account overturns conventional interpretations of Marx and in the process outlines a more rational approach to the current environmental crisis.Marx, it is often assumed, cared only about industrial growth and the development of economic forces. John Bellamy Foster examines Marx's neglected writings on capitalist agriculture and soil ecology, philosophical naturalism, and evolutionary theory. He shows that Marx, known as a powerful critic of capitalist society, was also deeply concerned with the changing human relationship to nature.Marx's Ecologycovers many other thinkers, including Epicurus, Charles Darwin, Thomas Malthus, Ludwig Feuerbach, P. J. Proudhon, and William Paley.By reconstructing a materialist conception of nature and society,Marx's Ecologychallenges the spiritualism prevalent in the modern Green movement, pointing toward a method that offers more lasting and sustainable solutions to the ecological crisis.

Author Biography

John Bellamy Foster is associate professor of sociology at the University of Oregon

Table of Contents

Preface	vi
Introduction	1	(20)
The Materialist Conception of Nature	21	(45)
The Really Earthly Question	66	(15)
Parson Naturalists	81	(24)
The Materialist Conception of History	105	(36)
The Metabolism of Nature and Society	141	(37)
The Basis in Natural History for our view	178	(48)
Epilogue	226	(31)
Notes	257	(44)
Index	301