Ecological Marxism and Ecological Economics

Abstract

Ecological dimensions of Karl Marx's thought have recently generated vigorous debates about their meaning, adequacy and relevance. The nexus between ecological Marxism and ecological economics has largely fuelled these debates. As early as the 1840s Marx's writing shows that he understood the metabolic character of natural transformations performed by human labour. Labour is the universal condition for metabolic interaction, or the process of material exchanges between humanity and Nature, in which Nature is used as a resource and a sink for the satisfaction of human needs that are socially produced. At the start of Capital, Marx distinguished between the labour process in general, as an anthropological dimension of social life, and the process of capitalist production, as an historical phenomenon that produces economic value for capital. Marx was ambivalent with regard to the conception of Nature in his critique of political economy.