Abstract
We employ Karl Marx's metabolic approach—via the concepts of metabolic rift and metabolic restoration—to study the dynamic relationships of interchange associated with distinct agricultural systems. First, we offer an assessment of contemporary capitalist agriculture, including organic agriculture in the United States. We address how the organization of capitalist agriculture inherently generates ecological problems and metabolic rifts in the soil nutrient cycle. Second, we discuss the promise for a socially and ecologically just food system. We examine Cuba's model of organic agriculture, highlighting the potential for metabolic restoration.
Highlights
Modern large-scale, capitalist agriculture remains at the nexus of numerous social and ecological contradictions
We present the general characteristics of the metabolic rift as constituted under capitalist agriculture
Marx argued that capitalist agriculture, and by extension capitalism in general, created an antagonism between human social systems and the universal metabolism of nature (Foster 2013)
Summary
Modern large-scale, capitalist agriculture remains at the nexus of numerous social and ecological contradictions. By way of a comparative analysis, we discuss how Cuba’s model of organic agriculture illustrates the potential for metabolic restoration, through reestablishing nutrient cycles, overcoming alienating conditions of labor, reconnecting farmers to the land, and establishing participatory forms of production. Incorporating this knowledge, Marx provided an economic critique of modern agriculture to explain how a metabolic rift in the soil nutrient cycle was created and perpetuated by capitalist operations.1
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