Marx,Engels, and Ecology*

The following is a brief survey of Marx and Engels’ views on ecology, from the viewpoint of their relevance for 21th-century ecosocialism. While there are some serious limitations in the way both consider the “development of productive forces,” there are powerful insights in their discussion of the destructive consequences of capitalist expansion for the environment—an expansion that generates a disastrous metabolic rift in the exchanges between human societies and nature. Some ecological Marxists distinguish between “first stage ecosocialists”—who believe that Marx analyses on ecological issues are too incomplete and dated to be of real relevance today—and “second stage ecosocialists,” who emphasize the contemporary methodological significance of Marx’s ecological critique of capitalism. This paper tries to argue for a third position (which probably could be accepted by several people of the two groups above): Marx and Engels’ discussion on ecological issues is incomplete and dated but despite these shortcomings it does have real relevance and methodological significance today.     

Valuing the Earth and Each Other

In this short essay I briefly explore the utility of Marx’s theory for non-human nature and then proceed to consider his position on value after capitalism. Finally, I claim that many other types of theory contribute to the valuing of nature in the broad sense (beyond capitalism), and argue that proponents of these theories (along with Marxists) could not only learn from each other but also build affinity and solidarity in the construction of diverse economies and subjectivities. The “Leap Manifesto”, authored by representatives of Black Lives Matter, indigenous groups, unions, feminists, climate justice groups, and many others, is one example of the way forward.     

论米歇尔·亨利的生命现象学马克思主义

米歇尔·亨利第一次将他的生命现象学运用于马克思关于“社会现实”的分析。亨利关于马克思的哲学思想是“一种新现象学的马克思主义”。在马克思的文本中,现象学最基本的原则“回到事物自身”被亨利解读为“回到个体现实性生命”,所有社会中显示的关系必须还原到个体生命。“社会总体性”还原到纯粹的“个体主体性”是理解马克思社会批判的有力工具。“彻底的主体性”概念是亨利新现象学的马克思主义的核心概念。马克思的“现实性”应该被理解为个体的主体实践。马克思看到了实践的原初本质:实践恰恰是一种努力的主观体验,简言之即劳动。马克思以“谱系学”开始进行社会批判,这是一种对各种社会结构下的主观现实性的描述方法。     

From Provocation to Challenge: Degrowth,Capitalism and the Prospect of “Socialism without Growth”: A Commentary on Giorgios Kallis

Giorgios Kallis argues that Degrowth, as a pluralistic convergence of both theoretical perspectives and social movements, is part of a renewal of the critique of capitalism based on the ecological contradictions of this social order. In “Socialism without Growth” Kallis engages with other, more classical, approaches that have examined the contradictions of capitalism and the material conditions for a future, ecologically viable postcapitalist social order. After a quick exposition of the lineaments of a general theory of surplus and accumulation based on Bataille, Polanyi and Georgescu-Roegen, Kallis mobilizes Marx’s theory of accumulation to examine the growth drivers of capitalism. I will argue that economic growth in advanced capitalism can best be explained as a relation that articulates capitalist overproduction to overconsumption, and outline some analytical tools that such an explanation can provide to those interested in understanding the specific growth drivers of contemporary capitalism and their social and ecological consequences. This implies moving beyond the model outlined by Marx and mobilizing concepts and categories developed by the over-accumulation approach to capitalism, those developed by some of Degrowth’s most vocal Marxist critics, such as Foster. Through my dialogue with Kallis I will try and bridge these two approaches.     

Value and Nature: Rethinking Capitalist Exploitation and Expansion

Value is central to the political economy of capitalism, but Marxian value theory has generally been abandoned when it comes to including nature in the analysis. An important exception is the recent work of Jason Moore, and in this paper an effort is made to fill several lacunae in Moore’s approach. I argue for a unified measure of labor-nature time and joint exploitation of surplus value, then explore the significance of that for capitalist growth via rising productivity and cheap inputs, as well as what these mean for geographic expansion in search of labor and resources. I finish on the classic note of the insatiable drive for capital accumulation and its implications for the fate of the earth.     

囚在富士康——富士康准军事化工厂体制调查报告

富士康准军事化的工厂管理体制其本质是劳动的严重异化,本文以马克思主义的劳动价值观为理论视角,根据第一手实证资料调查研究了富士康的生产管理体制,发现它与马克思对早期资本主义原始积累的观察是一致的,其绝对剩余价值的生产同样是通过延长劳动时间、克扣工人工资以及制造各种形态的血汗劳动来实现的。富士康工人感觉工厂像监狱,其原因在于富士康着力打造了一个以绝对服从和惩罚性的制度为特征的法家式兵营社会。     

Marxism Beyond the Economy and Exploitation Beyond the Wage

Since its inception Marxism has largely operated with a narrow definition of the economy which closely resembles capitalism’s own, focusing on wage labor as the pre-eminent example of capitalist relations of labor. A century-long series of challenges from heterodox radical economists, including those based in feminism and anti-colonial theory, has yet to broaden this definition of capitalism, but the fading importance of wage labor and the advent of new forms of precarious labor relations may allow us to break the hold of restrictive ideas of the economy. A larger, more comprehensive concept of economics locates value production and material exploitation in many forms of labor in addition to waged work, and provides a theoretical platform for building solidarity among seemingly disparate movements and constituencies. Marxism can and must incorporate critiques if it is to have continuing relevance. In fact, Marx’s original understanding of capitalism included the concepts of primitive accumulation and the reproduction of labor power, allowing broader concepts of capitalist exploitation to be incorporated into the Marxist worldview. New insights into the essential nature of capitalism and new possibilities for organizing and change may emerge from this paradigm shift.     

全面准确地理解马克思早年的“跨越”思想

马克思早年的“跨越”思想和晚年的“跨越”思想一样,指的都是“跨越”资本主义的经济制度,而不是指“跨越”政治革命和政治解放,直接实现社会革命和人类解放。马克思早年“跨越”思想的理论基础是“共同胜利论”和“发达国家带动论”。19世纪40年代,德国的社会性质是半封建半资本主义社会,德国的资本主义制度已经存在并正在发展。马克思、恩格斯把此时代的德国看作是“支配着世界市场”,并能首先进行无产阶级革命,建立共产主义社会的国家,因此认为德国能把前资本主义国家或非资本主义国家带到共产主义新社会中去,因而也不存在跨越“资本主义制度的卡夫丁峡谷”问题。     

“Idealismus不是幻想，而是真理”--马克思“博士论文”解读

“：博士论文”是马克思登上德国思想论坛的“亮相之作”。奠基于扎实的学术训练和哲学史梳理，马克思质疑和推翻了以往原子论研究中贬抑伊壁鸠鲁贡献的流行见解“，用显微镜去发现”和辨析了他与作为其思想先驱的德谟克利特在思维方式上的重大差异，借此表明伊壁鸠鲁代表的自我意识哲学“不是幻想，而是真理”，因为这种思维方式凸显了人的自我意识，在对客体的认识、解释甚至改变中来发挥了作为主体的意志、功能、力量和特质“。幻想”“、真理”云云，不是认识论层面的，而是价值论和人性论意义上的；举凡在观照和理解世界的诸多思维方式中，只有Idealismus在与物的对立和纠结中把人的价值和意义彰显出来了。     

丹尼尔·贝尔对马克思的三重误读

基于所处时代哲学任务的需求,马克思恩格斯在阐述其理论时强调经济基础的作用,而鲜有对文化领域的观照。而马克思逝世后,科技理性所带来的巨大影响、国际工人运动的走向、资本主义和社会主义社会结构的发展以及现代性危机的涌现,似乎与马克思理论的阐述都有所不同。如此种种,引发了西方学者对于马克思文化观、社会发展理论的误读,以及对现代性问题实质的误判,出现了经济决定论、唯物史观过时论等论调。其中,丹尼尔·贝尔则是这种思潮的代表,他以“意识形态终结论”“资本主义文化矛盾”“后工业社会”等大观念为基础,构建了西方社会发展的理论体系,却无不映现其曲解、否定马克思主义,宣扬历史唯心主义观念论的错误。从马克思的社会发展理论、文化观和现代性问题三个层面对贝尔的误读进行梳理和回应,可澄明马克思主义理论的生命力和解释力。     

Intellectual property,indigenous knowledge,and biodiversity

ABSTRACT

This is Part 1 of an article arguing for an extended application of Karl Marx’s insight that the apparent reciprocity of free market exchange is to be understood as an ideology that obscures material processes of exploitation and accumulation. Rather than to confine this insight to the worker’s sale of his or her labor-power for wages, and basing it on the conviction that labor-power is uniquely capable of generating more value than its price, the article argues that capital accumulation also relies on asymmetric transfers of several other biophysical resources such as embodied non-human energy, land, and materials. It proposes that the very notions of “price” and “value” serve to obscure the material history and substance of traded commodities. Such a shift of perspective extends Marx’s foundational critique of mainstream economics by focusing on the unacknowledged role of ecologically unequal exchange, but requires a critical rethinking of the concept of “use-value.” It also suggests a fundamental reconceptualization of the ontology of technological progress, frequently celebrated in Marxist theory. Part 1 of the article introduces the argument on unequal exchange, the ideological function of money, some concerns of ecological Marxism, and the conundrum posed by three contradictory understandings of “use-value.”     

Forging a Migration Policy for Capital: Labor Shortages and Guest Workers

The expanding use of guest work is the wave of the future global neoliberal capitalism, but is a recurring theme in capitalism. The trade in global labor was pervasive during the Victorian age, second only to trade in finance. As the United States lost manufacturing to the global South, service and professional workers and their unions found it reassuring that that their jobs could not sent abroad. In the last decade, importing service workers from the global South is a dominant trend. As the United States is closing doors to traditional forms of immigration, it promotes migrant labor as a means to fill job shortages created by capital to lower wages. Guest work destabilizes the working class through turning “good jobs” into “bad jobs.” If comprehensive immigration reform includes guest work, borders will close and free migrant labor will become indentured labor. The World Bank and WTO view these programs as the new development model for the global South. Promoting export of skilled and unskilled labor benefits a bare few while driving most workers and peasants into abject poverty while heightening exploitation of labor worldwide.     

A Socialist State of Grace: The Radical Reformism of Jean Jaurès*

Jean Jaurès (1859–1914) forged an innovative theory of radical reform by adopting a universalistic conception of human rights from the liberal tradition and a theory of capitalism and class from Marxism. He urged the labor movement to place less emphasis on the hope of a post-revolutionary “paradise” and instead to “live always in a socialist state of grace,” understanding socialism as a regulative ideal guiding a reformist practice. This liberal socialist politics could only take shape, he suggested, to the extent that liberal norms intersected with the self-interest of existing social movements: Jaurès's socialism, thus, is highly contingent, and makes no promises about political success. Jaurès prompts us to shift the focus of left democratic theory from the polity to the social movement, from “radical democracy” to “radical reform.”     

Green Devaluation: Disruption,Divestment, and Decommodification for a Green Economy

This paper argues that taking up questions of value can help political ecologists and economists develop a more powerful analysis of the green economy, as it introduces new urban, industrial, and technological dimensions into a self-identified green capitalism. More specifically, I maintain that processes of green devaluation, decommodification, and techno-industrial replacement are as important in understanding green economic development as new value enclosure and green growth. Twenty-first-century green economic politics have been marked by Schumpeterian ambitions and zero-sum intra-capitalist struggles, alongside a more general hardening of anti-fossil fuel industry politics from both grassroots climate justice activists and, increasingly, mainstream investors. I explore three interrelated initiatives—disruptive innovation in Silicon Valley cleantech, the U.S. fossil fuel divestment movement, and the global financial industry’s stranded assets organizing—as windows into these struggles. Themes of devaluation, obsolescence (both technological and “moral”), and (more or less absolute) decommodification carry through this discussion as activists struggle to translate quantitative advances against fossil fuels into a more profound qualitative break. Understanding these fights is essential to developing more effective engaged scholarship on climate change and a just energy transition.     

Promotion Tournament,Labor Market Tightening and Pension Generosity: A Comparative Public Policy Analysis of Pension System for Urban Workers in China (1997–2013)

Abstract

This article conducts a comparative public policy analysis of China’s generous urban worker basic pension system. It is commonly believed that Chinese local governments, which are motived by office-seeking incentives under decentralization, may foster economic growth at the expense of citizens’ social rights and thus “promotion tournament competition” comes into being. This article challenges this view by arguing that such competition can increase the generosity of social programs such as public pensions, especially in the condition of labor scarcity. This argument is supported by time-series cross-section analysis of 31 Chinese provincial units (1997–2013) using a novel indicator of the intensity of inter-locality competition. When the labor market tightens, workers can leave a locality to seek better compensation. Motivated by the promotion tournament competition to develop the local economy, which requires the issue of labor shortage to be addressed, local governments then provide generous local pension schemes to retain workers. Operating in a macroeconomic climate of labor scarcity, promotion tournament competition becomes an unlikely catalyst for welfare expansion in China.     

Growth Critique in the 1970s Crisis and Today: Malthusianism,Social Mechanics,and Labor Discipline

This article examines the perspective on labor in two critiques of “growth” as elaborated in the context of two capitalist crises: the Keynesian model of industrial development in the 1970s, and the neoliberal finance capitalist growth model of today. A landmark event for the first critique was the publication of the “Limits to Growth” report, and for the second the emergence of the “degrowth” theoretical current. Both critiques have a Malthusian point of departure, and their view on overpopulation is accordingly discussed. Comparison between them shows that despite their ecological and supposedly socially and politically neutral point of departure, both bodies of critique examined here—that of the 1970s and the contemporary one—prescribe for labor the obligation of social discipline and acceptance of labor-market insecurity, along with the undermining of welfare rights. First, I argue that there is no such thing as an ahistorical critique of growth, but only critiques of different, case-specific models of growth in each particular instance. Second, I argue that the idea of a steady-state economy that predominates in growth critical programs is incompatible with the process of expansion and continual enlargement inherent to capitalism. Finally, I argue that, in the framework of two different crises, both critiques of growth promoted a vision of social pacification and, on the basis of ecological arguments, justified the preservation of capitalist power relations.     

Marx after Kornai

Janos Kornai chose to become an economist after reading Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. Kornai’s relation with Marx is not merely political, but also professional. Kornai “broke with Marxism” in 1956, but his relationship with Marx’s thoughts were not severed then. Kornai’s post-1956 works can be examined in the light of Marx’s ideas, dealing particularly with equity, freedom and the relation between theory and practice. Some of Marx’s own theses can be enriched interestingly by taking note of Kornai’s later writings.

     

“巴黎手稿”的存在主义马克思主义解读

1932年马克思的“巴黎手稿”（以《1844年经济学哲学手稿》为题名）首次公开出版，遂及在正在兴起的“西方马克思主义”学界引发了解读热潮。其中，以法国存在主义马克思主义学者列斐伏尔、梅洛-庞蒂的解读，构成了对“巴黎手稿”之存在主义马克思主义解读之主要蓝图。本文认为，其基本特点包括：在具体-总体中，强调“总体的人”（total man）的“自然”与“历史”的“生成”过程，也即人的“存在的”属性，这种存在的属性，换言之，就是行动的哲学或曰立足于“日常生活批判”的“存在的哲学”（existential philosophy）。     

“Your Money or Your Life”: Money and Socialist Transformation

This article argues against a common-sense logic that money can assist in socialist transformation, espouses a non-market ecosocialist position and urges greater clarity in associated discourse. Analyses of capitalist operations show that growth is not simply a characteristic tendency of capitalism but rather an essential outgrowth of its deficiencies. Marx identified these deficiencies, indicating that the end of capitalism was an end to money, that is, exchange value. Money is not a tool but evolves as a code of conduct to structure social relationships that reproduce inequity, competition, distrust and alienation. Indeed, the existence of capitalists and capitalism without money is inconceivable and impossible in practice. Money refusal and the development and defence of fair non-monetary forms of livelihood continuously critique capital and demonstrate alternative (or at least “hybrid”) socialist forms. Contemporary anti-capitalists have developed constructive skills to move beyond money and capitalism in their practical development of “green materialism.” However, a wide-ranging discourse remains to be had on moving beyond money sooner rather than later. The final section of this paper sketches a non-market ecosocialist vision.