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Marxism's Role in Environmental Protection

Marxism provides an essential framework for understanding and addressing climate change in three key ways: 1) Marxism views human activity and our relationship to the environment as historically and materially conditioned rather than abstract, recognizing that this relationship has evolved along with technological and social developments. 2) It defines humans as part of nature rather than separate from or conquerors of nature, rejecting the dominant Western view when Marx wrote. 3) Our impact on the environment arises from the technology achieved by societies and most significantly by the social relations and economic systems that develop around that technology.

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79 views1 page

Marxism's Role in Environmental Protection

Marxism provides an essential framework for understanding and addressing climate change in three key ways: 1) Marxism views human activity and our relationship to the environment as historically and materially conditioned rather than abstract, recognizing that this relationship has evolved along with technological and social developments. 2) It defines humans as part of nature rather than separate from or conquerors of nature, rejecting the dominant Western view when Marx wrote. 3) Our impact on the environment arises from the technology achieved by societies and most significantly by the social relations and economic systems that develop around that technology.

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sunny414
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© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Marxism, capitalism and the environment

By Deirdre Griswold on April 29, 2013


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Below is a talk on Marxism and the environment given by Workers World Editor Deirdre Griswold to a Workers World Party forum in New York on April 26, 2013. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote a century and a half ago. Climate change is a modern problem. So why do we say that Marxism is essential to the struggle to protect the environment? Because Marxism views human activity not in the abstract, but within its concrete historical conditions. It is a dialectical, materialist worldview a scientific view of nature and society that defines human beings as part of the material world, or nature, and as having evolved along with all life forms. It rejected what was the dominant Western view in the 19th century: that humans were placed here by a divine being to conquer nature. Our relationship to the environment is not fixed. Like so much of human behavior, it arises from the level of technology achieved and, most important, the social relations that flow from that.

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