I disagree with the view that Marx and Engels completely missed the boat on ecology, and I have written at length in opposition to this view in my book MARX AND NATURE and numerous articles. These writings explore the issue not in generalized AD HOMINEM terms but by looking at Marx and Engels' thought as a whole and at specific concepts they developed. John Bellamy Foster's book MARX'S ECOLOGY comes to similar conclusions as my own, based on his historical- intellectual analysis of the development of Marx and Engels' thinking and how it was shaped in various crucial ways by their engagement with the works of what would nowadays be called ecologists like Liebig and others. (My review of John's book was published in NEW POLITICS, #31, Summer 2001, and there has been a lively debate about the significance of John's work in the 2001 volume of the journal CAPITALISM, NATURE, SOCIALISM. See especially Jason Moore's contribution in the September-01 issue.) I do not have time to participate in lengthy debates on this list (too many other things to do you know), and I apologize for being such a lurker, but I would like to say that the purpose of both my work and John's is not merely the textual defense of Marx and Engels but to further develop the ecological resources of historical materialism -- which we argue to be quite considerable not despite, but because of, the general outlook and specific conceptual apparatuses developed by Marx and Engels, including their value analysis. I developed these points in some detail in a two-part response to Ted Benton's "ecological critique and reconstruction" of Marx, published in the new journal HISTORICAL MATERIALISM, No. 2 and No. 3, respectively. Ted Benton's response to my arguments, along with my rejoinder, are in HM #8 which is supposed to be published this month. I mention these things because some people on the list may be interested in a discussion of the specific issues and questions raised by the ecological reading of classical Marxism and the need to develop an ecological Marxism for today's world. Cheers, Paul Burkett
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