This is just a brief response to Gerald's call for thoughts on Cogoy and Lipietz's divergence from Marxism, and then his observations on the role of value theory in the development of an ecological Marxism. Naturally I cannot speak for Cogoy or Lipietz, but my belief is that the general tendency of eco-socialists to reject Marxism is partly based on an inadequate interpretation of Marxism itself (especially the writings of Marx and Engels) and partly a matter of political convenience in the "post communist" era. I do not think it has anything to do with inherent shortcomings of Marxism from an ecological perspective. Over the last few years there has been a debate over the relationship between Marxism and ecology, and the result of this debate is that, while disagreement on the scope of Marxism's ecological potential continues, the basic ecological criticisms that have long been thrown at Marx and Marxism have all been refuted. (This debate has been mostly in the journals CAPITALISM, NATURE, SOCIALISM and HISTORICAL MATERIALISM as well as ORGANIZATION & ENVIRONMENT). On value analysis, neither Foster nor Sweezy views value theory as redundant in the sense of Steedman. (See, for example, Sweezy's essay in THE VALUE CONTROVERSY (1981).) It is just that Foster's book focuses on ecology and historical materialism in general, whereas mine had a greater (though not exclusive) focus on Marx's analysis of capitalism. This has to do with the different purposes of the two books. In my case, the intent was to interpret Marx's thinking from an ecological point of view, with Marx's work treated holistically as a coherent system (taking into account changes in Marx's thinking over time as absolutely necessary); whereas John's project was to show how Marx's engagement with ecologically inclined thinkers and ecological questions shaped the evolution of his work over time. John's narrative is historical-intellectual, whereas mine is more of a recontruction of Marx's thinking considered as a holistic system from an ecological point of view. Both Foster and Sweezy insist that Marx could never have gotten the "results" he got in his analysis of capitalism without value analysis, especially his analysis of the "qualitative value problem." I would only add that value analysis is precisely the way that Marx applies historical materialism to capitalism -- value and capital are capitalism's specific forms of material reproduction. Paul Burkett
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