[OPE-L:7357] A Bibliography on Ecosocialism

From: glevy@pop-b.pratt.edu
Date: Fri Jun 07 2002 - 09:05:51 EDT


>From another list.  The books by Paul B and John B. Foster
are recommended below.  Unfortunately, due to the formatting
of the original message it may be difficult to read.
In solidarity, Jerry

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Walt Sheasby <WSheasby@CS.COM>

.
				 So you'd like to ...
		 replace Capitalism with Ecosocialism

A Bibliography on Ecosocialism
By Walt Contreras Sheasby

This is a guide to the new field of Ecosocialism, the synthesis
of Green and Red social theory, a paradigm with a practical as
well as theoretical orientation for those coming to terms with the
global ecological crisis. Profound turning points in social theory
have always been in response to wrenching crises in society,
and the growing threat of global ecological disaster is sweeping
together and coalescing critical viewpoints.Several new books are
making the ecosocialist paradigm a serious contender against the
sterile flatlands of capitalist culture and ideology.

The most important of these and the best place to start is <A
HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1842770810/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232
083-9013714">The Enemy of Nature : The End of Capitalism or the End of World</
A> <ISBN: 1842770810>. The author Joel Kovel written widely on radical theory 
and politics and teaches Studies at Bard College in Annandale, New York. He Ra
lph Nader for the nomination of the Green Party in the 2000 Presidential elect
ion and is a spokesperson for the Kovel's book relates the ecological crisis t
o the 'Grow or Die' of capital, examines the various ecophilosophies and movem
ents have arisen to address the crisis, and sketches out the approach ecosocia
lism, seen as a reunification of the producer and the and conditions of produc
tion in a sustainable, ecological draws from James O'Connor's now well-establi
shed concept of Second Contradiction of Capitalism between productive forces r
elations versus the conditions O'Connor's 1998 work, <A HREF="http://www.amazo
n.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1572302739/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Natural C
auses</A> <ISBN: 1572302739>, seen as an attempt to deal with ecological issue
s left by Marx, but later work has added to Marx's credentials in area. O'Conn
or's look at "Uneven and Combined Development" relation to spatial and tempora
l crises affecting the flow of use-values from tap to sink, from resource extr
action to disposal pollutant and waste, is groundbreaking. He suggests a new w
ay looking at the unsustainability of global capitalism that links ecological 
analysis with the rationale of resistance struggles in the center and peripher
y of the empire. O'Connor, an professor emeritus at University of California a
t Santa Cruz is founder and chief editor of <A HREF="http://gate.cruzio.com/~c
ns/">Capitalism Nature Socialism </A>, a Guilford journal that brings together
 ecosocialist writers from all The book that has most stimulated a re-evaluati
on of Karl theory in relation to environmental destruction is <A HREF="http://
www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0312219407/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">
Marx and Nature A Red and Green Perspective</A> <ISBN: 0312219407>. The Paul B
urkett, teaches economics at Indiana State University in Haute and is a member
 of the Union for Radical Political Burkett has provided the most thorough ana
lysis of Marx's between Use-Value and Exchange-Value in relation to the embedd
edness in nature and our devastation of John Bellamy Foster, who teaches socio
logy at the University Oregon in Eugene, has recently published his third work
 in this <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583670564/ref=cm_mp_
fil/102-9232083-9013714">Ecology Against Capitalism</A> <ISBN: 1583670564>, wh
ich some of the same ground as Kovel and as Foster's short work in <A HREF="ht
tp://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0853458758/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013
714">The Vulnerable Planet : A Short Economic History of Environment</A> <ISBN
: 0853458758> and a collection he <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/A
SIN/1583670165/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Hungry for Profit : The Agri
business Threat to Farmers, and the Environment</A> <ISBN: 1583670165>. A simi
lar empirical is the 1998 book by Tom Athanasiou, <A HREF="http://www.amazon.c
om/exec/obidos/ASIN/0820320072/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Divided Plan
et : The of Rich and Foster's previous book, <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/ex
ec/obidos/ASIN/1583670122/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Marx's Ecology : 
Materialism and <ISBN: 1583670122>, brought to the fore Marx's concept of or "
Stoffwechsel" in German, an idea Marx derived from the studying the life cycle
s in the Cell (Theodor Schwann and Schleiden) and in soil and sky (Justus Lieb
ig). As Foster noted, approach to metabolic cycles in nature was brought into 
science by the Russian biogeochemist, Vladimir Ivanovich in his 1924 classic, 
<A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/038798268X/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9
232083-9013714">The Biosphere</A> Unfortunately, discussion of Marx's Ecology 
has focused mainly on relevance of philosophical materialism to contemporary p
olitics than advancing Marxian studies of the Biosphere. These theoretical con
tributions are often ignored in philosophical disputes Marx's methodology, his
 ethics, his humanist ontology, or what is as University of Manchester philoso
pher Jonathan Hughes in his 2000 <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS
IN/0521667895/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Ecology and Historical Materi
alism (Studies in Marxism and Theory)</A> <ISBN: 0521667895>, simply addressed
 the question whether Marx's metatheory can be made consistent with without re
ferring to any of the authors I've cited above. The dimension is emphasized in
 a 1999 work by the German Saral K. Saran, <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec
/obidos/ASIN/185649599X/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Eco-Socialism or Ec
o-Capitalism? : A Analysis of Humanity's Fundamental Choices</A> The field of 
ecosocialism has grown so much in literature sophistication in the last few ye
ars that a student needs to somewhat wary of books published before 1998. Some
 of have become classics, out-of-print in some cases, but by movement groups. 
Such is Brian Tokar's The <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0865
713189/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">The Alternative : Creating an Ecolog
ical Future</A> A useful history of the early days is Martin Ryle's 1988 <A an
d Socialism</A> <ISBN: 0091822475>. One I have not seen <A HREF="http://www.am
azon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1895686423/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Green 
on red : evolving ecological socialism</A> <ISBN: Another movement classic is 
Carolyn Merchant's 1992 <A Ecology : The Search for a Livable World Thought/Ra
dical Movements)</A> <ISBN: 0415906504>, a that radicalized and ecologized man
y a young student in Ecosocialists are simultaneously Ecofeminists, and the be
st is undoubtedly the English feminist Mary Mellor's 1997 <A & Ecology</A> <IS
BN: 0814756018>. Even more relevant, but hard get, is her <A HREF="http://www.
amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1853812005/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Brea
king the Boundaries : Towards a Green Socialism</A> <ISBN: 1853812005>. A crit
ical examination the recent academic quarrels is provided by the Australian Ar
iel Salleh in her 1999 <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1856494
004/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Ecofeminism As Politics : Nature, and t
he Postmodern</A> A number of ecosocialists have a background in ecoanarchism,
 David Pepper, a geography instructor at Oxford Brookes does a very fair job o
f analyzing both the red and the black wings the green movement in his 1993 <A
 HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0415097193/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-923
2083-9013714">Eco-Socialism : From Ecology to Social Justice</A> <ISBN: 041509
7193>. Pepper sets forth a decidedly anthrocentric Marxism influenced by Murra
y Bookchin's Social Ecology despite that hostility to Marx: <A HREF="http://ww
w.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/092005739X/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Po
st-Scarcity Anarchism</A> This was the issue often focused on by writers in th
e 1980s and as seen in the 1996 anthology edited by Ted Benton, a sociologist 
the University of Essex, <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/15723
01198/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">The Greening of Marxism</A> <ISBN: Li
ke the school of Analytical Marxism, the early Ecological tended to rest on pa
st readings of Marx rather than keeping up the new excavations and re-readings
 A major work that combines a close reading of Marx with empirical analysis is
 the difficult but rewarding tome by Istvan <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exe
c/obidos/ASIN/085036454X/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Beyond Capital : T
owards a Theory of Transition</A> <ISBN: His groundbreaking study written in t
he 1970s, <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0850362423/ref=cm_mp
_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Marx's Theory of <ISBN: 0850362423> is still availab
le, and his new book addressing ecological crisis, <A HREF="http://www.amazon.
com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1583670513/ref=cm_mp_fil/102-9232083-9013714">Socialism o
r Barbarism</A> <ISBN: 1583670513>, be out in the fall No study guide would be
 complete without mention of the of ecosocialism in the life and art of Willia
m Morris (1834-1896), view of a a socialist future in his novel <A HREF="http:
//www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0140433309/qid22396111/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/10
2-9232083-9013714">News from Nowhere and Writings (Penguin Classics)</A> <ISBN
: 0140433309> has been the introduction to ecosocialism since 1890. The best b
iography is E. Thompson's 1988 <A HREF="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN
/0804715092/qid22392733/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/102-9232083-9013714">William Morris
 : Romantic to Revolutionary</A> <ISBN: More on these



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