Metabolic Rift and Eco-justice

Abstract

In 1999, John Bellamy Foster introduced the concept of metabolic rift into the ecological Marxist and environmental sociological literatures, an idea he suggests he derived from Marx’s work. If one follows Foster’s argument, they can see the origins of metabolic rift in Marx’s work. However, Foster’s elaboration is significant in itself and important in its own terms—and not to ignore Marx, but we most certainly appreciate Foster’s contributions on these points. Foster, Clark and York (2010: 45–46) provide a useful overview of the concept of metabolic rift in their book The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth:Marx linked pollution in the cities with soil depletion in the countryside, thereby highlighting how capitalism creates and maintains an unsustainable relationship with nature. This discussion of the transfer of metabolic material from rural to urban areas has been extended by Foster and others to note how raw materials are transferred from developing to developed countries, further documenting and explaining capitalism’s transformation of global and local ecosystems, creating a metabolic rift across nations. In short, by creating a rift in the metabolic relationship between society and nature, capitalism is destroying nature. And consequently, “[m]etabolic analysis serves as a means to study these complex relationships of ecological degradation and sustainability” (Foster et al. 2010: 46).