Marxism and the environmental question: Towards an environmental rationality for sustainability

Abstract

The science of capital has failed to integrate ecological processes and cultural values into the general conditions for the expanded reproduction of capital and its transition toward a sustainable mode of production grounded on the conditions of life. The environmental crisis questions the ecological irrationality of economics and the ontological grounds of historical materialism. Building a Marxist theory of production grounded on the potentials and conditions of Nature goes beyond rescuing Marx's concept of Nature. It calls for a productive rationality that accounts for the incorporation of natural processes and the metabolism of the biosphere in the general conditions of production; an environmental rationality for the socialization of Nature, based upon the principles of eco-technological-cultural productivity, ecological resiliency, territorial rights and environmental justice.