Marxism and ecological economics: toward a red and green political economy

368 Pages·2009·1.665 MB·English

by  Burkett, Paul

Marxism and Ecological Economics
Historical
Materialism
Book Series
Editorial Board
Paul Blackledge, Leeds – Sebastian Budgen, Paris
Jim Kincaid, Leeds – Stathis Kouvelakis, Paris
Marcel van der Linden, Amsterdam
China Miéville, London – Paul Reynolds, Lancashire
Peter Thomas, Amsterdam
VOLUME 11
Marxism and Ecological
Economics
Toward a Red and Green Political Economy
by
Paul Burkett
BRILL
LEIDEN•BOSTON
2006
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Burkett, Paul, 1956 May 26–
Marxism and ecological economics : toward a red and green political economy /
by Paul Burkett.
p. cm. — (Historical materialism book series, ISSN 1570-1522 ; v. 11)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 90-04-14810-8 (alk. paper)
1. Environmental economics. 2. Marxian economics. 3. Communism and ecology.
4. Marx, Karl, 1818-1883. I. Title. II. Historical materialism book series ; 11.
HC79.E5B86 2006
333.7—dc22
2005058216
ISSN 1570-1522
ISBN-13: 978 90 04 14810 9
ISBN-10: 90 04 14810 8
© Copyright 2006 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill Academic Publishers,
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PRINTED IN THE NETHERLANDS
Contents
Preface .............................................................................................................. vii
Introduction .................................................................................................... 1
Chapter One The Value Problem in Ecological Economics:
Lessons from the Physiocrats and Marx ................................................ 16
Chapter Two Values in Ecological Value Analysis: What Should
We Be Learning from Contingent Valuation Studies? ........................ 56
Chapter Three Natural Capital in Ecological Economics .................... 93
Chapter Four Marxism and the Resistance to Natural Capital .......... 115
Chapter Five Entropy in Ecological Economics:
AMarxist Intervention .............................................................................. 142
Chapter Six Energy, Entropy and Classical Marxism:
Debunking the Podolinsky Myth ............................................................ 174
Chapter Seven Power Inequality and the Environment ...................... 208
Chapter Eight Sraffian Models of Ecological Conflict and Crisis ...... 220
Chapter Nine Towards a Marxist Approach to Ecological Conflicts
and Crises .................................................................................................... 260
vi • Contents
Chapter Ten Marxism, Ecological Economics, and Sustainable
Human Development ................................................................................ 301
References ........................................................................................................ 333
Index ................................................................................................................ 351
Preface
This book aims at instigating a dialogue between Marxist political economy
and ecological economics. It shows how Marxism can help ecological economics
better fulfill its commitments to methodological pluralism, interdisciplinarity,
and openness to new visions of policy and of structural economic change
that confront the current biospheric crisis. The potential contribution of
Marxism to ecological economics is developed in terms of four fundamental
issues: (i) the relations between nature and economic value; (ii) the treatment
of nature as capital; (iii) the significance of the entropy lawfor economic systems;
(iv) the concept of sustainable development.
In writing this book, I have made a conscious effort to avoid the kind of
ad hominem argumentation that has all too often hampered the effectiveness
of intellectual interchanges between Marxism and ecological economics. I
have tried to engage seriously with the central features of ecological economics
as a ‘meta-paradigm’ as well as its core theoretical constructs in the four
above-mentioned issue areas. I hope that the result is a book that will be
useful not only to Marxists and ecological economists interested in pursuing
dialogue, but also to those just seeking a critical, but readable, introduction
to the basic ideas of ecological economics. That the book was written by a
relative ‘outsider’ to ecological economics will not, I trust, cripple its
effectiveness in either function, and may even help it a bit. To risk a cliché,
sometimes an outsider can better distinguish the forest from the trees.
Although my Marxist engagement with ecological economics dates to the
early 1990s, the idea of this book germinated on the evening of 19 October
2001, when I had to respond to a public talk given by Herman Daly in
conjunction with an interdisciplinary conference on ‘Causes and Cures of
Poverty’, sponsored by the Center for Process Studies at the Claremont School
of Theology in California. My gratitude is extended both to Herman Daly
and to the audience that evening for their gracious reception of, and
encouraging responses to, my comments.
viii • Preface
I want to thank Sebastian Budgen and the rest of the Historical Materialism
Book Series editorial board, along with Sasha Goldstein and Joed Elich at
Brill, for supporting this project. Several other people provided crucial help
at various stages. Alfredo Saad-Filho read an early prospectus for the book
and encouraged me to pursue it to completion. Kozo Mayumi emailed several
of his most recent papers on entropic economics in pre-published form, and
this was especially helpful for my work on Chapter 5. Ben Fine offered incisive
comments on the manuscript for Chapters 3 and 4. Chapter 2 benefited
enormously from critical comments by Michael Perelman, from additional
readings suggested by Patrick Bond and Larry Lohmann, and from Rick
Lotspeich’s insights into contingent valuation analysis. Rick’s father, Frederick
B. Lotspeich, donated his entire collection of the journal Ecological Economics
to the Economics Department library at Indiana State University, which greatly
facilitated my study of the discipline. Angelo Di Salvo and Mark Hudson
translated the work of Sergei Podolinsky into English, and without this
translation the research summarised in Chapter 6 could not have been done.
Most of all, I want to thank John Bellamy Foster not only for allowing me to
draw from our co-produced work on the ‘Podolinsky business’ for Chapter
6, but also for sharing his own insights into Marxism and ecology over the
years and for his constant encouragement and support.
Several of the chapters in this book are based, in whole or in part, on articles
published in scholarly journals, and I wish to thank their respective editors
for considering my work and giving permission for it to reappear here in
revised form: John Jermier at Organization & Environment(Chapter 1);1Malcolm
Sawyer at the International Papers in Political Economzy (Chapters 3 and 4);2
Sebastian Budgen at Historical Materialism(Chapter 5);3Karen Lucas at Theory
and Society (Chapter 6).4
In addition, some of the arguments in different chapters were initially
aired at conference sessions whose participants kindly provided important
encouragement and feedback: the Marxist Sociology session at the American
Sociological Association Meetings, San Francisco, 14–17 August 2004, especially
1 Burkett 2003b.
2 Burkett 2003d.
3 Burkett 2005.
4 Burkett and Foster 2006.
Preface • ix
Brett Clark (Chapter 6); the Conference on ‘Causes and Cures of Poverty’,
Center for Process Studies, Claremont School of Theology, 18–21 October
2001, especially Walt Sheasby, Herman Daly, Wes Jackson, and John Cobb
(Chapter 9); and the Conference on ‘The Work of Karl Marx and Challenges
for the 21st Century’, Havana, Cuba, 5–8 May 2003, especially Michael Lebowitz
and Barbara Foley (Chapter 10).
Thanks are also due to my colleagues in the Economics Department at
Indiana State University, Terre Haute, for approving the one-semester leave
required to put this book together, and more generally for constructing the
kind of open and non-dogmatic setting needed for heterodox scholars to get
their work done. In addition, essential research support was provided by the
Interlibrary Loan Department at Cunningham Library, Indiana State University.
Finally, I extend loving gratitude to Suzanne Carter, who for whatever reason
has put up with me for two decades now, and to Patrick and Molly Burkett
for their patience with the fluctuating moods that their father exhibited during
the composition of this work.
Terre Haute, Indiana
August, 2005