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Although I continue to identify strongly with John Bellamy Foster's
ecosocialism, he has an Achilles Heel over China. My guess is that he
has been overly influenced by the flattery he is getting from Chinese
academics in the field. Most academics dote on such attention unfortunately.
Today on the MR blog that is mostly a vast improvement on Furuhashi's
garbage, there's a link to an article below that is based on an
idealistic understanding of Chinese policies. No amount of "regenerative
thinking" can mitigate the effect of capitalist development. China may
move forward with alternative energy production (and good for them) but
so is most of Western Europe. The underlying problem, however, is the
separation of the city from the countryside with its tendency to create
a metabolic rift, as Foster must surely understand. Chinese agriculture
is a looming disaster. Just consider the big push for GMO as analyzed in
this Scientific American article:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/china-launches-media-campaign-to-back-genetically-modified-crops/
----
https://www.ecowatch.com/china-ecological-civilization-2532760301.html
In fact, this is just the type of fresh, regenerative thinking about
transforming the current global economic system that many in the
environmental movement have been calling for. And this hasn't been lost
on some leading thinkers. David Korten, a world-renowned author and
activist, has proposed expanding the vision of Ecological Civilization
to a global context, which would involve—among other things—granting
legal rights to nature, shifting ownership of productive assets from
transnational corporations to nation-states and self-governing
communities, and prioritizing life-affirming, rather than
wealth-affirming, values.
Within a larger historical context, it's not too surprising that this
vision of "harmony between human and nature" should emerge from China.
As I've traced in my book, The Patterning Instinct: A Cultural History
of Humanity's Search for Meaning, traditional Chinese culture was
founded on a worldview that perceived an intrinsic web of connection
between humanity and nature, in contrast to the European worldview that
saw humans as essentially separate from nature. Early Chinese
philosophers believed the overriding purpose of life was to seek harmony
in society and the universe, while Europeans pursued a path based on a
different set of values—which have since become global in scope—driven
by "conquering nature" and viewing nature as a machine to be engineered.
https://www.ecowatch.com/china-ecological-civilization-2532760301.html
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