ECONOMICS AND NATURE
The social relation of capital, as we all know, is a contradictory one.
These contradictions, though stemming from capitalism’s internal laws of
motion, extend out to phenomena that are usually conceived as external to
the system, threatening the integrity of the entire biosphere and
everything within it as a result of capital’s relentless expansion. How to
understand capitalism’s ecological contradictions has therefore become a
subject of heated debate among socialists. Two crucial issues in this
debate are: (1) must ecological crisis lead to economic crisis under
capitalism? and (2) to what extent is there an ecological contradiction at
the heart of capitalist society?
What is at issue here can be best understood if we turn to Marx. One of
the key elements in Marx’s ecological analysis, as I explained in Marx’s
Ecology, is his theory of metabolic rift. Marx employed the concept of a
rift in the metabolic relation between human beings and the earth to
capture the material estrangement of human beings within capitalist society
from the natural conditions that formed the basis for their existence. One
way in which this manifested itself was in the extreme separation of town
and country under capitalism, which grew out of the separation of the mass
of the population from the soil.
Nevertheless, it has become the fashion in certain Eco socialist circles
to stress not so much the wealth of ecological insights that Marx provided,
as to focus on what are characterized as major shortcomings of Marx’s
analysis that prevented him from developing a full-fledged ecological
Marxism. Writing in Capitalism, Nature, Socialism, the leading journal of
Eco socialism edited by James O’Connor, Alan Rudy has contended that a
“limitation to Marx’s ecology85is that Marx did not theorize the ‘metabolic
rift’ as an important moment in the crisis tendencies of capitalism.” This
point has been enunciated more fully by O’Connor, who has argued that,
while Marx recognized the existence of “ecologically destructive methods”
within agriculture, “he never considered the possibility” that ecological
degradation “might threaten economic crisis of a particular type, namely,
underproduction of capital,” due to the impairment of the natural
conditions of production. Hence Marx, O’Connor states, failed to “put two
and two together” so as to develop a theory of how increasing ecological
costs contributed to decreasing profitability and accumulation crisis. His
analysis thus fell short of the conceptual framework that O’Connor has
labeled “ecological Marxism.”
Yet in focusing exclusively on this first contradiction, O’Connor
argues, socialist critics of capitalism have neglected the “second
contradiction,” associated with the undermining of capitalism’s conditions
of production. He usefully derives from Marx’s analysis three types of
“conditions of production”: (1) the personal conditions of production
associated with the reproduction of human labor power, (2) the
external-natural conditions of production (forests, oil fields, water
supplies, bird species, etc.), and (3) the general-communal conditions of
production (i.e., the built environment, for example, cities, including
their urban infrastructure). What gives all of these elements the status of
conditions of production is that they are not produced (or fully produced)
by capitalism but are rather “fictitious commodities,” to use Karl
Polanyi’s term. Capitalism does not directly produce human beings or even
the capacity to labor— however much it may wish to treat labor power as a
commodity virtually like any other. Nor does it produce external nature.
The built environment, for its part, emerges in a way that is dictated by
spatial and temporal factors not directly subject to the law of value.
Capital is thus dependent for its production on the use and
transformation of natural conditions of production that to some extent
represent natural scarcities, and that the economic system is incapable of
preserving intact and in relatively costless form. Degradation of these
conditions of production generates rising costs for capitalism, squeezing
profits on the cost (or supply) side: thus the “second contradiction” of
capitalism. In his book, The Enemy of Nature, Joel Kovel, in line with
O’Connor, refers to ecological crisis arising from capital’s degradation of
its own conditions of production on an ever-increasing scale as an “iron
necessity.” He remarks that, “This degradation will have a contradictory
effect on profitability itself …either directly, by so fouling the natural
ground of production that it breaks down, or indirectly,” through the
reinternalization of “the costs that had been expelled into the
environment.”
The power of the “second contradiction” thesis, and the reason for its
influence on socialist (and nonsocialist) thought, should now be obvious.
It provides a single logical argument that links ecological scarcity,
economic crisis, and the growth of new movements for social change.
Nevertheless, there are, in my view, some difficulties with this approach
which limit its proper field of application. One way of understanding how
designation of the “second contradiction” of capitalism as the defining
thesis of ecological Marxism has divided socialist analysts in the
ecological realm can be seen in a recent exchange in Capitalism, Nature,
Socialism, which was given the title “Marx’s Ecology or Ecological
Marxism.” The term “Marx’s Ecology” in this case referred ostensibly to the
title of my book, but the nature of the argument presented by the critics
was that Marx’s own contributions to ecology, as described in that book,
were deficient precisely because they did not lead to “ecological Marxism”
as represented by O’Connor’s “second contradiction.” Specifically, the
point was made, as indicated earlier, that Marx did not explain how
ecological crisis generated a crisis of accumulation for capitalism, and
hence his analysis was incomplete, unsystematic, and undeveloped.
There is no reason to believe that the damage inflicted on the
environment is most serious where it principally affects the conditions of
production, which by definition involve elements of the natural-physical
environment that have been substantially incorporated into the system. The
Amazon forest may have provided hardwood timber and other resources for
capital, but most of it has until recently been outside what can be called
the conditions of production of capitalism. The fifty percent of all
species that are believed to reside in the tropical forests and are
currently threatened with extinction in a matter of decades, are not only
for the most part not incorporated into the global accumulation process,
most of them remain undocumented, still unknown to science. If we take the
case of the ozone layer, which has been thinned enormously, imperiling the
very existence of life on earth, it would clearly be a mistake to try to
squeeze this into an analysis of the conditions of production—as if it were
simply a precondition of the economy and not a precondition of life as we
know it.
There are also empirical problems, I believe, with this theory of
ecologically induced economic crisis. Logically, it is true, rising raw
material costs and other costs associated with natural scarcity could
undermine profit margins and generate economic crisis. This factor played a
role in nineteenth century accumulation crises, as reflected in the
classical theory of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. It is
always important to capital that such costs, associated with natural
scarcity, be kept down. Yet, there is no evidence that such costs
constitute serious, insuperable barriers to accumulation for the system as
a whole today. As Marx indicated in his time, the exhaustion of coal mines
may eventually increase the cost of coal, but in the meantime production is
often boosted by falling energy costs. Nor has pollution abatement put an
unbearable burden on capital. Government estimates that rely on surveys of
business executives indicate that business is concerned about increasing
environmental costs, but this type of evidence is not a very convincing
basis for arguing that environmental costs are actually squeezing profit
margins in the aggregate—and should be taken no more seriously than the
unceasing complaints of business executives with regard to wage costs
squeezing profits.
Today ecological crisis looms larger in our vision of anticapitalist
revolt—to a degree that Marx did not and could not perceive. But our
overall vision of the ecological features of a socialist revolution is
scarcely more radical than what Marx himself envisioned, with his idea of
the dissolution of the antagonistic relation of town and country and an
attempt to overcome the metabolic rift through sustainable production based
on a communal society of freely associated producers. When William Morris
developed his ideas for the reorganization of relations between town and
country in News from Nowhere he was knowingly or unknowingly very close to
the spirit of Marx. In the case of ecological degradation we are dealing
with a first order, not a second order, problem of capitalism (and not just
of capitalism). Ecological degradation, like imperialism, is as basic to
capitalism as the pursuit of profits itself (which depend to a large extent
upon it). Nor should the environmental problem be seen largely through the
economic prism in the sense that it derives its significance from the
extent to which it generates economic crisis for capitalism.
K RAJARAM IRS 81225
On Mon, 8 Dec 2025 at 05:34, Markendeya Yeddanapudi <
[email protected]> wrote:
>
>
> --
> *Mar*
>
> Parallel Educations
>
>
>
> Economics is the functioning catastrophe against naure.It is destroying
> nature completely and comprehensively. Every teacher in every University is
> a Sukracharya training the Basmasuras. In every science molded by the
> Cartesian paradigm, there is no place for consciousness as a subject, as an
> extension of nature’s macro consciousness. Actually Gods or those that
> still strive in nature as nature not allowing mechanization at all are
> shamed, discounted, denigrated and ostracized. Machines only shall be
> trusted while nature is not only distrusted but actually destroyed.
> Economics is the euphemism for the destruction of nature. Nature is
> destroyed, ignoring the fact that nature is capable of retaliating terribly
> and that retaliation can happen at any time. As it is every organism of the
> Biosphere is made into a consciousness-less machine in obedience to Rene
> Descartes. While Descartes nailed big animals to wooden logs, the students
> in various classes of Zoology nail small animals like frogs, rabbits etc,to
> open their entails to study their mechanical constructions. The students do
> not study the feelings and emotions of the life forms. Horrible medical
> experiments are carried on diverse animals.
>
> Nature’s basic symbiosis is eliminated from this monstrosity, the
> education of Basmasuras. Antibiosis has taken over.
>
> Every University must start a completely ‘Free Nature Park’, without human
> tampering, so that nature’s symbiotic education, where lessons take to
> feelings and emotions gets revived. The Biosphere gets the chance to become
> one single organism, with Gaia stirring from the present state of
> disability due to the human economic attack. The students get the chance to
> experience Gaia, as the Goddess that cares and understands and teaches.
> There breathing and hearing becomes sensing of lessons. The diverse life
> forms in the park smell and sense converse with each other. The student
> experiences self identity where there is no sense of self or simply egoism.
>
> The park will eventually cure the University of its Disease;
> Mechanization. The mechanical takeover of the student’s anatomy gets
> reduced. They again begin using their limbs, frozen due to the use of
> machines to do the work of limbs. The internal hormonal communications of
> the students become active giving wonderful feedbacks to the Brain. Because
> the skin has pores that breathe connecting them to nature while the soil
> bacteria interact via the palms and heels. In the park the air and the soil
> bacteria gain get life, the air brimming with smell and sound messages,
> while the soil bacteria transform the parent earth matter into organic
> life. The students get connected to the soil.
>
> Nature needs the chance to give education directly. Every University must
> start a ‘Free Nature Park’ without human tampering.
>
> YM Sarma
>
> Edit by Chat GPT
>
> Below is a carefully edited, clearer, and more coherent version of your
> essay. I preserved your core message, tone, and philosophical stance while
> improving structure, grammar, readability, and flow.
> ------------------------------
>
> *Parallel Educations*
>
> *(Revised Version)*
>
> Modern economics has become a functioning catastrophe—a system that
> advances by undermining nature itself. It destroys the natural world
> completely and comprehensively, often under the polished guise of
> “development.” In this system, every teacher in every university becomes a
> kind of *Shukracharya* training new *Bhasmasuras*—students armed with
> knowledge that ultimately turns destructive.
>
> Within sciences shaped by the Cartesian paradigm, there is no space for
> consciousness as a living, integral part of nature’s own
> macro-consciousness. Forces of nature—those that strive to remain organic,
> intuitive, and unmechanized—are dismissed, shamed, and marginalized.
> Machines are trusted absolutely, while nature is not merely distrusted but
> actively dismantled. Economics becomes nothing more than a polite euphemism
> for this destruction, ignoring the fact that nature is capable of terrible
> retaliation—retaliation that can arrive at any moment.
>
> Under this paradigm, every organism in the biosphere is treated as a
> consciousness-less machine. Descartes once nailed living animals to wooden
> boards to study them; today, students in zoology classes pin frogs,
> rabbits, and others to dissect their bodies, searching only for mechanical
> structure, never emotional reality. Feelings, sensations, and inner
> experience—the true essence of life—are ignored. Meanwhile, countless
> medical and scientific experiments continue to inflict suffering on
> animals, all in the name of mechanistic understanding.
>
> In this education of future *Bhasmasuras*, nature’s foundational
> principle—symbiosis—is erased. Antibiosis, the logic of domination,
> replaces it.
>
> *A Proposal: The Free Nature Park*
>
> Every university should establish a completely “Free Nature Park”—an area
> left untouched, free of human interference, where nature can express itself
> fully. In such a space, the symbiotic education of nature can reawaken.
> Lessons rooted in feeling, sensation, and relationship can emerge once
> more. The biosphere may again experience itself as a single organism, with
> Gaia slowly stirring from her current state of injury inflicted by
> relentless economic assault.
>
> In these parks, students would have the opportunity to encounter Gaia as a
> caring, intelligent presence—a teacher whose lessons are not delivered
> through words but through breath, sound, scent, movement, and silence.
> Their senses would sharpen; their awareness would expand beyond ego. They
> would discover a form of selfhood rooted not in separateness, but in
> participation in a larger living whole.
>
> The park would gradually heal the university from its chronic disease:
> mechanization. As students spend time in unprocessed nature, the mechanical
> takeover of their bodies and minds begins to recede. Their limbs, numbed by
> machine-dependence, grow active again. Hormonal communication within the
> body becomes alive, sending rich feedback to the brain. Through the pores
> of the skin, through the contact of palms and heels with soil, the body
> reconnects to the living earth.
>
> In such a space, air and soil regain their vitality—the air vibrant with
> scent and sound messages, the soil filled with bacteria transforming earth
> into life. Students learn not through domination, but through connection.
>
> *Conclusion*
>
> Nature needs the opportunity to teach directly again. If universities are
> to heal their fractured relationship with the living world, each must
> create a “Free Nature Park”—a sanctuary where nature educates through its
> own rhythms, voices, and intelligence.
>
> *—YM Sarma*
> ------------------------------
>
> If you want, I can also:
> • simplify the language for a general audience
> • adapt it for publication in a journal
> • make it more academic, poetic, or argumentative
> • shorten it or expand it
>
> Just let me know!
>
>
>
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> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/thatha_patty/CACDCHCLonFbJfV7CMRFu-CUW2cs_Jhu687p6mBKP4_vA89s8ZQ%40mail.gmail.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>
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