Ecological Marxism, Intrinsic Value and Human-Centeredness  

                                                                                                                                    By David Orton
 

                        The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?
                        by Joel Kovel, Fernwood Publishing Ltd, Nova Scotia, 2002, 273 pages,
                        paperback, ISBN: 1-55266-069-9.

 
                   “Marxism needs, therefore, to become more fully ecological in realizing its potential
                    to speak for nature as well as humanity. In practice, this means replacing capitalist
                    with ecologically sound/socialist production through a restoration of use-values
                    open to nature’s intrinsic value.” pp.10-11

 
                    “‘Nature’, as we employ the concept, is a social construction before it is anything else.”
                    p.172

                   Introduction

                    Joel Kovel, who is a professor of social studies in the U.S., has run for the Green Party in that country
                and is also the editor-in-chief of the Marxist magazine, Capitalism Nature Socialism: A Journal of
                Socialist Ecology. I would argue, based on this book, that he is intellectually quite influenced by social
                ecology, which he describes as “intrinsically radical” in contrast to bioregionalism, deep ecology and
                essentialist ecofeminism (p. 177). He is therefore perhaps best classified theoretically as a hybrid between
                Marxist and social ecologist, although he sees his book as within the tradition of Marxism. Kovel is also
                someone who takes the ecological crisis very seriously and his passion is felt by the reader. He is truly an
                ecologized member of the Left and this is something shared by this reviewer.

                    After The Enemy of Nature came out in 2002, there was quite a spirited discussion about its merits on
                some internet lists that I am on. I borrowed it from the local library to see whether or not I should purchase
                a copy. I first read Kovel’s comments on deep ecology for an introductory flavour but found the author
                totally “out‑to‑lunch” in his erroneous views on this philosophy. This raised for me serious questions about
                what this book was attempting to do, and therefore the accuracy of other positions given in the text. Deep
                ecology, although originating in Norway through the work of the philosopher Arne Naess, has greatly
                influenced radical environmentalism, such as Earth First!, and green philosophical, ethical and political
                thinking in North America, Australia and England.

                    While there is a real deeper critique of the attempted green electoral road, in Canada for example, the
                provincial Green Party in Ontario endorses deep ecology and gives the eight-point Deep Ecology Platform
                as part of its First Principles. The federal Green Party, which in 2004 polled over four percent of the
                popular vote, has declared its support for deep ecology in its electoral platform. The Canadian federal
                party even has a “shadow cabinet” spokesperson (myself), to represent a deep ecological viewpoint in
                party discussions. Kovel, however, tells us that: 
                - Deep ecology is a “flaccid doctrine” (p. 171);
                - “In the USA, very few people influenced by deep ecology bother to read Naess ...” (p. 171);
                - “The deep ecology ecophilosophy is far too loose to form itself into a coherent movement, and
                  almost by definition excludes the formation of parties or any organized assertion of power.” (p.171); and
                - “Deep ecology comes home as the strategy of advanced capitalist elites, for whom nature is what looks
                  good on calendars.” (p. 172)

                    There is a left anti-capitalist theoretical tendency within deep ecology, which goes back not only to Naess
                himself, but also to people like Richard Sylvan, Andrew McLaughlin and Judi Bari, and which includes the
                work done by other left biocentrists including myself, and most recently Fred Bender - see the 2003 text
                The Culture Of Extinction: Toward A Philosophy Of Deep Ecology. These are totally ignored in The
                Enemy of Nature. Kovel does acknowledge that Naess comes across in the key book Ecology, Community
                and Lifestyle as positive about socialism. The third edition (2001) of the college reader Environmental
                Philosophy: From Animal Rights to Radical Ecology contains a comment by the social ecology activist
                and philosopher John Clark referring positively to the emergence of left biocentrism and saying that it
                “combines a theoretical commitment to deep ecology with a radical decentralist, anticapitalist politics having
                much in common with social ecology.” This comment is repeated in the current fourth edition and feeds into
                a growing discussion of left biocentrism in the green movement by various commentators and not only by its
                proponents. That Kovel has chosen to ignore this is strange indeed.

                Left Biocentrism, Marxism, and the Enemy of Nature: some major disagreements

                    For left biocentrists, unlike for Joel Kovel, industrialism, even more than capitalism, is the main problem in
                destroying the natural world. This industrialism can have a capitalist or socialist face. Andrew McLaughlin
                developed this important point in his 1993 book Regarding Nature: Industrialism and Deep Ecology.
                Implicit in the anti‑capitalist view is that it is the ownership of wealth which is the main problem. But the
                natural world can be destroyed individually and communally, or by the capitalist or socialist state. Yet left
                biocentrists are anti‑capitalist and believe that this economic and social model for organizing society is both
                anti‑ecological and socially unjust. For Kovel, the deep ecology assault on industrialism is identified with the
                Unabomber. (p. 210)

                        Kovel speaks in his book about “the gendered bifurcation of Nature” (p. 176) yet only devotes about one
                page to ecofeminism, where is not really evaluated. He does say the anti‑capitalist path forward needs to be
                also ecofeminist. Left biocentrism has a critique of ecofeminism which centers on its gender-based splitting
                character, but does not separate out gender in its overall analysis. The theoretical tendency of left
                biocentrism sees women as equal partners in the environmental and green movements. Women contribute
                their own unique perspectives as part of an overall analysis done under a deep ecology anti‑capitalist banner,
                aimed at achieving an egalitarian, non‑sexist, non‑discriminating society, which is also respectful towards the
                Earth.

                    Kovel argues against what he calls “nature mysticism” in deep ecology, which he links to fascism and is
                defined as considering human beings as having “the status of just another species in the ‘web of life.’” (pp.
                183‑184) Two things here: left biocentrists like myself do believe in a needed spiritual transformation to
                break with industrial capitalist society; and we do interpret the intrinsic value of all species, as it relates to
                humans, in the manner pilloried by Kovel. Yet this author also argues in a contradictory manner for one of
                deep ecology's major objectives, that is "a powerful spiritual movement" or "ecological spirituality" to counter
                capitalism. (p. 228) 

                    Kovel has a Marxist emphasis on capturing state power. He sees this power as key for controlling
                corporations, capital accumulation, and to keep in place the class system. Left biocentrists would see the
                changing of mass consciousness as being crucial before state power was captured, which could then be
                re‑directed towards empowering a citizen base.

                    In this book, Marxism still retains what has been called by green‑oriented writers a "human‑welfare
                ecology perspective" in its resurrected ecological form. This text does not show that Kovel has joined the
                ecocentric Left. By ecocentric Left, I mean those who have made the fundamental shift in consciousness
                from anthropocentrism to ecocentrism and who have learned the lessons of deep ecology, as initially
                unfolded by Naess. The ecocentric Left is not anti‑Marxist but accepts the limitations of Marx and Marxism
                from an ecological perspective. As Robin Eckersley points out her book Environmentalism and Political
                Theory: Toward an Ecocentric Approach, Marx had an "exclusive preoccupation with human betterment"
                and "showed no interest in natural history, and he did not address the cause of nonhuman suffering." None
                of the left writers in ecology that I take account of, people like McLaughlin, Bender, Bahro, Sylvan, Salleh,
                Sarkar, Eckersley, etc. disparage Marxism. All of us would say that much in Marx is true and valuable. But
                all understand, as I do, that while this world view is important for the critique of capitalism and to consider
                oneself educated in some way, it is not very relevant for the ecological ecocentric imagination today.
                Activists in the green and environmental movements can eventually come to consider themselves anti‑
                capitalist as a result of their own organizing experiences, they do not necessarily need Marxism for this
                 path. At a more crude level, I am not aware of "Marxist ecologists" on the theoretical or practical front lines
                of green and environmental politics in Canada. My own "contribution" to the debate in Canada has been to
                publicly articulate that greens and environmentalists need to take the Marxist/socialist/communist tradition
                seriously as part of the theoretical debate and also to absorb its very important social justice lessons. This
                has often meant for me personally opposing mindless anti‑Marxism/anti‑communism among fellow greens
                and environmentalists. Some of those who have come to a left biocentric position do not come from the Left,
                although many of us do. The ecology question cuts across all 'isms', as Bahro has noted.

                    There is also a definite clash between the ecocentric and Marxist left on ecological matters. (See my
                article “The Ecocentric Left and Green Electoralism” in the Socialist Studies Bulletin, Fall 2004, No. 74,
                which was reprinted in the US magazine of green social thought Synthesis/Regeneration, No. 36, Winter
                2005, at http://home.ca.inter.net/~greenweb/Ecocentric Left & Green Electoralism.html) Clive Ponting's,
                A Green History Of The World: The Environment and the Collapse of Great Civilizations, which is
                referenced in The Enemy of Nature, shows that it is not just the “capitalist industrializers”, who are the
                problem regarding the “conquest of nature.” Ponting gives the evidence to show many examples of past
                civilizations and empires, e.g. Greece, the Middle East, Rome and North Africa, where humans have ruined
                their local environments, through over‑exploitation of the local natural bounty, not controlling population,
                extensive deforestation, etc. They did not find a balance with their environment and placed impossible
                cultural demands on the land. With European expansion based on looting, forced labour and slavery, and
                the eventual emergence of a global industrial society, environmental destruction has now become global.
                Yet paradoxically, as other books have pointed out, it was in the 19th century of the Western intellectual
                tradition, that an anti‑vivisection movement, a vegetarian movement, a naturalist movement and an animal
                welfare movement also emerged. The 20th century saw the birth of the environmental movement and
                animal rights movement in Western society.