On the Core Theses of Western Ecological Marxism

“Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, the Party Central Committee has advanced the building of an ecological civilization with unprecedented intensity, the consciousness and initiative of the whole Party and the whole country in pursuing green development have been markedly enhanced, major steps have been taken in building a Beautiful China, and China’s ecological and environmental protection has undergone historic, transformative, and overarching changes.” This is the major historical achievement in the construction of an ecological civilization that China has pointed out in the *Resolution of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on the Major Achievements and Historical Experience of the Party over the Past Century*, deliberated and adopted at the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on November 8, 2021. [1]1 The 18th National Congress of the CPC was held in 2012. The Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee was held in November 2021. It is evident that China is contributing its important strength to solving major human problems, building a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness and inclusiveness, clean and beautiful, and promoting a community with a shared future for mankind.

“党的十八大以来，党中央以前所未有的力度抓生态文明建设，全党全国推动绿色发展的自觉性和主动性显著增强，美丽中国建设迈出重大步伐，我国生态环境保护发生历史性、转折性、全局性变化。”这是2021年11月8日中国共产党第十九届六中全会审议通过的《中共中央关于党的百年奋斗重大成就和历史经验的决议》中所指出的中国在生态文明建设上取得的重大历史成就。可见，中国正在为解决人类重大问题，构建持久和平、普遍安全、共同繁荣、开放包容、清洁美丽世界，推动人类命运共同体贡献自己的重要力量。

Taking history as a mirror, we create the future. Western ecological Marxism rose in the 1970s, and its main school representatives include O’Connor, Foster, Leiss, Ben Agger, André Gorz, David Pepper, Kovel, and others. Facing the increasingly severe contemporary ecological crisis, academia, from different perspectives, has launched an ecological critique of the capitalist system, accusing precisely the injustice of production under the capitalist system and capitalist conditions of causing the alienation of science and technology, needs and consumption, and modes of existence, thereby making the ecological crisis a historical inevitability. In his book *The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World* and published academic papers, Joel Kovel directly accuses the true “culprit” of the contemporary ecological crisis as capital and the capitalist system. If the core thesis of ecological Marxism is concentrated on the relationship between institutional critique and the ecological crisis, then Kovel’s critical dimension is even more focused on revealing the thesis of the root of capital and the ecological crisis. Currently, academic attention to Kovel’s critique of capital is mainly focused on a systematic review of the theoretical ontology itself. This paper aims to look at the critical dimensions of other contemporary ecological Marxist schools, highlight Kovel’s unique theoretical characteristics, and scientifically evaluate Kovel’s critical theory to provide ideological inspiration and reference for better constructing a Chinese form of ecological civilization, taking the path of Chinese-path modernization, and creating a new form of human civilization.

以史为鉴，开创未来。西方生态学马克思主义于20世纪70年代崛起，其学派代表人物主要有奥康纳、福斯特、莱易斯、本·阿格尔、安德烈·高兹、戴维·佩珀、科威尔等。面对当代日益严重的生态危机，学术界站在不同的视域对资本主义制度展开生态批判，指控正是资本主义制度和资本主义条件下生产的不正义性造成科学技术、需要和消费、生存方式的异化，从而使生态危机成为历史必然。乔尔·科威尔在《The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of World》著作和发表的学术论文中，直接指控当代生态危机的真正“元凶”是资本和资本主义制度。如果说生态学马克思主义的核心论点集中于制度批判与生态危机的关系，那么科威尔批判的维度更是侧重于揭示资本与生态危机的根源论题。目前，学术界对科威尔的资本批判理论主要关注于对理论本体的系统梳理，本文旨在放眼同时代其他生态马克思主义学派的批判维度，彰显科威尔独创的理论特质，科学地评价科威尔的批判理论对于我们更好的建构中国形态的生态文明，走出中国式现代化道路、创造人类文明新形态提供思想启示和借鉴。

I

一

Looking at the ecological Marxism of the 1970s and 1980s, its commonality lies in identifying the historical inevitability of the ecological crisis under the capitalist system and concluding from different dimensions that the capitalist system is anti-ecological. Among them, the theoretical perspectives of O’Connor, Leiss, Ben Agger, and Foster are the most representative.

放眼20世纪70、80年代的生态学马克思主义，其共性在于指认资本主义制度下的生态危机具有历史的必然性，并且从不同的维度得出资本主义制度具有反生态性。其中奥康纳、莱易斯、本·阿格尔、福斯特的理论视域最具有代表性。

O’Connor’s ecological critique of capitalism begins with exposing the dual contradictions of capitalist society. In *Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism*, O’Connor points the root of the ecological crisis towards the ecological limits of production within capitalist relations of production. O’Connor defines the opposition and unity of capitalist production and production conditions as the “second contradiction of capitalism.” Historical materialism holds that the socio-economic crisis caused by product surplus resulting from the opposition between capitalist productive forces and relations of production is the first contradiction; the contradiction caused by the opposition between capitalist productive forces, relations of production, and production conditions is the second contradiction, which is embedded in the nature of capitalism itself. In the globalized capitalist system, the first and second contradictions operate together. O’Connor mainly elaborates on the capitalist “crisis theory” from the perspective of the second contradiction and the alienation of technology under capitalist conditions. The logical nature of capitalism determines the inevitability of its own unlimited expansion; however, nature lacks an operational system capable of self-expansion. Once nature cannot coordinate its pace and laws with the operation of capital, it inevitably leads to the destruction of the ecological environment and the stacking of costs among capital production factors, thereby causing economic, social, and ecological crises resulting from insufficient production. Facing the severe ecological crisis, O’Connor profoundly expounds on the relationship between capitalism and the global ecological crisis from three dimensions. First, the direct cause of the ecological crisis is capital accumulation. The goal of capitalism is to maximize profits through the exploitation and oppression of the working class and the innovation of science and technology. We can also understand that capital accumulation is achieved by increasing worker productivity while reducing production costs. Because the nature of capitalist self-expansion inevitably brings: the faster the economic growth, the higher the demand for raw materials, and the proportion of raw materials in capital will also increase. Obviously, the intensity of capital’s exploitation of raw materials increases accordingly, effective accumulation and production costs increase, and profits decrease accordingly, and vice versa. Therefore, from the dimension of capital accumulation, O’Connor analyzes that the inevitable outcome of the capitalist production process is high consumption of natural resources and high pollution of the natural environment. Second, science and technology become an accelerator of the ecological crisis. O’Connor believes that science and technology under capitalist conditions have economic, political, and social functions. The economic function is mainly reflected in that, driven by capitalist interests, the application of science and technology aims to reduce raw material costs, increase raw material utilization rates, develop new products, and research new technologies to realize surplus value, thereby achieving the capitalist nature of pursuing profit. The political and social functions are mainly reflected in achieving their economic function through the control of the superstructure. Therefore, science and technology under capitalist conditions cannot yield to the ecological environment; they are merely means for capitalism to realize profit. Third, the uneven development of capitalism causes a global ecological crisis. Uneven development leads to the destruction of soil fertility, the indiscriminate felling of forest resources, and the accelerated exploitation of natural resources by developing and developed countries, globalizing the ecological crisis. In short, from the dimension of capitalist relations of production, O’Connor concludes that capitalism has a self-destructive character, and his theory of the dual contradictions of capitalism profoundly exposes the root of the ecological crisis.

对资本主义的生态批判，奥康纳是从揭露资本主义社会的二重性矛盾开始的。在《自然的理由：生态学马克思主义研究》中，奥康纳把生态危机的根源指向资本主义生产关系中生产的生态限域性。奥康纳将资本主义生产与生产条件的对立统一定义为“资本主义的二重矛盾”。历史唯物主义认为因资本主义生产力与生产关系之间的对立而导致产品过剩引发的社会经济危机是第一重矛盾；因资本主义生产力、生产关系和生产条件的对立引发的矛盾是第二重矛盾，第二重矛盾内嵌于资本主义的本性之中。在全球化的资本主义体系中第一重矛盾和第二重矛盾共同作用其中。奥康纳主要是从第二重矛盾和资本主义条件下的技术异化来阐述资本主义“危机论”。资本主义的逻辑本性决定了其自身无限扩张的必然性，然而自然界却缺乏无法自我扩张的运作系统，一旦自然界与资本运行的进度与规律不能协同运行时，势必引起生态环境的破坏以及资本生产要素之间成本的叠加，进而导致由生产不足引发的经济危机、社会危机和生态危机。面对严峻的生态危机，奥康纳从三个维度深刻阐述了资本主义与全球生态危机之间的关系。首先，构成生态危机的直接原因是资本积累。资本主义的目标是通过对工人阶级的剥削与压迫及对科学技术的革新来实现利润最大化，我们也可以理解为资本的积累就是在提高工人生产率同时降低生产成本的基础上实现的。因为资本主义自我扩张的本性必然会带来：经济增长越快，对原材料的需求越高，原材料在资本中所占的比重也会增大，显然资本对原材料的开采力度随之增大，有效积累与生产成本增多，利润随之下降，反之亦然。因此奥康纳站在资本积累的维度分析得出，资本主义生产过程所带来的结局必然是自然资源高耗费，自然环境高污染。其次，科学技术成为生态危机的加速器。奥康纳认为科学技术在资本主义条件下具有经济、政治、社会功能。经济功能主要是体现在资本主义利益驱使下，科学技术的应用是以降低原材料成本，提高原材料利用率，开发新产品，研发新技术来实现剩余价值，从而达到资本主义追逐利润的本性。政治功能和社会功能则主要体现在通过上层建筑的控制从而实现其经济功能。因此资本主义条件下的科学技术不可能让位于生态环境，它仅仅是资本主义实现利润的手段。其三，资本主义发展的不平衡造成全球性的生态危机。不平衡发展导致土壤肥力破坏、森林资源的滥砍滥伐以及发展中国家与发达国家对自然资源的加速开采使生态危机全球化。总之，奥康纳从资本主义生产关系的维度得出资本主义具有自我毁灭的特性，他的资本主义矛盾二重理论深刻揭露了生态危机的根源。

Leiss and Ben Agger summarize that the emergence of the ecological crisis under contemporary globalization is attributable to two points: first, the irrational application of science and technology, which alienates the relationship between humans and nature; second, capital’s unrestrained stimulation of consumption in pursuit of profit, leading to consumption alienation. Leiss and Ben Agger explore the roots of the irrationality of science and technology from the perspective of philosophical worldviews and the social practice of capital. Leiss, reflecting on the book *The Domination of Nature*, concludes that the concept of “domination of nature” runs counter to the historical trend of human development toward ecological civilization, thereby prompting the following considerations. First, Leiss investigates the origins of the idea of “domination of nature.” In his view, this idea can be traced back to the Christian doctrine of divine creation. The rise of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment embedded this concept in the human psyche, leading to the deep entrenchment of scientific and technological determinism since the 17th century. Second, Leiss profoundly analyzes the logical connection between “domination of humans” and “domination of nature” within the “domination of nature.” That is, as humans intensify their domination of nature, they simultaneously dominate humans; science and technology serve specific social conditions, and under capitalism, these social conditions are precisely the struggles of interests among special groups and special individuals who use capital as a means. In other words, the bourgeoisie, through the irrational application of technology, controls human consumption and thereby controls all aspects of human life. Third, Leiss unveils the ecological consequences triggered by the idea of “domination of nature.” Under the capitalist system, the bourgeoisie achieves the domination of humans through the domination of nature, thereby maximizing profits. In this process, the irrational application of science and technology by capitalism becomes inevitable, ultimately leading to an ecological crisis. From the perspective of the social practice of capital, Ben Agger reveals the roots of the ecological crisis by reconstructing Marx’s theory of crisis. First, from the dimension of the nature of capitalism, Ben Agger argues that the legitimacy of the capitalist system lies in its presentation of an endless supply of commodities to meet human needs. At the same time, in pursuit of profit and to achieve its expansionist goals, capital spares no expense in promoting consumerist values to control human consumption needs. In essence, consumerist values serve the orientation of capitalism. Second, from the dimension of the relationship between commodities, human needs, and consumption, Ben Agger emphasizes that the experience of human freedom and self-worth can only be realized through creative labor, not through endless commodity consumption. From the perspective of the “labor-leisure” view, Ben Agger regards alienated consumption as the root cause of the ecological crisis. Therefore, Leiss and Ben Agger, by critiquing capitalism from the dimensions of technological rationality and alienated consumption, argue that it is precisely the deviation in the application of technological rationality and the value orientation of consumption needs that further deepens the ecological and social crisis.

莱易斯和本·阿格尔总结当代全球化背景下之所以出现生态危机，究其原因在于有两点：一是非理性运用科学技术，使人与自然关系异化；二是资本为了追逐利润，无节制的刺激消费导致消费异化。莱易斯和本·阿格尔站在哲学世界观和资本的社会实践中来探讨科学技术非理性的根源。莱易斯从《控制自然》一书中反思出“控制自然”的观念有悖于人类向生态文明发展的历史趋势，从而引发了以下思考。首先，莱易斯探究了“控制自然”思想的来源。在他看来，控制自然的思想可以追溯到基督教的上帝创世说。而文艺复兴和启蒙运动的兴起使这一观念植入灵魂，导致科学技术决定论自17世纪后深入人心。其次，莱易斯深刻分析了“控制自然”中“控制人”与“控制自然”的逻辑关联。即人类在加强控制自然的同时也就是在控制人，科学技术服务于一定的社会条件中，而资本主义的社会条件正是以资本为手段的特殊集团、特殊个人的利益斗争。也就是资产阶级通过技术的非理性运用来控制人的消费从而控制人类的一切。其三，莱易斯揭开了“控制自然”思想引发生态后果的面纱。资本主义制度中，资产阶级在对自然的控制中实现对人的控制，从而实现利润最大化，这一过程中资本主义对科学技术的非理性运用成为必然，最终引发生态危机。从资本的社会实践中来看，本·阿格尔是从对马克思的危机理论重构来揭示生态危机的根源。首先，站在资本主义的本性维度，本·阿格尔认为资本主义体系的合法性在于它向人们呈现可以提供源源不断的商品进而满足人类需求，同时资本为了追逐利润，实现其扩张的目的，会不惜一切代价宣扬消费主义价值观，来实现对人类消费需要的控制。其实消费主义价值观本质上是服务于资本主义向度的。其次，站在商品与人类需要、消费之间的关系维度，本·阿格尔强调人类自由和自我价值的幸福体验只有从具有创造性的劳动中而非永无止境的商品消费中才能实现。本·阿格尔在“劳动—闲暇”观点下，认为异化消费是生态危机的祸根。因此，莱易斯和本·阿格尔站在技术理性批判和异化消费维度展开对资本主义的生态批判，可以说正是技术理性运用和消费需要价值理念的偏离进一步加深了生态社会危机。

Foster profoundly elaborates on the essential characteristics of the capitalist mode of production, thereby revealing that the ecological crisis originates from the capitalist system. *Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature* and *The Ecology Against Capitalism* are Foster’s major works. He absorbs and draws on Marx’s views on historical materialism and the theory of labor evolution, proposing the “theory of metabolic rift.” Based on this, he expounds on the ecological critique of the capitalist system from the dimension of the relationship between humans and nature. Foster deconstructs the principle of metabolism from two connotations: nature and society. The natural connotation includes the material exchange within nature itself, while the social connotation includes the mutual exchange between human social production practices and nature. However, the material exchange within nature itself is universal and objective; therefore, we must respect nature, conform to nature, and utilize nature by studying its laws. Yet, in Marx’s perspective, what is more important in the theory of metabolism is the mutual exchange between nature and human social production practices. Human general labor, aimed at creating use value, plays an intermediary role in metabolism. Marx further argues that “based on the universality of material exchange (referring to the equivalent exchange of materials in nature), the equivalent exchange in the economic form under capitalist economic conditions is merely an alienated expression.” That is, it is under this alienated expression that the alienation of nature itself and of nature and society under capitalist conditions becomes possible. Therefore, Foster’s deconstruction of Marx’s “theory of metabolic rift” can fundamentally reveal the alienated characteristics of capitalist society. Foster analyzes the alienation of nature and the relationship between nature and society under the capitalist system from two dimensions: on the one hand, the separation of town and country and long-distance trade in products lead to alienation. Foster, drawing on Liebig’s “law of restitution,” argues that if certain “elements” of a piece of land are permanently removed, the land will lose its permanent fertility. Therefore, under capitalist expansion, long-distance trade between town and country causes the exporting region to lose its original “nutrients.” That is, under capitalist production conditions, the population flows from rural areas to cities, taking resources with them, leading to the inflow of agricultural products into cities and the subsequent transport of waste to cities, causing urban environmental damage. This one-way flow results in ecological destruction and ultimately triggers an ecological crisis. On the other hand, the capitalist mode of production and the private ownership of land under capitalist conditions cause alienation. The prerequisite for the development of capitalist wage-labor relations is free labor, meaning the capitalist separates the wage laborer from the means of labor and the instruments of labor. This precondition must be based on the separation of humans from the land. Therefore, concentrating land in the hands of a few capitalists to form large-scale land ownership becomes a sufficient condition for capital accumulation. In the development of capitalist society, large-scale land ownership is both a prerequisite for the emergence of capitalism and an inevitable result of capitalist development; it is the fundamental cause of alienation. Thus, in Foster’s view, under the capitalist system, a metabolic rift inevitably arises between humans and the land, and between humans and nature. This alienated relationship becomes the root of the ecological crisis.

福斯特深刻阐述资本主义生产方式的本质特征，从中揭示生态危机肇始于资本主义制度。《马克思的生态学：唯物主义和自然》《反对资本主义的生态学》是福斯特的巨作，他吸收和借鉴马克思关于历史唯物主义和劳动进化理论的观点，提出“物质变换裂缝理论”,并以此为依据从人与自然的关系向度中阐述资本主义制度的生态批判理论。福斯特是从自然和社会两层内涵来解构物质变换原理。自然内涵包括自然界本身的物质交换，社会内涵包括人类社会的生产实践和自然界相互的交换。然而自然界本身的物质交换是普遍的、客观的，因此我们要尊重自然、顺应自然，并通过研究其规律来利用自然，但物质变换论在马克思视域下更为重要的是主张自然界和人类社会生产实践之间的相互交换，创造使用价值为目的的人类一般劳动在物质变换中起中间作用。马克思进一步认为，“以物质交换(material exchange)的普遍性(指自然界中的物质等量交换)为基础，资本主义经济条件下的经济形式方面的等量交换只是一个异化的表达方式”。也就是在这种异化表达下，才能使资本主义条件下出现自然界本身以及自然界与社会的异化。因此，福斯特对马克思“物质变换裂缝”理论的解构可以从根本上揭示出资本主义社会的异化特征。福斯特从两个维度分析资本主义制度下的自然以及自然与社会关系之间的异化：一方面，城乡分离以及产品远距离贸易导致异化。福斯特吸收李比希“归还定律”,认为如果一块土地的某些“要素”被永久夺去，那么这块土地将失去永久的肥力，因此在资本主义的扩张下，城市和乡村的远距离贸易使得流出地失去了原有的“营养”,即在资本主义生产条件下，人口从农村流向城市，并将资源带走，导致农产品流入城市，随之将消耗物带向城市，使城市环境破坏。这种单向的流动，造成生态破坏，最终引发生态危机。另一方面，资本主义的生产方式以及资本主义条件下的土地私有制造成异化。资本主义雇佣劳动关系发展的前提条件是自由劳动，也就是资本家将雇佣劳动者与劳动资料和劳动手段的剥离，这种前置条件必须建立在人与土地关系的分离基础之上。因此，将土地集中在少数资本家手中形成大土地所有制成为资本积累的充分条件。在资本主义社会发展中，大土地所有制是资本主义产生的前提，也是资本主义发展的必然结果，它是造成异化的根本原因。因此，在福斯特看来，资本主义制度下必然会产生人与土地、人与自然的物质变换裂缝，这种异化关系成为生态危机的根源。

In summary, the ecology represented by O’Connor, Ben Agger, Foster, and Kovel, who is the main focus of this article, is an “ecology against capitalism.” In their view, under capitalist conditions, the contradictions among productive forces, relations of production, and conditions of production, as well as the logical expansion of capital, are the roots of the current ecological crisis. Their critical theories lay a theoretical foundation for later proposals to transform the capitalist system and mode of production.

总之，以奥康纳、本·阿格尔、福斯特以及本文主要探讨的科威尔为代表的生态学是“反对资本主义的生态学”。在他们看来，资本主义条件下生产力、生产关系、生产条件三者的矛盾以及资本的逻辑扩张是造成当前生态危机的根源。他们批判的理论为后期提出变革资本主义制度和生产方式夯实了理论基础。

II

二

Joel Kovel, as one of the outstanding representatives of the American ecosocialist school, stands from the realistic dimension of historical materialism, taking the essence of capital and the capitalist system as the entry point. He demonstrates the anti-ecological nature of capital and the capitalist system, thereby concluding that the “culprit” and “executioner” of the ecological crisis is lethal capital and the capitalist system.

乔尔·科威尔(Joel Kovel)作为美国生态社会主义学派的杰出代表之一，他站在历史唯物主义的现实维度中，以资本和资本主义制度的本质为切入点，论证了资本与资本主义制度的反生态性，从而得出生态危机的“罪魁”“刽子手”是致命的资本及资本主义制度。

Kovel holds that the nature of capital’s unlimited expansion determines capital’s anti-ecological character. Kovel inherits Marx’s analysis of the essence of capital. Marx summarized the essential attributes of capital as comprising three aspects: (1) self-valorization is capital’s sole “life instinct”; (2) the economic power that dominates everything originates from capital’s “light of all lights”; (3) as a relation of production, capital’s social attribute lies in its value expression. The greatest essential attribute of capital is self-valorization. As Marx stated, “Capital has only one life instinct, the drive to valorize itself, to create surplus value, to absorb the greatest possible amount of surplus labor with its constant part, the means of production.” [2]2 Karl Marx, *Capital*, Volume 1, Chapter 8, Section 1. Kovel fully agrees with Marx’s view and reduces the inherent nature of capital to three points: (1) capital has the characteristic of destroying its own conditions of production; (2) only through ceaseless expansion can capital survive; (3) capital leads to a widening gap between rich and poor, extreme polarization, thereby throwing the world into such chaos that economic crises become uncontrollable. As long as capital exists, the ecological crisis will only increase and become ever more severe. The three attributes that capital possesses in organizing social production determine that, as long as the rule of capital exists, it will cause the ecological crisis to consume resources rapidly, like cancer cells invading the human body, driving the social system toward historical collapse.

科威尔认为资本无限扩张的本性决定了资本反生态的特征。科威尔继承马克思关于资本的本质分析，马克思总结资本的本质属性包含三个方面内容：(1)增殖自身是资本唯一的“生活本能”;(2)支配一切的经济权利源于资本的“普照之光”;(3)作为一种生产关系，资本的社会属性在于它的价值体现。资本最大的本质属性在于增殖自身，马克思所言“资本只有一种生活本能，这就是增殖自身，获取剩余价值，用自己的不变部分即生产资料吮吸尽可能多的剩余劳动科威尔完全认同马克思的观点，并将资本的固有本性归结为三点：(1)资本有破坏自身生产条件的特点；(2)只有无休止的扩张，资本才能生存下来；(3)资本导致贫富差距扩大，两极分化极端严重，从而使世界混乱到无法控制经济危机。只要资本存在，生态危机就会有增无减，并且日益严重。资本组织社会生产所具备的三个属性决定了只要资本规则存在，就会使生态危机像癌细胞侵入人体一样，快速消耗资源，导致社会体制走向历史性的崩溃。

In Kovel’s view, capital and the capitalist system have a natural blood relationship. Because capital itself is anti-ecological, this necessarily determines that the capitalist system is anti-ecological. Capital permeates every cell of the capitalist system. Under the capitalist system, the cancerous growth of capital operates through such media as production, exchange, science and technology, and globalization under capitalist industry. The logic of capital’s cancerous expansion drives the forward development of capitalist society. Clearly, the ecological crisis of capitalism is inevitably a historical necessity in the process of capital accumulation. This is because the capitalist system is utterly incapable of weakening or eliminating the environmental degradation brought about by capital’s valorization, whose ultimate goal is profit maximization. Any such restrictive activity is a constraint on capital’s development, even an interference with capital’s freedom. As Kovel states, “Capitalism’s inherent destructiveness toward nature is increasingly severe, moving from quantitative to qualitative change, pushing the ecosystem to the brink or even to a state of disaster.”

在科威尔看来，资本与资本主义制度有着天然的血亲关系，由于资本本身的反生态性，势必决定了资本主义制度具有反生态性。资本渗透于资本主义体系的每一个细胞中，在资本主义制度之下，资本的癌性增长是通过资本主义工业下的生产、交换、科学技术、全球化等媒介物发生作用的。癌性扩张的资本逻辑推动着资本主义社会的向前发展，显然，资本主义的生态危机固然成为资本积累过程中的历史必然。因为资本主义制度完全无法削弱和消除以利润最大化为终极目标的资本增殖所带来的环境恶化，任何这样的限制活动都是对资本发展的约束，甚至是对资本自由的干涉。正如科威尔所说“资本主义与生俱来的对自然的破坏性日益严重，从量变到质变，使生态系统已经处于边缘甚至灾难的境地”。

Kovel further analyzes how, driven by capital’s profit-seeking nature, the mode of production under capitalist industrialization manifests its “injustice.” The capitalist world is a vast machine integrating production, distribution, sales, and commodity transportation. The most basic mode of production in capitalism is large-scale industrial production, which originated in Western capitalist countries. From the day its political system was established, capitalism led humanity’s lifeworld from traditional agricultural society to industrial society and, in its own way, hijacked the entire world. It is precisely the vigorous development of capitalist large-scale industrial production that has brought about a qualitative transformation in humanity’s mode of production and way of life. It has greatly promoted the development of social productive forces and driven the creation of material wealth. However, the model of industrial development is deeply influenced by the motive of capital valorization; it inherently contains certain “limitations” and “pathologies.” The internal drive of capital’s ceaseless pursuit of profit maximization compels capitalism to find every means to invest in and consume all energy and resources to produce large-scale products. Overproduction necessarily requires enterprises and capitalists to use various means to stimulate humanity’s continuous consumption and pursuit of commodities, thereby ensuring the sustained large-scale production of products. Therefore, overproduction inevitably leads to alienated consumption, which in turn stimulates capital to constantly renew products in order to realize profit. To capture a larger market share, enterprises always have the need to expand, inevitably causing a series of ecological problems such as overexploitation of resources, commodity surpluses, and market saturation. Kovel observed in the Union Carbide Corporation’s Bhopal disaster in India [3]3 The 1984 Bhopal gas tragedy in India, involving a pesticide plant owned by Union Carbide Corporation, a U.S. company, which released toxic gas, causing thousands of deaths and long-term health and environmental damage. that the ecological alienation brought about by capitalist industrialization leads to the alienation of relations between humans and between humans and nature. This is the inevitable outcome of capital’s expansionary nature, and the emergence of this phenomenon inevitably exacerbates the imbalance of the ecosystem. In the process of capitalist industrial development, private ownership—that is, the capitalist system—as the institutional foundation of capitalist society, is certainly the necessary basis for capital’s expansion. “Capitalist private ownership is the private possession of the means of production, and the use of the means of production possessed by capitalists to appropriate surplus labor without compensation, in order to achieve the maximization of their own capital as the goal of the system.” It can be seen that capitalist industrialization arises on the basis of the exploitation of private ownership, fully develops this production “injustice,” causes its inherent instability, and leads to “the capitalist system facing an unacceptable choice: growth or extinction.”

科威尔又分析了资本出于逐利性，资本主义工业化下的生产方式是如何体现其“不正义性”。资本主义世界是一个集生产、分配、销售、商品输送为一体的巨大机器。资本主义最基本的生产方式表现为工业化大生产，它起源于西方的资本主义国家，从政治制度建立的那天起，资本主义就把人类的生活世界从传统的农业社会引到工业社会，并且用自己的方式绑架了全世界。正是资本主义工业化大生产的蓬勃发展使人类的生产生活方式发生了质的转变，它极大地推动社会生产力的发展，带动了物质财富的创造，但是工业化发展的模式深受资本增值动机的影响，它天然地存在某些“局限”和“病变”。资本无休止的追逐利润最大化的内驱力促使资本主义想尽办法投入和消耗一切能源和资源生产大规模的产品，过度生产必然需要企业和资本家通过各种手段刺激人类对商品的不断消费与追求，从而保证产品大规模的生产持续。因此过度生产必然引起异化消费，异化消费又反过来激发资本不断翻新产品实现利润。为了占有更大的市场份额，企业总有扩张的需要，必然造成资源过度开采、商品过剩、市场饱和等一系列生态问题的出现。科威尔在美国联合碳化物公司(Union Carbide Corporation)印度博帕尔事件中观察发现由于资本主义工业化带来的生态异化导致人与人之间、人与自然之间关系的异化，这是资本扩张本性的必然结局，这一现象的出现必然加剧了生态系统的失衡。在资本主义工业化的发展进程中，私有制即资本主义制度作为资本主义社会的制度基础，固然是资本主义进行扩张的必要根基。“资本主义私有制是生产资料的私人占有，并运用资本家占有的生产资料无偿剥夺剩余劳动，已实现其自身资本最大化为目的的制度”。可见，资本主义工业化产生于私有制剥削之上，并将这种生产“不正义”充分发展，造成其内在的不稳定，导致“资本主义体系将面临无法接受的选择：增长抑或消亡”。

In the historical process of capitalist development, globalization is an irresistible trend, and both developed and developing countries are drawn into it in different ways. But in fact, rapidly developing capitalist countries, carrying the rules of the game of globalization, promote the capitalist mode of production worldwide; they drive the process and scale of globalization. Kovel points out that “the concept of globalization expresses the fact that the expansion, colonization, and penetration of capital occur on a global scale.” From a certain perspective, globalization is essentially a reasonable extension of capital’s cancerous growth. However, with the advent of economic crises after World War II, trade barriers and global ecological barriers have made the development of globalization less smooth than imagined. Although the era of globalization has arrived, the victory of capital still has a long way to go. The capitalist mode of production accounts for only half of capital accumulation; peasants still use traditional modes of production. The task of the globalization system is to complete the other half of the rough world, using a “striving for perfection” mode of production to extract natural resources, hire cheap labor, and maintain the exchange value of commodities, thereby realizing the true meaning of globalization.

在资本主义发展的历史进程中，全球化是锐不可当的发展潮流，无论是发达国家还是发展中国家都以不同的方式卷入其中。但事实上，发展迅猛的资本主义国家裹挟着全球化的游戏法则将资本主义生产方式在全球范围内推行，他们推动着全球化发展的进程与规模。科威尔指出“全球化的概念在表达这样的一个事实：资本的扩张、殖民、渗透发生在全球范围内”。从某种角度来看，全球化实质上是资本癌性增长的合理延伸，但是随着二战后经济危机的到来，贸易壁垒和全球生态壁垒使全球化的发展并没有想象中的顺利。尽管全球化时代已经到来，但资本的胜利仍然任重道远，资本主义生产方式在资本的积累中只占有了一半，农民依然使用着传统的生产方式，全球化系统的任务是把另一半粗糙的世界完整化。用“精益求精”的生产方式攫取自然资源，雇用廉价的劳动力，保持商品的交换价值，来实现全球化的真正意义。

In short, capitalism will find every means to realize the flow of capital worldwide. In the era of globalization, the function of financial capital—that is, money capital—is increasingly prominent. Its logic is to reconstruct modes of production, circulation, and consumption to drive the entire world to operate under economic dominance. The World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund form an iron triangle integrated into transnational structures to serve the capital of various countries. But in the process of globalization, accompanied by the mechanism of capital accumulation, one country after another is drawn into the vortex of the ecological crisis. “Dependent and unequal development, accompanied by huge debts, becomes the midwife of the ecological crisis.” All debts are repaid by destroying the ecological environment. Indonesia is a typical case: it used its forest resources to repay the financial debts of banks. The ecological disasters caused by the debts borne by the developing countries of the Global South make the development of global capital falter. It is like a giant ship slowly sinking.

总之，资本主义会想尽一切办法实现资本在世界范围内的流动。在全球化时代背景下，金融资本即货币资本的功能日益显著，它的逻辑是重新建构生产、流通、消费等方式来推动整个世界都在经济主导下运行。世界贸易组织、世界银行、国际货币基金组织，三者组成了铁三角的关系融入跨国结构中服务于各个国家的资本。但在全球化发展的进程中，伴随着资本积累机制，一个国家接着一个国家被卷入生态危机的漩涡中，“依赖性和不平等的发展伴随着巨额债务成为生态危机的助产士”。所有的债务都通过破坏生态环境来偿还，印度尼西亚就是一个典型的案例，它用森林资源偿还了银行的金融债务。南方发展中国家背负的债务所产生的生态灾难使全球资本发展步履维艰，它就像一艘巨轮，正在慢慢下沉。

Science and technology ought to be effective means of shortening labor time, raising labor efficiency, and transforming nature in the process of industrial production. Yet under the capitalist system, advanced science and technology have made heavy labor even more intense; humanity remains dominated by nature and enslaved by technology. Science and technology are a “double-edged sword”: on the one hand, they greatly enhance social productive efficiency and drive the rapid growth of social wealth; on the other, they produce the destructive consequences of ecological crisis under the alienation of technological rationality. In *Capital*, Marx elaborates in detail on the dual character of the development of science and technology. In Marx’s view, on the one hand “science is a revolutionary force that plays a driving role in history,” but on the other hand “the development of contemporary science and technology promotes the capitalist application of machinery and the development of the modern factory system.” For the worker, “machine labor extremely damages the nervous system, suppresses the manifold movement of the muscles, and robs the body and mind of all free activity. Even the lightening of labor becomes a means of torture, because the machine does not free the worker from labor, but makes the worker’s labor contentless.” Marx held that the alienation of science and technology is not the alienation of technology itself, but a historical root of the capitalist system. Kovel [4]4 Joel Kovel (1936–2018), American ecological Marxist theorist and author of *The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?* (2002). extends the dimension of Marx’s theory of technological alienation, tracing the technological alienation under capitalist industrialization, the ecological crisis it produces, and the existential predicament facing humanity ultimately to the mode of use under the capitalist system. Kovel borrows Ross Perot’s famous saying: “Science and technology are applied to society, not an integral part of society.” On the question of whether science and technology can ameliorate the ecological crisis, Kovel resolutely rejects the so-called theory of scientific and technological progress. The theory of scientific and technological progress adheres to scientific and technological reformism, holding that the ecological crisis can be alleviated by inventions such as electronic information technology, genetically modified organisms, and low-pollution energy equipment. Under the capitalist system, finding energy substitutes, raising resource utilization rates, and reducing pollution can to some extent overcome the severe consequences of the ecological crisis. But maintaining capital expansion and obtaining more profit is ultimately the ultimate goal of capitalism. Therefore, “humanity cannot view science and technology in isolation from social relations.” Treating social problems as easily repairable technical problems in fact severs the relationship between society and science and technology; this is a crude mechanical materialism. Behind science and technology lies the means by which capitalists manipulate economic interests; while promoting economic growth, they inevitably bring about a severe ecological crisis. From the perspective of Marxist critique of technological rationality, Kovel raises the essential problem of the “crisis of science” and the “alienation of technology” under the capitalist system: the capitalist system itself is the “gravedigger” of technological alienation. This lays an important theoretical foundation for constructing a replacement for the “sick society” that eliminates technological alienation—that is, for building a new social mechanism.

科学技术本应是在工业化生产的过程中缩短劳动时间，提高劳动效率以及改造自然的有效手段，但在资本主义制度下，先进的科学技术却使繁重的劳动更加紧张，人类依然受自然的支配和技术的奴役。科学技术是一把“双刃剑”,一方面它极大地提高了社会的生产效率，推动社会财富的快速增长，另一方面也造成技术理性异化下生态危机的破坏性后果。《资本论》中马克思对科学技术发展二重性的观点进行了详细论述。在马克思看来，一方面“科学是一种在历史上起推动作用的、革命的力量”,但另一方面“当代科学技术发展推动了机器的资本主义应用以及现代工厂制度的发展”,这对于劳动者来说“机器劳动极度地损害了神经系统，同时它又压抑肌肉的多方面运动，夺去身体上和精神上的一切自由活动。甚至减轻劳动也成了折磨人的手段，因为机器不是使工人摆脱劳动，而是使工人的劳动毫无内容”。马克思认为科学技术的异化并不是技术本身的异化，而是资本主义制度的历史根源。科威尔延续了马克思技术异化理论的维度，将资本主义工业化下的技术异化和造成的生态危机及人类面临的生存困境根源最终归结为资本主义制度下的使用方式。科威尔借用罗斯·佩罗的名言指出“科学技术是应用于社会的，而不是社会的一个完整部分”。在面对科学技术对生态危机改良这一问题上，科威尔果断的否定了所谓科学技术进步论。科学技术进步论坚持科学技术改良主义，认为生态危机可以依靠电子信息技术、转基因、低污染能源设备等发明来缓解，在资本主义制度下，寻找能源替代、提高资源利用率、降低污染在某种程度上可以克服生态危机所带来的严重后果。但是维持资本扩大，获得更多的利润终究是资本主义的终极目标。因此，“人类不能离开社会关系来孤立地看待科学技术”,把社会问题当作易于修补的技术问题，实则割裂了社会与科学技术之间的关系，是一种粗糙的机械唯物主义理论。科学技术背后是资本家操纵经济利益的手段，它在促进经济增长的同时必然带来严重的生态危机。科威尔立足于马克思主义技术理性批判的视角，提出资本主义制度下“科学危机”与“技术异化”本质问题，资本主义制度才是技术异化之“掘墓人”,进而为建构消除技术异化寻找“病态社会”的代替，即建设新的社会机制奠定了重要的理论基础。

Kovel examines capitalism and the ecological crisis from a dual essential dimension: only by following the laws of the essential development of things can theoretical research be made more persuasive. From the perspective of capitalism, Kovel concretely and profoundly analyzes how the various elements of capitalism, within the logic of capital, produce a deep and incurable alienation that pervades capitalist society and sows the seeds of ecological crisis. From the perspective of the ecosystem, Kovel holds that the ecosystem is holistic and complete; he adheres to the value of “ecocentrism,” emphasizing that things have “intrinsic value,” and thus concludes that “capitalist society destroys the balance of the ecosystem in its own way—a way that is nonlinear, lethal, and chaotic.”

科威尔考察资本主义与生态危机是从双向本质维度出发，只有遵循事物本质发展规律才能使理论研究更具有说服力。站在资本主义视域，科威尔具体且深刻分析了资本主义各要素在资本逻辑中是如何导致深远而不治的异化遍及资本主义社会，并且为生态危机埋下了祸根；站在生态系统视域，科威尔认为生态系统是整体的、完整的，他坚持“生态中心主义”的价值观，强调事物具有“内在价值”,从而得出“资本主义社会用自己的方式摧毁生态系统的平衡，这一方式是非线性的、致命的、混乱的”。

A natural ecosystem is a collection of biological organisms and their surrounding environment within a certain space (or certain region); this collection forms certain functions and structures through mutual coupling and integration. According to Prigogine’s theory of dissipative structures, four conditions must be met to form and maintain a dissipative structure: first, a dissipative structure does not arise in an isolated or closed system; only an open system can produce a dissipative structure. Second, the system must be in a “living,” non-equilibrium stable ordered structure. Third, the system must necessarily produce a dynamic process of interaction. Fourth, achieving orderly and harmonious system must necessarily pass through the interaction of structure, function, and fluctuation. In the operation of the natural ecosystem in each link—production, consumption, decomposition, etc.—“stability” or “metastability” precisely conforms to a non-equilibrium stable ordered structure under a dissipative structure. To explain the stable order of the natural ecosystem, Kovel invokes the second law of thermodynamics, i.e., the law of entropy increase. Kovel points out that “the ecosystem is not a single system; it has internal and external connections with other systems.” The ecosystem must, under open conditions, rely on interdependence with nature and the biological world to maintain its organizational form—that is, a low entropy value; otherwise, it will fall into confrontation with the second law of thermodynamics, i.e., “heat death.” “The life activity manifested in human production practice maintains a dynamic tension with other things in nature.” In Kovel’s view, wholeness and completeness are the salient features of the ecosystem, and the ecological crisis is precisely the entire process of the ecosystem’s disintegration. The rupture of the relationships among the constituent elements of the ecosystem fragments the ecological organization; the implantation of this “destructive component” becomes the driving force of the ecological crisis. The ecosystem maintains a dissipative structure of low entropy in each link—production, consumption, decomposition, etc. Yet the inherent essential attribute of capital—the effect of capital valorization—causes alienation in each of these links, thereby splitting the “stable and ordered” dissipative structure. This “destructive component,” whether viewed from a biological perspective or from the perspective of alienation, hinders the maintenance of ecosystem stability, tears apart the ecosystem’s completeness, and thus plunges it into a process of “disordered” entropy increase. Kovel holds that the completeness of the ecosystem’s “order” and “disorder” is in fact a contest of entropy. As Kovel says, “Life originates from nature and continues to evolve through struggle and its position in the ecosystem.” Clearly, the inherent attributes of capital and the ecosystem determine that the development of capital and the maintenance of the natural ecosystem are naturally in a “game” of entropy increase and entropy decrease—a process in which one waxes and the other wanes, ultimately leading capital to its demise.

自然生态系统是一定空间(或一定地域)上生物有机体与周围环境的一个集合体，这一集合体通过彼此耦合交融形成一定的功能与结构。按照普利戈金的耗散结构理论，想要形成和维持耗散结构，必须具备四个条件：一是耗散结构不产生于孤立、封闭系统中，只有开放系统才能产生耗散结构；二是系统处于一种“活的”非平衡状态下的稳定有序结构；三是系统势必要产生相互作用的动力学过程；四是实现系统有序和谐必然要通过结构、功能、涨落的相互作用。而自然生态系统在生产、消费、分解等各个环节的运行过程中“稳态”或者“亚稳态”正是符合耗散结构下的一种非平衡状态下的稳定有序结构。为了解释自然生态系统的稳态有序，科威尔动用了热力学第二定律，即熵增加定律。科威尔指出“生态系统并非单一系统，它与其他系统都存在内部与外部的联系”,生态系统必须在开放条件下依靠与自然和生物界的相互依存才能维持组织形态，也就是低熵值，否则将会陷入与热力学第二定律的对抗中即“热寂”。“在人类生产实践中体现出来的生命活动，与自然界其他事物保持着一种动态的张力。”在科威尔看来，整体性和完整性是生态系统的显著特点，而生态危机正是体现生态系统瓦解的全部过程。生态系统各组成要素关系的破裂使生态组织碎片化，这种“破坏成分”的植入成为生态危机的原动力。生态系统在生产、消费、分解等各个环节都保持着低熵中的耗散结构，然而资本所固有的本质属性使资本增殖效应导致生产、消费、分解等各个环节出现了异化，从而使“稳态有序”的耗散结构分裂。这种“破坏成分”无论是站在生物视域还是异化视域，都阻碍着生态系统稳态维持，撕裂了生态系统的完整性，从而陷入“无序”增熵的过程中。科威尔认为生态系统“有序”与“无序”的完整性，实则是一场熵的较量。正如科威尔所言“生命起源于自然，并通过斗争和它在生态系统中的位置，继续进化”。显然，资本和生态系统的固有属性决定了资本的发展与自然界生态系统的维持天然的处在一个增熵与减熵的“博弈”过程，这个过程此消彼长，使资本最终走向消亡。

Kovel advocates an ecocentric value system, insisting on the "intrinsic value" inherent in things. The meaning of Kovel's "intrinsic value" is: "Value manifests as the desire to pursue, possess, control, or achieve some end. When we call it an essential attribute of a thing, it is intrinsic: such an attribute can never be created, but exists of itself." What Kovel insists on is not only the essential attributes inherent in things, but also the use value coupled with the essential attributes of commodities. In the article "The struggle for use value: Thoughts about the transition," Kovel profoundly elaborates the connotation of "use value," pointing out that "use value reflects the existence of nature in economic activity (exchange value is the quantified result extracted from nature). However, since use value is not nature itself, but the existence of nature in human activity, the relationship between use value and the ecosystem is very complex. Use value represents the human mode of distributing things, but this function is not directly visible and must be perceived through imagination. Therefore, use value is an abstract, imaginary entity." Kovel employs Marx's theory of use value and exchange value to initiate an ecological critique of the system itself. The value of a commodity mainly originates from its use value; in the process of purchasing commodities, people realize the purpose of purchase precisely because they value its use value, ultimately achieving exchange value. However, in the operation of capitalism, the separation of labor from the product of labor, and of labor from the means of production, prioritizes the exchange value of commodities over their use value, and abstract labor over concrete labor. Production in capitalist society is mainly aimed at realizing exchange value, and the original meaning of use value is obscured. According to its nature, capital can only achieve its goal of self-valorization within the economic category, especially the category of exchange. "The growth of capitalism is not the growth of material production factors or products, nor even the growth of total economic output, but the growth of exchange value." The characteristic of large-scale capitalist production is to regard economic interests as paramount; all real human relations are naturally transformed into monetary relations. Kovel reconsiders capital's exchange value and use value, arguing that if exchange value is unilaterally allowed to promote commodity production, capital will inevitably fall into the trap of interest inducement. Only by adhering to the principle of "use value first" and rescuing labor from alienation and false needs can the ecosystem be restored.

科威尔主张以生态为中心的价值观，他坚持秉承事物具有的“内在价值”。科威尔“内在价值”的含义是：“价值表现为追求、占有、控制或达到某种目的的愿望。当我们把它称之为事物的本质属性时，它就是内在固有的了：这样的属性绝不可能创造，而是自身就存在的”。科威尔坚持的不仅是事物固有的本质属性，而且是同商品本质属性耦合的使用价值。在《The struggle for use value: Thoughts about the transition》一文中，科威尔深刻阐述了“使用价值”的内涵，他指出“使用价值在经济活动中反映自然的存在(交换价值就是从自然中提取出来量化的结果)。但是，由于使用价值并非自然本身，而是作为自然在人类活动中的存在，使用价值与生态系统的关系是非常复杂的。使用价值代表人类对事物的分配方式，但这一功能是不可以直接看到的，需要通过觉察想象。因此，使用价值是抽象的、想象的实体”。科威尔运用马克思关于使用价值和交换价值的理论开启了对制度本身的生态批判。商品的价值主要来源于商品的使用价值，人们在购买商品的过程中也正是看中了其使用价值才实现购买的目的，最终实现交换价值。然而在资本主义的运行过程中，劳动与劳动产品、劳动与生产资料之间的相互分离，使商品的交换价值优先于商品的使用价值，抽象劳动优先于具体劳动。资本主义社会生产主要是为了实现交换价值，使用价值的本来意义也被遮蔽。资本按其本性来说，唯有在经济范畴尤其是交换范畴中才能完成自身价值增殖的目标。“资本主义的增长不是物质生产要素或产品的增长，甚至也不是经济总量的增长，而是交换价值的增长”。资本主义大生产的特点就是把经济利益看得重于一切，人类现实的一切关系被自然而然地转化为金钱关系。科威尔重新考量资本的交换价值与使用价值，认为一味地让交换价值促进商品生产，资本必然会走进利益诱导的误区，只有坚持“使用价值至上”原则，将劳动从异化与虚假的需求中解救出来才能修复生态系统。

III

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Kovel's ecological critique of capitalism shares common characteristics with other schools of Western ecological Marxism, while also possessing its own theoretical originality. In terms of commonalities, first, it opens a window into the ecological perspective of historical materialism, launching a critique from the ecological dimension of the capitalist system. Ecological Marxist scholars such as O'Connor, Ben Agger, and Foster have all revealed the anti-ecological nature of capitalism by analyzing factors such as the dual contradictions of capitalist society, the capitalist mode of production, and consumption patterns under the capitalist system. Similarly, Kovel regards capitalism, along with the mode of production, science and technology, and globalization under capitalist conditions, as the root of the ecological crisis. This determines that ecological Marxism is essentially anti-capitalist and effectively counters Western green thought represented by ecocentrism. Ecocentrism insists that anthropocentric values lead to the ecological crisis; the technological progress and economic growth it advocates are constructed on the basis of individual and capital interests. Although beneficial for protecting the ecological environment, its purpose is to maintain the natural resources and economic development of capitalist production, and it is certainly incapable of fundamentally overcoming the ecological crisis. Based on the critique of the capitalist system, ecological Marxism insists that only by turning the ecological movement into a political movement can a thorough transformation of the system be achieved, thereby solidifying the foundation for constructing a revolutionary ecological socialism. Second, both draw conclusions from Marx's relevant theories, namely that the capitalist system is anti-ecological. Kovel points out that "although Marx never directly mentioned the term 'ecological crisis,' Marx's relevant works all discuss ecological issues. He paid close attention to nature and explored ecological issues through 'the inorganic body of man.'" First, Marx's relevant works profoundly elaborate on "the relationship between humans as part of nature and other species in the natural world, and how humans change this relationship through labor in production practice." Because when Marx viewed the entirety of human civilization, he affirmed that production practice and nature hold equally important positions in human civilization; clearly, the production practice of the entire society can be understood from an ecological dimension. Second, in works such as *The German Ideology*, *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, *Capital*, *The Communist Manifesto*, *On the Jewish Question*, and *Letters from the Wuppertal*, Marx systematically discusses the dialectical relationship between the view of history and the view of nature, between humans and nature, the capitalist economic system and property relations, the capitalist mode of production and the ecological crisis, and the liberation of humanity and the liberation of nature. The difference between Marx and Western green thought lies in attributing the ecological crisis to the logical expansion of capital's essence, which causes the alienation of humans and the alienation of nature, rather than industrialization itself causing ecological problems. Moreover, the global spread of capitalism aligns with the integrity of the ecosystem; the ecological crisis manifests as a globally spreading trend, leading to the conclusion that the true root of the ecological crisis is capital and the capitalist system. Third, Marx profoundly criticized the values of egoism and consumerism under the capitalist system, emphasizing that these values tear apart the dialectical unity between humans and nature. Marx not only criticized the view that places humans above nature, but also criticized how the capitalist system deprives the proletariat of natural resources and all means of livelihood, and causes the separation and opposition between urban and rural areas. Capitalism destroys the integrity of the ecosystem and becomes the "executioner" of the ecological crisis. The interpretive conception of the capitalist system by ecological Marxism is precisely developed on the basis of Marx's detailed analysis of the relationship between humans and nature under the conditions of capital.

科威尔对资本主义的生态批判既具有其他西方生态马克思学派的共性特点，又具有其自身的理论独创性。从共性中来看，首先，打开了历史唯物主义生态视域的一扇窗，从资本主义制度的生态维度展开批判。奥康纳、本·阿格尔、福斯特等生态学马克思主义研究界都是通过分析资本主义社会的二重矛盾、资本主义生产方式、资本主义制度下的消费方式等因素，揭示了资本主义的反生态性。同样，科威尔也将资本主义与资本主义条件下的生产方式、科学技术、全球化看做生态危机的根源。这就决定了本质上生态学马克思主义是反资本主义的，并且有力地回击了以生态中心论为代表的西方绿色思潮。生态中心论坚持人类中心主义的价值观致使生态危机产生，他们主张的技术进步和经济增长是建构于个人及资本利益的基础之上，尽管有利于保护生态环境，但其目的在于维护资本主义生产的自然资源和经济发展，固然不可能从根本上克服生态危机。基于对资本主义制度的批判，生态学马克思主义坚持只有将生态运动转向政治运动，才能实现制度的彻底变革，从而为建构革命型生态社会主义夯实基础。其次，都从马克思的相关理论出发得出结论，即资本主义制度具有反生态性。科威尔指出“虽然马克思从未直接提过‘生态危机’这个词，但马克思的相关著作无不在谈论生态问题，他高度关注自然，并且通过‘人的无机身体’来探讨生态问题”。一是马克思的相关著作深刻阐述了“人类作为自然的一部分与自然界其他物种之间的关系，并且在生产实践中是人类如何通过劳动改变这一关系的”。因为马克思在看待人类整个文明时，肯定了生产实践同自然界在人类文明中具有同等重要的位置，显然，整个社会的生产实践都能够从生态学的维度展开理解。二是马克思在《德意志意识形态》《1844年经济学哲学手稿》《资本论》《共产党宣言》《论犹太人问题》《乌培河谷来信》等著作中系统论述了历史观与自然观、人与自然观的辩证关系、资本主义经济制度和财产关系、资本主义生产方式与生态危机、人的解放与自然的解放等思想，马克思和西方绿色思潮的不同在于把生态危机归因于资本本质的逻辑扩张，造成人的异化与自然的异化，而非工业化本身造成生态问题。而且，资本主义在全球的蔓延契合了生态系统的完整性，生态危机表现为全球化蔓延的态势，从而得出生态危机的真正根源是资本、资本主义制度。三是对资本主义体系下的利己主义和消费主义价值观，马克思进行了深刻的批判，他强调该价值观撕裂了人类与自然界辩证统一的关系，马克思不仅批判了把人类凌驾于自然之上的观点，而且也批判了资本主义制度下夺走了无产阶级生存的自然资源和一切谋生手段，还造成了城乡之间的分离与对立，资本主义破坏了生态系统的完整性，成为生态危机的“刽子手”。生态学马克思主义对资本主义制度的阐释构想正是建立在马克思在资本条件下对人与自然关系的细致分析中展开。

Kovel’s ecological critique of capitalism also possesses its own originality. This is mainly reflected in the following aspects: First, regarding the entry point for the critique of the capitalist system, Kovel’s approach is entirely different from that of other ecological Marxist theorists. Specifically, O’Connor and Ben Agger open up the ecological perspective by revising historical materialism, thereby elaborating on the anti-ecological nature of the capitalist system. Within the dimension of historical materialism, O’Connor takes the ecological relationship between human society and natural society as his starting point, introduces “culture” and “nature,” and reveals that the dual contradictions of capitalism are the root cause of ecological deterioration. Ben Agger, by deconstructing the crisis theory of historical materialism anew, reveals that the inevitability of ecological crisis stems from “alienated consumption.” Foster directly refers to historical materialism as ecological materialism to expound a dialectically unified view of nature and history, uncovering the ecological crisis caused by the metabolic rift under capitalist conditions. Through a meticulous analysis of “economic rationality” and “ecological rationality,” Gorz points out that the worsening of the ecological crisis is a “tragedy” resulting from the prevalence of economic rationality. Leiss, on the other hand, introduces ecological issues primarily from the essence of human beings, proposing theories of the alienation of commodities, needs, consumption, and technology under capitalist conditions. Thus, the ecological critique of the capitalist system in ecological Marxist theory can be divided into two types: one type directly elaborates on or revises the ecological implications of historical materialism to launch an ecological critique of the capitalist system; the other type directly opens up an ecological critique by analyzing dimensions such as needs, commodities, and technological alienation. Kovel’s critical dimension belongs to neither the first type nor the second; he draws on the basic theories of Marxism, takes capital as his logical starting point, and launches an ecological critique of the inherent attributes of capital and the capitalist system, representing a unique critical perspective in the theoretical field. Second, except for Benton, ecological Marxist theorists all believe that the ecological crisis has no direct relationship with the values of anthropocentrism; they all oppose ecocentric values and even endow anthropocentric values with new interpretations. Uniquely, Kovel insists on ecocentric values. Kovel’s values transcend the ecocentrism advocated by the West; this transcendence not only conforms to the practical nature of the ecosystem but also embeds the critique of the capitalist system within it. Kovel insists that to establish ecocentric values and construct an ecological socialist society, it is necessary to abolish the outdated notion of placing humans above nature. His theoretical characteristic is that of a “heretic” within the field of ecological Marxist theory. Finally, although the ecological Marxist school all recognizes the anti-ecological nature of the capitalist system and emphasizes that under capitalist conditions, the ecological crisis can only be alleviated but not eradicated, making the transformation to ecological socialism impossible, Kovel not only insists on the anti-ecological nature of capital and the capitalist system but also asserts that capitalist society has the capacity to transform into ecological socialism. He repeatedly emphasizes transcending capital, liberating people from exploitation and enslavement, realizing “free associated labor,” and at the same time proposes following the “intrinsic value” inherent in things. Thus, Kovel’s ecological critique theory is more systematic and complete.

科威尔对资本主义的生态批判理论也有其自身的独创性。主要体现在：首先，对资本主义制度批判的切入点，科威尔与其他生态学马克思主义理论截然不同。具体地说，奥康纳、本·阿格尔开启生态视域是通过对历史唯物主义的修正，进而展开资本主义制度反生态性的阐述。在历史唯物主义向度中，奥康纳以人类社会与自然社会之间的生态关系为起点，并将“文化”与“自然”引入，揭示出资本主义的二重性矛盾才是造成生态恶化的根源。本·阿格尔通过对历史唯物主义的危机理论进行重新解构，揭示出生态危机的必然性是由于“异化消费”。福斯特将历史唯物主义直接称为生态唯物主义来阐述辩证统一的自然观与历史观，揭示了资本主义条件下物质变换断裂造成生态危机。通过对“经济理性”与“生态理性”的细致梳理分析，高兹指出生态危机的恶化是经济理性盛行的“悲剧”。而莱斯主要是从人的本质出发引入生态问题，提出资本主义条件下的商品、需要、消费及技术异化理论。可见，资本主义制度的生态批判生态学马克思主义理论两种类型，一类是基于对历史唯物主义的生态涵义直接阐发抑或修正来展开资本主义制度的生态批判，另一类则是直接通过分析需要、商品、技术异化等维度来开启生态批判。科威尔的批判维度既不属于第一种，也区别于第二种，他援引马克思主义的基本理论，以资本为逻辑起点，展开对资本、资本主义制度固有属性的生态批判，是理论界独树一帜的批判视域。其次，生态学马克思主义理论家除本顿以外都认为生态危机与人类中心主义的价值观没有直接关系，他们都反对生态中心主义价值观，甚至将人类中心主义价值观赋予了新的解读方式。与众不同的是科威尔坚持以生态为中心的价值观，科威尔的价值观超越了西方主张的生态中心论，这样的超越不单迎合了生态系统的实践本性，而且将资本主义制度批判内嵌于其中。科威尔坚持认为要想树立生态中心的价值观，建构生态社会主义社会就必须废除陈旧的观念，即把人类凌驾于自然之上，他的理论特质是生态学马克思主义理论界中的“异端”。最后，生态学马克思主义学派尽管都认为资本主义制度之反生态性，强调在资本主义条件下，生态危机只能缓解不可能根除，因此生态社会主义的变革也是无法实现的。然而，科威尔不仅坚持资本、资本主义制度的反生态性，而且断言资本主义社会具有变革为生态社会主义的能力。他反复强调超越资本，使人从剥削与奴役的状态下解救出来，实现“自由联合劳动”,同时提出要遵循事物固有的“内在价值”。可见，科威尔的生态批判理论更具有系统性、完整性。

IV

四

Kovel draws on the basic principles of Marxism, firmly grasping the “core” of capital and the ecosystem to analyze that capital and the capitalist system are the “originators” of the ecological crisis, “prefiguring” that the fundamental path to ultimately resolving the ecological crisis is to drive capitalism off the historical stage through ecological socialism. Kovel’s theoretical characteristics and value positions offer significant inspiration for us to construct a Chinese form of ecological civilization and to forge a path of Chinese-path modernization.

科威尔援引马克思主义的基本原理紧紧抓住资本与生态系统的“内核”分析资本、资本主义制度才是生态危机的“始作俑者”,“预表”了最终解决生态危机的根本路径是用生态社会主义将资本主义逐出历史舞台。科威尔的理论特质和价值立场对于我们建构中国形态的生态文明，走出中国式现代化道路具有较强的启发意义。

First, ecological Marxism shows us that in the practice of ecological civilization, we must combine institutional construction with the construction of ecological values. The core discussion of Kovel and other ecological Marxist theoretical schools mainly couples the critique of capital and ecology, revealing the root causes of the ecological crisis and its solutions, and identifying the “executioner” of the ecological crisis as the capitalist system. In this regard, we must have a clear understanding: the capitalist world is the “chief culprit” of the ecological crisis, yet socialist countries still face serious ecological problems. Therefore, when China bears the dual pressures of a severe ecological environment and economic development, the ultimate intention lies in considering “our own solutions.” On the one hand, it should be recognized that ecological civilization is a new social form that transcends social systems; that is, the true construction of ecological civilization is by no means limited to realization within capitalist or socialist societies. We must, in critique, “integrate Chinese and Western elements, combining the best of both,” and provide a Chinese interpretation of the capitalization of nature. On the other hand, the alienation of consumption, commodities, and technology, with capital as the logical starting point, inevitably deviates from the laws of human and social development. This inspires us to establish a correct ecological outlook, consumption outlook, and happiness outlook, and to put into practice the values of pursuing environmental justice and advocating green, coordinated development. A socialist ecological governance outlook that combines virtue and law is what we should truly establish as the Chinese form of ecological civilization. “The so-called ecological governance outlook combining virtue and law means overcoming the purely moralist and technicist ecological governance outlooks. It requires both establishing an ecological culture and ecological morality of cherishing ecological resources and protecting the environment throughout society, enhancing people’s moral consciousness in adhering to the concept of ecological civilization, and externally and rigidly regulating people’s practical behavior through the formulation of strict ecological systems, ecological laws, and regulations.” On the one hand, theory is externalized into laws and regulations that coordinate the relationship between humans and ecology, serving as bottom-line rules to constrain human practical activities; on the other hand, it fundamentally elevates human ecological awareness and value realm, making it a conscious action in the governance of ecological civilization. General Secretary Xi Jinping has proposed that to realize the modernization of the ecological governance system and governance capacity, it is necessary to adopt the strictest ecological systems, that is, to establish the strictest systems for natural resource property rights, territorial space development and protection, target evaluation and assessment of ecological civilization construction and accountability, ecological compensation, the river and lake chief system, the forest chief system, and the “joint Party-government responsibility” and “dual responsibility for one post” in environmental protection. [6]6 “Joint Party-government responsibility” (党政同责) and “dual responsibility for one post” (一岗双责) are Chinese institutional mechanisms that hold both Party committees and government agencies accountable for environmental protection, and require officials to fulfill both their regular duties and environmental responsibilities simultaneously. Human practical behavior will inevitably undergo a process from external constraint to internal consciousness. External constraint requires a strict ecological legal system; internal consciousness requires the construction of an ecological morality and ecological values for the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature. The Chinese form of ecological civilization must inevitably be built within a governance system where morality and law coexist.

首先，生态学马克思主义昭示我们在生态文明实践中要将制度建设和生态价值观的建设二者相结合。科威尔同其他生态学马克思主义理论学派探讨的核心主要是将资本和生态的批判耦合，揭示生态危机的根源及解决路径，剖出生态危机的“刽子手”是资本主义制度。对此，我们要有一个清醒的认识，资本主义世界是生态危机的“罪魁祸首”,社会主义国家依然面临严重的生态问题。因此，当中国承受着严重的生态环境与经济发展双重压力时，最终意旨在于考虑“自己的方案”。一方面，应该认识到生态文明是超越社会制度的新型社会形态，也就是说真正的生态文明建设绝不是局限于资本主义社会或社会主义社会中实现。我们要在批判中“中西结合、兼容并茂”,对自然资本化做出中国解读。另一方面，以资本为逻辑起点的消费、商品、技术异化必然背离了人类与社会的发展规律，它启示我们要树立正确的生态观、消费观、幸福观，将追求环境正义与倡导绿色、协调发展的价值观落实到实践中。德法兼备的社会主义生态治理观才是我们真正应该建立的中国形态的生态文明。“所谓德法兼备的生态治理观，就是要克服单纯的德治主义和技术主义的生态治理观，既要求在全社会树立爱护生态资源和保护环境的生态文化和生态道德，提升人们坚持生态文明理念的道德自觉，又要通过制定严格的生态制度、生态法律法规在外在方面硬性规范人们的实践行为。”一面将理论外化为协调人类与生态关系的法律法规，作为底线规则来约束人类实践活动，一面从根本上提升人类生态意识和价值境界，成为生态文明治理中的自觉行动。习近平总书记提出实现生态治理体制和治理能力的现代化就要通过最严格的生态制度，即建立最为严格的自然资源产权制度、国土空间开发保护制度、生态文明建设目标评价考核制度和责任追究制度、生态补偿制度、河湖长制、林长制、环境保护“党政同责”和“一岗双责”等制度。人类实践行为必然会经历一个由外在约束到内在自觉的过程，外在约束需要严格的生态法律制度，内在自觉就是要构建人与自然和谐共生关系的生态道德和生态价值观，中国形态的生态文明必然要建立在道德与法律并存的治理体系中。

Second, adhere to the idea that “humanity and nature are a community of life” and embark on a modernization path guided by ecology. The school of ecological Marxism represented by Kovel [7]7 Joel Kovel (1936–2018), American ecological Marxist theorist and author of *The Enemy of Nature*. takes the historical materialist relationship between humanity and nature as its starting point, employing historical analysis and class analysis to explore the roots of ecological crisis and thereby construct an ecological socialist theory. O’Connor emphasizes that the ecological relationship between humanity and nature is established through the cultural connection between the two; Ben Aggar analyzes the ecological crisis by revealing the conflict between “alienated consumption” and the finitude of nature arising from the “labor-leisure” dualism; Foster elaborates on the necessary relationship between ecological crisis and the alienation of nature by revealing the “metabolic rift” between humanity and nature under capitalist conditions; Kovel, in analyzing the integrity of the ecosystem, invokes Marx’s view of nature and applies the entropy increase principle from the second law of thermodynamics to derive a harmonious developmental relationship between humanity and nature. The Chinese form of ecological civilization theory must adhere to Marx’s theory of the relationship between humanity and nature as its foundation, integrating the systemic and holistic character of ecological elements to transform toward the modernization of socialist ecological governance. General Secretary Xi Jinping’s concept of “humanity and nature are a community of life” precisely coincides with Kovel’s ecological ontological understanding. Xi emphasizes that humanity and nature constitute an “community of life” formed through mutual interconnection and joint action, and that mountains, waters, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands, and deserts also form a community of life. He has repeatedly stressed that humanity’s use and transformation of nature must be premised on following the ecological laws of nature. This requires that in building a socialist ecological civilization, we must “uphold harmony between humanity and nature.” As Professor Huan Qingzhi summarizes, “‘Humanity and nature are a community of life’ and ‘the modernization we want to build is one of harmony between humanity and nature’ are the ‘core viewpoints’ of Xi Jinping’s ecological philosophical thought.” This concept not only heralds the “collapse” of anthropocentrism and ecocentrism but also aligns with the ontological understanding of Kovel’s view of nature. Therefore, the practice of the Chinese form of ecological civilization must take the ecological plan of harmony between humanity and nature as its fundamental guiding principle.

其次，坚持“人与自然是生命共同体”的思想，走出以生态为指引的现代化道路。以科威尔为代表的生态学马克思主义学派以历史唯物主义人与自然的关系为出发点，运用历史分析法、阶级分析法探讨生态危机的根源从而建构生态社会主义理论。奥康纳强调人类与自然界的生态关系是通过建立人与自然之间的文化联系；本·阿格尔分析生态危机则是通过揭示“劳动—闲暇”二元论所导致的“异化消费”与自然有限性之间的对立冲突；福斯特阐述生态危机与自然异化的必然关系则是通过揭示资本主义条件下人与自然的“物质变换断裂”;科威尔在分析生态系统完整性中就援引马克思的自然观，运用热力学第二定律中的熵增加原理得出人与自然的和谐发展关系。中国形态的生态文明理论要坚持以马克思人与自然的关系理论为基石，结合生态要素的系统性、完整性向社会主义生态治理现代化转变。习近平总书记提出的“人与自然是生命共同体”概念恰恰与科威尔生态本体论认识相吻合。习近平强调人类与自然界是一个相互联系、共同作用构成的“生命共同体”,山水林田湖草沙也是一个生命共同体。他多次强调人类利用自然、改造自然必须以遵循自然界的生态规律为前提。这就要求我们在社会主义生态文明建设中要做到“坚持人与自然和谐共生”。正如郇庆治教授总结的“‘人与自然是生命共同体’与‘我们要建设的现代化是人与自然和谐共生的现代化’是习近平生态哲学思想的‘核心性观点’”。这一理念不仅预示着人类中心主义与生态中心主义的“破灭”,而且契合了科威尔自然观的本体论认识。因此，中国形态的生态文明实践要以人与自然和谐共生的生态方案为根本指针。

Finally, we must adhere to production centered on ecology. In deconstructing the anti-ecological capitalist system, ecological Marxism profoundly elaborates the causal relationship between the capitalist mode of production and ecological crisis. Driven by the profit-seeking nature of capitalism, which pursues only immediate interests and high profits, it dominates the capitalist mode of production and exchange. In its attitude toward nature, it completely disregards the long-term impact of overproduction and overconsumption on the natural world, sacrificing all available natural resources in pursuit of the surplus value of products, thereby causing irreversible damage to the ecological environment. Kovel argues that to realize ecological socialism, we must adhere to a mode of production guided by ecology. “Nature itself does not engage in any production; to survive and develop in nature, humans must produce. People cannot choose whether to produce, but they can choose the mode of production.” Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC [8]8 The 18th National Congress of the CPC was held in November 2012, marking the beginning of Xi Jinping’s leadership and the launch of the New Era., up to the convening of the Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee [9]9 The Sixth Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee was held in November 2021, adopting a landmark resolution on the Party’s history., the General Secretary has repeatedly expounded the scientific concept that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets.” “We want both lucid waters and lush mountains and gold and silver mountains, and lucid waters and lush mountains are precisely gold and silver mountains.” The “Two Mountains Theory” [10]10 “Two Mountains Theory” refers to Xi Jinping’s formulation that “lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets,” emphasizing the integration of ecological protection and economic development. clearly explains the dialectical unity between economic development and ecological environmental protection, and also confirms the ecological aspirations of Kovel’s ecological development view. The “Two Mountains Theory” explicitly states that China’s economic development must follow a “steady-state economy” model of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature, ensuring the momentum and potential of economic and social development, resolutely resisting the excessive pursuit of economic benefits, effectively improving resource utilization rates, and building ecologically economical, environmentally friendly, and ecologically harmonious industries. Under a production mode centered on ecology, we can achieve a “win-win” situation of economic development and environmental protection. Therefore, to advance the practice of the Chinese form of ecological civilization and achieve harmony between humanity and nature, we must thoroughly transform the capitalist mode of production, revive the original concept of “production justice” in ecological socialist society, and “more consciously promote green development, circular development, and low-carbon development, and steadfastly follow a civilized development path of production development, affluent living, and a sound ecology.”

最后，要坚持以生态为中心的生产。生态学马克思主义在解构反生态性的资本主义制度时，深刻阐述了资本主义的生产方式与生态危机之间的因果关系。资本主义唯利是图，只追求眼前利益和高额利润的驱动下，支配着资本主义的生产方式和交换方式。在对待自然的态度上，它完全不考虑过度生产、过度消费对自然界的长远影响，为了追求产品的剩余价值不惜牺牲一切可以牺牲的自然资源，从而造成生态环境不可逆转的损害。科威尔认为，要想实现生态社会主义，必须坚持生态指引中的生产方式。“自然本身并不会进行任何生产，人在自然中要想生存与发展必须生产，人们不能选择是否要生产，但可以选择生产的方式”。党的十八大以来，直到今天党的十九届六中全会召开，总书记多次论述“绿水青山就是金山银山”的科学理念。“我们既要绿水青山，也要金山银山，而且绿水青山就是金山银山”。“两山论”明确阐释了发展经济与保护生态环境的辩证统一关系，也印证了科威尔生态发展观的生态诉求。“两山论”明确指出我国的经济发展要遵循人类与自然和谐共生的“稳态经济”模式，保障经济社会发展的后劲与潜力，坚决抵制过度追求经济效益，有效提高资源利用率，构建生态节约型、环境友好型生态和谐产业，在以生态为中心的生产发展方式下，实现经济发展和保护环境“双赢”。因此，推进中国形态的生态文明实践，要想实现人与自然和谐共生，就要彻底变革资本主义的生产方式，复活生态社会主义社会“生产正义”的最初理念，“更加自觉地推进绿色发展、循环发展、低碳发展，坚持走生产发展、生活富裕、生态良好的文明发展道路”。

Online Editor: Tongxin

网络编辑：同心