Why a Great Ecological Civilization Can Emerge in Socialist China

John Bellamy Foster is an internationally renowned ecological Marxist theorist, currently the editor-in-chief of the prominent U.S. left-wing journal *Monthly Review* and a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon. His early studies encompassed science, philosophy, history, journalism, political economy, and political theory, and he received his Ph.D. in 1984 from York University in Toronto, Canada. Foster’s doctoral dissertation, revised and expanded, was published in 1986 by Monthly Review Press under the title *The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxist Political Economy*. In 1979, Foster published a lengthy paper, “The United States and Monopoly Capital: The Problem of Excess Capacity,” which laid the foundation for his collaboration with Paul Sweezy (1910–2004) and thereby launched his academic career. Taking Marxist political economy as his research program, Foster focuses on historical and theoretical studies of the economic, political, and ecological contradictions of capitalism, producing a wealth of books and articles, and has gained worldwide renown as a major ecological Marxist theorist and environmental sociologist. His representative works include *Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature* (2000), *The Great Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences* (with Fred Magdoff, 2009), *The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth* (with Brett Clark and Richard York, 2010), *The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxist Political Economy* (2014), *Marx and the Earth: An Anti-Critique* (with Paul Burkett, 2016), *Trump in the White House: Tragedy and Farce* (2017), *The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology* (2019), *The Robbery of Nature: Capitalism and the Ecological Rift* (with Brett Clark, 2019), and *Capitalism in the Anthropocene: Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution* (2022), many of which have been translated into Chinese. In Chinese Marxist academic circles and among thinkers in ecological and environmental protection, Foster is regarded as an ecological Marxist scholar. Foster’s ecological materialism and theory of metabolic rift are well known to relevant domestic academic communities, and his influence is increasingly evident in international Marxist academia, environmental sociology, and other fields. Foster’s ecological Marxist thought is the theoretical extension and logical result of his adherence to the Marxist political economy research program as applied to the relationship between society and nature. The general propositions of Foster’s writings in recent years are: (1) In the 1950s, the geological epoch of the Holocene, measured on a geological time scale, ended, and the Anthropocene began. Human activity is now the primary geological force affecting the entire Earth, and this immense geological force originates from the globalized system of capital accumulation. Over the past several centuries, and especially the last century, this system of capital accumulation has, through commodity production, freely and extensively plundered nature, causing anthropogenic rifts in the Earth’s ecosystems and thereby creating a severe existential crisis for the world’s population. (2) Human civilization stands at a great turning point. Future human civilization must both coexist peacefully with the Earth, no longer artificially creating irreversible rifts, and must satisfy the freedom of development for every individual and for every species—this is ecological civilization. Large-scale capitalist private property is inherently incompatible with such an ecological civilization; capitalism is the common and root cause of social alienation, individual alienation, natural alienation, and the alienation of the relationship between humanity and nature. Realizing ecological civilization requires a long-term ecological revolution, one that must unify the demand for social justice with the requirement for ecological sustainability. This interview primarily revolves around Foster’s lecture “Ecological Civilization and Ecological Revolution: An Eco-Marxist Perspective,” given at the invitation of the San Sheng Gu Cobb Institute of Ecological Civilization. In the lecture and interview, Foster emphasizes: the construction of ecological civilization in today’s world must move toward socialism; China’s ecological civilization construction, which integrates socialism with Chinese characteristics, ecological Marxism, and the essence of traditional Chinese culture, possesses a comprehensive, profound, and feasible roadmap for ecological transformation, capable of achieving remarkable results in practice; at this critical juncture for the survival of the Earth and humanity, the environmental proletariat of the world must unite, and the environmental proletariat is the most fundamental and primary subject of ecological revolution for truly realizing ecological civilization; transcending the existing capitalist system through ecological revolution is the only choice for achieving ecological civilization; from the perspective of global ecological governance, the role China plays on the stage of ecological civilization construction in the course of socialist development can be seen as the greatest gift to the world. The interview content is now shared as follows.

约翰·贝拉米·福斯特（John Bellamy Foster）是国际知名的生态马克思主义理论家，现任美国著名左翼杂志《每月评论》（Monthly Review）主编、俄勒冈大学社会学教授。他早年的学习涉及科学、哲学、历史、新闻学、政治经济学和政治理论，1984年在加拿大多伦多的约克大学获得博士学位。福斯特的博士论文经修订和扩充后，以《垄断资本主义理论：阐发马克思主义政治经济学》为题，于1986年由美国每月评论出版社出版。1979年，福斯特发表长篇论文《美国和垄断资本：过剩产能问题》，奠定了他与保罗·斯威齐（Paul Sweezy,1910—2004）之间的合作基础，并由此开启了自己的学者生涯。福斯特以马克思主义政治经济学为研究纲领，聚焦于资本主义经济、政治和生态矛盾的历史和理论研究，有数量丰富的著作和论文问世，并作为一位重要的生态马克思主义理论家和环境社会学家而享誉世界。其代表性著作有《马克思的生态学：唯物主义与自然》（Marx’s Ecology:Materialism and Nature, 2000）、《金融大危机：原因与后果》（The Great Financial Crisis:Causes and Consequences,with Fred Magdoff, 2009）、《生态断裂：资本主义对地球发起的战争》（The Ecological Rift:Capitalism’s War on the Earth,with Brett Clark and Richard York,2010）、《垄断资本主义理论：阐发马克思主义政治经济学》（The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism:An Elaboration of Marxist Political Economy,2014）、《马克思与地球：对批判的批判》（Marx and the Earth:An Anti-Critique,with Paul Burkett,2016）、《特朗普入主白宫：悲剧与闹剧》（Trump in the White House:Tragedy and Farce,2017）、《自然的回归：社会主义与生态》（The Return of Nature:Socialism and Ecology, 2019）、《掠夺自然：资本主义与生态断裂》（The Robbery of Nature:Capitalism and the Ecological Rift,with Brett Clark,2019）、《人类世视野中的资本主义：生态毁灭还是生态革命》（Capitalism in the Anthropocene:Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution,2022）等，其中多部著作被译成中文出版。在中国马克思主义学术界和生态环境保护思想界，福斯特被视为生态马克思主义学者。福斯特的生态唯物主义和代谢断裂理论为国内相关学界熟知，在国际马克思主义学术界、环境社会学等领域的影响力日益彰显。福斯特的生态马克思主义思想是其秉持的马克思主义政治经济学研究纲领在社会与自然关系问题上的理论延伸和逻辑结果。福斯特近几年著述的总主张是：（1）1950年代，地质学家所说的地质时间尺度上的全新世结束，人类世开启。现在人类活动是影响整个地球的主要地质力量，这种巨大的地质力量源于全球化的资本积累体系。这个资本积累体系在过去的几个世纪尤其是近一个世纪通过商品生产免费地、广泛地掠夺自然，造成了地球生态系统的人为断裂，因而也给世界人口带来了严重的生存危机。（2）人类文明正处在伟大的转折点。未来的人类文明应该既与地球和平共处，不再人为制造不可逆转的断裂，又需要满足每一个人的发展自由，满足每一种物种的发展自由，这就是生态文明。资本主义大私有制是内在地排斥这种生态文明的，资本主义是社会异化、个体异化和自然异化以及人与自然关系异化的共同原因和根本原因。实现生态文明需要一场长期的生态革命，这种生态革命需要把人们对社会正义的诉求和生态可持续发展的要求统一起来。此次访谈主要围绕福斯特应三生谷柯布生态书院的邀请所作的演讲《生态文明与生态革命：一种生态马克思主义的视角》而展开。在演讲和访谈中，福斯特强调：当今世界的生态文明建设必须迈向社会主义；综合了中国特色社会主义、生态马克思主义和中国传统文化精髓的中国生态文明建设，拥有一个全面的、深刻的、可行的生态转型路线图，可在实践中取得卓著成绩；在地球和人类生死存亡的危机关头，全世界环境无产者需要联合起来，环境无产阶级是真正实现生态文明的最基本的、最主要的生态革命主体；通过生态革命扬弃现存资本主义制度是实现生态文明的不二选择；从全球生态治理角度看，在社会主义发展中，中国在生态文明建设这个舞台上所发挥的作用可以看作是献给世界的最大礼物。现将访谈内容分享如下。

Guo Jianren: Professor Foster, I sincerely thank you for accepting this interview! This is my first time interviewing you, and as far as I know, it is also your first time being interviewed by a mainland Chinese ecological Marxist researcher. I am deeply honored by this, especially as a researcher who has long studied your many works. In 2004, I systematically introduced your ecological Marxist thought to mainland Chinese Marxist academia in the form of my doctoral dissertation. Over the past two decades, mainland Chinese ecological Marxist researchers have studied your ecological Marxist thought more deeply and systematically, and your ecological Marxist thought has gained broader recognition, research, and dissemination. Thank you for the contribution your ecological Marxist thought has made to Chinese ecological Marxist research! At the same time, I thank you for accepting the invitation of the San Sheng Gu Cobb Institute of Ecological Civilization to deliver the lecture “Ecological Civilization and Ecological Revolution: An Eco-Marxist Perspective”! Our interview will primarily revolve around the theme of your lecture.

郭剑仁：福斯特教授，诚挚感谢您接受这次访谈！这是我第一次采访您，据我所知，这也是您第一次接受中国大陆的生态马克思主义研究者的访谈，对此我深感荣幸，尤其是对我这样长期研究您的诸多著作的研究者而言。2004年，我以博士论文的形式把您的生态马克思主义思想较为系统地介绍给了中国马克思主义学术界。近二十年来，中国大陆的生态马克思主义研究者对您的生态马克思主义思想研究得更深入、更系统了，您的生态马克思主义思想得到更广泛的认可、研究和传播。谢谢您的生态马克思主义思想对中国生态马克思主义研究的贡献！同时感谢您应三生谷柯布生态书院的邀请作《生态文明与生态革命：一种生态马克思主义的视角》的演讲！我们的访谈将主要围绕您的演讲主题展开。

Your lecture revolves around the dialectical relationship between ecological civilization, ecological Marxism, and ecological revolution, examined from both historical and practical perspectives. You argue for the importance of ecological socialism or ecological Marxism to the concept of ecological civilization, pointing out that in non-socialist countries people can only discuss ecological civilization abstractly and hollowly. You explicitly oppose and refute the analysis of China’s ecological civilization concept by cultural theorist Jeremy Lent. Lent examines China’s ecological civilization concept solely from the perspective of traditional Chinese culture, severing its connection with the socialist system and the Marxist intellectual tradition, and moreover sets traditional Chinese culture in opposition to socialism and Marxism. Lent’s analysis seriously fails to accord with the developmental history and practical reality of China’s ecological civilization concept. In contrast, your analysis leads to a question we care deeply about, namely: Based on the ecological materialist method you have developed on the foundation of historical materialism and dialectical materialism, how, in the theoretical innovation of ecological Marxism and China’s ecological civilization, can one incorporate intellectual and cultural elements outside the Marxist tradition—for example, findings from natural science research, or the essence of traditional Chinese culture, or certain concepts from A.N. Whitehead’s organic philosophy? This is a theoretical question that China’s ecological Marxism urgently needs to answer at present. China’s ecological civilization practice is changing with each passing day under the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization, and new practice demands continuous development of relevant theory, so as to achieve coordinated progress between theory and practice.

您的演讲从历史和现实两个层面，围绕生态文明、生态马克思主义和生态革命之间的辩证关系展开。您论证了生态社会主义或生态马克思主义对于生态文明理念的重要性，指出在非社会主义性质的国家人们只能抽象地、空洞地谈论生态文明。您明确反对并批驳了文化理论家杰里米·伦特（Jeremy Lent）对中国生态文明理念的解析。伦特仅从中国传统文化角度考察中国生态文明理念，割裂中国生态文明理念与社会主义制度和马克思主义思想传统的联系，并且把中国传统文化与社会主义和马克思主义对立起来。伦特的解析是严重地不符合中国生态文明理念发展史和实践现实的。与之不同，您的解析导引出一个我们非常关心的问题，即：依据您在历史唯物主义和辩证唯物主义基础上发展起来的生态唯物主义方法，在生态马克思主义和中国生态文明的理论创新研究中如何吸纳马克思主义思想传统以外的思想文化要素，例如自然科学研究成果或中国传统文化精华或怀特海（A.N.Whitehead）的有机哲学思想中的某些观念？这个问题是中国生态马克思主义当前迫切需要回答的理论问题。中国的生态文明实践在习近平生态文明思想的指导下日新月异，新的实践要求相关的理论不断发展，以实现理论与实践的协同进步。

Foster: Thank you for your kind words about my work! Your first question is truly daunting: How do we explore together the relationship between Marxism, especially ecological Marxism, and the natural sciences, Whitehead’s process philosophy and organic philosophy, and traditional Chinese culture? How can these theoretical forms and practices work together to jointly promote the construction of ecological civilization in China today? Does this not confront us with irresolvable conflicts? Indeed, there are considerable inconsistencies and even conflicts among these theoretical forms, but I immediately think of Joseph Needham, one of the most important Marxist thinkers of the twentieth century. Needham’s thought and research career show me that synthesis among these theoretical forms is possible. Needham was: (1) a pioneer in biochemistry and the history of science; (2) a Marxist theorist (he advanced our understanding of the dialectical relationship between nature and society); (3) an advocate of ecological materialism; (4) an admirer of Whitehead’s process philosophy; (5) the most outstanding Western expert (sinologist) on Chinese science and culture in his era; and (6) an advocate of traditional Chinese culture, especially its ecological outlook, calling himself an “honorary Taoist.” In a certain eclectic way, in Needham all the intellectual traditions you mention are already unified.

福斯特：谢谢您对我工作的赞美！您的第一个问题非常令人生畏：我们如何一并探讨马克思主义尤其是生态马克思主义与自然科学、怀特海过程哲学和有机哲学以及中国传统文化的关系？这些理论形式和实践如何协同起来共同促进当今中国的生态文明建设？这难道不会给我们带来无法解决的冲突吗？的确，这些理论形式之间存在着相当多的不一致甚至冲突，但我立即想到作为20世纪最重要的马克思主义思想家之一员的约瑟夫·李约瑟（Joseph Needham）。李约瑟的思想和研究生涯让我看到，这些理论形式之间存在着综合的可能。李约瑟是：（1）生物化学和科学史的先驱；（2）马克思主义的理论家（他促进了我们对自然和社会之间辩证关系的认识）；（3）生态唯物主义的倡导者；（4）怀特海过程哲学的钦慕者；（5）他那个时代里研究中国科学和文化最杰出的西方专家（汉学家）；（6）中国传统文化尤其是中国传统文化生态观的倡导者，他称自己为“名誉道家”（honorary Taoist）。以某种折衷的方式来看，在李约瑟这里，您提到的所有思想传统都已经统一起来了。

Needham argued that Chinese science had long displayed “an organic natural philosophy … very similar to the philosophy that modern science had to adopt after discarding the mechanical materialism that had prevailed for three centuries.” For Needham, Marx’s dialectical outlook was most important for creating a new ecological outlook today. However, the new ecological outlook also had to draw on Whitehead’s process philosophy and traditional Chinese thought. He explained that Daoism did not deny the necessity of acting on nature, but insisted that “no action should be taken that is contrary to nature.” Hence Needham advocated a dialectical ecological materialism that absorbed many intellectual resources, all of which were opposed to capitalism. I discussed these ideas of Needham in my book *The Return of Nature*. Needham reminds us that Marxism is not confined to the social sciences; the natural sciences are its “second foundation.” In fact, the dialectical outlook inherent in Marxism does not permit an absolute distinction between the natural and social sciences.

李约瑟认为，长久以来，中国的科学展示了“一种有机自然哲学……非常类似现代科学在抛弃了通行三个世纪的机械唯物主义之后不得不采纳的哲学”。对李约瑟而言，马克思的辩证观对创建当今全新的生态观最为重要。但是，全新的生态观也有必要借鉴怀特海的过程哲学和传统的中国思想。他解释说，道家并没有否认（对自然）采取行动的必要性，而是坚持认为“不应该采取任何违背自然的行动”。因此，李约瑟主张一种吸纳了许多思想资源的辩证生态唯物主义，而所有这些思想资源都是反对资本主义的。我在我的著作《自然的回归》中讨论了李约瑟的这些思想。李约瑟提醒人们，马克思主义没有受限于社会科学，自然科学是其“第二基础”（second foundation）。事实上，马克思主义内蕴的辩证观是不允许对自然科学和社会科学进行绝对区分的。

As Needham insisted, Chinese culture has deep ecological roots. It is precisely socialism with Chinese characteristics and ecological Marxism that have placed the concept of ecological civilization on China’s agenda today, in a way that the capitalist system itself completely lacks. Without taking socialist production as the guiding principle, it is impossible to truly build an ecological civilization system. Xi Jinping spoke of “global ecological civilization construction” (October 18, 2017). The core argument of my lecture is that the ecological civilization needed in today’s world must move toward socialism. In the same speech, Xi Jinping further spoke of “socialist ecological civilization” that contains “a new pattern of modernization featuring harmonious development between humanity and nature.” Here he clearly indicates that unless “global ecological civilization construction” is simultaneously a socialist movement, it will be difficult to truly realize—just as the harsh lessons of the Anthropocene era, which began around 1950, have already shown. It is this painful experience that tells us we must find a fundamentally different path.

正如李约瑟所坚持主张的那样，中国文化有着深厚的生态根源。正是中国特色社会主义和生态马克思主义，以一种资本主义体系自身完全缺乏的方式，将生态文明概念提上了当今中国议程。不以社会主义生产为纲，就不可能真正地建设生态文明体系。习近平谈到了“全球生态文明建设”（2017年10月18日）。我此次讲座的核心观点是，当今世界所需要的生态文明必须迈向社会主义。在同一个讲话中，习近平更是谈到内蕴着“人与自然和谐发展现代化建设新格局”的“社会主义生态文明”。在这里，他明确指出，除非“全球生态文明建设”同时是一场社会主义运动，否则它难以真正实现———恰如始于1950年前后的人类世时代的残酷教训已经表明的那样。正是这种痛苦的经历告诉我们，我们必须找到截然不同的道路。

Guo Jianren: In your lecture, you take your own country, the United States of America, as an example to analyze the environmental governance measures of the Green New Deal under the Western democratic political system, and their incompleteness and infeasibility. Moreover, you discern the positive role in China’s ecological civilization construction of factors and methods such as a socialist orientation, retention of some capacity for economic planning, national direction, collective values, and mobilization of urban and rural masses. These practices you note are precisely the concrete embodiment and expression of China’s “Five-Sphere Integrated Plan” in China’s ecological civilization construction. In your lecture, you also examine the relationship between political forces, the logic of capital, and changes in people’s lifestyles. In 2014 you republished your book *The Theory of Monopoly Capitalism: An Elaboration of Marxist Political Economy*, originally published in the 1980s; your research on monopoly capital is equally profound. Could you, from the perspective of political reform, briefly elaborate for us the general mechanisms between political-economic logic and ecological civilization construction, or share with China’s ecological Marxist scholarly community more of your findings on this topic?

郭剑仁：在您的演讲中，您以自己的国家美利坚合众国为例，分析了西方民主政治体制下绿色新政的治理生态环境的措施及其不彻底性和不可行性。此外，您洞察到社会主义导向、保留部分经济计划能力、国家方向、集体价值观以及动员城乡群众等因素和方法在中国建设生态文明进程中的积极作用。您注意到的这些实践正是中国“五位一体”总体布局在中国生态文明建设中的具体体现和表现。在您的演讲中，您还考察了政治力量与资本逻辑和民众生活方式变迁之间的关联。2014年您再版了您于1980年代出版的《垄断资本主义理论：阐发马克思主义政治经济学》（The Theory of MonopolyCapitalism:An Elaboration of Marxist Political Econ-omy），您对垄断资本的研究同样是深刻的。您能从政治改革角度出发，为我们简要阐发您对政治-经济逻辑和生态文明建设之间的一般性机制吗，或者与中国生态马克思主义学界分享您关于这个话题的更多发现？

Foster: The core question of my lecture is: Why can a plan as historically far-reaching as ecological civilization emerge in China? Conversely, why does this creative concept of ecological civilization, especially in terms of the scale it is meant to achieve, appear so rarely in public discourse and even in left-wing topics in the United States, Europe, and indeed most places in the world? Although the idea of a Green New Deal has indeed been proposed by progressive forces in the West, this idea is usually understood simply as green Keynesianism or green corporatism. That is, it is seen as a narrow economic plan, fully compatible with capitalism, aimed merely at promoting green jobs. The Green New Deal concept is far removed from China’s ecological civilization ambitions. The goal of China’s ecological civilization is to promote the development of the entire culture, profound changes in political-economy and the environment, and the formation in this process of a more sustainable relationship between humanity and nature. Furthermore, while China has already taken action to implement its radical ecological civilization concept, formulating national plans and establishing regulations, the Western Green New Deal concept has not advanced in any concrete form. For the West, the Green New Deal is merely a slogan, with no real political support within the capitalist system; it is discussed by progressive forces and then rejected by the powerful.

福斯特：我的演讲的核心问题是：为什么像生态文明这样一个具有深远历史意义的规划可以在中国产生？反之，这个富于创造性的生态文明概念，尤其是就其应达成的规模而言，绝少出现在美国和欧洲乃至世界上绝大多数地方的公共话语甚至左翼的话题中？虽然绿色新政这种观念确实是由西方的进步人士提出的，但这个观念通常被简单地视为绿色凯恩斯主义或绿色社团主义。也就是说，它被认为是一个狭隘的经济计划，完全与资本主义保持一致，仅仅旨在促进绿色就业。绿色新政观念与中国的生态文明抱负相去甚远。中国生态文明的目标是促进整个文化的发展，政治-经济和环境的深刻变化，以及在这个进程中形成一种更可持续的人与自然之间的关系。进一步地，在中国已经采取行动实施其激进的生态文明观并制订国家规划和建立规章制度时，西方的绿色新政观念没有获得任何具体形式的推进。对西方而言，绿色新政仅仅是一个口号，在资本主义体系内没有任何真正的政治支持，它被进步力量所谈论，然后又被强权拒绝。

Currently, the Democratic Party government in Washington and its Republican opponents have all rejected even a nominal Green New Deal plan. Joe Biden ran for office partly to oppose the progressive Green New Deal proposed by some Democrats. He promised corporations and the wealthy that nothing fundamental would change. All of this is incomparable to China’s emphasis on ecological civilization, which China regards as a core task of socialist construction. Like other countries, China certainly faces numerous ecological contradictions. However, China has a roadmap for ecological transformation, while the imperialist core of the capitalist system does not.

当前在华盛顿的民主党政府及其共和党对手都拒绝了哪怕是名义上的绿色新政计划。乔·拜登（Joe Biden）参加竞选的部分原因就是要反对一些民主党人提出的进步的绿色新政。他向公司和富人承诺，任何基础都不会改变。所有这一切与中国对生态文明的重视不可同日而语，中国把生态文明建设视为社会主义建设的核心任务。与其他国家一样，中国当然也面临着非常多的生态矛盾。然而，中国有一个生态转型路线图，而资本主义体系中的帝国主义核心却没有。

It is correct to study the differences between different political-economic systems as a problem and to link these differences with the theory of monopoly capitalism. The countries that Samir Amin regarded as constituting the “Triad”—the United States/Canada, Western Europe, and Japan—are all center countries of monopoly capitalism. Current capitalism is in an era dominated by giant corporations, which are united vertically and horizontally, mostly in the form of conglomerates, building world-dominating transnational corporations that control the entire global supply chain. The theory of monopoly capitalism originated in the works of Rudolf Hilferding and V.I. Lenin in the early 20th century and was subsequently advanced by many thinkers, as revealed by Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy of the United States in their most famous work, *Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order*. The theory of monopoly capitalism reminds us that monopoly capitalism can effectively prohibit genuine price competition. Although this is closely related to tacit collusion among large corporations, these companies still compete for low costs and in areas such as sales (marketing), resulting in the continuous expansion of monopoly firms’ gross profit margins.

把不同政治-经济体系之间的差异当作一个问题来研究，并且把这些差异与垄断资本主义理论关联起来，这是正确的。那些被萨米尔·阿明（Samir Amin）视为构成了“三巨头”——美国/加拿大、西欧和日本——的国家都是垄断资本主义的中心国家。当前的资本主义处在一个巨型企业居垄断地位的时代，这些巨型企业在纵向和横向上联合起来，大部分采用企业集团的形式，构筑成雄踞世界的跨国公司，主导着整个全球供应链。垄断资本主义理论源于20世纪初的鲁道夫·希法亭（Rudolf Hilferding）和列宁（V.I.Lenin）的著作，随后被许多思想家所推进，如美国的保罗·巴兰（Paul Baran）和保罗·斯威齐（Paul Sweezy）在他们最著名的著作《垄断资本：论美国的经济和社会秩序》（Monopoly Capital: An Essay on the American Economic and Social Order）中所揭示的那样。垄断资本主义理论提醒人们：垄断资本主义能够有效地禁止真正的价格竞争，这虽然与大公司之间的间接勾结密切相关，但这些公司仍在为低成本以及在诸如销售（市场营销）等领域进行竞争，其结果是导致垄断公司的毛利率不断扩大。

Monopoly capitalism tends to cause high unemployment/underemployment, low utilization of productive capacity, and accumulation stagnation, leading to a tendency toward low growth. This is closely related to the over-accumulation of productive capacity, which is linked to the concentration of demand and surplus at the top of the social hierarchy. The excessive concentration of wealth and income at the top of the social hierarchy makes it an obstacle to capital accumulation. Therefore, the factors triggering social crisis tendencies lie not on the side of the generation of economic surplus (surplus value), but on the side of the absorption of economic surplus, which is often accomplished through investment and consumption. This entire set of structural conditions creates functional waste throughout the monopoly capitalist system. As a result, on the one hand, to keep the economy running, wasteful modes of consumption and (material) use need to be intensified; on the other hand, the most basic needs of the majority of the population (food, healthcare, and housing) remain unmet or severely deficient, and military spending becomes a major component of this wasteful economy. In recent decades, the continuous growth of unproductive expenditure has driven the economy toward large-scale financialization—or the acceleration of speculative debt expansion, which is not merely cyclical but has a more or less permanent basis, leading to financial bubbles and a growing tendency toward financial crises. In this situation, the state is constantly forced to rescue capital at the expense of spending on other parts of society.

垄断资本主义往往会引发高失业/就业不足、生产力利用低下和积累停滞，进而导致低增长的趋势。这与生产能力过度积累密切相关，而生产能力过度积累关联着社会顶层阶层的需求和剩余集中。社会顶层阶层的财富和收入的过度集中使其自身成为资本积累的障碍。因此，引发社会危机趋势的因素不在经济剩余（剩余价值）的产生这一方，而在经济剩余的吸收这一方，经济剩余的吸收常常是通过投资和消费来完成的。这一整套的结构性条件造成了整个垄断资本主义体系的功能性浪费，其结果是：一方面，为了保持经济能够运行下去，需要强化浪费性的消费方式和（物质）使用方式；另一方面，大多数人口的最基本需求（食物、医疗保健和住房）无法得到满足或严重匮乏，军费开支成为这种浪费式经济的主要组成部分。近几十年来，非生产性支出的不断增长推动着经济朝向大规模金融化发展——或者说投机性债务扩张在加速，这不是单纯周期性的，而是或多或少有着永久性的基础，这将导致金融泡沫和持续增长着的金融危机倾向。在这种情况下，国家被迫不断地以牺牲社会其他部分的支出为其代价来挽救资本。

The famous conservative economist Joseph Alois Schumpeter once defended monopoly capital, claiming it embodied “creative destruction.” However, what we see today is the creative destruction of the global environment, extending to the Earth itself. Such a destructive capitalist development system leaves no room for an ecological civilization perspective, even in the view of some of the most left-wing critics, because it requires—to borrow a phrase from the *Communist Manifesto*—“the revolutionary reconstruction of the whole of society.” From an ecological perspective, such reconstruction has the potential to be realized. Waste, irrationality, destruction, and the loss of human potential indicate that, within the social network constructed by various capitalist things, the capacities of human society itself are misused or shelved. To build a society oriented toward human needs and development, valuing use value, and protecting the environment, a transition to socialism is certainly necessary.

著名的保守派经济学家熊彼特（Joseph Alois Schumpeter）曾为垄断资本辩护，称其体现了“创造性的破坏”。然而，我们今天所看到的是对全世界环境的创造性破坏，并延伸到地球本身。这样一个毁灭性的资本主义发展体系没有为生态文明观留出空间，即便在部分最左翼的批评家看来也是如此，因为这需要——借用《共产党宣言》中的话来说——“整个社会的革命性重建”。从生态方面来看，这种重建有其实现的可能。浪费、不合理、破坏和人类潜力的丧失等表明，在由资本主义的各种事物构筑的社会网络中，人类社会本身的各种能力被滥用或被搁置。要建设以人的需要和发展为导向的社会，重视使用价值，保护环境，这当然需要向社会主义转变。

Guo Jianren: In your lecture, you emphasized the importance of Marx’s three concepts—“the universal metabolism of nature,” “social metabolism,” and “metabolic rift”—for developing ecological Marxism, and pointed out that these three concepts form a “trinity.” Can these concepts be seen as a further development of the metabolic rift theory systematically expounded in your 2000 book *Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature*? China’s urbanization process is still ongoing, which partly means that the trend of population concentration from rural to urban areas will continue. In China, rural revitalization has been elevated to an important strategic position, and rural revitalization requires a certain population size as a necessary condition. Moreover, classical Marxist writers such as Marx and Lenin tended to believe that a more dispersed population is more conducive to balanced economic and social development and to reducing the plundering of land. You touched on these points in this lecture. Combining your analysis of Marx’s three concepts of “the universal metabolism of nature,” “social metabolism,” and “metabolic rift,” can you offer some constructive theoretical suggestions on the relationship between China’s urbanization construction, rural revitalization, and ecological civilization practice?

郭剑仁：在演讲中，您强调指出马克思的“自然的普遍新陈代谢”（the universal metabolism of nature）、“社会新陈代谢”（social metabolism）和“代谢断裂”（metabolic rift）三个概念对发展生态马克思主义的重要性，并指出这三个概念是“三位一体”的。这些概念可以看成是您在2000年出版的《马克思的生态学：唯物主义和自然》（Marx’s Ecology:Materialism and Nature）中系统阐发的代谢断裂理论的进一步发展吗？中国的城镇化进程仍在进行中，这部分地意味着人口从农村向城市集中的趋势将继续延续。在中国，乡村振兴被提升到重要的战略位置，而乡村振兴需要一定数量的人口作为其必要条件。此外，马克思和列宁等马克思主义经典作家倾向于认为，人口分散更有利于经济社会的平衡发展和减少对土地的掠夺。在此次演讲中，这些您都有所谈及。结合您对马克思的“自然的普遍新陈代谢”、“社会新陈代谢”和“代谢断裂”三个概念的解析，您能对中国的城镇化建设、乡村振兴与生态文明实践之间的关系提些建设性的理论意见吗？

Foster: When I wrote *Marx’s Ecology*, I emphasized Marx’s concept of social metabolism and the concept of metabolic rift. Although I always presupposed that Marx’s concepts of social metabolism and metabolic rift contained a universal concept of natural metabolism, I did not explicitly elaborate it. This was partly because the universal conception of natural metabolism was not so prominent in *Capital*. It was not until I carefully studied Marx’s *Economic Manuscript of 1861–1863* and saw that Marx explicitly elaborated “the universal metabolism of nature” in this manuscript that I recognized the full dimension of Marx’s analysis on the theme of metabolism. This does not conflict in any way with the interpretation in *Marx’s Ecology*; on the contrary, it makes Marx’s dialectical analysis of ecological contradictions and the metabolic rift associated with them clearer and more forceful. In the paper “Marx and the Rift in the Universal Metabolism of Nature” in the December 2013 issue of *Monthly Review*, I am convinced that I developed this new understanding for the first time. Subsequently, in collaboration with Bret Clark, I conducted this research more deeply in the paper “Marxism and the Dialectics of Ecology,” co-published in the October 2016 issue of *Monthly Review*. In this paper, to elucidate various dialectical relations, we combined Marx’s dialectics of the universal metabolism of nature, social metabolism, and metabolic rift with István Mészáros’s analysis of “the conceptual framework of Marx’s theory of alienation” in his book *Marx’s Theory of Alienation*. This contributed to a more unified understanding of Marx’s dialectical research in the field of metabolic analysis and became the core concept of my new book *Capitalism in the Anthropocene: Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution*.

福斯特：当我写《马克思的生态学》时，我强调的是马克思的社会新陈代谢概念和代谢断裂概念。虽然我一直预设了马克思的社会新陈代谢概念和代谢断裂概念背后包含有一个自然的普遍新陈概念，但我没有明确地阐发出来。部分原因在于，在《资本论》中自然的普遍新陈代谢观没有那么显著。直到我仔细研究了马克思的《1861—1863年经济学手稿》，看到马克思在这部手稿中明确地阐发了“自然的普遍新陈代谢”，我才认清马克思在新陈代谢分析这个主题上的全部维度。这与《马克思的生态学》中的解释没有任何冲突，相反，它使得马克思对生态矛盾及与之相关的代谢断裂的辩证分析更加清晰有力。在《每月评论》2013年12月号的论文《马克思与普遍的自然代谢中的断裂》（“Marx and the Rift in the Universal Metabolism of Nature”）中，我确信，我第一次发展了这个全新的理解。随后，我与布雷特·克拉克（Bret Clark）合作，在《每月评论》2016年10月号共同发表的论文《马克思主义与生态学的辩证法》（“Marxism and the Dialectics of Ecology”）中更深入地进行了这一研究。在这篇论文中，为了阐明诸种辩证关系，我们将马克思关于自然的普遍新陈代谢、社会新陈代谢和代谢断裂的辩证法，与伊斯特万·梅扎罗斯（István Mészáros）在《马克思异化理论》（Marx’s Theory of Alienation）一书中对“马克思异化理论的概念框架”的分析结合起来。这促成了对马克思在代谢分析领域所开展的辩证法研究的更加统一的理解，也成为我的新书《人类世视野中的资本主义：生态毁灭还是生态革命》（Capital-ism in the Anthropocene:Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution）的核心观念。

I believe that ecological dialectics indeed has a certain relationship with the binary problem of China’s urbanization and rural revitalization. You are right that Marx, Engels, and Lenin tended to emphasize the necessity of dispersing the population to rural areas. In this context, China’s accelerated urban development plans have triggered various ecological problems. Could super-urbanization expand China’s metabolic rift? This is a question I have asked myself. The extensive reliance on migrant workers for economic production in export regions is a related issue, such as how to manage the urban-rural separation it fosters. Although I am encouraged by China’s rural reconstruction movement and the recent rural revitalization plan, I still do not have a clear answer. One extraordinary achievement of the Chinese revolution that remains to this day, but is not widely understood in the West, is that although collective agriculture and the earlier commune structure were dismantled, China’s land remains collectively owned by the rural population. In this sense, decollectivization did not evolve into full privatization. Agriculture is still largely organized by rural communities. In recent years, China has turned back to Marxist political economy. With only 7% of the world’s arable land, China feeds 20% of the world’s population. In the ten years from 2003 to 2013, China’s grain output increased by 50%. Between 2013 and 2019, the number of towns in China with supply and marketing cooperatives aimed at improving resource allocation in rural areas increased from 50% to 95%. Recently, China eliminated extreme poverty, which was concentrated mainly in rural areas across the country. In the urban sector, the CPC under Xi Jinping’s leadership has been calling for the construction of more ecological cities. These developments reflect a (full) recognition of the dialectics in this field, which have long been part of Marxist theory. However, these contradictions still exist, and tremendous efforts must be made to overcome them, such as the many environmental pollution prevention and control actions currently underway in China’s rural areas. But this appears to form a symbiotic relationship with the priorities of society itself, offering hope for greater progress.

我认为，生态辩证法与中国的城市化和乡村振兴之间的二元问题确实存在着一定的关系。您说得对，马克思、恩格斯和列宁倾向于强调人口向农村地区分散的必要性。在这种语境下看，中国加速发展城市的规划已经引发了各种各样的生态问题。超级城市化有可能扩大中国的代谢裂痕吗？这是我曾问过我自己的一个问题。出口地区的经济生产对农民工的广泛依赖是一个与此相关的问题，例如如何管理由之催生的城乡分离问题。虽然我为中国乡村重建运动和近期的乡村振兴计划所鼓舞，但我仍然没有明确答案。中国革命有一个非凡成果保有至今，但在西方却不被普遍理解，那就是：尽管集体农业和更早的公社结构被打破了，但中国的土地仍然归农村人口集体所有。从这个意义上说，非集体化（decollectivization）并没有演变成完全私有化。农业在很大程度上仍然是由乡村社区组织起来的。近些年来，中国又转向马克思主义政治经济学。中国只有世界7%的可耕地，却能够养活世界20%的人口。在2003年到2013年的10年里，中国的粮食产量增加了50%。2013年至2019年期间，中国旨在改善农村地区资源分配、拥有供应和营销合作社的城镇数量从50%增加到95%。最近，中国消除了主要集中在全国各地农村的极端贫困问题。在城市部门，中国共产党在习近平的领导下一直在呼吁建设更多的生态城市。这些发展反映了对这一领域的辩证法的（充分）认识，这些辩证法长期以来一直是马克思主义理论的一部分。然而，这些矛盾仍然存在，必须付出巨大的努力来克服它们，如目前中国在农村地区正进行许多环境污染防治行动。但这看起来与社会本身的优先项构成了一种共生关系，为取得更大的进步提供了希望。

Guo Jianren: In the “Revolutionary Ecological Socialism and the Future” section of your lecture, you mentioned that without an environmental proletariat, it is impossible to truly realize ecological communism, because ecological civilization, ecological Marxism, ecological revolution, and the economic proletariat alone are insufficient. You elaborated on this in your 2022 book *Capitalism in the Anthropocene: Ecological Ruin or Ecological Revolution*. In this interview, regarding the environmental proletariat, could you provide a more specific explanation for Chinese readers? For example, what are the characteristics of the environmental proletariat? What are the similarities and differences between the environmental proletariat and the economic proletariat? In what sense is the environmental proletariat the most fundamental and primary subject of ecological revolution for realizing ecological communism?

郭剑仁：您在演讲中的“革命性的生态社会主义和未来”这部分提到，若没有环境无产阶级，就无法真正实现生态共产主义，因为仅有生态文明、生态马克思主义和生态革命以及经济无产阶级是不够的。您在2022年出版的《人类世视野中的资本主义：生态毁灭还是生态革命》一书中对此有阐发。在此次访谈中，关于环境无产阶级，您能为中国读者作些更具体的阐述吗？例如环境无产阶级的特征有哪些？环境无产阶级与经济无产阶级的异同是怎样的？在什么意义上说环境无产阶级是实现生态共产主义的最基本的、最主要的生态革命主体？

Foster: The reason for proposing the concept of the environmental proletariat is partly to correct a specific understanding of the concept of the proletariat in historical and existing Marxist theory, and also to provide a way of grasping the various historical conditions taking shape in the 21st century. Economism plagues socialist thought, including Marxist theory, in that it not only reduces the importance of political and cultural conditions but also simplifies material conditions to a few aspects that characterize capitalism, such as the economic, industrial, and technological. In the context of economism, the concept of the proletariat is reduced to the industrial proletariat or industrial working class, and is often limited to the urban population. However, Marx and Engels themselves had a broader concept of the proletariat, not restricted to the role of factory workers. Nor did they understand (the proletariat’s) material conditions in narrow economic terms, but included a much wider range of environmental conditions related to workers.

福斯特：提出环境无产阶级概念的原因部分是对我们在历史上和现有马克思主义理论中对无产阶级概念所作的特定理解的一种纠偏，同时也为把握21世纪正在形成的各种历史性条件提供一种理解方式。经济主义困扰着包括马克思主义理论在内的社会主义思想的地方在于，它不仅降低政治条件和文化条件的重要性，而且把物质条件简化为经济的、工业的和技术的这些表征着资本主义的寥寥几个方面。在经济主义语境中，无产阶级概念被简约为工业无产阶级或工业工人阶级，并且常常只限于城市人口。然而，马克思和恩格斯自己有一个更宽泛的无产阶级概念，而不受限于工厂工人的角色。他们也没有按照狭隘的经济学术语来理解（无产阶级的）物质条件，而是包含了广泛得多的与工人相关的环境条件。

This broader concept of the proletariat is most prominent in Engels’s *The Condition of the Working Class in England*, which examines the proletariat primarily in terms of environmental conditions, focusing on various conditions related to epidemics, including the spread of disease, urban pollution, housing, injuries, mortality rates by class, and so on. Engels wrote *The Condition of the Working Class in England* against the background of the radical Chartist movement and also after what was then known in Britain as the famous “Plug Plot Riots.” [3]3 The “Plug Plot Riots” (also known as the 1842 General Strike or the Plug Riots) were a wave of strikes and protests in industrial northern England, sparked by wage cuts and the rejection of the People’s Charter; workers pulled the plugs from steam boilers to halt factory production. From the perspective of workers’ living environment and epidemics, Engels wrote about the “social murder” of the working class, referring to workers’ considerably low life expectancy and capitalist society’s refusal to improve the various conditions leading to low life expectancy.

更宽泛的无产阶级概念在恩格斯的《英国工人阶级状况》中最为突出，它主要根据环境条件来考察无产阶级，关注与流行病相关的各种条件，包括疾病的传播、城市污染、住房、伤害、各阶级的死亡率等等。恩格斯是在激进的宪章运动背景下，也是在当时被英国称为著名的“塞布尔密谋暴动”（Plug Plot Riots）之后写的《英国工人阶级状况》。恩格斯从工人生存环境和流行病角度，写到了对工人阶级的“社会谋杀”，这指的是工人们相当低的预期寿命，以及资本主义社会拒绝改善导致低预期寿命的各种条件。

For many years, the socialist circle has viewed the working class almost exclusively through the lens of labor action. In contrast, the concept of the environmental proletariat—broader in significance and already present in classical historical materialism—points to a more expansive reality, one in which class consciousness, especially revolutionary class consciousness, grows. The concept of the environmental proletariat also encompasses the issue of the social reproduction of workers within the household. Moreover, from the perspective of the environmental proletariat, we can understand the alliance between the working class and the peasantry worldwide, particularly in the Global South, including proletarianized agricultural laborers and landless workers. Contrary to misrepresentations, Marx and Engels were not anti-peasant; they wrote extensively in support of peasant class struggle. It is especially noteworthy that the great socialist revolutions in Russia, China, and elsewhere all involved a proletarian-peasant alliance. If we wish to view these events from a cultural perspective, as the ecological materialist perspective emphasized here does, we can draw on the cultural materialism proposed by Raymond Williams and others.

社会主义圈子多年来几乎仅从劳工行动角度来看待工人阶级，相较而言，已经存在于经典历史唯物主义中的具有更广泛意义的环境（不仅仅是经济）无产阶级概念却能指明一个更广阔的现实，一个阶级意识特别是革命阶级意识在其中成长的现实。环境无产阶级概念也涉及家庭范围内工人的社会再生产问题。并且，从环境无产阶级视角出发，我们能够理解全世界特别是南半球的包括无产阶级化的农业劳动者和无地工人在内的工人阶级与农民之间的联合。与讹传的相反，马克思和恩格斯并不是反农民的，而是撰写了大量支持农民阶级斗争的文章。尤其需要关注的是，俄罗斯、中国和其他地方的伟大的社会主义革命都包含着无产阶级-农民联合。如果我们想要从文化视角看待这些事件，如此处所强调的生态唯物主义视角那样，就可以借鉴雷蒙德·威廉姆斯（Raymond Williams）等人提出的文化唯物主义观点。

At present, because the global ecological crisis is increasingly becoming the dominant factor controlling material conditions, the environmental proletariat (in the broadest sense, also including ecological peasants) will inevitably emerge, and is in fact already emerging. Today, “the wretched of the earth” are struggling for better material, environmental, and economic conditions—economic conditions are affected by changing environmental conditions, while changes in environmental conditions are an indirect product of global capital accumulation. These changes in conditions are occurring in such a way that they intertwine; in the living conditions of the working class, it is usually impossible to sharply distinguish the economic aspect from the environmental factors within material conditions. If food shortages arise, it becomes increasingly difficult to separate economic causes from environmental causes, and the same applies to the analysis of water shortages. But it is important to recognize that these deteriorating material conditions are caused by the capitalist social order, which prevents attempts to improve these material conditions and advances social murder. The struggle against these material-environmental conditions will inevitably help unify and strengthen the working class as a whole, a phenomenon we can see around the world, especially in Latin America. In some countries there, despite contradictions and complexities, traditional socialist struggles based on the working class are uniting with local indigenous struggles; these steadily advancing alliances are precisely ecosocialist alliances.

当前，由于全球生态危机正日益成为控制物质条件的主导因素，环境无产阶级（在最广泛意义上，也包括生态农民）将会不可避免地出现，而且实际上正在出现。今天，“地球上的苦命人”正在为争取好的物质条件、环境条件和经济条件而斗争（经济条件受到变化着的环境条件的影响，而环境条件的变化则是全球资本积累的间接产物）。这些条件的变迁正以如下方式在发生：它们彼此交织，在工人阶级的生存条件中，人们通常不可能把其中的经济方面与物质条件中的环境因素截然区别开来。如果出现粮食短缺的话，就越来越难以区分经济原因和环境原因，而对水资源短缺的原因分析也是如此。但重要的是要认识到，这些不断恶化的物质条件是由资本主义的社会秩序造成的，这些秩序阻止了改善这些物质条件的尝试，推进了社会谋杀。反对这些物质-环境条件的斗争，将不可避免地有助于统一和从总体上加强工人阶级的力量，我们在世界各地都可以看到这个现象，尤其是在拉丁美洲。在那里的一些国家里，尽管充满矛盾和复杂性，以工人阶级为其基础的传统社会主义斗争与本地人的地方性斗争正在联合起来，这些稳步前行的联合正是生态社会主义的联合。

Guo Jianren: China’s ecological civilization construction is an important component of global ecological governance, and also a significant constructive force in the inevitable transformation of human civilization forms after the Earth has entered the Anthropocene. Could you please share with Chinese readers your views on the relationship between China’s ecological civilization construction and global ecological governance, as well as the relationship between China’s ecological civilization construction and the great transformation of human civilization? Again, sincere thanks!

郭剑仁：中国生态文明建设是全球生态治理的重要组成部分，也是地球进入人类世后不可避免的人类文明形态转型进程中的一股重要建设力量。能否请您与中国读者分享您对中国生态文明建设与全球生态治理的关系的看法，以及中国生态文明建设与人类文明大转型的关系的看法？再次诚挚感谢！

Foster: As I have already pointed out, my lecture focuses on the question that, although the concept of ecological civilization has become a genuine force in China, it barely exists elsewhere in the world, except in a few other socialist countries. Interestingly, the concept of ecological civilization not only first appeared in the Soviet Union in the 1980s—a post-revolutionary society with its own notable contradictions—but, as Russian philosopher and cultural theorist Keti Chukhrov skillfully demonstrates in her book *Practicing the Good*, it also stimulated a specific social consciousness in Soviet society that was far more advanced than similar social consciousness in Western capitalism at the same time. The key point here is that ecological civilization, undoubtedly taking its advanced form in China, requires a socialist movement to achieve genuine progress. However, the converse is also true: efforts to build an ecological civilization will inevitably provide additional impetus for the socialist movement. From the perspective of global ecological governance, China’s role on the stage of ecological civilization construction within socialist development can be seen as the greatest gift to the world. (Notes omitted; this online publication has abridged the text.)

福斯特：正如我已指出的，我的演讲聚焦于这样一个问题：虽然生态文明观念在中国已经成为一股真正的力量，但是在世界上其他地方，除开少数别的社会主义国家，它几乎不存在。有意思的是，生态文明概念不仅首先出现在1980年代的苏联——一个自身有着诸多显著矛盾的后革命社会，而且如俄罗斯哲学家和文化理论家凯迪·楚克罗夫（Kati Chukhrov）在其《行善》（Practicing the Good）一书中娴熟地展示的那样，在苏联社会激发出了特定的社会意识，这些社会意识比同时期西方资本主义的类似社会意识进步得多。这里的重点是，生态文明在此无疑采用的是中国的先进形式，需要一场社会主义运动才能取得真正进展。然而，相反的情况也是属实的——为建设生态文明而付出的努力必然会为社会主义运动提供额外的动力。从全球生态治理角度看，在社会主义发展中，中国在生态文明建设这个舞台上所发挥的作用可以看作是献给世界的最大礼物。（注释略，本网转载时有删节）

Online editor: Zhang Jian

网络编辑：张剑