New Advances in Contemporary Eco-Marxist Research

As one of the most influential social currents of thought today, the emergence of eco-Marxism is both a theoretical self-awareness based on the increasingly severe ecological crisis facing human society and a practical mission rooted in Marxist doctrine. Since the beginning of the 21st century, in light of new changes and problems in the ecological sphere of developed capitalist societies, scholars represented by André Gorz, John Bellamy Foster, Reiner Grundmann, James O’Connor, and Paul Burkett have undertaken new explorations into the causes, forms of expression, critical dimensions, and paths of transcendence of ecological problems. These eco-Marxists generally emphasize the methodological significance of historical materialism for the ecological critique of capitalism, stress Marx’s multiple revelations of the capitalist ecological crisis, and point out that in a certain sense, Marx’s conception of socialism is an ecologically sustainable and good society. These scholars argue that the mission of eco-Marxism lies in critiquing the anti-ecological nature of the capitalist system as its core, and in exposing the essential opposition and conflict between the limitlessness of capital expansion and the finitude of the ecosystem. At the same time, the essence of the ecological crisis is a crisis of the social system; they advocate fundamentally resolving the ecological problems existing in capitalist society through ecological critique, thereby transcending the capitalist social ideology dominated by the consumerist mode of existence.

作为当今最具影响力的社会思潮之一，生态马克思主义的产生既是基于人类社会所面临的日益严峻的生态危机问题的理论自觉，也是基于马克思主义学说的实践使命。进入21世纪以来，基于发达资本主义社会在生态领域呈现出的新变化及面临的新问题，以高兹、福斯特、格仑德曼、奥康纳、柏克特等人为代表的学者就生态问题的生成原因、表现形式、批判维度、超越路径等进行了新探索。这些生态马克思主义者普遍强调历史唯物主义对资本主义生态学批判的方法论意义，强调马克思对资本主义生态危机的多重揭示，指出在某种意义上，马克思对社会主义的设想是一种生态维度上的可持续良善社会。这些学者认为生态马克思主义的使命在于以批判资本主义制度的反生态性为核心，在于揭露资本扩张的无限性与生态系统的有限性的本质对立与冲突。与此同时，生态危机问题的实质是社会制度危机，他们主张通过生态批判从根本上解决资本主义社会存在的生态问题，进而超越以消费主义生存方式为主导的资本主义社会意识形态。

Capital Accumulation: The Direct Cause of the Capitalist Ecological Crisis

资本积累：资本主义生态危机的直接原因

The logical nature of capitalism determines the inevitability of its own limitless expansion, and endless global capital accumulation accelerates the worsening process of the ecological crisis. Eco-Marxism holds that if the capitalist system determines the inner essence of the ecological crisis, then capital accumulation constitutes the direct cause of the capitalist ecological crisis. First, capital accumulation and expansion require raw materials and energy, and raw materials plundered endlessly from nature are used to fuel industry and produce commodities for the market. O’Connor, starting from the relationship between capital and its conditions of production, points out that an important aspect of the theory of production conditions should be their relationship with capitalist production and accumulation. Therefore, on the basis of the fundamental contradiction of capitalism revealed by Marxism, O’Connor summarizes the opposition between the limitlessness of capitalist production and the finitude of production conditions as the second contradiction. This contradiction fundamentally reveals the unsustainable relationship between capital accumulation and production conditions; the limitless expansion of capital operation accelerates the exploitation of means of production, resulting inevitably in high consumption of natural resources and the continuous deterioration of the relationship between humans and nature.

资本主义的逻辑本性决定了其自身无限扩张的必然性，无止境的全球资本积累加速了生态危机的恶化进程。生态马克思主义认为，如果说资本主义制度决定了生态危机的内在本质，那么资本积累则构成资本主义生态危机的直接原因。 首先，资本积累和扩张需要原材料与能源，而从大自然无休止掠夺的原材料则被用来为工业提供燃料，为市场生产商品。奥康纳从资本与其生产条件之间的关系出发，指出生产条件理论中一个重要的方面应该是它们与资本主义生产和积累的关系。因此，奥康纳在马克思主义所揭示的资本主义基本矛盾基础上，将资本主义生产的无限性与生产条件的有限性之间的对立概括为第二重矛盾。这一矛盾从根本上揭示了资本积累和生产条件之间不可持续的关系，资本运行的无限扩张加速了对生产资料的开采力度，结果必然是自然资源的高消费和人与自然关系的持续恶化。

Second, the internal driving force of the logic of capital intensifies the metabolic rift in the natural cycle process within capitalist society. Foster, starting from the relationship of material exchange between humans and nature, reveals that the logic of capitalist accumulation ruthlessly creates a rift in the metabolic process between society and nature, cutting off the basic processes of natural regeneration. This metabolic rift violates the regulatory laws between nature and social production, thereby causing a spiral degradation of the ecosystem. Foster points out that capital accumulation requires the continuous expansion of nature and the division of labor; this desire for endless accumulation is constantly strengthened by competition and the increasing concentration of capital, thereby turning the cycle of the natural system into a fragmented linear process oriented toward private accumulation. Therefore, the essence of capital accumulation, with its continuous logic of expansion, imposes an unbearable burden on the increasingly fragile ecosystem.

其次，资本逻辑的内在动力加剧了资本主义社会在自然循环过程中新陈代谢的断裂。福斯特从人与自然物质变换的关系出发，揭示了资本主义的积累逻辑在社会和自然之间的新陈代谢过程中无情地产生了一种断裂，切断了自然再生的基本过程。这种新陈代谢的断裂违背了自然与社会生产之间的调节法则，从而造成了生态系统的螺旋式退化。福斯特指出，资本积累需要自然与劳动分工的不断扩张，这种无止境积累的欲望由于竞争和资本的日趋集中而不断加强，进而导致自然系统的循环被转变为面向私人积累的破碎线性过程。因此，资本积累的本质以不断的扩张逻辑给日益脆弱的生态系统带来难以承受的负担。

Thus, the social nature of capitalism determines that the essence of the logic of capital lies in maximizing profits through excessive exploitation and control of humans and nature; the ecological crisis is the inevitable result of the logic of capital chasing profits and pursuing the limitless expansion of commodity production. At the same time, the irrational use of science and technology becomes an accelerator of the loss of control over ecological problems and the ecological crisis. By using science and technology irrationally to expand production and reduce labor costs, the scale of production continuously expands within the finite ecosystem, leading to more extensive ecological degradation and pollution, to the point where the exploitation and utilization of nature severely damage the natural cycle and process of ecosystem regeneration.

可见，资本主义的社会性质决定了资本逻辑的本质在于通过对人与自然的过度剥削与控制，实现利润的最大化，生态危机是资本逻辑追逐利润、追求商品生产无限扩张的必然结果。与此同时，科学技术的非理性运用则成为生态问题失控与生态危机的加速器。通过科学技术的非理性运用来扩大生产和降低劳动成本，生产规模在有限的生态系统中不断扩大导致了更为广泛的生态退化和污染，以至于对大自然的开发利用严重破坏了生态系统再生的自然循环和过程。

Metabolic Rift: The Form of Expression of the Capitalist Ecological Crisis

新陈代谢的断裂：资本主义生态危机的表现形式

Contemporary eco-Marxists have conducted in-depth analyses of the forms of expression of the capitalist ecological crisis. In their view, the destructive impact of capitalism on the ecological environment is mainly manifested in three core features of capitalist social relations, represented by abstract value, alienated consumption, and the metabolic rift between society and nature.

当代生态马克思主义者对资本主义生态危机的表现形式进行了深入分析。在他们看来，资本主义对生态环境的破坏性影响，主要表现为以抽象价值、异化消费、社会与自然间新陈代谢断裂为代表的资本主义社会关系的三个核心特征。

First, the capitalist ecological crisis is manifested as the inherent contradiction between use-value and exchange-value. This contradiction is the core of capitalist social relations; it forces capitalism, under the inevitable logic of valorization, to continuously strengthen and expand its plunder and exploitation of nature. Marx believed that true wealth is the incomparable use-value produced by humans through concrete labor; humans transform nature through labor to meet their own needs. However, under the abstract value form of capitalism, the exchange-value system separates use-value from human needs. With the separation of producers from the means of production and the commodification of labor power, production takes the form of replaceable abstract labor, whose purpose is to maximize profit creation, rather than to meet genuine human needs.

首先，资本主义生态危机表现为使用价值和交换价值的内在矛盾，这一矛盾是资本主义社会关系的核心，它迫使资本主义在不可避免的价值化逻辑下不断加强和扩大对自然的掠夺与剥削。马克思认为真正的财富是人类通过具体劳动产生的不可比拟的使用价值，人类通过劳动改造自然来满足自身的需求。然而，在资本主义的抽象价值形式下，交换价值体系将使用价值与人类需求相分离。随着生产者与生产资料的分离以及劳动力的商品化，生产采取了可替代的抽象劳动形式，其目的是创造利润的最大化，而不是满足人类的真正需求。

Second, due to the dominant position of exchange-value, the alienation of use-value means that the capitalist economy revolves around the efficiency of commodity production. Capitalism’s excessive pursuit of profit and commodity production inevitably stimulates, amid the pain of collapse, the unrestrained stimulation of alienated consumption of commodities; alienated consumption in turn stimulates the continuous expansion of the capitalist demand system. In the employment relationship within the capitalist sphere, human overwork itself becomes a condition for expanding commodity production and consumption; labor becomes merely a means to satisfy external needs, a compulsive activity constrained by the law of supply and demand. This compulsion draws humans into the cycle of capital, against their own will, and commodifies them, thereby forcing them into alienated labor, alienated consumption, and false needs. Therefore, the capitalist mode of production inverts and alienates social relations, producing what Marx called the “fetishism of commodities.”

其次，由于交换价值的主导地位，使用价值的异化意味着资本主义经济是围绕着商品生产的效率展开的。资本主义过度追逐利润和商品生产，必然在崩溃的痛苦中无节制地刺激商品的异化消费，异化消费反过来又刺激资本主义的需求体系不断扩张。而在资本化领域的雇佣关系中，人类的过度劳动本身成为扩大商品生产和消费的条件，劳动变成仅仅满足外部需求的手段，变成一种受供求规律约束的强迫性活动。这种强迫性将人类卷入资本的循环，违背其自身的意愿并将其商品化，从而迫使其进入异化的劳动、异化的消费、虚假的需求。因此，资本主义的生产模式颠倒和异化了社会关系，产生了马克思所说的“商品拜物教”。

Finally, the alienated social relations of capitalism become an independent force beyond human control; in the production process, through the control of nature, they achieve control over humans, thereby excluding the full development of human needs. The value form of capitalism has an inherent tendency to degrade and commodify nature; its social relations alienate humans from nature in reality and consciousness, subsequently producing a metabolic rift in the process of natural regeneration.

最后，资本主义异化的社会关系成为超越人类控制的独立力量，在生产过程中通过对自然的控制进而实现对人类的控制，从而排除对人类需求的充分发展。资本主义的价值形式存在一种贬低和商品化自然的内在倾向，它的社会关系使人们在现实和意识中与自然疏远，随后在自然的再生过程中产生新陈代谢的断裂。

The Critical Dimension of Eco-Marxism

生态马克思主义的批判维度

In their theoretical construction, contemporary eco-Marxists focus on combining historical materialism with the ecological critique of capitalism, and critique and reveal the anti-ecological nature of the capitalist system from aspects such as the relationship between humans and nature, the contradiction between the logic of capital expansion and ecological sustainability, and the capitalist mode of production. In their view, the logic of capitalist expansion will, over time, overwhelm any ecological efficiency from green technology or green consumerism, which determines the unsustainability of capitalism in the ecological sphere. Eco-Marxism holds that resolving the ecological crisis requires a thorough transformation of underlying social relations, and that abolishing capitalist value relations is a prerequisite for overcoming the alienation of nature and labor, enabling humans to organize production in a just and sustainable manner. At the same time, the metabolic relationship between capitalist society and nature must, to a certain extent, be consciously and collectively planned, and can no longer be subject to uncontrolled market principles. Therefore, creative labor, the transformation of the capitalist mode of production, collective ownership of the means of production, and a social metabolic order oriented toward use-value constitute the value dimension of the eco-Marxist ecological critique theory.

当代生态马克思主义者在理论建构中，注重将历史唯物主义与资本主义生态批判相结合，并从人与自然的关系、资本的扩张逻辑与生态持续性的矛盾、资本主义的生产方式等方面批判与揭示资本主义制度的反生态性。在他们看来，资本主义的扩张逻辑随着时间的推移将压倒来自绿色技术或绿色消费主义的任何生态效率，这决定了资本主义在生态领域的不可持续性。生态马克思主义认为，解决生态危机需要对潜在的社会关系进行彻底变革，而废除资本主义价值关系是克服自然和劳动异化的先决条件，实现人类能够以公正和可持续的方式组织生产。与此同时，资本主义社会与自然的新陈代谢关系在一定程度上必须有意识地集体计划，而不能再受制于不受控制的市场原则。因此，创造性的劳动、对资本主义生产方式的变革、生产资料的集体所有和以使用价值为导向的社会代谢秩序是生态马克思主义生态批判理论的价值维度。

Ecological Marxists point out that the capitalist society, driven by sustained economic growth and competitive accumulation as its internal impetus, is inherently in a relationship of conflict and opposition with nature and ecology. On this basis, the goal of ecological Marxists represented by André Gorz and others is to achieve the marginalization of capital through a critique of capital, thereby subordinating it to human autonomy and ecological needs. In Gorz’s view, the capitalist system is the real root cause of the current ecological crisis; in particular, the extreme anthropocentric tendency exhibited by the capitalist system and the nature of its capital logic’s unlimited expansion inherently destroy the relationship between humans and nature. Resolving the ecological crisis requires reshaping the world so that it creates conditions for life’s autonomy and self-realization. This entails not only an ecological modernization of industrial society but also the realization of eco-socialism, anti-technocracy, and anti-authoritarian modernization. By marginalizing the production logic of valorization and commodification, Gorz achieves an ecological “paradigm shift,” thereby extracting and liberating use value from capitalist exchange value. Thus, within the paradigm of production for use value, human material needs themselves will be transformed, reflecting genuine, autonomous rather than false, alienated human needs. From Gorz’s exposition, one can clearly sense that his theory, besides being influenced by Marx, is also deeply influenced by Sartre’s theory of freedom and scarcity and the Frankfurt School’s social critical theory.

生态马克思主义者指出，基于资本主义社会以持续性经济增长与竞争性积累为内在动力，决定了这种社会模式就本质而言与自然、生态间的冲突对立关系。基于此，以高兹等人为代表的生态马克思主义者的目标是通过资本批判达到使资本边缘化的目标，进而使其服从人类的自主性和生态的需要。在高兹看来，资本主义制度是引发当前生态危机的现实根源，尤其是资本主义制度所呈现的极端人类中心主义倾向及其资本逻辑的无限扩张本质，内在地破坏了人与自然的关系。破解生态危机需要重塑世界，使它为生活的自在自为创造条件不仅意味着对工业社会进行生态现代化改造，还意味着实现生态—社会主义、反技术官僚和反专制现代化。高兹通过将价值化和商品化的生产逻辑边缘化，实现生态学的“范式转变”，进而将使用价值从资本主义的交换价值中抽离、解放出来。因此，在为使用价值而生产的范式中，人类的物质需求本身将被改变，进而反映出真正的、自主的而非虚假的、异化的人类需求。从高兹的这种论述中，能明显感觉到其理论除受马克思影响外，还深受萨特自由观与匮乏理论和法兰克福学派社会批判理论影响。

Differing from the views of Gorz and others, another important representative of contemporary ecological Marxism, the American scholar Joel Kovel, argues that the ecological crisis is not merely an economic problem but a problem of the social system caused by the social relations that generate a pathological economy. Kovel points out that capital is a mode of organizing production that violates ecological holism because it uses exchange value as a tool of exploitation. Therefore, he advocates for the integrity of the ecosystem, arguing that transcending the capitalist system and restoring producers’ control over the means of production constitute the foundation for a complete human ecosystem. Kovel advocates using this theory of ecosystem integrity to guide human practice, believing that healing nature and restoring its integrity depend on human values, human moral systems, and the social relations in which humans are situated.

与高兹等人的观点不同，当代生态马克思主义的另一重要代表美国学者科威尔认为生态危机不是一个单纯的经济问题，而是由产生病态经济的社会关系所导致的社会制度问题。科威尔指出，资本是一种生产组织方式，它违反了生态主义的整体性，因为它把交换价值作为剥削的一种工具。因而他主张生态系统的完整性，认为超越资本主义制度和恢复生产者对生产资料的控制，是构成完整的人类生态系统的基础。科威尔主张用这种生态系统的完整性理论来指导人类实践，认为治愈自然并恢复自然的完整性取决于人类的价值观、人类的道德体系以及人类所处的社会关系。

Historical Materialism: A New Construction of Ecological Marxism

历史唯物主义：生态马克思主义的新建构

As a scientific historical outlook and methodology, historical materialism is typically described as a social-historical theory that explores the general laws of human social development. In the view of ecological Marxists such as John Bellamy Foster, David Pepper, and Reiner Grundmann, previous scholarship has focused more on the political-economic and sociological dimensions of historical materialism’s critique of capitalism, neglecting its ecological dimension.

作为一种科学的历史观和方法论，历史唯物主义通常被描述为一种探索人类社会发展一般规律的社会历史理论。在福斯特、佩珀、格仑德曼等生态学马克思主义者看来，以往人们更多关注到了历史唯物主义对资本主义批判的政治经济学、社会学等维度，忽视了生态学维度。

Through textual analysis of Marx’s works, ecological Marxists point out that historical materialism possesses a clear ecological-critical dimension; Marx consistently defined his materialism as a materialism belonging to a “natural-historical process” (in Foster’s words). Through the ecological-critical dimension, it is possible to better analyze, from a unique perspective, the deep roots of capitalist production and accumulation and the underlying causes of the ecological crisis. Moreover, in their view, historical materialism and the concept of metabolism it contains are instructive for studying the dialectical relationship between humans and nature and the emergence of ecological rifts within the ecosystem.

生态马克思主义者通过对马克思著作的文本分析，指出历史唯物主义具有明显的生态批判维度，马克思一直把他的唯物主义定义为属于“自然历史过程”（福斯特语）中的一种唯物主义。通过生态批判维度，能够以独特的视角更好地分析资本主义生产与积累的深层根源和生态危机的深层原因。而且在他们看来，历史唯物主义及其内含的新陈代谢思想，对于研究人与自然之间的辩证关系以及生态系统内生态裂痕的产生具有启示性。

It is precisely by taking the ecological materialist thought inherent in Marx’s theory as their starting point that James O’Connor, Grundmann, and others reveal the unsustainability of the capitalist system’s essence regarding ecological issues. While pointing out that the metabolic rift necessarily leads to the alienation of both humans and nature, they also provide a deeper explanation that every sphere of capitalist society constitutes a means for further capital accumulation. At the same time, Kohei Saito’s theory of ecological reconstruction systematically reconstructs Marx’s ecological critique of capitalism. Saito argues that Marx’s ecological thought possesses a certain internal systematicity, and this thought has a clear continuity with Marx’s critique of political economy. Marx’s ecology not only constitutes an intrinsic element of Marx’s labor theory of value and socialist vision of liberation but also provides an effective methodological basis for studying the ecological contradictions within the historical system of production and reproduction in contemporary capitalist society.

奥康纳、格仑德曼等人正是以马克思学说中蕴含的生态唯物主义思想为立足点，揭示了基于资本主义制度本质在生态问题上的不可持续性，在指出新陈代谢的断裂必然导致人与自然二者异化的同时，更为深刻地阐释了资本主义社会的每一个领域都构成了资本进一步积累的手段。与此同时，斋藤幸平的生态化重构理论系统地重建了马克思对资本主义的生态批判。斋藤幸平认为马克思的生态学思想具有一定的内在系统性，这一思想与马克思的政治经济学批判有着明显的连续性。马克思生态学不仅构成了马克思劳动价值论和社会主义解放愿景的内在要素，还为我们研究当前资本主义社会生产和再生产历史体系中的生态矛盾，提供了一种有效的方法论基础。

In summary, since the 1960s, with the intensification of capitalist globalization and the resulting series of ecological problems, ecological Marxist research has become increasingly prominent, gradually emerging as an important field of expansion in Marxist studies. Ecological Marxism’s new interpretation of Marx’s historical materialism is based on the epochal demands of Marxist theory and the new changes in capitalist society, thereby more deeply revealing and critiquing the competitive accumulation and endless expansionary trends driven by capitalist value, as well as the destruction these trends cause to nature and the ecological environment and the alienation of the harmonious relationship between humans and nature. This determines that ecological Marxism is both a value-oriented guide for social development and a social critical theory that reflects on the inherent contradictions of capitalism’s specific mode of production.

总之，自20世纪60年代以来，随着资本主义全球化进程加剧及由此导致的一系列生态问题，生态马克思主义研究不断凸显，逐步成为马克思主义研究拓展的重要领域。生态马克思主义对马克思历史唯物主义的新阐释，是基于马克思主义理论的时代性需求与资本主义社会的新变化，进而更深入地揭示与批判资本主义价值驱动的竞争性积累和无止境的扩张趋势，揭示这种趋势对自然与生态环境的破坏、对人与自然和谐关系的异化。这也就决定了生态马克思主义既是一种社会发展的价值引领取向，也是一种反思资本主义特定生产方式内在矛盾的社会批判理论。

Ecological Marxism’s emphasis on Marx’s contradictions between use value and exchange value, and between wealth and accumulation, as well as its concern for the sustainable development of human society, determines that its theory possesses fundamental, critical, historical, and practical dimensions. In their view, ecological problems are not only issues of advanced capitalist societies but also common problems facing human society today. Faced with the increasingly severe ecological crisis, ecological Marxism’s analysis of the causes, manifestations, and especially the paths of transcendence of the capitalist ecological crisis holds very important theoretical value and practical significance. The capitalist ecological crisis is not merely a problem in the ecological sphere but an inevitable result based on the essence of the capitalist system. It is precisely based on the fact of the intensifying and spilling-over of the capitalist ecological crisis that the renowned Russian scholar V. N. Shevchenko sharply pointed out that the intensification and catastrophic nature of ecological problems in recent years is an inevitable result of the essence of capitalism, and that the capitalist development model and its type of civilization are “a dead end, a path leading to destruction.” This means that overcoming the capitalist ecological crisis can only be ultimately resolved through a thorough critique and transcendence of capital and capitalist society.

生态马克思主义对马克思关于使用价值与交换价值、财富与积累间矛盾的强调，对人类社会可持续发展的关注，决定了其理论具有的根本性、批判性、历史性、现实性维度。在他们看来，生态问题不仅是发达资本主义社会，而且是当今人类社会面临的共性问题。面对日益严重的生态危机，生态马克思主义对资本主义生态危机成因、表现尤其是超越路径等的分析，具有十分重要的理论价值与现实意义。资本主义生态危机不仅是生态领域的问题，而且是基于资本主义制度本质的必然结果。也正是基于资本主义生态危机不断加剧与外溢这一事实，俄罗斯著名学者舍甫琴科曾尖锐地指出近年来生态问题的加剧化、灾难化是资本主义本质导致的必然结果，资本主义的发展模式及其文明类型“是一条死胡同、一条招致灭亡的道路”。这也就意味着，对资本主义生态危机的克服，只能通过对资本、对资本主义社会的彻底批判与超越，才能最终予以解决。

Online Editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗