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9 - The Ecosocialist Alternative

from Part II - The Economy and Environmental Sociology

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2020

Katharine Legun
Affiliation:
Wageningen University and Research, The Netherlands
Julie C. Keller
Affiliation:
University of Rhode Island
Michael Carolan
Affiliation:
Colorado State University
Michael M. Bell
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin, Madison
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Summary

The capitalist system cannot exist without unlimited “development,” “growth,” “expansion,”and it is leading,in the next few decades,to an ecological catastrophe without precedent in human history. A radical alternative must therefore be an anticapitalist one.Ecosocialism is one such antisystemic alternative.It is a current of ecological thought and action that appropriates the fundamental gains proposed in Marxism, while shaking off any productivist dross. Ecosocialists see both the logic of markets and the logic of bureaucratic authoritarianism,as it existed in the former USSR,as incompatible with the need to safeguard the environment in general and the climate in particular. Ecosocialism is an attempt to provide a radical civilizational alternative,based on the basic arguments of the ecological movement,and of the Marxist critique of political economy.

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Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

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References

Angus, Ian. (2016). Facing the Anthropocene, New York, Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Foster, John Bellamy. (2005). “Organizing Ecological Revolution,” Monthly Review, 57.5, 110.Google Scholar
Foster, John Bellamy (2007). “The Ecology of Destruction,” Monthly Review, 58. 9, 19.Google Scholar
Foster, John Bellamy (2009). The Ecological Revolution, New York, Monthly Review Press.Google Scholar
Kovel, Joel. (2007). The Enemy of Nature, New York, Zed Books.Google Scholar
Mandel, Ernest. (1992). Power and Money. A Marxist Theory of Bureaucracy, London, Verso.Google Scholar

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