Ecological reconstruction of Marxism

‘In almost every period since the Renaissance’, writes Murray Bookchin, ‘the development of revolutionary thought has been heavily influenced by a branch of science, often in conjunction with a school of philosophy’. Can the development of the revolutionary thought of Christianity be advanced by a combination of ecological science and Marxist philosophy of praxis? That is the question for this chapter. In what ways might the task of a political theology of nature be advanced through dynamic yet critical articulation with socialist ecology?

Of vital importance to a political theology of nature is how to think about natural limits, and their relation to scarcity. The notion of natural limits suggests that nature is mean and indifferent, to pick up one of Bookchin's refrains, and offers an explanation of the scarcity of social goods by reference to nature, thereby stabilising present society. However, a straightforward denial of natural scarcity is unpersuasive, not least as such a denial invites an expansionism without limits. Much ecotheology and political theory seems uncertain on this issue of limits. Socialist ecology is highly pertinent to this study, as we shall see, in that it offers a way of exploring the relationships between scarcity, social limits and the finiteness of nature. Further, socialist ecology has paid some attention to the ecological aspects of place which will inform a discussion of eucharistic place at the conclusion of this book (see chapter 9). For these two reasons, then, socialist ecology is relevant to this study.