Metabolic rift
Encyclopedia
Metabolic rift is a term developed by John Bellamy Foster
and other theorists to refer to Karl Marx’s
understanding of ecological disruption under capitalism
. While Marx never employed the term itself in his writings, he did write of an "irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism" created by the rise of capitalism, and developed a systematic critique of capitalist "exploitation" of the soil (in the sense of robbery, i.e., failing to maintain the means of reproduction). This rift, between human social systems and non-human natural systems, in particular the socio-ecological contradiction of the town-country division of labor, was seen as the origin of modern ecological degradation
.
The concept of a metabolic rift, according to Foster, is the development of Marx’s earlier work in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
on species-being and the relationship between humans and nature. Metabolism is Marx’s "mature analysis of the alienation of nature," and presents "a more solid—and scientific—way in which to depict the complex, dynamic interchange between human beings and nature, resulting from human labor."
As opposed to those who have attributed to Marx a disregard for nature and responsibility for the environmental problems of the Soviet Union
and other purportedly communist
states, Foster sees in the theory of metabolic rift evidence of Marx’s ecological
perspective. The theory of metabolic rift "enable[ed] [Marx] to develop a critique of environmental degradation that anticipated much of present-day ecological thought," including questions of sustainability
.
and the growth of the use of chemical fertilizer
.
The depletion of soil fertility, or "soil exhaustion," had become a key concern for capitalist society, and demand for fertilizer was such that Britain and other powers initiated explicit policies for the importation of bone
and guano
, including raiding of Napoleonic battlefields and catacombs, British monopolization of Peruvian guano supplies, and, in the United States, "the imperial annexation of any islands thought to be rich in [guano]" through the Guano Islands Act
(1856).
and Malthus
. For them, different levels of soil fertility (and thus rent
) was attributed "almost entirely to the natural or absolute productivity of the soil," with improvement (or degradation) playing only a minor role.
German agricultural chemist Justus von Liebig, in his Organic Chemistry in Its Applications to Agriculture and Physiology (1840), presented the first convincing explanation of the role of soil nutrients in the growth of plants. In 1842, Liebig expanded the use of the term metabolism
(Stoffwechsel), from referring to material exchanges in the body, up to the biochemical processes of natural systems.
Foster argues that Liebig’s work became more critical of capitalist agriculture as time went on. From the standpoint of nutrient cycling, the socio-economic relationship between rural and urban areas was self-evidently contradictory, hindering the possibility of sustainability:
In Capital
, Marx integrated his materialist conception of nature with his materialist conception of history
. Fertility, Marx argued, was not a natural quality of the soil, but was rather bound up with the social relations of the time. By conceptualizing the complex, interdependent processes of material exchange and regulatory actions that link human society with non-human nature as "metabolic relations," Marx allowed these processes to be both "nature-imposed conditions" and subject to human agency
, a dynamic largely missed, according to Foster, by the reduction of ecological questions to issues of value
.
defined, and had relatively light "footprints
," recycling city nightsoils back into the surrounding areas.
However, with the rise of capitalism, cities expanded in size and population. Large-scale industry required factories, raw material, workers, and large amounts of food. As urban economic security was dependent upon its metabolic support system, cities now looked further afield for their resource and waste flows. As spatial barriers were broken down, capitalist society "violated" what were previously "nature-imposed conditions of sustainability."
With trade and expansion, food and fiber were shipped longer distances. The nutrients of the soil were sent to cities in the form of agricultural produce, but these same nutrients, in the form of human and animal waste, were not returned to the land. Thus there was a one-way movement, a "robbing of the soil" in order to maintain the socio-economic reproduction of society.
Marx thus linked the crisis of pollution in cities with the crisis of soil depletion. The rift was a result of the antagonistic separation of town and country, and the social-ecological relations of production created by capitalism were ultimately unsustainable. From Capital, volume 1, on "Large-scale Industry and Agriculture":
in The Agrarian Question (1899), which developed questions of the exploitation of the countryside by the town and the “fertilizer treadmill” that resulted from metabolic rift.
Contemporary eco-socialist
theorists aside from Foster have also explored these directions, including James O’Connor
, who sees capitalist undervaluing of nature as leading to economic crisis, what he refers to as
the second contradiction of capitalism.
of human beings within capitalist society from the natural conditions which formed the basis for their existence." However, Marx also emphasizes the importance of historical change. It was both necessary and possible to rationally govern human metabolism with nature, but this was something "completely beyond the capabilities of bourgeois
society." In a future society of freely associated producers, however, humans could govern their relations with nature via collective control, rather than through the blind power of market relations. In Capital, volume 3
, Marx states:
But Marx did not argue that a sustainable relation to the earth was an automatic result of the transition to socialism
. Rather, there was a need for planning and measures to address the division of labor and population between town and country and for the restoration and improvement of the soil.
.
There is a rapidly growing body of literature on social-ecological metabolism. While originally limited to questions of soil fertility—essentially a critique of capitalist agriculture—the concept of metabolic rift has since been taken up in numerous fields and its scope expanded. For example, Clausen and Clark (2005) have extended the use of metabolic rift to marine ecology, while Moore (2000) uses the concept to discuss the broader concerns of global environmental crises and the viability of capitalism itself. Fischer-Kowalski (1998) discusses the application of "the biological concept of metabolism to social systems," tracing it through several contributing scientific traditions, including biology
, ecology, social theory
, cultural anthropology
, and social geography
. A social metabolism approach has become "one of the most important paradigms for the empirical analysis of the society-nature-interaction across various disciplines," particularly in the fields of industrial metabolism
and material flow analysis
.
points out that much of the environmental movement
has held (and in some areas continues to hold) a profound anti-urban sentiment, seeing cities as "the highpoint of plundering and pollution of all that is good and holy on planet earth." The problem is that such a perspective focuses solely on a particular form of nature, ignoring many people’s lived experience of the environment and the importance of cities in ecological processes and as ecological sites in their own right.
In contrast, Erik Swyngedouw
and other theorists have conceptualized the city as an ecological space through urban political ecology
, which connects material flows within cities and between the urban and non-urban.
, ecology and technology in order to "internalize" energy, water, food, waste and other material flows. Unlike previous efforts to integrate nature into the city, which, according to Harvey, were primarily aesthetic and bourgeois in nature, these new efforts are taking place in the context of climate change, resource constraints and the threat of environmental crises.
In contrast to the traditional approach of capitalist urbanization, which sought more and more distant sources for material resources and waste sinks (as seen in the history of Los Angeles water
), eco-urban sites would re-internalize their own resources and re-circulate wastes. The goal is autarky
and greater ecological and infrastructural self-reliance through "closed-loop systems
" that reduce reliance on external networks.
However, critics link these efforts to "managerial environmentalism," and worry that eco-urbanism too closely falls into an "urban ecological security" approach, echoing Mike Davis
’ analysis of securitization
and fortress urbanism. A Marxist critique might also question the feasibility of sustainable cities within the context of a global capitalist system.
John Bellamy Foster
John Bellamy Foster is a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and also editor of Monthly Review, an independent socialist magazine. His writings have focused on political economy, environmental sociology, and Marxist theory...
and other theorists to refer to Karl Marx’s
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
understanding of ecological disruption under capitalism
Capitalism
Capitalism is an economic system that became dominant in the Western world following the demise of feudalism. There is no consensus on the precise definition nor on how the term should be used as a historical category...
. While Marx never employed the term itself in his writings, he did write of an "irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism" created by the rise of capitalism, and developed a systematic critique of capitalist "exploitation" of the soil (in the sense of robbery, i.e., failing to maintain the means of reproduction). This rift, between human social systems and non-human natural systems, in particular the socio-ecological contradiction of the town-country division of labor, was seen as the origin of modern ecological degradation
Environmental degradation
Environmental degradation is the deterioration of the environment through depletion of resources such as air, water and soil; the destruction of ecosystems and the extinction of wildlife...
.
The concept of a metabolic rift, according to Foster, is the development of Marx’s earlier work in the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844
Economic & Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 are a series of notes written between April and August 1844 by Karl Marx. Not published by Marx during his lifetime, they were first released in 1927 by researchers in the Soviet Union.The notebooks are an early expression of Marx's analysis of...
on species-being and the relationship between humans and nature. Metabolism is Marx’s "mature analysis of the alienation of nature," and presents "a more solid—and scientific—way in which to depict the complex, dynamic interchange between human beings and nature, resulting from human labor."
As opposed to those who have attributed to Marx a disregard for nature and responsibility for the environmental problems of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
and other purportedly communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
states, Foster sees in the theory of metabolic rift evidence of Marx’s ecological
Ecology
Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...
perspective. The theory of metabolic rift "enable[ed] [Marx] to develop a critique of environmental degradation that anticipated much of present-day ecological thought," including questions of sustainability
Sustainability
Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
.
Soil exhaustion and the second agricultural revolution
The concept of metabolic rift was developed in the context of the second agricultural revolution (1830–1880), a period which was characterized by the development of soil chemistrySoil chemistry
Soil chemistry is the study of the chemical characteristics of soil. Soil chemistry is affected by mineral composition, organic matter and environmental factors.-History:...
and the growth of the use of chemical fertilizer
Fertilizer
Fertilizer is any organic or inorganic material of natural or synthetic origin that is added to a soil to supply one or more plant nutrients essential to the growth of plants. A recent assessment found that about 40 to 60% of crop yields are attributable to commercial fertilizer use...
.
The depletion of soil fertility, or "soil exhaustion," had become a key concern for capitalist society, and demand for fertilizer was such that Britain and other powers initiated explicit policies for the importation of bone
Bone meal
Bone meal is a mixture of crushed and coarsely ground bones that is used as an organic fertilizer for plants and formerly in animal feed. As a slow-release fertilizer, bone meal is primarily used as a source of phosphorus....
and guano
Guano
Guano is the excrement of seabirds, cave dwelling bats, and seals. Guano manure is an effective fertilizer due to its high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen and also its lack of odor. It was an important source of nitrates for gunpowder...
, including raiding of Napoleonic battlefields and catacombs, British monopolization of Peruvian guano supplies, and, in the United States, "the imperial annexation of any islands thought to be rich in [guano]" through the Guano Islands Act
Guano Islands Act
The Guano Islands Act is federal legislation passed by the U.S. Congress, on August 18, 1856. It enables citizens of the U.S. to take possession of islands containing guano deposits. The islands can be located anywhere, so long as they are not occupied and not within the jurisdiction of other...
(1856).
Liebig and soil science
Marx’s theory drew heavily on contemporary advances in agricultural chemistry unknown to earlier classical economists like RicardoDavid Ricardo
David Ricardo was an English political economist, often credited with systematising economics, and was one of the most influential of the classical economists, along with Thomas Malthus, Adam Smith, and John Stuart Mill. He was also a member of Parliament, businessman, financier and speculator,...
and Malthus
Thomas Malthus
The Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus FRS was an English scholar, influential in political economy and demography. Malthus popularized the economic theory of rent....
. For them, different levels of soil fertility (and thus rent
Economic rent
Economic rent is typically defined by economists as payment for goods and services beyond the amount needed to bring the required factors of production into a production process and sustain supply. A recipient of economic rent is a rentier....
) was attributed "almost entirely to the natural or absolute productivity of the soil," with improvement (or degradation) playing only a minor role.
German agricultural chemist Justus von Liebig, in his Organic Chemistry in Its Applications to Agriculture and Physiology (1840), presented the first convincing explanation of the role of soil nutrients in the growth of plants. In 1842, Liebig expanded the use of the term metabolism
Metabolism
Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that happen in the cells of living organisms to sustain life. These processes allow organisms to grow and reproduce, maintain their structures, and respond to their environments. Metabolism is usually divided into two categories...
(Stoffwechsel), from referring to material exchanges in the body, up to the biochemical processes of natural systems.
Foster argues that Liebig’s work became more critical of capitalist agriculture as time went on. From the standpoint of nutrient cycling, the socio-economic relationship between rural and urban areas was self-evidently contradictory, hindering the possibility of sustainability:
If it were practicable to collect, with the least loss, all the solid and fluid excrements of the inhabitants of the town, and return to each farmer the portion arising from produce originally supplied by him to the town, the productiveness of the land might be maintained almost unimpaired for ages to come, and the existing store of mineral elements in every fertile field would be amply sufficient for the wants of increasing populations.
Human labor and nature
Marx rooted his theory of social-ecological metabolism in Liebig’s analysis but connected it to his understanding of the labor process. Marx understood that, throughout history, it was through labor that humans appropriated nature to satisfy their needs. Thus the metabolism, or interaction, of society with nature is "a universal and perpetual condition."In Capital
Das Kapital
Das Kapital, Kritik der politischen Ökonomie , by Karl Marx, is a critical analysis of capitalism as political economy, meant to reveal the economic laws of the capitalist mode of production, and how it was the precursor of the socialist mode of production.- Themes :In Capital: Critique of...
, Marx integrated his materialist conception of nature with his materialist conception of history
Historical materialism
Historical materialism is a methodological approach to the study of society, economics, and history, first articulated by Karl Marx as "the materialist conception of history". Historical materialism looks for the causes of developments and changes in human society in the means by which humans...
. Fertility, Marx argued, was not a natural quality of the soil, but was rather bound up with the social relations of the time. By conceptualizing the complex, interdependent processes of material exchange and regulatory actions that link human society with non-human nature as "metabolic relations," Marx allowed these processes to be both "nature-imposed conditions" and subject to human agency
Agency (sociology)
In the social sciences, agency refers to the capacity of individuals to act independently and to make their own free choices. By contrast, "Structure" refers to the factors of influence that determine or limit an agent and his or her decisions...
, a dynamic largely missed, according to Foster, by the reduction of ecological questions to issues of value
Ecocentrism
Ecocentrism is a term used in ecological political philosophy to denote a nature-centered, as opposed to human-centred, system of values. The justification for ecocentrism usually consists in an ontological belief and subsequent ethical claim...
.
Town and country
Up until the sixteenth or seventeenth centuries, cities’ metabolic dependency upon surrounding countryside (for resources, etc.), coupled with the technological limitations to production and extraction, prevented extensive urbanization. Early urban centers were bioregionallyEcoregion
An ecoregion , sometimes called a bioregion, is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than an ecozone and larger than an ecosystem. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of land or water, and contain characteristic, geographically distinct assemblages of natural...
defined, and had relatively light "footprints
Ecological footprint
The ecological footprint is a measure of human demand on the Earth's ecosystems. It is a standardized measure of demand for natural capital that may be contrasted with the planet's ecological capacity to regenerate. It represents the amount of biologically productive land and sea area necessary to...
," recycling city nightsoils back into the surrounding areas.
However, with the rise of capitalism, cities expanded in size and population. Large-scale industry required factories, raw material, workers, and large amounts of food. As urban economic security was dependent upon its metabolic support system, cities now looked further afield for their resource and waste flows. As spatial barriers were broken down, capitalist society "violated" what were previously "nature-imposed conditions of sustainability."
With trade and expansion, food and fiber were shipped longer distances. The nutrients of the soil were sent to cities in the form of agricultural produce, but these same nutrients, in the form of human and animal waste, were not returned to the land. Thus there was a one-way movement, a "robbing of the soil" in order to maintain the socio-economic reproduction of society.
Marx thus linked the crisis of pollution in cities with the crisis of soil depletion. The rift was a result of the antagonistic separation of town and country, and the social-ecological relations of production created by capitalism were ultimately unsustainable. From Capital, volume 1, on "Large-scale Industry and Agriculture":
Capitalist production collects the population together in great centres, and causes the urban population to achieve an ever-growing preponderance. This has two results. On the one hand it concentrates the historical motive force of society; on the other hand, it disturbs the metabolic interaction between man and the earth, i.e. it prevents the return to the soil of its constituent elements consumed by man in the form of food and clothing; hence it hinders the operation of the eternal natural condition for the lasting fertility of the soil...But by destroying the circumstances surrounding that metabolism...it compels its systematic restoration as a regulative law of social production, and in a form adequate to the full development of the human race...All progress in capitalist agriculture is a progress in the art, not only of robbing the worker, but of robbing the soil; all progress in increasing the fertility of the soil for a given time is a progress toward ruining the more long-lasting sources of that fertility...Capitalist production, therefore, only develops the techniques and the degree of combination of the social process of production by simultaneously undermining the original sources of all wealth—the soil and the worker.
Writers since Marx
The central contribution of the metabolic rift perspective is to locate socio-ecological contradictions internal to the development of capitalism. Later socialists expanded upon Marx’s ideas, including Nikolai Bukharin in Historical Materialism (1921) and Karl KautskyKarl Kautsky
Karl Johann Kautsky was a Czech-German philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theoretician. Kautsky was recognized as among the most authoritative promulgators of Orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 until the coming of World War I in 1914 and was called by some the "Pope of...
in The Agrarian Question (1899), which developed questions of the exploitation of the countryside by the town and the “fertilizer treadmill” that resulted from metabolic rift.
Contemporary eco-socialist
Eco-socialism
Eco-socialism, green socialism or socialist ecology is an ideology merging aspects of Marxism, socialism, green politics, ecology and alter-globalization...
theorists aside from Foster have also explored these directions, including James O’Connor
James O'Connor (academic)
James O'Connor is an American sociologist and economist.He is currently an Emeritus Professor of Sociology and Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz.-Bibliography:* Origins of Socialism in Cuba, 1970...
, who sees capitalist undervaluing of nature as leading to economic crisis, what he refers to as
the second contradiction of capitalism.
The future socialist society
The concept of metabolic rift captures "the material estrangementMarx's theory of alienation
Marx's theory of alienation , as expressed in the writings of the young Karl Marx , refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to put antagonism between things that are properly in harmony...
of human beings within capitalist society from the natural conditions which formed the basis for their existence." However, Marx also emphasizes the importance of historical change. It was both necessary and possible to rationally govern human metabolism with nature, but this was something "completely beyond the capabilities of bourgeois
Bourgeoisie
In sociology and political science, bourgeoisie describes a range of groups across history. In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the...
society." In a future society of freely associated producers, however, humans could govern their relations with nature via collective control, rather than through the blind power of market relations. In Capital, volume 3
Capital, Volume III
Capital, Volume III, subtitled The Process of Capitalist Production as a Whole, was prepared by Friedrich Engels from notes left by Karl Marx and published in 1894...
, Marx states:
Freedom, in this sphere...can consist only in this, that socialized man, the associated producers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their own collective control rather than being dominated by it as a blind power; accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and appropriate for their human nature.
But Marx did not argue that a sustainable relation to the earth was an automatic result of the transition to socialism
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
. Rather, there was a need for planning and measures to address the division of labor and population between town and country and for the restoration and improvement of the soil.
Metabolism and environmental governance
Despite Marx’s assertion that a concept of ecological sustainability was “of very limited practical relevance to capitalist society,” as it was incapable of applying rational scientific methods and social planning due to the pressures of competition, the theory of metabolic rift may be seen as relevant to, if not explicitly invoked in, many contemporary debates and policy directions of environmental governanceEnvironmental governance
Environmental governance is a concept in political ecology or environmental policy related to defining the elements needed to achieve sustainability. All human activities -- political, social and economic — should be understood and managed as subsets of the environment and ecosystems...
.
There is a rapidly growing body of literature on social-ecological metabolism. While originally limited to questions of soil fertility—essentially a critique of capitalist agriculture—the concept of metabolic rift has since been taken up in numerous fields and its scope expanded. For example, Clausen and Clark (2005) have extended the use of metabolic rift to marine ecology, while Moore (2000) uses the concept to discuss the broader concerns of global environmental crises and the viability of capitalism itself. Fischer-Kowalski (1998) discusses the application of "the biological concept of metabolism to social systems," tracing it through several contributing scientific traditions, including biology
Biology
Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
, ecology, social theory
Social theory
Social theories are theoretical frameworks which are used to study and interpret social phenomena within a particular school of thought. An essential tool used by social scientists, theories relate to historical debates over the most valid and reliable methodologies , as well as the primacy of...
, cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology
Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans, collecting data about the impact of global economic and political processes on local cultural realities. Anthropologists use a variety of methods, including participant observation,...
, and social geography
Social geography
Social geography is the branch of human geography that is most closely related to social theory in general and sociology in particular, dealing with the relation of social phenomena and its spatial components. Though the term itself has a tradition of more than 100 years, there is no consensus on...
. A social metabolism approach has become "one of the most important paradigms for the empirical analysis of the society-nature-interaction across various disciplines," particularly in the fields of industrial metabolism
Industrial metabolism
Industrial metabolism was first proposed by Robert Ayres as "the whole integrated collection of physical processes that convert raw materials and energy, plus labour, into finished products and wastes..." The goal is to study the flow of materials through society in order to better understand the...
and material flow analysis
Material flow analysis
Material flow analysis is an analytical method of quantifying flows and stocks of materials or substances in a well-defined system. MFA is an important tool to assess the physical consequences of human activities and needs in the field of Industrial Ecology, where it is used on different spatial...
.
Urban political ecology
David HarveyDavid Harvey (geographer)
David Harvey is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York . A leading social theorist of international standing, he received his PhD in Geography from University of Cambridge in 1961. Widely influential, he is among the top 20 most cited...
points out that much of the environmental movement
Environmentalism
Environmentalism is a broad philosophy, ideology and social movement regarding concerns for environmental conservation and improvement of the health of the environment, particularly as the measure for this health seeks to incorporate the concerns of non-human elements...
has held (and in some areas continues to hold) a profound anti-urban sentiment, seeing cities as "the highpoint of plundering and pollution of all that is good and holy on planet earth." The problem is that such a perspective focuses solely on a particular form of nature, ignoring many people’s lived experience of the environment and the importance of cities in ecological processes and as ecological sites in their own right.
In contrast, Erik Swyngedouw
Erik Swyngedouw
Erik Swyngedouw is Professor of Geography at the University of Manchester in its . Swyngedouw is committed to political economic analysis of contemporary capitalism, producing several major works on economic globalisation, regional development, finance, and urbanisation...
and other theorists have conceptualized the city as an ecological space through urban political ecology
Political ecology
Political ecology is the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes. Political ecology differs from apolitical ecological studies by politicizing environmental issues and phenomena....
, which connects material flows within cities and between the urban and non-urban.
Sustainable cities
In city planning policy circles, there has been a recent movement toward urban sustainability. Hodson and Marvin discuss a "new eco-urbanism" that seeks to integrate environment and infrastructure, "bundling" architectureArchitecture
Architecture is both the process and product of planning, designing and construction. Architectural works, in the material form of buildings, are often perceived as cultural and political symbols and as works of art...
, ecology and technology in order to "internalize" energy, water, food, waste and other material flows. Unlike previous efforts to integrate nature into the city, which, according to Harvey, were primarily aesthetic and bourgeois in nature, these new efforts are taking place in the context of climate change, resource constraints and the threat of environmental crises.
In contrast to the traditional approach of capitalist urbanization, which sought more and more distant sources for material resources and waste sinks (as seen in the history of Los Angeles water
California Water Wars
The California Water Wars were a series of conflicts between the city of Los Angeles, farmers and ranchers in the Owens Valley of Eastern California, and environmentalists. As Los Angeles grew in the late 1800s, it started to outgrow its water supply. Fred Eaton, mayor of Los Angeles, realized that...
), eco-urban sites would re-internalize their own resources and re-circulate wastes. The goal is autarky
Autarky
Autarky is the quality of being self-sufficient. Usually the term is applied to political states or their economic policies. Autarky exists whenever an entity can survive or continue its activities without external assistance. Autarky is not necessarily economic. For example, a military autarky...
and greater ecological and infrastructural self-reliance through "closed-loop systems
Closed ecological system
Closed ecological systems are ecosystems that do not rely on matter exchange with any part outside the system.The term is most often used to describe small manmade ecosystems...
" that reduce reliance on external networks.
However, critics link these efforts to "managerial environmentalism," and worry that eco-urbanism too closely falls into an "urban ecological security" approach, echoing Mike Davis
Mike Davis (scholar)
Mike Davis is an American Marxist social commentator, urban theorist, historian, and political activist. He is best known for his investigations of power and social class in his native Southern California.-Life:...
’ analysis of securitization
Securitization (international relations)
Securitization in international relations is a concept connected with the Copenhagen School, and is largely seen as synthesis of constructivist and classical political realism in its approach to international security . In contrast to materialist approaches of classical security studies,...
and fortress urbanism. A Marxist critique might also question the feasibility of sustainable cities within the context of a global capitalist system.
See also
- BioregionalismBioregionalismBioregionalism is a political, cultural, and environmental system or set of views based on naturally defined areas called bioregions, similar to ecoregions. Bioregions are defined through physical and environmental features, including watershed boundaries and soil and terrain characteristics...
- Eco-socialismEco-socialismEco-socialism, green socialism or socialist ecology is an ideology merging aspects of Marxism, socialism, green politics, ecology and alter-globalization...
- Environmental sociologyEnvironmental sociologyEnvironmental sociology is typically defined as the sociological study of societal-environmental interactions, although this definition immediately presents the perhaps insolvable problem of separating human cultures from the rest of the environment...
- History of soil scienceHistory of Soil ScienceThe history of soil science began from the contributions of chemist Justus von Liebig. It also includes the work of other scientists like Vasily V. Dokuchaev, Curtis F...
- Industrial ecologyIndustrial ecologyIndustrial Ecology is the study of material and energy flows through industrial systems. The global industrial economy can be modeled as a network of industrial processes that extract resources from the Earth and transform those resources into commodities which can be bought and sold to meet the...
- Industrial metabolismIndustrial metabolismIndustrial metabolism was first proposed by Robert Ayres as "the whole integrated collection of physical processes that convert raw materials and energy, plus labour, into finished products and wastes..." The goal is to study the flow of materials through society in order to better understand the...
- PermaculturePermaculturePermaculture is an approach to designing human settlements and agricultural systems that is modeled on the relationships found in nature. It is based on the ecology of how things interrelate rather than on the strictly biological concerns that form the foundation of modern agriculture...
- Political ecologyPolitical ecologyPolitical ecology is the study of the relationships between political, economic and social factors with environmental issues and changes. Political ecology differs from apolitical ecological studies by politicizing environmental issues and phenomena....
- SustainabilitySustainabilitySustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of well being, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of union, an interdependent relationship and mutual responsible position with all living and non...
- Urban sustainability
Further reading
- Moore, Jason W. 2000. "Environmental Crises and the Metabolic Rift in World-Historical Perspective," Organization and Environment 13, 123-158.