Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 15:52:21 -0500
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Ecological-Marxism


Russell Pearson:
>Doug, in my ignorant bliss I forgot to expand upon Harvey's arguments. Take
>for example his critique of Foster's _The Vulnerable Planet: A Short
>Economic History of the Environment_ . Harvey quickly shreds its apparent
>Marxist credentials, he agrees the work is 'persuasive' but notes two main
>failings.
>

Actually I've been in contact with John Bellamy Foster back and forth all
day. He alerted me to 3 upcoming events:

1) At the Socialist Scholars Conference in March he will be on a panel with
Stephen Jay Gould and Joan Roelofs discussing "Marxist Contributions to
Ecological Theory". He tells me that he will be taking up the question of
"Brown Marxism versus Green Marxism."

2) He has a 5000 word article on the LM/John Gillot-Manjit Kumar book on
science that will appear in the April MR.

3) He will answer Harvey in an upcoming issue of CNS.

Harvey and Foster represent two poles within the Marxist dialectic around
red-green issues. LM, on the other hand, is a libertarian trend that merely
appropriates Marxist verbiage, much less now than in the past. Its support
for nuclear power, Project Cassini, wholesale commercial exploitation of
the rainforest, etc. have not even the slightest echo in David Harvey. I
challenge Pearson to find such evidence. Mainly what Harvey is concerned
about is prioritizing environmental issues that affect the most exploited
members of society, like lead poisoning in urban slums. What you're likely
to find in LM is a defense of the notion that such concerns are a "panic".
If Russell Pearson thinks that Harvey's ideas are correct, that would be a
step up from his enfatuation with LM's toxic waste.

Louis Proyect



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