Marxism and the Production of Nature

Abstract

This essay surveys a century of debate on the Marx-nature question. It seeks to expose, critique and reformulate a set of foundational assumptions which, it is argued, have informed this debate. Three main arguments are put forward. First, it is suggested that successive attempts to expound a Marxian theory of nature have see-sawed between naturalistic and social constructionist positions. Second, as such many Marxist theories of nature are shown (ironically) to have much in common with forms of bourgeois and anti-bourgeois environmentalism they otherwise oppose. Finally, as a way out of the impasse of Marxian thinking on nature, a conception of the production of nature is tentatively put forward.