EcoSocialism & Marxism~

By Pan Jiahua, Professor of Economics, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences University, with assistance from Yang Xinran. Almost every strategic study on environment and development solicited by the Chinese government refers to ‘ecological civilization’. Successive presidents have connected their names to it. The simplest interpretation of this term has been as the Chinese equivalent of sustainable development in China. But beyond that, what does ‘ecological civilization’ mean? Pan Jiahua explains […]

A review of John Bellamy Foster’s The Return of Nature: Socialism and Ecology By Dr Camilla Royle The Return of Nature is a genealogy of ecological thinking. The word ‘ecology’ was not in common usage until the twentieth century, leading many to consider ecological thinking a fairly recent development. However, in this impressive volume, Professor John Bellamy Foster convincingly identifies a materialist ecological sensibility within works dating back a century prior to […]

China’s concept of ecological civilisation is meant to counter the Western view of sustainable development and assert its intellectual and political leadership on environmental issues. Over the last three decades, Chinese intellectuals, government officials, party stalwarts and state leaders have toyed with the concept of ‘ecological civilisation’ (EC) to frame their environmental ideology and management of environmental problems. Domestically, EC has provoked discussion among Chinese intellectuals on its implications for […]

Adjunct Professor Berthold Kuhn looks at the specific features of the concept and analyses from the perspectives of national policy making and international cooperation. The West, and environmental liberals more broadly, would benefit from a better understanding of and engagement with China’s experience of environmental policy making. He advocates paper increasing international engagement with China on environmental discourses and policy making. Some consider the concept, with historically charged references to […]

The concept of ecological civilisation serves as a guide for China’s fast-track endeavour to tackle the challenges facing its environment and ecosystems, respond to the public’s aspirations for a pleasant and eco-friendly living environment and promote sustainable development in a balanced manner. It lends an ideological impetus to China’s active involvement in global ecological and environmental governance to become an important player, contributor and leader in the global endeavour to […]

The Expropriation of Land, Labor, and Corporeal Life From Monthly Review – https://monthlyreview.org/category/2019/volume-71-issue-07-december/ “The expropriation of the mass of the people from the soil constitutes the basis of the capitalist mode of production. ” — “Karl Marx 1 “The power of abstraction,” Karl Marx noted, is absolutely crucial to the theoretical analysis of historical systems, as exemplified by his critique of capitalist political economy.2 But while the force of abstraction is […]