Environmental Sociology and Ecological Marxism

• In Event: 50620 - Section on Environmental Sociology Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 18: Metabolic Rifts and Shifts

Abstract

This paper dives into the genesis of environmental sociology and its evolution since. It traces the birth of environmental sociology to a trenchant critique of classical sociology and its putative founding paradigm of Human Exemptionalism. It, then, critically evaluates Marxist and non-Marxist perspectives that have emerged since the founding of environmental sociology to help understand ecosocial reality of our time. In particular, the paper concentrates on Marx’s Metabolic Rift (MR) theory that emerged from Marx’s analysis of capitalist agriculture in Europe, which had accelerated widespread decline in soil fertility. Many have since opined that MR analysis, despite its merits, is limited in scope and its application beyond the agrarian economy is unworkable. This paper challenges this speculative assumption to demonstrate the relevance of MR analysis to the existential challenge of our time: global climate change that is presented as a case study. It concludes with the inference that major environmental challenges, such as global climate change, are the result of a metabolic rift between humans and nature, which has been accelerated by productive capitalism. It echoes Clark and York (2005) that technotopian solutions to contemporary environmental challenges, especially global climate change, will fall way too short unless renewed attention is directed to the reordering of capitalist social relations.

Author

• Tarique Niazi, University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire