Red and Green: Marxism & Ecological and Environmental Worldviews

At the beginning of the year I posted a “reading guide” on Red-Green (or ‘Eco’) Socialism. This is an expanded version of that list with more links (still, it is far from exhaustive). It represents what I’m acquainted with by way of the attempt to integrate Marxism (and the Left in general) with ecological and environmental worldviews (I make some further, more specific recommendations in the note appended below):

• Bahro, Rudolf. Socialism and Survival. London: Heretic Books, 1982. 
• Bahro, Rudolf. From Red to Green: Interviews with New Left Review. London: Verso, 1984.  
• Benton, Ted. Natural Relations: Ecology, Animal Rights and Social Justice. London: Verso, 1993. 
• Bernstein, Henry. Class Dynamics of Agrarian Change. West Hartford, CT: Kumarian Press, 2010. 
• Bernstein, Henry, et al., eds. The Food Question: Profits Versus People. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990. 
• Burkett, Paul. Marxism and Ecological Economics: Toward a Red and Green Political Economy. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2009. 
• Burkett, Paul. Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2014. 
• Carter, Alan. A Radical Green Political Theory. London: Routledge, 1999. 
• Foster, John Bellamy. Marx’s Ecology: Materialism and Nature. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000. 
• Foster, John Bellamy. Ecology against Capitalism. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2002. 
• Foster, John Bellamy. The Ecological Revolution. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2009. 
• Foster, John Bellamy. “Marxism and Ecology: Common Fonts of a Great Transition,” Monthly Review, December 2015 (Vo. 67, No. 7). 
• Foster, John Bellamy, Brett Clark, and Richard York. The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010. 
• Gorz, André. Ecology as Politics. Boston, MA: South End Press, 1980. 
• Gorz, André. Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology. London: Verso, 1994. 
• Kovel, Joel. The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World? London: Zed Books, 2nd ed., 2007. 
• Magdoff, Fred. “A Rational Agricultureis Incompatible with Capitalism,” Monthly Review, March 15, 2015 (Vol. 66, No. 10). 
• Magdoff, Fred, John Bellamy Foster, and Frederick H. Buttel, eds. Hungry for Profit: The Agribusiness Threat to Farmers, Food, and the Environment. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2000. 
• Magdoff, Fred and Brian Tokar, eds. Agriculture and Food in Crisis: Conflict, Resistance, and Renewal. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2010. 
• O’Connor, James. Natural Causes: Essays in Ecological Marxism. New York: Guilford, 1998. 
• Patel, Raj. Stuffed and Starved: The Hidden Battle for the World Food System. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House Publishing, 2007. 
• Pepper, David. Eco-Socialism: From Deep Ecology to Social Justice. London: Routledge, 1993. 
• Postone, Moishe. Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1993. 
• Ryle, Martin. Ecology and Socialism. London: Radius/Century Hutchinson, 1988. 
• Smith, Neil. Uneven Development: Nature, Capital, and the Production of Space. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 3rd ed., 2008. 
• Williams, Chris. Ecology and Socialism: Solutions to Capitalist Ecological Crisis. Chicago, IL: Haymarket Books, 2010.

See too the many works of the Marxist geographer, David Harvey, especially the earlier stuff. I think it’s also interesting to examine “conflicts on the ground” as it were between the Left and Green movement parties to the extent the latter finds little or nothing of value in the Marxist tradition (e.g., the early conflicts between the ‘Realos’ and ‘Fundis’ in West Germany and the ‘deep ecologists’ and largely Bookchin-led and inspired ‘social ecologists’ in the US). On the Left, André Gorz (1923 – 2007), pen name of Gérard Horst (born Gerhart Hirsch, also known by his pen name Michel Bosquet) was a New Left theorist who early on developed an “ecological politics.” By way of prioritizing (especially with regard to readings of Marx) and without intending to slight the other titles, I suggest beginning with these authors: Burkett, Foster, O’Connor, Postone, and Smith. Rudolf Bahro famously moved from Red to Green, eventually developing something like a “deep ecology” spiritual environmentalism that largely left Marx behind (at least rhetorically and strategically). Should you want to venture beyond the literature above for any reason, see the bibliographies on Marxism, “environmental and ecological politics, philosophies, and worldviews,” and “the sullied science & political economy of hyper-industrialized agriculture (or, ‘toward agroecology and food justice’),” found at my Academia page.