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Making The Case That Green Politics Must Be Ecosocialist
Mike Shaughnessy
http://climateandcapitalism.com/2020/04/03/green-politics-must-be-ecosocialist/Date Written: 2020-04-03 Publisher: Climate & Capitalism Year Published: 2020 Resource Type: Article I have recently been reading The Emergence of Ecosocialism, a collection of essays written by the now sadly departed Joel Kovel. Edited by Quincy Saul, and published in 2018, the essays have all been published previously, albeit in subscription journals, mainly Capitalism Nature Socialism, which Kovel edited. One of the main themes that runs through much of the collection is for the need for green politics to fully embrace ecosocialism as its central philosophy, if it is to be effective in tackling the ecological crisis. Abstract: -- I have recently been reading The Emergence of Ecosocialism, a collection of essays written by the now sadly departed Joel Kovel. Edited by Quincy Saul, and published in 2018, the essays have all been published previously, albeit in subscription journals, mainly Capitalism Nature Socialism, which Kovel edited. One of the main themes that runs through much of the collection is for the need for green politics to fully embrace ecosocialism as its central philosophy, if it is to be effective in tackling the ecological crisis. In Kovel’s essay ‘Ecological Marxism and Dialectic,’ first published in 1995, he begins by lamenting: “Marxism as it now commonly constituted appears as a stranger in ecological circles. This is not as it should be, but is a fact. It is a disastrous fact, if only because this keeps green movements from understanding the cause of ecocatastrophe, but it is fact nevertheless. I do not think the estrangement can be mended absent a major critique of current green and ecological thought for residual anti-communism, tendencies towards mystification, general social obtuseness, and latent reactionary potential. However, it is no less essential to criticize Marxism for its role in perpetuating the divide.” Subject Headings |