Samar Bagchi

Marx and Engels and “Small Is Beautiful”

Marx and Engels were acutely aware of the waste and environmental destruction that capitalism brought, as they indicated in numerous passages, though they could not “envisage the [full] ecological catastrophe that a constantly expanding industrial society can ensue.”

It is commonplace for critics of Marx and Engels on ecology to point their finger at the tragedy of the Soviet Union and the damage it inflicted on its environment (in which the Soviet Union, unfortunately, was hardly unique). But the Soviet Union in the 1920s had the most developed ecological science in the world and was extremely advanced in introducing ecological practices. All of this, however, was obliterated in the subsequent purge under Stalin.

April 12, 2012

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