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John Bellamy Foster

John Bellamy Foster received his PhD from York University.  His research is devoted to critical inquiries into theory and history, focusing primarily on the economic, political and ecological contradictions of capitalism and imperialism, but also encompassing the wider realm of social theory as a whole. Professor Foster's teaching encourages in-depth, critical exploration of history and ideology, equipping students to learn to learn on their own.

Green New Deal

A Green New Deal Is the First Step Toward an Eco-Revolution

By John Bellamy Foster, Vaios Triantafyllou, TruthOut

Capitalism is not just a system, it is a system of social relations and socio-metabolic processes, and we have to change many of those relations and processes radically from within and very quickly in order to deal with the current ecological emergency.

  • February 12, 2019

Marxism, ecological civilization, and China

By John Bellamy Foster, MRzine

China's environmental problems are massive and growing, but the Chinese leadership has made significant steps toward a more sustainable development. This emphasis has emerged out of a broad socialist perspective, influenced by both Marxian analysis and China's own distinct history, culture, and vernacular.

  • June 20, 2015

Marx and Engels and “Small Is Beautiful”

By Samar Bagchi, John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review

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

Capitalism and environmental catastrophe

By John Bellamy Foster, MRzine

The Occupy Wall Street movement arose in response to the economic crisis of capitalism, and the way in which the costs of this were imposed on the 99 percent rather than the 1 percent. But "the highest expression of the capitalist threat," as Naomi Klein has said, is its destruction of the planetary environment. So it is imperative that we critique that as well. (Also - video of a talk by Fred Magdoff)

  • November 5, 2011

The Ecology of Consumption (excerpts)

By John Bellamy Foster, Richard York, Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal

Environmentalists, especially in wealthy countries, have often approached the question of environmental sustainability by stressing population and technology, while deemphasizing the middle term in the well-known IPAT (environmental Impact = Population x Affluence x Technology) formula. The reasons for this are not difficult to see. Within capitalist society, there has always been a tendency to blame anything but the economic system itself for ecological overshoot.

  • October 27, 2010

Organizing ecological revolution

By John Bellamy Foster, Monthly Review

...a global ecological revolution worthy of the name can only occur as part of a larger social—and I would insist, socialist—revolution. Such a revolution, were it to generate the conditions of equality, sustainability, and human freedom worthy of a genuine Great Transition, would necessarily draw its major impetus from the struggles of working populations and communities at the bottom of the global capitalist hierarchy...

  • October 8, 2005
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