Nature and Associated Production

Abstract

It is often suggested that Marx’s vision of communism not only treats natural conditions as effectively limitless but also embraces an antiecological ethic of human domination over nature. In Alec Nove’s interpretation, for example, Marx thought that “the problem of production had been ‘solved’” by capitalism, so that the future system of associated production would “not require to take seriously the problem of the allocation of scarce resources.” Marx’s communism thus presumes that “natural resources [are] inexhaustible,” and that there is no need for “an environment- preserving, ecologically conscious, employment-sharing socialism” (Nove, 1990, 230, 237). Evidently, Marx projected post-capitalist society as one of “abundance”—defined as “a sufficiency to meet requirements at zero price” (or what amounts to the same thing in Nove’s view, production of goods and services at close to zero resource cost). This projection forced Marx into the absurd presumption that “scarce resources (oil, fish, iron ore, stockings, or whatever) . . . would not be scarce” under communism (Nove, 1983, 15–16). Similarly,Andrew McLaughlin asserts that Marx “envisions a general material abundance” and provides “no basis for recognizing any interest in the liberation of nature from human domination” (1990, 95).¹