[Marxism] Marx and the natural environment

[Andrew Pollack <acpollack2@xxxxxxxxx>]

For more on what Louis wrote below, including Marx's debt to Liebig,  see 
Foster's book "Marx's Ecology" (and related articles online which  you can find 
by googling same).
  
For his part, Marx was consumed with the problem of soil fertility which 
was as grave a threat to survival as global warming is today. This is a 
classic problem of ecology... , although Marx did not use that word. The 
depletion of soil nutrients was being felt everywhere, as capitalist 
agriculture broke down the old organic interaction that took place on 
small, family farms. When a peasant plowed a field with ox or horse-drawn 
plows, used an outhouse, accumulated compost piles, etc., the soil's 
nutrients were replenished naturally. As capitalist agriculture turned the 
peasant into an urban proletariat, segregated livestock production from 
grain and food production, the organic cycle was broken and the soil 
gradually lost its fertility.
  
  
 
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