Study On The Reconstruction Of Marxist Ecology By James O’Connor-on The Basis Of "Natural Causes"

This paper conducted the theoretical analysis and research by taking the ecology thought of James O’ Connor who is a western famous representative of Marxist Ecology as its study object,on the basis of the representative work “Natural Causes-- Marxism Research of Ecology”,taking the Marxist historical materialism as the standpoint of this study,mainly adopting such research methods as knowledge archaeology,thought hermeneutic,and culture comparison theory,taking the ecology thought of O’ Connor which represented as the main viewpoint of trinitarian “macro-zoological view” including “nature,labor and culture”, aiming at the theoretical purpose of exploring the reconstruction of the ecology thought of O’ Connor on the Marxist Ecology,so as to demonstrate the voice of Marxism in the field of ecology and show that contemporary legality of the theory of Marxism is the value appeal.In the era in which both capitalism and socialism road were perplexed, James O’ Connor made efforts to obtain the Trinitarian “macro-zoological view” of “nature, labor and culture” by using “the method of historical materialism" of Marx to reconsider the history and analyze the social reality with reference to the query “Out-of-date View of Marxism”, trying to fill up the “theory blank” of Marxism historical materialism with the “nature” and “culture” dimensions. This paper argued that “macro-zoological view” was a spatio-temporal systematic entirety of human beings based on a sense of interdependency and harmonious coexistence between human beings and nature while it was not merely a kind of ecological balance within the nature system as well as social harmony of the social system. It contains both the nature system and social system. It covers a sense of organic integrity both on ecological economy and politics as well as ecological culture and social ecology. O’ Connor thought that ecological problem was not the problem of certain historical period in capitalist society or modern developed industrial civilized society while the “macro-zoological view” indicates that O’ Connor deemed ecological problem as a certain conception full of sense of history which ran through the development of human history by analyzing of historiography and phenomenology. The “macro-zoological view”also indicates that his attitude on ecological problem has over crossed the boundaries of political ideology in both socialism and capitalism. It is a concept of human sociology and human culture which meant a structure of social state but not the product of social reality. O’ Connor longs for a society of ecology. O’ Connor thus proposed the coexistence theory of double contradiction based on the Trinitarian “macro-zoological view” of “nature, labor and culture” and inner structure of capitalist society which indicated co-existing of the Contradiction between productivity and productive relations and the contradiction between production conditions, productivity and productive relations. He also proposed the coexistence theory of double jeopardy. He believed a state of co-existing of economic crisis and ecological crisis. He deeply analyzed the nature of self-defeating about the capitalism. His theory developed and innovated on the basis of Marx’ historical materialism on the so-called first contradiction theory of capitalism whichmeant the contradiction between productive force and production relations as well as the economic crisis(the first crisis) of capitalism. O’ Connor then proposed the theory of ecological socialism on the journey of criticizing the reality and searching alternative solution. the theory of ecological socialism was the final theoretical achievements of O’ Connor while he reconstructed the Marxism Ecology. Regarding to the ecological problem the ecology should bond with socialism for capitalism could not achieve sustained development. In fact, O’ Connor’s theory has not exceed the boundary of Marxism on his criticizing towards capitalist society and re-construction towards ecological socialism. Moreover, his theory re-constructed, innovated and developed Marxist theory based on characteristics of the new historical stage. His theory activated vitality of Marxism and proved its charm of transcending.This paper divided the criticisms by O’ Connor on the nature of anti-ecology in capitalism society into four categories: criticizing on “written history of capitalism”, criticizing on “dualism thinking mode”, criticizing on “technologies of capitalism”, criticizing on “unbalanced and joint development”, all these critical theory showed the conflicts between capitalist system and development and thus analyzed that the conflicts were rooted in the fundamental incompatibility between economic logic and ecologic logic that capital operation continually pursuit expansion and profit while supply of production condition limited with certain degree of development. Thus capitalism was fundamentally anti – ecological. These four aspects showed O’ Connor’s Ideological characteristics that he utilized Marx’s historical materialism and method as ideological weapons. They somewhat indicated theoretical character O’ Connor’s theory which also disproved the vitality, explanatory power and critical character about Marx’s Dialectical Materialism.This paper concluded the descriptions on “ecology socialism” by O’ Connor into five aspects: from the “global thinking, local action” to “local thinking, global action”, from “growth first” to “protection first”, from “exchange value/abstract labor” to “use value/concrete labor”, from “quantitative fight” to “qualitative fight”,from “distributivity justice” to “productivity justice”. O’ Connor’s re-construction on Marx’s historical materialism have indirectly crept into the chapters of the whole book yet his theory of ecological socialism deemed as core point on his re-constructing about ecological thought of Marxism which also explained why O’ Connor had tried to utilized a new social formation to replace the existing capitalist society into his own theory. Unfortunately, O’ Connor placed the power to change the reality on the “green action” and "democratic country", which makes his theory impractical even though it cares for the present; though it points to the future, it bears the color of Utopia; though it undertakes the responsibility of “critical weapon”, it has not been translated into “the criticizing of weapon”.justice” to “productivity justice”. Unfortunately,O’ Connor placed the power to change the reality on the “green action”,which makes his theory impractical even though it cares for the present; though it points to the future,it bears the color of Utopia; though it undertakes the responsibility of “critical weapon”,it has not been translated into “the criticizing of weapon”.This paper suggested that O’ Connor’s theory of eco-criticism both had ideological value and theoretical limitation. Its ideological value can be shown at three aspects. First of all, he inherited the method of historical materialism, critical theory and standpoint on capitalist society as well as theoretical purpose of socialism will replace capitalism of Marx’s theory. His “macro-zoological view” including “nature, labor and culture” developed ecology theory of Marxism. His theory of double contradiction and double crisis developed Marx’s theory on criticizing capitalism’s nature of anti-ecology and promoted the development and innovation of Marx’s historical materialism in modern time. Secondly, the Marxist Ecology view proposed by O’ Connor had reversed the narrow-minded ecological view on the ground of nature centrism and anthropocentrism and it also deeply enriched the ecology connotation for future on the angle of System Integration, cultural changes and social construction. Finally, O’ Connor’s theory of Ecological criticism always emphasized a sense of organic bonding with Green Movement of the society. His theory was inclined to be more practical, realistic and combative compared with other Ecological theory of Marxist scholars. His theory’s limitation can be summarized as three aspects. Firstly of all, his theory of ecology was lack of theoretical basis towards consumer justice though he had mentioned to use productive justice as a replenish for distribution justice. There was also a theoretical vacuum in his own theory. Secondly, O’ Connor had tried to use ecological socialism to replace existing capitalist society yet he exaggerated the promoting function of social movement as he believed that radical green movement and democracy can be the power to change reality. His theory was limited at the angle of theory for he did not reveal the false face while those capitalist countries will protect the bourgeois interests though he yearned to improve the existing capitalist countries to promote social progress. Moreover, his analyzing on ecological socialism was limited on concrete analysis with a sense of Utopia. At last, some of Connor’s viewpoints on Marx’s historical materialism was to be discussed. For instance, it was his misunderstanding to Marxism as he thought Marxism was lack of theories on production condition. His theory on re-production was somewhat different as to Marxist theory.