Research On Ecological Thought In Historical Materialism

In contemporary world, ecological environment problem has been haunting humanbeings. Apart from rapid economic development, global capital expansion has alsoresulted in the increasingly severe ecological crisis. The worsening globallyenvironmental pollution has a strong impact on human’s sustainable development.Therefore, realistic and specific theories and thoughts should be provided to guide theharmonious development between human and ecology. In spite that Marx and Engelsliving in the19thcentury never suffered the ecological environment problem that was assevere as it is today, they were concerned about this problem proactively and made astudy accordingly, with their major works including rich, systematic, comprehensive,and profound ecological thoughts of philosophy. The ecological thoughts implied byhistorical materialism can serve as the ideological foundation of ecological philosophy.On one hand, historical materialism focuses on the relationship between human andnature, and deeply explores capitalist system—the causes for the emergence ofecological crisis in capitalist society, and on the other hand, it elaborates the thought ofsustainable development and considers that only by starting from mode of productionand social system, can the relationship between human and nature be reconciled torealize real harmonious development between human and nature. This paper starts withthe relationship between historical materialism and ecological philosophy to expoundthat their common topic is to focus on the relationship between human and nature.Meanwhile, this paper figures out the historical context for the emergence of ecologicalMarxism, presents the ideological foundation of ecological philosophy contained inhistorical materialism, and demonstrates the dialectical relationship between human andnature and society in historical materialism. Additionally, it deeply analyzes theharmfulness caused by the nature of capital to human body and external natural world,and works out that the root cause for the ecological crisis in capitalist society isalienated labor and nature will never be really revived without the liberation of natureand human. This paper suggests that the root cause for ecological problems is therelationship between human. Therefore, only by solving the relationship problembetween human, can the harmonious problem between human and nature be resolved.Finally, according to the practical condition, this paper expounds the internalrelationship between China’s ecological policy and ecological thought contained byMarxist historical materialism, as well as indicates that persistence in scientific outlookon development is the way to address China’s environmental problems.