On Foster’s Ecological Crisis Theory

John Bellamy Foster,a theorist of ecological Marxism,reinterpreted the evolution of Marxist materialism based on Marx’s ecology and the concept of “metabolic rift”.Foster analyzed critically the capitalist ecological crisis from the perspective of Marx’s ecology.He pointed out the causes of global ecological crisis,presented the ways about how to deal with the crisis,and revealed the immorality of the mode of capitalist production.The anti-ecology of the market principle and traps of employing capitalist technique made it impossible to solve the ecological crisis in the capitalist society.Foster proposed the unique solution.Only by changing the capitalist system,changing the capitalist mode of production,eliminating the alienation of technology and establishing the ecological socialism through ecological moral revolution could the society achieve the coordination of economic and environmental sustainable development.These theoretical perspectives made Foster’s ecological Marxist theory unique.Foster’s ecological crisis theory enriched and developed Marxist theory.The study of capitalism and the environment adopted synchronic analysis and diachronic analysis,opening up new ways of ecology Marxism research.But Foster’s research on the ecological crisis theory put too much emphasis on Marx’s materialist dialectics of nature and natural alienation,and the study on the historical materialism was inadequate.Foster analyzed critically the capitalist system from the natural point of view,ignoring economic and political angles when he analyzed the ecological environment,thus disrupting the integrity of Marxist theory,losing its revolutionary spirit and making it impossible to solve the ecological crisis.Although there’re some limitations about Foster’s thinking and analysis of ecological crisis theory under the capitalist system,his novel thought of ecological development,values and ethics has great theoretical and practical value on the construction of the ecological civilization and the socialist modernization of our country.