Kovel’s Analysis Of The Bruderhof Community Based On An Ecosocialist Perspective

Through his analysis of the Bruderhof community,Kovel further presents his vision of an eco-socialist society.Kovel’s introduction of the Bruderhof community trait and his analysis of the reasons for the formation of the trait not only present a completely different picture of capitalist society,but also set the stage for the ensuing socialist foreshadowing.This is also the process of embedding the case of Bruderhof community into one’s own ecosocialist thought,which in a certain sense reflects the combination of theory and reality.This paper is divided into four parts,the first part is an introduction,which introduces the topic of the paper,its significance,and the relevant research status of domestic and foreign scholars on Kovel’s analysis of the Bruderhof community.The second part gives an overall introduction to the Bruderhof community,not only to understand the reasons and process of its movement development from the vertical,but also to compare it horizontally with the collective farm movement and the Hutterite movement,and to grasp the unique features of Bruderhof community from various relationships.The third part is Kovel’s introductory analysis of Bruderhof community.Kovel begins with an analysis of the characteristics of the Bruderhof community,arguing that the three characteristics of the Bruderhof community are successful integration into the economy,non-capitalism,and mortal commons.The analysis concludes that science and technology and industrialization are not the direct cause of the ecological crisis if they are used in accordance with the requirements of science and technology and industrialization but without constant expansion.He also analyzes the reasons for the formation of characteristics and argues that Bruderhof community presents such characteristics because of the influence of Christian spirituality and the practice of everyday life.Next,he analyzes the foreshadowing of Bruderhof’s ecosocialism,that is,what exactly Bruderhof’s shift to ecosocialism or true ecosocialism would look like,and Kovel makes a series of elaborations.Kovel first analyzes the disadvantages of Bruderhof’s shift to ecosocialism,one being Bruderhof’s lack of care for ecology,which is not ecocentric but religious,and the other being Bruderhof’s lack of democracy,which has a rigid patriarchal system.And then,the advantages that Bruderhof shows in ecosocialism are analyzed,the importance of use value,intrinsic value,and the indifference to exchange value.The fourth part is a review of Kovel’s analysis of Bruderhof community.Kovel’s analysis of Bruderhof community possesses its rationality on the one hand,being a construction of his concept of intrinsic value on the basis of Marx’s use value,which provides a unique perspective for the construction of ecosocialism and reaches a fierce critique of the law of value followed by capitalist society.On the other hand,however,Kovel’s analysis of Bruderhof also has its limitations.As a Christian himself,Kovel pays extra attention to the power of spirituality in his analysis,injecting a religious color into ecosocialism as well;secondly,some of his views are inevitably one-sided and not comprehensive enough;and finally,he is also unable to get rid of the utopian color of ecosocialism.In conclusion,Kovel’s analysis of Bruderhof also gives us a lot of thoughts and inspirations,whether it is that the selection of cases should take full account of realistic possibilities or thinking about the ecological values of man and nature living in harmony.