Research On Engels’ Early Ecological Thought

By investigating the living environment of the proletariat in his early years,Engels described the miserable production and living situation of the British working class under the industrial civilization,and exposed the capitalist private ownership of the inherent to the ecological unfriendly phenomenon and nature,which contains rich ecological thoughts.Based on the concern about the fate of the working class and its outlet,Engels’ early criticism of the capitalist system has the value direction of liberating man and nature.This paper mainly discusses from the following five parts.The first chapter mainly discusses the reasons for Engels’ early concern about the living environment of the working class.First,influenced by his family environment,Engels questioned religion and theology in middle school.From Bremen to Manchester,Engels based on the social reality,close to the poor,industrial production to the proles brought about the living environment problems.Second,Engels affirmed Hegel’s philosophy of history and dialectics and Feuerbach’s materialism in the view of nature,and deeply realized the close relationship between man and nature.The second chapter expounds Engels’ early exploration of the relationship between man and nature.Engels opposed theology and believed that nature was material,the material basis of human existence and development,with primacy,objectivity and social history,which strengthened the materialist position on the view of nature.In the capitalist society,the possessor is the plunder of nature,the proles become the tool of the possessor to plunder natural resources,the supposed equal status and harmonious state between man and nature has been cancelled,and man has become an alien existence.The third chapter expounds Engels’ early exposure to the ecological reality of capitalism.Engels truly described how the capitalists persecuted the proletarian production and living environment under the British industrial civilization,seriously threatening the interests and safety of workers.Starting from the social reality,Engels criticized the profit-seeking nature of capital production mode and the unscientific use of production technology,and pointed out the anti-ecological nature of capitalist private ownership.Chapter four discusses Engels’ early criticism of capitalist ecological theory.Engels criticized Malthus’ s "population theory" as a pure economic theory,pointing out that capitalist private ownership is the root cause of social problems such as worker poverty,overproduction and overpopulation,unethical competition and the poverty of the workers aggravate the contradictory relationship between man and nature.The criticism of the "self-consciousness" of Young Hegelianism shows that the "individual man" and the alienated relationship between man and nature come from the real society,and it is the historical mission of the proletariat to liberate man and nature to eliminate the alienated relationship between man and man.The fifth chapter mainly expounds the theoretical contribution and contemporary value of Engels’ early ecological thought.In his later years,Engels devoted himself to using historical materialism to guide the proletariat to safeguard its ecological rights and interests in practice,and gradually perfected the scientific thinking method of understanding the relationship between man and nature in theory: Materialist dialectics,as an important part of Marxist ecological theory,opens up the ecological civilization thought from the perspective of "science and philosophy" and provides the institutional direction for the liberation of man and nature.In theory under the guidance of Marxism,adhere to the concept of green development in China,the innovation and development,promote construction of ecological civilization,promote harmonious coexistence between man and nature,gradually out of a socialist ecological civilization path with Chinese characteristics,to try for the survival of the Chinese nation plans,contribute to the global ecological civilization development.