A Study Of James O’connor’s Theory Of The Double Crisis Of Capitalism

With the dramatic increase in capital accumulation since the Second Industrial Revolution,the discordant ecological contradictions between humans and nature have become increasingly prominent.Faced with this long-standing economic and ecological problem of capitalist society,James O’Connor shifted his academic perspective from studying the fiscal crisis of capitalist countries to the ecological crisis of capitalist society,and then distinctly proposed that capitalist society not only has an economic crisis but also an ecological crisis,and that these two types of crises constitute the double crisis of capitalist society.This paper takes O’Connor’s double crisis as the research object,Marxism as the research position,and literature research method,dialectical analysis and the unification of logic and history as the main research methods to further sort out and integrate O’Connor’s double crisis theory as a whole.First,the socio-historical background and theoretical origins of O’Connor’s double crisis theory are examined.The rapid economic growth of capitalist societies has been accompanied by the global spread of ecological crisis,and the new environmental and ecological movements have flourished in response.Under such realistic conditions,O’Connor drew on Marx’s theory of economic crisis and the concept of nature,and fully absorbed the ecological ideas of the Frankfurt School and the early ecological Marxists’ theories on the crisis,laying the theoretical foundation for the elaboration of his double crisis theory.Secondly,three important stages in the formation of O’Connor’s crisis theory were identified.First,the state financial crisis is the initial exploration stage of O’Connor’s crisis theory;second,the "generalized" crisis is the further development stage of O’Connor’s crisis theory;third,the dual crisis of capitalism is the integration and deepening stage of O’Connor’s crisis theory.The integration of O’Connor’s academic turn from state financial crisis to double crisis can systematically grasp the profound connotation of the theory of double crisis as a whole.Again,the main content of O’Connor’s double crisis theory is elaborated.On the basis of the inherent contradictions of capitalist society,O’Connor further proposes that there is a "second contradiction" in capitalist society,which provides a realistic basis for the elaboration of the double crisis theory.The overproduction of capitalism will lead to economic crisis to a certain extent,while the underproduction of capitalism will lead to economic and ecological crisis to a certain extent,which constitutes the specific connotation of the double crisis theory of capitalism.Further exploring the causes of the existence of the double crisis,O’Connor attempts to resolve the double crisis with ecological socialism.Finally,this paper reviews the value of O’Connor’s double crisis theory.O’Connor’s double crisis theory inherits and develops the Marxist theory,and actively explores the creation of an ecological socialist development model.However,his criticism of capitalism is not thorough enough,his understanding of Marxist ecological thought is biased and his proposed ecological socialism has a strong utopian color.According to the objective dialectical evaluation of O’Connor’s double crisis,it is of great practical significance to explore the theory of double crisis to strengthen the construction of socialist ecological civilization...