Zhao Ruifu: "Marxism in the Anthropocene": Origin of Issues, Content Analysis, and Theoretical Review
As Engels stated: "There is no sphere of human knowledge or of the relations of human life, even the most recondite, but has some effect on the social revolution, and which is not in its turn modified under the influence of that revolution." As a cutting-edge concept that emerged from the field of geology and gradually radiated its influence into interdisciplinary fields, the "Anthropocene" not only marks a phase where geological research has re-evaluated the comprehensive efficacy of human activity, but also signifies the birth of a new discourse of environmental knowledge. As the concept of the "Anthropocene" and its generated knowledge continue to release their potential within the research fields of the contemporary environmental humanities and social sciences, a series of novel and original topics have begun to form and ferment. Among these, the topic of "Marxism in the Anthropocene" (or "Marxism of the Anthropocene")—which originated in Western intellectual circles around 2010—is particularly worthy of attention and critique. The core intent of this topic is to utilize the discursive popularity and theoretical utility of the "Anthropocene" category and its intellectual products to provide a certain "reflection" on and "expansion" of the developmental path of contemporary ecological Marxism and Marxist studies. By doing so, it aims to achieve a theoretical activation of the ecological critique of capitalism and the ecological conception of socialism. Given the complexity and frontier nature of the "Marxism in the Anthropocene" discourse, this article intends to start by clarifying the genealogy of the Anthropocene category and its knowledge products to reveal the theoretical background behind the rise of this topic. Through a survey of textual clues, it will then glimpse the various divergent perspectives within the discourse, ultimately completing a substantive analysis and macro-evaluation.
I. The Theoretical Background of the Origin of "Marxism in the Anthropocene"
In the most general sense, the "Anthropocene" possesses three basic connotations. First, human capacity for intervention in nature has shifted from a "quantitative accumulation" to a "qualitative change." Humans are now sufficient to exert a geological impact on the entire planetary ecosystem. The uniqueness of humanity as a highly influential "geological force," relative to other biological species, has received empirical support from a substantial number of scholars. Second, the geological epoch currently faced by humanity is not a "well-ordered" environment; rather, humanity and the entire planetary ecosystem are facing increasingly severe ecological risks. These risks can no longer be simply summarized by "shallow" terms such as "land pollution," "environmental destruction," "resource extraction," or "epidemic outbreaks." They are instead replaced by "deep" terms such as "species extinction," "systemic crisis," "ecosystem collapse," or even "planetary death." Third, as an intelligent species possessing a certain resource base and still having the capacity (at least the potential) to attempt to save the ecosystem, humanity faces an urgent and fundamental choice regarding its development model. Which model of political, economic, and cultural resource allocation to choose in order to respond to the systemic challenges of the living environment has become a difficult problem faced by all of humanity. In any case, the "Anthropocene" will create a theoretical situation of stronger transformational and radical character, because the adjustment, planning, and determination of the model of civilizational development is no longer merely an "optimization" dimension of consideration, but has become an unavoidable, life-and-death necessity. The topic of "Marxism in the Anthropocene" that this article focuses on originated and developed precisely under this trend.
To elaborate on the origin and development of the topic of "Marxism in the Anthropocene," one must first clarify the history of the "Anthropocene" concept. The concept of the "Anthropocene" in its contemporary sense was first created by the biologist Eugene Stoermer in the late 1980s, but its true entry into the public eye dates back to the beginning of the 21st century. In 2000, Paul Crutzen—a Dutch scholar who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his research on the ozone layer—and Stoermer jointly published "The 'Anthropocene'" in the Global Change Newsletter. They argued that humans, as a geological force, have had an irreversible impact on the Earth's ecosystem. Unless a major catastrophe such as a volcanic eruption or an asteroid collision occurs, humanity will persist as a significant geological force for thousands or even millions of years. In 2002, Crutzen published "Geology of Mankind" in the journal Nature, calling more explicitly for the use of the "Anthropocene" as a concept for epochal distinction in a new geological sense. These two articles and the emergence of the "Anthropocene" concept caused a massive stir, setting off various debates within the geological community regarding the geological positioning of the human species and the division of geological time. Regarding the motivation for using this new concept to supplement the traditional geological epoch of the "Holocene," Crutzen believed that human influence on the geological environment had gradually reached a dominant magnitude that could not be ignored. Therefore, "it seems appropriate to assign the term 'Anthropocene' to the present, in many ways human-dominated, geological epoch, supplementing the 'Holocene'—the warm period of the past 10–12 millennia." In other words, in Crutzen's view, the "Anthropocene" signifies an era in which humans, throughout their historical cycle of derivation and evolution, have continuously and substantially altered the natural environment—to the point of leaving deep traces throughout the Earth's geological structure—through practical activities such as large-scale agricultural cultivation, extraction of natural resources, emission of pollutants, and military and technological experiments. In this era, humans must be viewed as a geological force with strong influence, rather than being simply classified as some kind of environmental appendage or a "passer-by" of a geological epoch.
Despite their immense influence, Stoermer and Crutzen were by no means the first to propose the idea of the "Anthropocene." Starting from the end of the 18th century, some naturalists and geologists had already advocated for paying more attention to the important role of humanity as a subjective force when considering the natural environment. For example, the Comte de Buffon emphasized in his Histoire Naturelle that "the whole face of the earth today bears the imprint of human power," arguing that man and nature together constitute the two forces influencing the appearance of the world. By the latter half of the 19th century, with the development of geological research and technological progress, more scholars began to attempt to construct a geological epoch concept that could reveal the significant efficacy of human influence. Examples include Thomas Jenkyn’s proposal of the "human age" in his geology lectures and Antonio Stoppani’s designation of the era of human life as the "Anthropozoic era." In the first half of the 20th century, scholars such as Aleksei Pavlov and Vladimir Vernadsky pushed this construction of a "human age" toward maturity: in 1922, Pavlov explicitly proposed the term "Anthropogenic System Period or Anthropocene" to describe the geological driving forces of the current era. Vernadsky sought to unify human mental activity with the evolutionary process of the biosphere, proposing the concept of the "Noösphere," which further highlighted the importance of human activity for the division of geological epochs. It is precisely based on the accumulation of these theoretical resources that the influence of the "Anthropocene" category could be fully realized. At the same time, it must be acknowledged that the "cross-boundary effectiveness" of the Anthropocene category is closely related to the increasingly severe environmental crisis since the 20th century and the "apocalyptic complex" in the cultural sphere. It signifies not only the emergence of new concepts for epochal division in the field of geology but also marks a "cultural, psychological, political, and social critique" and reflexivity of humanity in the process of transforming nature.
After 2008, under the repeated reiteration and advocacy of geologists such as Jan Zalasiewicz, the influence of the "Anthropocene" category and its knowledge products showed an increasingly significant upward trend. The environmental historian John R. McNeill argued that "the Anthropocene is at once a geological concept and a political concept." As the concept of the Anthropocene and its theoretical products received increasing attention, works exploring and interpreting the "Anthropocene" from the perspectives of environmental philosophy, environmental politics, environmental ethics, literary and artistic criticism, and ecological Marxism continued to emerge. It was against this background that the topic of "Marxism in the Anthropocene" gradually took shape. "Socialist ecological theorists were quick to embrace the explanatory power of the Anthropocene, which highlighted the epochal rise of modern human society as the primary planetary geological force governing changes in the Earth system."
The theoretical link between the Anthropocene and Marxism may seem "forced," but it actually possesses a very clear scholarly basis and potential for discussion. "The bourgeois period of history has to create the material basis of the new world: on the one hand, universal intercourse founded upon the mutual dependency of mankind, and the means of that intercourse; on the other hand, the development of the productive powers of man and the transformation of material production into a scientific domination of natural agencies. Bourgeois industry and commerce are creating these material conditions for a new world in the same way as geological revolutions have created the surface of the earth." For Marx, the analysis and critique of capitalism, and the social revolution that is its practical result, are by no means limited to the socio-political sphere. Nature, as the material basis upon which humanity depends for survival, production, and development, will also be significantly influenced by human socio-historical actions. Moreover, this influence varies according to how humanity plans its own developmental path. For example, the massive difference between capitalist society and socialist society in their mode of dominating natural forces leads to obvious differences in their impact on nature. In other words, Marxist critical analysis and the vision of liberation have a strong and unquestionable ecological orientation. The resolution of the crisis in the relationship between man and nature, and the continuation and development of human civilization in a more comprehensive and free manner, have always been inherent theoretical connotations of Marxism.
"Ecological Marxism, as a theoretical or discursive system encompassing multiple content dimensions and research approaches, is not only based on the inheritance, development, and innovative application of classical Marxist theoretical methods, but is also inseparable from the critical analysis and transcendent conception of ecological environmental problems and social green transition practices worldwide." It is precisely in line with this theoretical connotation of Marxism that scholars of ecological Marxism in a broad sense—including the green left, which has a strong Marxist theoretical inclination—have begun to attempt an "Anthropocene turn" in their research. This turn is centrally manifested in the discourse of "Marxism in the Anthropocene," which has already been substantially elaborated and discussed. Briefly stated, the core intent of the "Marxism in the Anthropocene" topic is to utilize the discursive popularity and theoretical utility of the "Anthropocene" category and its knowledge products to provide a perfecting elaboration of the anthropocentric ecological values and political philosophical views of ecological Marxism. This is done in the hope of better stimulating the theoretical vitality of ecological Marxism in the realms of capitalist environmental critique, institutional substitution, and the conception of eco-socialism. When understanding the above content, it should be noted that the diversity of the participating subjects—broadly defined ecological Marxist scholars—determines that the "Marxism in the Anthropocene" discourse must contain rich and heterogeneous theoretical connotations. This characteristic dictates that the research in this article will begin with a survey of the most basic textual clues and, on this basis, summarize and conclude the core issues of concern for different participating subjects.
II. Textual Clues in the Discussion of the "Marxism in the Anthropocene" Topic
"Marxism in the Anthropocene" is clearly a compound category generated based on the "Anthropocene" category and its theoretical products. That is to say, it has a specific theoretical referent; it is the result of multi-dimensional intellectual synthesis and reflection on the "Anthropocene" category, its theoretical products, and Marxism. Those who use "Marxism in the Anthropocene" as a proper noun mainly include John Bellamy Foster, Kohei Saito, and Simon Boxley, but the scholars who have engaged in academic discussion of this topic are more numerous and started even earlier.
Based on considerations of timing, relevance, and third-party feedback, the fact that Andreas Malm proposed the category of the "Capitalocene" in 2009 constitutes the inception of the discussion on the "Marxism of the Anthropocene." Malm used the "Capitalocene" category to criticize those natural scientists who attribute the Anthropocene crisis to the human species as a whole—the so-called "Anthropocene Narrative." He argued that this line of research lacks a critical consciousness regarding the analysis of ecological responsibility across different classes, and he advocated for the establishment of a "Capitalocene" research paradigm led by the humanities and social sciences. This paradigm unfolds from an analysis of the "fossil capital" economy and its politico-cultural roots, attempting thereby to prove the structural connection between the capitalist system and the Anthropocene crisis, ultimately achieving a confirmation of capitalism's responsibility for the Anthropocene. The textual evidence reflected in this process shows that the basic principles of Marxist political economy constitute an important intellectual foundation for the aforementioned research paradigm. Looking at the subsequent effects of Malm’s research, a considerable number of left-wing scholars have enriched the critique of capitalism’s Anthropocene responsibility based on Malm’s theoretical foundation. Typical examples include Donna Haraway’s 2014 speech at Aarhus University, "Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Chthulucene," and its derivative articles; the volume Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: Nature, History, and the Crisis of Capitalism edited by Jason W. Moore; and Hans Baer’s Anthropocene or Capitalocene?: Two Perspectives on Political Ecology.
Unlike the attempts of Malm and others who focused on the attribution of responsibility and the critique of capitalism, Gerda Roelvink's "Rethinking Species-Being in the Anthropocene," published in 2013, constitutes an early expression of the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" that emphasizes theoretical construction. Starting from Crutzen's proposition that "humanity has become a geological force," Roelvink reviewed the philosophical research history of Marx’s concept of "species-being" [7] and criticized the "dehumanization" of human species-being by the capitalist mode of production. She argued that the core claim of communism is to construct a "humanized" way of species-existence, emphasizing the significance of Marx’s concept of "species-being" and its theory for responding to the ecological crisis of the Anthropocene. She advocated for the generation of a "model of human dignity centered on moral relations with others and a politics of dignity centered on coexistence." By 2020, Roelvink published "The Politics of the Anthropocene," using a book review format to emphasize the importance of Marxism as a "post-capitalist political form" for resolving the Anthropocene crisis, reflecting the author's shift toward the camp of broader ecological Marxism. Similar constructive elaborations of "Marxism of the Anthropocene" perspectives can be found in McKenzie Wark's Molecular Red: Theory for the Anthropocene. Although this work uses the analytical tools of Marxist theory only to a shallow degree, its invocation of and reflection on the theory of the "metabolic rift" in Capital and its manuscripts clearly constitute a proactive attempt.
2015 was the year when ecological Marxist scholars, represented by John Bellamy Foster, formally intervened in the discussion of "Marxism of the Anthropocene." After several years of Anthropocene discussions led primarily by Green Left scholars, the framework for discussing "Marxism of the Anthropocene" in a normative sense gradually became clear. In his article "Marxism and Ecology," Foster traced the construction and interpretation of the "Anthropocene" category by Soviet scholars [8], emphasizing the consistency of Marx and Engels's analysis of the ecological impact of "human agency" and the scientific nature of the resulting ecological critique of capitalism. Furthermore, through an analysis of the "planetary rift," Foster revealed the capitalist roots of the Anthropocene crisis. He argued that to respond to this risky situation concerning the safety of the planetary ecosystem, one must synthesize Marxist ecological analysis with Earth system theory and the "Great Transition" perspective, using Marxist political economy to reconstruct a theory of capitalist critique and a vision of ecological socialism for the Anthropocene era. Subsequently, Foster announced the "Anthropocene turn" of his ecological Marxist research through a series of successive publications: "The Anthropocene Framework of Ecosocialist History" and "The Anthropocene Crisis" in 2016; "Imperialism in the Anthropocene" in 2019; "The Anthropocene Era: Re-reading Engels’s Dialectics of Nature" in 2020; "The Capitalinian: The First Geological Age of the Anthropocene" in 2021; and Capitalism in the Anthropocene in 2022, among others. In these works, besides criticizing capitalism's ecological responsibility, Foster constructively proposed a geological epochal division under the Anthropocene consisting of the "Capitalinian" [9] and the "Communian." He argued that a major research mission for ecological Marxist scholars in the Anthropocene lies in doing their utmost to guarantee "ecological survival" and mapping out a strategy for responding to the Anthropocene crisis under the leadership of socialism. Whether in terms of communicative influence or theoretical innovation, Foster can be regarded as a key contributor to the discussion of "Marxism of the Anthropocene," triggering a chain reaction among a cohort of scholars.
With Foster's support, Ian Angus published Facing the Anthropocene in 2016. Centered on the core idea of "showing socialists why they must understand the Anthropocene, and showing Earth system scientists why they must understand ecological Marxism," the book used the Anthropocene as a discursive opportunity to elaborate a relatively complete theory of ecological socialism. In his 2017 response to Foster, "Marxism in the Anthropocene," Kohei Saito identified the trend of extensive participation by ecological Marxists in the Anthropocene topic. He pointed out that the core question of this trend lies in "how to understand the relationship between the Anthropocene and capitalism," and he masterfully summarized the differences in perspective among scholars such as Foster, Paul Burkett, and Moore regarding the "Marxism of the Anthropocene." This approach of "participating while synthesizing" also constituted the basic perspective of Camilla Royle’s Marxism and the Anthropocene. This work is an extremely important textual vehicle for the discussion, as it not only sorts out the similarities and differences between various scholars' views but also reveals the "version update" problem of anthropocentric ecological values that the discussion must face. Claus Thomasberger, in "Socialist Transformation in the Age of the Anthropocene," proceeded from the two dimensions of Marxist research and socialist transformation practice in the context of the Anthropocene to demonstrate the theoretical and practical significance of Marx’s theory of capitalist critique for Anthropocene climate and energy issues. In Nature, Society, and Justice in the Anthropocene, Alf Hornborg focused on the complex relationship between money, technology, and nature in the Anthropocene. He criticized capitalism as a "fetishistic system" of fossil fuels and money, arguing that this fetishistic system is the economic driver of the "planetary burning" of the Anthropocene. Thus, Marx’s theoretical exposition of "fetishism" constitutes a substantive political-economic analysis of the social roots of the Anthropocene. Thomas Laughlin, in his article "Anthropocene Marxism," pointed out that the arrival of the Anthropocene is a total cognitive revolution. To understand the shift in this grand narrative method, a unique corresponding method is required; in this regard, Marxism plays an irreplaceable role. Marx and Engels were not only socialists/communists but also ecological materialists; their theory of objectification [10] and practice provided important theoretical tools for understanding the relationship between humans and humans, and between humans and nature. Beyond these scholars, there are many others laboring in the field who will not be enumerated here.
The aforementioned textual clues reveal the general timeline of the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" discussion: 2009 as the overall inception, 2015 as the formal entry into normative and systematic discussion, 2019 as a year when the volume and richness of publications significantly increased, and the present as a period of obvious flourishing. The discussion of "Marxism of the Anthropocene" involves so many intellectual fields, schools, and scholars that it cannot be fully described in a single article. However, one fact must be recognized: if one is to grasp the contemporary progress of research in foreign academia concerning Marxism, ecological Marxism, and the critique of capitalism, the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" is unavoidable. Only by clarifying what this issue is actually saying can the relative lack of attention and response to "Anthropocene" issues within Chinese domestic academia be significantly changed and optimized.
III. The Core Content of the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" Discussion
Special note must be taken that "Marxism of the Anthropocene" cannot be simply understood as the proposition that "Marxism was formed and developed within the Anthropocene." This is because, on the one hand, the starting point of the Anthropocene is still debated, and it cannot be concluded that the historical formation and development of Marxism were necessarily chronologically enclosed by the Anthropocene. On the other hand, it is unnecessary to provide a merely contextual geological description of Marxism that lacks progressive significance. In other words, "Marxism of the Anthropocene" is not a simple evaluation or "restatement" of Marxism against the background of the Anthropocene, but rather an attempt to achieve certain theoretical goals through the tension between the Anthropocene category (and its theoretical products) and Marxism.
Based on the macro-level survey of textual clues provided above, the core content of this discussion can be divided into three major aspects at a more micro and specific level.
First, the discussion regarding the positioning of the Anthropocene’s chronological starting point and its significance for the critique of capitalism. Carles Soriano argues that "the question of the Anthropocene’s starting date is not merely a technical issue, but carries major significance for the conceptualization of the current crisis and the political strategy required to exit it." Since the day Paul Crutzen and Eugene Stoermer pushed the Anthropocene to the center of intersecting disciplinary knowledge, the discussion regarding its starting point has constituted an extremely important theoretical issue. If the Anthropocene had already been born on the day humans began using fire or engaged in conscious cultivation, then the theory of human "ecological original sin" would gain powerful geological evidence. However, if the starting point of the Anthropocene roughly coincides with the historical node of the rise of capitalism, then the leftist theories surrounding the Anthropocene that critique capitalism (including the mainstream views within the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" discourse) will receive stronger evidentiary support.
In terms of the basic understanding of geological research, the primary claims regarding the Anthropocene’s starting point generally include the "megafauna extinction theory," the "controlled fire theory," the "agricultural origin theory," the "agricultural expansion theory," the "Industrial Revolution theory," the "WWI theory," the "Great Acceleration theory," the "nuclear weapons use theory," the "persistent industrial chemicals production theory," and the "atmospheric change theory," among others. Amidst so many theoretical claims, scholars’ understanding of the Anthropocene’s starting point is dominated by the "Great Acceleration theory," though they remain focused on different aspects of its interpretation. John Bellamy Foster believes that the "Great Acceleration" was not an accidental phenomenon in human development, nor was it the sole factor creating the Anthropocene; conversely, the "global environmental movement" launched by humanity after perceiving the ecological crisis also contributed to the formation of the Anthropocene situation. That is to say, from the very beginning, the Anthropocene was not a period for announcing a human crisis into which we "passively entered"; rather, it is a situation of active, positive, and conscious measurement of existential conditions and adjustment of survival strategies. This situation reveals the necessary significance of critiquing and transcending the capitalist system and its non-ecological nature. Kohei Saito likewise believes the Great Acceleration is the starting point for the formation of the Anthropocene crisis. However, unlike Foster, he emphasizes the "negative significance" of this starting point—stressing that the Great Acceleration itself means not only the enhancement of capitalist productive forces and technological capabilities, but also the phased failure of the human attempt to "dominate nature." The essence of this failure is the destructive product of the combination of capitalist economic expansion and the concept of "dominating nature," and it is in this sense that capitalism needs to be critiqued. Andreas Malm and Alf Hornborg oppose attributing the origin of the Anthropocene to all of humanity. They attempt to critique the "controlled fire theory" within the natural science narrative of the Anthropocene, disagreeing with the notion that capitalism's responsibility for the Anthropocene crisis should be transferred to the "rational consciousness" of humanity itself. They argue that the fuel economy and ecological resource extraction system of fossil capitalism were "not universally supported by humans," and that the anti-human nature of capitalism should instead be viewed as the object of culpability for the Anthropocene crisis. In the words of geologist Will Steffen, the views of Malm and Hornborg emphasize that "industrial capitalists in wealthy nations—rather than 'humanity as a whole'—should bear the primary responsibility for the Anthropocene." These views are championed by Ian Angus, who stated bluntly that "this may not be a perfect ecosocialist analysis, but it certainly shatters the myth of Anthropocene science blaming everyone."
Second, the discussion regarding how the anthropocentric ecological values of the Anthropocene can receive a "version update." "Man's natural existence, the relationship between man and nature, does not occur in isolation; it occurs through society and through human consciousness." Based on the inherent "'anthropocentric' or 'humanistic' color" of Marxist theoretical interpretation, a form of anthropocentrism with higher transcendence and relevance to our times clearly constitutes the foundation of ecological values for eco-Marxist scholars and some green-left scholars with socialist leanings. Jason Moore [11] points out a paradox that must be addressed in the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" discourse: on the one hand, the resolution of the Anthropocene crisis often requires humanity to gradually reduce or even "withdraw" from its scope of influence on nature; on the other hand, the Anthropocene signifies that humanity has achieved stronger ecological agency and species-protection power than in any previous historical period. This paradox reveals that how to view human capability and status, and how to ultimately complete the "version update" of ecological values from "center and benefit-receiver" to "subject and protective practitioner," is a question scholars must contemplate.
On this point, Foster argues that a significant portion of leftist scholars articulating the Anthropocene issue have been influenced by the "critique of the dialectics of nature" [12] within the Western Marxist tradition, falling into a theoretical trap of "abandoning materialistic dialectics and critical realism to turn toward anthropocentric monism." The most intuitive manifestation of this error is the rejection of the dialectic connection and holistic relationship between man and nature, thus making it impossible to establish an internal theoretical link between Marx’s "socialist" vision and the resolution of the Anthropocene crisis. Therefore, Foster advocates that while critiquing capitalism, one must also resolutely draw a clear line against the "social monism" or "anthropocentric monism" of some scholars, moving toward a higher-level revival of the dialectics of nature—the anthropocentric standpoint of "socialist ecology." He notes: "In socialist ecology, the dialectic is vital to understanding the regulation of nature and society through production; whereas in social monism, nature is incorporated into society/capitalism." Kohei Saito basically agrees with Foster’s interpretation of anthropocentrism. Simultaneously, through political-economic research, he points out that in Marx’s view, it is unnecessary to reduce the dualism of man and nature into monism; rather, one must explain why such a dualism has power in reality through various social relations. One should not dissolve the status of humanity as an agentic subject or its socio-historical attributes; establishing an anthropocentric foundation for ecological values is not contradictory to performing ecosystem protection work in the Anthropocene. In his recent works, Foster’s substantive expression of the "version update" for anthropocentrism has become clearer. Grounded in Marx’s theory of metabolic rift, he critiques the accusations of anthropocentrism leveled against Marx by Timothy Morton, Jane Bennett, and others, arguing that Marx was by no means an advocate of old-style anthropocentrism. Marx’s theoretical goal was always "to attempt to provide a higher synthesis, aiming at the reconciliation of humanism and naturalism, and man and nature, rather than their opposition." When discussing "Marxism of the Anthropocene" today, the ecological value scheme truly consistent with Marx’s original vision should be the "Dialectic of the Anthropocene." That is, while fully guaranteeing the status of humanity as an agentic subject, the Anthropocene should be viewed as "an age in which humanity must struggle in a revolutionary way, not only to promote human freedom but also to avoid the destruction caused by the so-called 'fatal threat of capitalism to the world and to life as a whole.'" This leads the abstract debate over whether man or nature is more important toward a more realistic and practical situation.
Third, the discussion regarding the eco-socialist vision for the Anthropocene. At least in the sense of a consensus within leftist academic circles, the best solution for coping with the Anthropocene crisis must be the replacement of the capitalist political, economic, and cultural system. However, specific plans for achieving this "post-capitalism" and the vision for the new social formation resulting from such a replacement still require extensive discourse and discussion. Within the theoretical atmosphere of Europe and America, eco-socialism always faces various criticisms. For instance, those outside the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" discourse, such as Jordan Kinder, do not accept the notion of "actually existing socialism" as a post-capitalist social formation. However, their critiques mostly do not deny the possibility and feasibility of socialism undergoing a "version update" itself. This reveals the theoretical necessity for the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" discourse to respond to the questions: "Why must the future of the Anthropocene be eco-socialist?" and "What would this socialism look like?" In this sense, Ian Angus’s theoretical response to the issue is relatively mature and systematic: "Facing the Anthropocene aims to solve the problem of building a bridge between Earth System science and eco-socialism." Angus believes that Rosa Luxemburg’s "socialism or barbarism" analysis has already demonstrated the prospect of eco-socialism becoming the optimal solution for human civilization. Under this premise, Angus proposes a plurality of eco-socialist visions, arguing that "the eco-socialist movement is by no means entirely monolithic." However, he maintains that all designers of eco-socialism must acknowledge two principles: (1) collective ownership of the means of production and an urgent pursuit of social equality and justice; and (2) the establishment, maintenance, and continuous improvement of a social industrial base with positive ecological effects. In Angus’s view, the eco-socialism that serves as a way out of the Anthropocene crisis must oppose market-centrism and productive force determinism, prioritizing use-value over exchange-value or monetary forms at the economic level. On this basis, Angus also elaborates on more than a dozen specific eco-socialist designs, such as the containment and elimination of nuclear energy, a clean and free public transportation system, and the construction of normative geoengineering. These specific designs have received general support from Foster and others. In Foster's 2022 book Capitalism in the Anthropocene, the number of specific designs is expanded to 16, constituting the most concrete expression of the socialist vision within the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" discourse.
Beyond the socialist visions of Foster and Angus, Andreas Malm, within the narrative mode of "Capitalocene" critique he pioneered, proposes that socialism in the Anthropocene faces challenges such as the "contradiction between emission reduction and development." However, he still acknowledges the importance of socialism for exiting the Capitalocene: "Given that any meaningful transition will require challenging capitalism, the legacy of socialism provides a set of resources to draw upon." Based on this understanding, Malm proposes the socialist vision of "Ecological Leninism." This involves establishing a social formation with sufficient disaster emergency awareness and resource integration capabilities, utilizing state power mechanisms to transform the Anthropocene’s confrontation between man and nature into a confrontation between humanity and the capitalist system. Malm’s idea is not an ignored eccentricity; leftist scholars such as Jacques Rancière have also paid attention to "Ecological Leninism." Ultimately, however, how this "Ecological Leninism" can be presented as a systemic political philosophy is a problem that Malm has yet to solve.
Overall, based on a broad understanding of ecological Marxism that encompasses both the green-left and eco-Marxist camps, the discussion on the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" possesses a vast textual foundation, clear lines of development, and distinct research agendas. As demonstrated by the "Anthropocene turn" in the individual research trajectories of scholars like John Bellamy Foster and Kohei Saito, eco-Marxist scholars were not simply "thrown" into the theoretical field of Anthropocene studies. On the contrary, by actively adjusting their research emphasis, they entered the articulation of Anthropocene discourse with a posture of being acutely aware of what they intended to prove. In the vision of eco-Marxist scholars, the Anthropocene must necessarily be applied to deepening the ecological critique of capitalism, innovating the design of alternatives to capitalism, and concretely unfolding the conception of eco-socialism. In this sense, the "Great Acceleration" [13] starting point provided by the Anthropocene undoubtedly serves as a powerful theoretical tool for the further confirmation of capitalist ecological responsibility. Simultaneously, the Anthropocene involves the question of refining anthropocentrism, which constitutes the general theoretical "basic stake" of eco-Marxist scholars. In other words, if the anthropocentric position is yielded or even shifted toward a kind of ecocentrism, the foundation of eco-Marxist ecological values will be thoroughly shaken, leading to a rupture in its expression of political philosophy. Based on the above understanding, the author believes that the current development of the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" in foreign academia is flourishing but still faces a relatively massive "burden of proof" (i.e., difficult problems). The most challenging task is how to build upon the foundation laid by Foster and others to establish, in a more structural manner, a new form of anthropocentric ecological values that supplements or even transcends existing weak anthropocentrism, and how this generates new critical alternatives to capitalism and conceptions of eco-socialist construction. The latter clearly constitutes the "discursive system implications and main dimensions" of ecological Marxism.
IV. Theoretical Review of the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" Agenda
The existence of the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" agenda is already very clear, and the academic discussions initiated by a large number of scholars around this core concept and its peripheral issues deserve attention. Due to the internal theoretical heterogeneity of the agenda, an objective theoretical evaluation requires distinguishing between different "evaluating subjects." From the perspective of foundational Marxist scholars, the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" agenda undoubtedly contains theoretical influences in both positive and negative senses. On the positive side, the emergence of the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" indeed provides new theoretical momentum and growth points for Marxist research in foreign academia, allowing the interdisciplinary influence generated by the Anthropocene category and its theoretical products to be projected into the field of Marxist studies. Although the scientific nature of Marxism dictates that it does not need to rely on external topics for its theoretical deployment, any advancement of the attention toward and discussion of Marxism in a spatio-temporal sense is still worthy of support. Viewed from the theory itself, discussions on the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" often revolve around Marxist ecological thought and political economy (focusing particularly on the labor theory of value), attempting to provide a strongly ecology-related supplement to classical Marxist issues or categories. This supplement is progressive in a significant sense. On one hand, the ecological connotations and political-economic explanatory power inherent in Marxism can be activated and attended to a greater extent. On the other hand, certain ideological Western Marxist traditions that diverge from the (classical) Marxist research position—or even bring about numerous problems—will be falsified and liquidated.
On the negative side, the emergence of the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" reveals the risk of Marxism being "arbitrarily co-opted" in foreign academic circles. A considerable portion of the literature concerning "Marxism of the Anthropocene" lacks a holistic understanding of Marxism. Although the authors often possess left-wing political stances or radical philosophical colors, they cannot fully clarify the foundational connotations of Marxism. A typical example is Baxley [14], who understands Marxism as a rather dogmatic "Red Anthropocentrism," ignoring the dual critique and reflection Marxism offers regarding both old-style anthropocentrism and biocentrism. He fails to demonstrate the self-transcendence of Marxism and easily interprets it as a form of anti-naturalism or extreme anthropocentrism. Of course, these common flaws exit in any academic discussion in foreign academia regarding specific topics; however, beyond these unfavorable factors, there are still many scholars doing fruitful theoretical work on the interface between Marxism and the knowledge background of the Anthropocene.
From the more concrete, focused, and specialized perspective of contemporary eco-Marxist scholars, the theoretical effects produced by the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" primarily include the following aspects: First, it helps discern new characteristics of theoretical growth in contemporary ecological Marxism, promoting the modernization, refinement, and specialization of the eco-Marxist intellectual genealogy. The "Marxism of the Anthropocene" reflects substantive changes in the development of ecological Marxism since the 21st century and proposes several new categories, viewpoints, and schemes that did not exist previously. Research on the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" reflects at least three new characteristics of eco-Marxism in the 21st century: 1) the enrichment of the surface structure of discourse, incorporating a large number of categories and theoretical tools based on geology and environmental history, such as the "Capitalocene," "Communocene," "geoengineering," and "planetary boundaries"; 2) the refinement of anthropocentric ecological values, providing a more cutting-edge and sophisticated articulation of the anthropocentric value foundation of ecological Marxism; and 3) the theoretical deepening of its political-philosophical implications, including advancements in the ecological critique of capitalism, the design of eco-socialist conceptions, and the exploration of alternative schemes.
Second, it helps resolve the theoretical dilemma of the "Anthropocene silence" within domestic Marxist theory and foreign Marxism studies. In the distribution of research hotspots in foreign academia, the "Anthropocene" and its related theoretical issues have consistently occupied an important position. In contrast, theoretical research on the Anthropocene in the domestic humanities and social sciences exhibits several characteristics: 1) the research disciplines are mainly philosophy and literature, with a low level of intervention from the discipline of Marxist theory; 2) the research methods are still dominated by the translation of results and the relaying of viewpoints, and the number of original theoretical achievements needs to be increased; 3) the level of understanding of relevant foreign academic literature needs further deepening to systematically discern the core features of the Anthropocene and its theoretical discourse; and 4) the overall scale of research results needs to be expanded. These conditions indicate that research on the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" can provide an opportunity for the intervention of the Anthropocene topic within domestic Marxist theory, especially in the field of foreign Marxism studies.
Finally, it helps provide resource-based references for the theory and practice of socialist ecological civilization. The theory and practice of socialist ecological civilization [15] centrally reflect the theoretical and practical wisdom of the Communist Party of China (CPC) in leading the people to respond to ecological crises and move toward a new form of human civilization. Socialist ecological civilization and its construction can be understood as a form of theoretical and policy discourse, and can also be concretely promoted as a social practice. On a more macro level of "human civilization," socialist ecological civilization and its construction clearly constitute a more contemporary and practical "Red-Green vision" that transcends capitalist responses to the Anthropocene crisis. In the process of constructing a "Marxism of the Anthropocene" with Chinese characteristics, some domestic scholars have already made significant contributions. For instance, Jiang Lifu has examined the discursive foundation, basic paradigms, and research space of Anthropocene ecocriticism, analyzed the possibilities of different "post-Anthropocene" versions, and provided a reflection and critique of capitalist ecological threats based on the ecological thoughts of Marx and Engels and the classical theories of socialist thinkers like William Morris. This served as his point of entry for excavating the eco-Marxist theoretical connotations of the Anthropocene. Teng Fei has conducted integrative research on Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization (and its Marxist foundations) and Anthropocene theory, using Xi Jinping Thought on Ecological Civilization to reflect on the "post-natural tendency" in Western ecological philosophy and providing a theoretical supplement to the ecological value foundation of the Anthropocene based on the realities of socialist ecological civilization. On the level of actual intellectual practice, the 2021 academic symposium "The Anthropocene, Climate Change, and Literary Representation" explicitly proposed the category of "Anthropocene Marxism," arguing that to eliminate climate violence, one must fully utilize Marx’s concept of the "metabolic rift," strengthen the ecological critique of capitalism, and construct a community with a shared future for the Earth’s space-time, contributing Chinese wisdom and adding a Chinese character to the ecological well-being of the world’s people. This clearly constitutes a conscious attempt by contemporary Chinese scholars to engage in discourse construction regarding the "Marxism of the Anthropocene."
Based on the preliminary reflections on the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" provided above, and concluding from a "theory-reality" cognitive framework, research on this agenda can offer the following three contributions to the theory of socialist ecological civilization: 1) through the deepening of its theory of capitalist critique, it helps to further recognize the values and chronic ailments of mainstream Western environmental theories; 2) through its articulation of Anthropocene discourse, it enriches the discursive system of socialist ecological civilization theory and promotes the theory and discourse of socialist ecological civilization with Chinese characteristics onto the international stage, thereby winning a broader space for international dialogue; and 3) through its analysis of ecological value challenges in the Anthropocene era and its attempts to refine anthropocentric values, it assists in the cultivation of "ecological new persons" within the context of socialist ecological civilization. On the practical level, the "Marxism of the Anthropocene" agenda can provide a mirror for ecological people's livelihoods and well-being, green technological innovation, and international ecological cooperation, promoting the scientific, contemporary, and internationalized development of socialist ecological civilization theory and practice, and contributing more diverse intellectual resources to the construction of a Chinese-path modernization that ensures harmony between humanity and nature. (Notes omitted)
(The author is a doctoral student at the School of Marxism, Peking University)