The Ecology of Marxian Political Economy

Abstract

The ongoing planetary environmental catastrophy
has its roots in the capitalist economic system. The competitive state of capitalism and the environmental destruction that emerged under monopolistic capitalism could not be foreseen during the era in which Marx elaborated his ecological criticism. In this article, we discuss the ecological criticism of Marx (and Engels), as well as the works of subsequent Marxists and radical political economists, including Thorstein Veblen, Paul Baran, Paul Sweezy and Allan Schnaiberg.