Listening to the Silence of the Earth: Why Capital Appropriates from Nature, Capitalism, 19th Century

Listening to the Silence of the Earth: Why Capital Appropriates from Nature, Capitalism, 19th Century

Marx saw the inevitability of the destruction of nature in the capitalist movement itself. Capital aims to multiply value, and to do so it exploits both human labor and the forces of nature. Nature is essentially a being that is in a symbiotic relationship with mankind, in a cycle of rebirth and renewal, but under the logic of capital, it becomes a mere "source of profit. Exchange value takes precedence over use value, and nature is consumed as an endless source of supply. Marx wrote in the first volume of his Theory of Capital that "capital wastes both the health of the workers and the fertility of the earth," showing that the deprivation of nature and the exploitation of labor have the same root. Capitalism encompasses a structure that consumes life to the extent that it expands wealth, severing the harmonious relationship between man and nature.

Marx called this rupture a "metabolic rift" and pointed to the destruction of the material cycle between human society and nature. The industrial revolution of the nineteenth century promoted the separation of urban and rural areas, with food and resources concentrated in the cities and fertilizers and nutrients no longer returned to the earth. Marx, inspired by the work of the chemist Liebig, depicted the process of capitalist agriculture depriving the soil of life as a breakdown of social metabolism. The factory effluent overflowing into London's Thames River, the nitrous fertilizers imported from Peru and Chile, and the increasing pollution of the environment-all were embodiments of capitalism's pursuit of profit beyond the limits of nature.

In this way, capital wastes life as a "resource" without regard for the regenerative capacity of nature in order to generate profit. For Marx, the deprivation of nature was an internal necessity that could not be avoided as long as capital continued to propagate itself. Rational production that listens to the voice of nature is the ethical foundation of the future society he envisioned, in which human beings, as part of nature, are required to once again restore its cycle.