Nature and the Historical Progressivity of Capitalism

Abstract

Perhaps the most common ecological criticism of Marx is that in applauding capitalism’s development of the productive forces as a precondition of communism, he succumbs to a “Promethean” or “productivist” conception of history. Prometheanism, firmly rooted in the Enlightenment tradition, says that human progress hinges on the subjugation of nature to human purposes. Human development thus involves a struggle between people and nature in which people come out on top. The critics labeling Marx a Promethean typically suggest that he foresees a continuation and even an intensification of human domination over nature under communism, conceived as a society of ever-expanding per capita levels of material production and consumption with reduced worktime as enabled by the further development of the mechanized technologies bequeathed by capitalism.