Abstract
It is often argued that Marx’s value analysis underrates nature’s importance as a condition of capitalist production. Even in the “eco-Marxist” literature, one finds assertions that Marx treats natural conditions as valueless, costless, and/or effectively limitless, with no real allowance for natural resource scarcity. Deléage (1994, 48), for example, posits that Marx’s labor theory of value “attributes no intrinsic value to natural resources.” Similarly, Campbell (1991, 54) refers to “some costs that, according to Marxian lights, are not considered costs at all—namely, the opportunity costs of . . . natural resources.” Apparently, Marx, having “formulated his economic theories on the assumption of limitless resources,” was unable or unwilling to “factor resource scarcity into his theory” (Carpenter, 1997, 137, 139).
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© 1999 Paul Burkett
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Burkett, P. (1999). Capital’s “Free Appropriation” of Natural and Social Conditions. In: Marx and Nature. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780312299651_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780312299651_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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