We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Monday, July 29, 2019

The Discovery and Rediscovery of Metabolic Rift

Click here if you wish to access the following talk by Ian Angus at a recent Marxism festival in London directly from Climate & Capitalism.

I have in the past posted many articles by the astute Angus, and now we see him in person in the following 38m50s video. The remainder of the video is devoted to the comments by the participants at the talk.

In his address Angus, after defining the concept, reviews the long materialist history of the metabolic rift caused by humans beginning with intuitive observations by ancient Greeks over 2000 years ago. During the past two centuries scientists and Marxists have added to this by their study of nature and the implications derived from these studies.



If you want more of Ian Angus and/or the festival organized in London by the Socialist Worker's Party, I recommend this video presentation.