THEORIES OF MAIM AND MATURE : THE CURRENT DEBATE ON THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS


Introduction

The gloomy prognostications of the first club of Rome study set the trend for the recent "environmental debate". This study, using a sophisticated computer at M.I.T. and extrapolating, on the basis of past trends and known resources, the interrelationships between five variables crucial to the world socio-economic system population, capital, food, non-renewable resources, and pollution predicted that this system would coffapse unless we recognized the 'limits to growth' and changed our pattern of development accordingly.

One does not have to resort to a third-generation computer to find evidence of an impending eco-crisis. Thus, one writer states that 'pollution in developed countries and depletion of resources from the environment in the developing countries are the basic problems before the (sic) mankind'2. One socialist warned that 'our present civilization is under threat from famine because of over-population, trom industrial breakdown because of resource depletion, and from poisoning by pollution'3. Likewise, Barryl Commoner, in his seminal work, tells us in chilling detail about the effects of nuclear radiation, air pollution, earth pollution (through fertilizer), and pollution of drinking water, as observed by him in the United-States

According to another member of the doomsday syndrome, the free enterprise System, while providing for the most advanced civilization in history, has been living on borrowed capital for several centuries In the wake of the destruction and depredation of almost two centuries duration, have come innumerable and almost insoluble problems'. These are listed by him as follows: air and water pollution sonic booms poisoning of soil and its produce by chemicals used in agriculture risks at lifehealth by chemicals used in food processing destruction of wildlife, trees, and plants through air and water pollutions oil slicks and mountains of waste that cannot be disposed.

This list is typical of environmental problems in advanced capitalist countries. Indeed, the environmental debate has been conducted in terms familiar only to the West. Nevertheless, the developing countries have their share of environmental problems as well, some distinctive and others a result of replicating the Western path of development. In this article we shall summarize some of the major responses to the environmental crisis, viz. the various explanations that have been adduced to account for it. Such an account, we hope, will bring to focus the need for a radically different perspective for understanding the relation between environment and development from the point of view of the Third World.

Neo-Malthusianism

The Meadows study, in its prediction of doom and the prescribed solution of population control and a 'no growth' economy, resurrected the ghost of Thomas Malthus. In fact the neo-Malthusian' school is prominent in the literature, laying the blame for the crisis squarely on the population explosion.

The Ehrlichs, authors of perhaps the best known ecological handbook, present a sophisticated neo-Malthusian case. Thus Paul Ehrlich, in a lively debate with Barry Commoner, contended that while other factors were not to be neglected, it was the pressure of a rapidly increasing population on finite resources that was the 'critical factor'7. The Ehrlichs also made projections to determine when the known resources of different metals would run out, at current levels of demand and population. They also established a relation between population growth and increasing pollution levels

A less sophisticated ideologue of the neo-Malthusian school is Garret Hardin, a well known biologist who has been writing on ecology for many years. In a recent restatement of his position , Hardin, in characteristically forthright syle, calls for stern treatment to those developing countries which are unable to manage their population explosion. Hardin's basic argument is that poor nations problems are caused by population increases. Rich nations must not help poor nations' lest they too should become poor. From the well-known lifeboat analogy, Hardin claims 'Poverty can be shared, but it is doubtful if wealth can . That is, overpopulation in poor countries threatens the preservation of the current levels of production and life-styles in the rich countries. Manipulating his earlier 'tragedy of the commons' argument, Hardin daims : 'under conditions of overpopulation, freedom in an unmanaged commons brings ruin to all' . For, poverty is not just due to shortages of supply, it is equally due to 'longages of demand.

Using the concept of the’ carrying' capacity of an eco-system, Hardin finds from studies of animal population that over-optimum increases in population lead to ecological degradation, that means less 'carrying capacity', finally leading to levels of population even lower than that which we started with. This principle, says Hardin, is applicable to human populations as well.

Hardin's solution is in keeping with his prognosis. Rich nations must use force to discipline errant poor nations. 'Survival is impossible without police action in times of crisis, and the tacit threat of it at all times. This is the price we pay for civilization' . According to Hardin, poor nations have hitherto been maintained by gifts euphemistically called 'transfers' at 'concessionary rates of interest from the rich countries, primarily the United States. From now on, poor nations which are parasites on the rich must be asked to show responsibility and accountability every nation must take care of itself. For 'the worst characteristic of parasitism is that it is addictive

The weaknesses in Professor Hardin's argument are obvious11. Briefly: (a) It is the U.S., with 6% of the world's population that consumes 40-50% of the world's resources'2. Thus, a miniscule increase in the population of the U.S. would have a much greater impact on the environment than much larger increases in population elsewhere, (b) Hardin completely overlooks the loot and plunder by the West of entire societies, i.e. the relationship between development and underdevelopment, (c) His assertion that poor nations are maintained by U.S. loans, has no basis in fact—there are many studies of the pernicious effects of 'aid imperialism' on the recipient nations,and the concomitant benefits to the West (d) Demographic history shows that in the West rapid population growth preceded affluence, and only after these societies became prosperous did birth-rates decline (the so-called 'demographic transition'). In the poor countries, demographers have found, it is poverty that causes over-population, not vice versa.

The above facts are independent of more telling and powerful explanations of the Eco-crisis, dealt with below. Nevertheless, neo-Malthusian arguments, thought lacking in factual basis, are prominent anyway. For they are used by ruling classes and the state in the developing countries as well. Take the example of deforestation in the Garhwal Himalayas, recognized: as the most pressing ecological problem in India by the newly constituted Department of Environment14. While the facts would seem to show that it is basically commercial exploitation for industrial interests elsewhere that has led to the denudation of,forest cover, the state and its officials persist in holding population increases and 'unlawful' practices among local villagers responsible. Malthusian explanations are followed by prescribed solutions of increased state repression, echoing Hardin on both counts. A senior forest officer recently wrote 'In recent years protection of forests has become a very serious problem. Villagers indulge in the illegal act of cutting standing trees...thereby causing the forests to recede. They area threat to the safety of the forest staff. As such, a police patrolling staff in each range is 'W essential to control illicit fellings'. The officer goes on; 'There is need to have a (sic) stringent law to curb illicit removal of trees by prescribing severe punishment to offenders'

Capitalism/Modern technology as cause

The other explanation prominent in the literature holds modern technology, particularly as exemplified under capitalism, as responsible for the crisis. Modern technology 'rests on the assumption that the environment in which technology operates allows complete analysis and manipulation

Barry Commoner's analysis of modern technology remains unsurpassed1'. Commoner
stresses that the eco-sphere is a system in which everything is connected to everything else. The global eco-system is a connected whole, in which nothing can be gained or lost thus anything extracted from it by human effort must be replaced. But man has broken out of the circle of life, replacing its endless cycles with man-made linear events.The modern mind thinks in terms of separate, singular events thus it cannot under stand the eco-sphere, whose interrelationships it misses. Nor does it heed a fundamental law of ecology that nature knows best.

The revolution in physics and chemistry led to the creation of wholly new forms of matter not found in nature e.g. new molecules created by atomic physics, or new synthetic chemical substances with various applications. But the potentially fatal flaw in this new technology was discovered only later: It was like a two-legged stool:

well founded in physics and chemistry, but flawed by a missing third leg, the biology of the environment'

Commoner presents strong evidence to show that simple increases in population could not have caused the much larger increases in pollution that characterize the eco-crisis. What is important is not the volume of growth, but how this growth was achieved. In the U.S., while production for most basic needs food, clothes, housing has just about kept pace with the 40-50% increase in population, the kinds of goods produced to meet these needs have changed drastically. New production technologies have displaced older, more ecologically sound ones, A short list synthetic detergents have replaced soap ; synthetic fibers have displaced natural ones aluminum, plastic, and concrete have displaced steel and lumber truck freight has eclipsed railroad freight non-returnable bottles have wiped out returnable ones fertilizer has destroyed land. From this evidence, we can conclude, 'The chief reason for the environmental crisis that has engulfed the United States in recent years is the sweeping transformation of productive technology since world war two...productive technologies with intense impacts on the environment have displaced less destructive ones.

All this can be traced back to the structure of modern science and technology. The technologist has defined his problem too narrowly seeing only one segment of what in nature is an endless cycle. Technology is an ecological failure for, 'unlike the automobile, the eco-system cannot be subdivided into manageable parts, for its properties reside in the whole, in the connections between the parts. A process that insists on dealing only with the separated parts is bound to fail and if. There is one fault In the system of modern science that can help explain the ecological failure of technology, it is that of reductionism, i.e. the belief that 'effective understanding of a complex system can be achieved by investigating the properties of its isolated parts While holding modern technology responsible. Commoner is too sophisticated a scholar to treat it as being independent of the social system in which. it operates, viz. capitalism. The crisis has social origins if the earth is polluted, 'the fault lies with human society with the ways in which society has elected to win, distribute and use the wealth that has been extracted by human labour from the planet's resources

The relationship between modern technology, capitalism, and the eco-crisis has been recognized by other writers. Robert Jungk, following Habermas, points out that science and technology are an ideology to which exclusion and repression are basic the isolation of partial phenomena for study obscures their relation to the whole. This partial philosophy provides capitalism with an adequate means of exploitation of man and nature'. For Western capitalism, the expropriation of the worker was only one facet of the comprehensive process of exploitation of the entire world and its resources

The role of ideas

Predictably, the literature on the eco-crisis has its share of idealist explanations. The most interesting one was put forth by the historian Lynn White in 1967, in an article widely quoted ever since20. According to White, the replacement of the scratch plow in Europe led to a fundamental' change in the man-nature relationship from being part of nature, man became its exploiter. It was among these peasants of Northern Europe, that modern technology, with its ruthlessness towards nature, first took root peasants whose religion was Christianity, the most f anthropocentric religion the world has seen (p102). This change was reflected in ' calendars, which from 830 A.p. onwards show man plowing, cutting trees etc., i.e. as master of nature.

Affirming that human ecology is deeply conditioned by beliefs about our nature and destiny that is, by religion White finds that 'Christianity, in absolute contrast to ancient paganism and Asia's religions (except, perhaps, Zoroastrianism) not only established a dualism of man and nature but also insisted that it is God's will that man exploit nature for his proper ends' (p103). In antiquity spirits of nature were placated before a tree was cut, a mountain mined, or a brook dammed. But the advent of Christianity 'made it possible to exploit nature in a mood of indifference to the feelings of natural objects'’ . Unlike the animist deities they replaced, Christian saints were not in natural objects being entirely human, they were approached only in human terms. White concludes by: offering a solution consistent with his diagnosis namely, that mankind will not get out of the eco-crisis 'until we find a new religion, or rethink our old one .

White notes that Zen Buddhism conceives of the man-nature ralationship as very nearly the opposite of the Christian view. Western ideas on nature have been contrasted with those traditionally held in China, The traditional Chinese view 'saw man as an integral part of a cosmos dominated by nature', while 'the modern West enthroned man, and casts him in the role of the conqueror of nature'20. Traditional Chinese attitudes towards work manifested a disbelief in Western style ideals of progress rather; they sought their models in what their fore fathers had proven over time. This did not mean inaction, but harmonious adjustment to the limits set byl nature. This love of nature was reflected in traditional Chinese poetry and painting, where nature was treated not as an antagonist, but as man's other and greater self.

Judeo-Christian ideals of man's transcendence of, and rightful mastery over nature have also been contrasted with the value systems of so-called primitive communities. Theodore Roszak, prophet of the counter-culture is here quoting an American Indian whose tribe was asked by the American Government to change from hunting/gathering to settled agriculture : 'You ask me to plough the ground; shall I take a" knife and tear my mother's bosom? Then when I die she will not take me to her bosom to rest.You ask me to dig for stones ; shall I dig -under her skin for her bones? Then when I die I cannot enter her body to be born again. You ask me to cut grass and make hay and sell it and be rich like white men ; but how dare I cut of my mother's hair

The ecological crisis has definitely caused a reappraisal (in some quarters) of Western jdeas of progress and the omnipotence of modern science. No longer can cultures be neatly categorized as backward or advanced34. In America, there has been a call for a change in the education system to reverse the alienation ' from nature which industrial civilization has encouraged25. While it is doubtful that such a reversal would occur without a corresponding change in the pattern of social relationships, it is clear that the so called 'prescientific outlook' can contribute to such a change. The fact that the global eco-system is a connected whole, wholly missed by modern science, was known even to people without any 'scientific' training20. Similar conclusions are emerging from the experience of deforestation in various parts of India namely, that the 'primitive' forest dwellers had a better idea of their habitat than the state proponents of 'scientific forestry', who took over these forests in the nineteenth century

Socialism and the environment

Some of the most important contributions to the environmental debate have come from socialists, who have extended their traditional critique of capitalism as a system to incorporate the eco-crisis.

Nevertheless, there remain two difficulties with socialist, especially Marxist, reactions vis-a-vis the eco-crisis. The first is the tendency to treat the ecological V debate as being merely a bourgeois deviation from the class struggle. Thus, 'the concern with pollution is often seen as no more than a middle class attempt to divert attention from the central need for redistribution'23. The fact that the composition of the ecological movement in the West is overwhelmingly middle class, and that the dub of Rome report could be interpreted as a call for greater power for the monopolies who commissioned the report, have led one observer to comment: 'In these circumstances it is not surprising that the European left, holds aloof from the ecological movement

The second and more fundamental difficulty (which in a sense underlies the first) is to do with the traditional Marxist vision of history as an evolutionary. Scheme. The idea of 'progress' as conceived by the thinkers of the enlightenment (during the 16th to 18th centuries) underlies Marxian thought. Dialectical materialism also sees the world in the Baconian mode, i.e., it gives it significance only as an infinitely exploitable convenience for the human species30. For 'orthodox Marxists', the onset of socialism would extend the mastery of nature to the whole of society—in contrast to capitalism, where exploitation of man by man goes hand in hand with the mastery over nature exercised by a part of society (the property lowing class).

The ambivalent attitude of the left (especially the organized left) is understand able then, in view of the common heritage (of Enlightenment thought) it shares with the West in general. 'Indeed, the left is presently in crisis since, like the system it opposes [capitalism], it refuses to acknowledge the ecological constraints limiting further developments of advanced industrial societies'32 ; while those left groups, as are present in the ecological movement, merely propose more state inter venation this statist conception reflecting their belief that modern science and technology will find solutions to the problem of scarcities

Environment and development:

The ecological crisis has led us to reconsider paths of development hitherto considered attainable and to be aspired to by virtue of their past successes elsewhere. This question is very important for the majority of Third World countries sex colonies who have now gained political independence and aim for economic independence as well.

Several writers have asked whether it is capitalism, or industrialization, that is responsible for the crisis. In East European countries there are signs of an eco-crisis ' too the drive to fulfill (and exceed) production quotas causes pollution in the same way as the profit drive in the U.S.A.34. These countries are usually said to have departed from socialist principles in their concentration on towns rather than countryside, and in their treatment of agriculture, by and large, as a source of surplus for investment in industry. So, 'although we may repeat that the present world-crisis has been caused by capitalism (so far it has been the only significant influence), there is not sufficient empirical evidence that industrial socialism would provide the whole answer'36. Industrial civilization has certain common values, essential for its success, that are imposed on both its capitalist and socialist variants. For example: (1) The all- important efficiency, which subordinates the optimum human scale of things to the optimum scale" of things required by the machine. (2) The need to tame the environment, leading to the mindless pillage of nature. (3) The priority of production and material achievements, to the exclusion of the aesthetic aspects of life and cultivation of the human person.

While the above picture is broadly true, it has been argued that it may be easier, however, to prevent environmental pollution in the Soviet Union. In the USA there exists a serious" clash between the worker's desire for a job, the industrialist's desire for profit, and the people's desire for a clean environment18. On the other hand, the ecology movement in the U.S.S.R. is not 'the people' versus 'the interests' but is aimed at the resolution of the conflict of interest. It has also been argued that : The Soviet ecology movement is older and more successful in stopping ecologically harmful projects than the ecology movements elsewhere. The conflict of interests is at a much lower, intensity since no corporate interests, are at stake. Thus the Soviet Union has a much better record than the U.S. in forest conservation and afforestation, and in controlling air water, and noise pollution.

The vision of infinite growth

We now turn to one school that has not been dealt with those who retain their faith in the unlimited potential of man and in the problem-solving ability of modern science. It is their belief in the prospect of unending economic growth that is 'the central pillar of support for the sanguine views of Victorians, traditional Marxists and managerialists alike'40. Thus, 'Marxism as an instrument of analysis has never advanced any theory of socialism but one that is growth-oriented'41 ; the monopolists advocate technocratic strategies for manipulating nature formulated in the boardroom (i.e., what has been called 'environmental protection from above')

Of this school, it is the neo-classical economists who condemn the talk of an eco-crisis most strongly as being one of cry-wolf. The high priest of the neo-classical school, Paul Samuelson, reacted sharply to the pessimism of the club of Rome report, proclaiming that the 'wonders of industrial revolution are not over'. Samuelson was confident about the process of substitution and taxing of pollution being self corrective mechanisms to accommodate the externalities of environmental degradation. In the same vein, Carl Kaysen commented that the Meadows model ignored elementary economic propositions, viz., that there are adjustment mechanisms through price when things become scarce, leading to new technologies and substitutes. Referring to the Meadows report as 'computer mysticism', Kaysen talks of the exponential growth of technology which means that the ceiling of exploitable resources is also growing.

According to this school then, there is no need to reconsider development strategies, since the eco-crisis is a red herring that does not exist. Poverty in underdeveloped countries can be solved "only through general world economic growth. Since economic growth in these countries depends heavily on trade with and investment from developed countries, they can prosper only through growth in the latter countries hence the talk of a 'no growth' economy is counter productive.

Conclusion

On balance, however, we must agree .with Commoner that the task of finding solutions for the problems of development thrown up by the eco-crisis is 'unprecedented in human history, in its size, complexity, and urgency. Ecological survival does not mean the abandonment of technology, but that technology be derived from a scientific analysis appropriate to the natural world on which it intrudes41. Perhaps, this has led the writer E. L. Grant-Wilson, to visualize human history as being divisible into three grand phases : the first, in which humans were at one with nature, participating fully in its rhythms and processes; the second, in which man drew away from the environment, analyzed it and then adopted a predatory role ; and the third (upon which we are about to embark, and must if our race is to survive) whereby we reintegrate with nature, but bring with us all the analytical achievements of phase two, using them' not for predation but for conscious participation, thereby reconciling the first phase with the second, to achieve the third.

It is thus essential to develop an alternate perspective that would be behind a radical ecological movement to transform industrial society into one that will rediscover man's harmony with nature through the use of alternate technologies and a change in the pattern of social relationships that characterize capitalist -societies46. In such a perspective, the case of China is an object lesson. The f West has discovered, belatedly, that there is something to be learnt from Chinese practice, viz.', that goals should be achieved without destroying the environment49. During their First Five-Year Plan, the Chinese had clung to the orthodox communist obsession with heavy industry (following the Russian pattern). However, this assumption was soon discarded, and a more ecologically oriented path of development adopted—one that emphasized economic and political decentralization, and intermediate" technologies that would serve the majority of the population living in the rural areas, thus avoiding the disruption in lifestyles and massive concentration of pollution that characterize urban agglomerations

What follows from the Chinese and Russian experience then, is that while

Abolition of the private ownership of the means of production (and exploitation of human being by human being) may be a necessary condition for ecological survival, it is not a sufficient one. A society sans classes must adopt a humanistic technology, decentralized polity and economy, and face to face democracy it is then is hat 'the individual would finally be in a position, for the first time in history to fully realize his potentialities as a member of the human community and the natural world.


Author:Ramachandra Guha, Indian Institute of Management

Notes and References:
  1. D. H. Meadows, D. L. Meadows, J. Randers and W. W. Behrens, The Limits to Growth. New York, 1972.

  2. R. Misra, The Global Dimensions of the Environmental Problems, in Desh Bandhu and Chauhan, editors, Current trends in Indian Environment, New Delhi, 1977 (pp2-11), p9.

  3. C. Storieman The Unviabilityof Capitalism in. Socialism and the Environment, Spokesman Books, 1972 (PP59-104). p6a.

  4. B. Commoner, The Closing Circle, New York, 1971.4. B. Commoner, The Closing Circle, New York, 1971.

  5. H. Winthrop Environment and Man : Some Traditional and Extended Meanings of Ecology, New York, 1971, p 22

  6. P.R. Ehrlich, A. H. Ehrlich. and J. P, Holdren, Ecoscience, San Francisco, 1977.

  7. Reported in F. Sandbach, Environment : Ideology and Policy, Oxford, 1980, p 30.

  8. Se& ibid, pp 202-11, for a summary of the rieo-Mslthusisn position.

  9. See for example. G. Hardin, The Tragedy of the Commons, SCIENCE, 162 : 1243-48 (1969).

  10. G. Hardin, An Ecolate View of the Human Predicament, ALTERNATIVES, 7:242-62 (1981) (originally chapter 4 of C. N. McRostre, editor, Global Resources: Perspectives and Alternatives, Baltimore, n.d.). All page references in the text are to this reprint.

  11. See the responses to Hardin by R. Kothari, C. Bay and R. Falk in ALTERNATIVES, Vol. 7, No. 3.

  12. Commoner, op cit, pp 136-7.

  13. See A. J. Coale and F. M. Hoover, Population Growth and Economic Development in Low Income countries, Princeton, 1958 and M. Mamdani. The myth of Population Control, New York, 1972.

  14. Indian Express May 7th 1981.

  15. M. M. Pant, Wood to Alleviate India's Energy Crisis, INDIAN FORESTER, 107: 795-803 (1981), P 799,

  16. R. Jungk, Politics and Technocracy, in. Socialism and the Environment, op.cit. (pp 2-12), p3.

  17. Commoner, op.cit. Page references in the text are to this edition,

  18. Commoner seems to suggest that effective solutions U the crisis can be found only in a socialist society, ibid., p 209.

  19. Jungk, op. cit, pp 3ff,

  20. Lynn White, The Historical Roots of Our Ecological Crisis, in R. Clarke, editor. Notes for the Future London, 1975, pp 99-106. (originally published in 1967), Page references in the text arB to this reprint.

  21. R. Murphy, Man and Nature in China, MODERN ASIAN STUDIES, 7:313-33 (1967), pp 315-6.
  22. ibid., pp 314-17.

  23. T. Roszak, Th3 Sacramental Vision of Nature, in Clarke, op.cit. (pp 107-11) p 108.

  24. ibid,, pp 108-9.

  25. Winthrop, op.cit., p 24.

  26. Commoner, op.cit.. Chapter 2.

  27. Apart from the works cited (those by Commoner, Jungk, and Stoneman), see H. M. Enzenberger A Critique of Political Ecology, NEW LEFT REVIEW, 54:3-31 (1974).

  28. Stoneman, op.cit., p 59. Emphasis in original.

  29. Enzenberger, op.cit., p 9.

  30. C. Cornford, The Repeal of Disillusion, Royal College of Art, London, 1979.

  31. Given the contradictory strands in Marx's own thought, one cannot say whether this is a correct reading of Marx. Nevertheless, this is the understanding arrived at by most thinkers, including Alfred Schmidt in The Concept of Nature in Marx, London, 1971.

  32. T. Luke, Radical Ecology and the Crisis of Political Economy, TELOS, 4£:97-017 (1980-31), p 97.

  33. ibid., p 98.

  34. Commoner, interviewed in W. H. Oltmans, editor, On Growth, Boston, 1974.

  35. Stoneman, op.cit., p 64.

  36. R. L. Heilbroner, An Inquiry into the Human Prospect, London, 1975, p 77.

  37. 37. It can be mentioned here that this certainly does not correspond to Marx's own vision of socialiet society and 'socialist man.

  38. Commoner, in Oltmans, op.cit.

  39. W. M. Mandel, The Soviet Ecology Movement, SCIENCE AND SOCIETY, 36: 385-416 (1972).

  40. Heilbroner, op.cit., p 119.

  41. M. Bookchin, Review of Andre Gorz's Ecology as Politics, in TELOS, 46:177-89, (1980-81), p 183.

  42. ibid,, p 178; Enzenberger, op.cit., p11.

  43. See the interviews with P. A. Samuelsdn (pp 47-51), and C.Kaysen (pp 65-71), in Oltmans, op.cit.

  44. Kaysen, op.cit., p 67. For a sharp attack on the neo-classical's inability to deal with the eco-crisis, see Singh, op.cit. The ideological leanings of this school are obvious, viz., those of the 'Moderni¬zation' theorists who hold Western capitalism to be the apogee of human civilization, acting as a beacon light showing the way to the 'traditional' societies on whom the colonial powers laid their civilizing hand. It may also be added that'this school has had by far the worst of a debate that is, by now, itself history.

  45. Commoner, op.cit., p 247.

  46. ibid., p 189.

  47. Grant-Wilson, quoted in Cornford op.cit. Cornford comments on the similarity of this process to the classic Hegelian pattern of thesis-antithesis synthesis.

  48. Bookchin, op.cit., p 177.

  49. D. Bryan, China : A New Society in the Making, in Clarke, op.cit., pp 196-203.

  50. Sendback, op.cit.. Chapter 7.

  51. M. Bookchin, Ecology and Revolutionary Thought, in Clarke, op.cit., pp 168-177. Bookchin is an anarchist, but here he is strongly echoing the early Marx, cf. fn. 37


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