THE PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS OF ECOLOGICAL CIVILIZATION: A Manifesto for the Future
By Arran Gare
A manifesto for overcoming global capitalism to create an ecologically sustainable civilization – an ‘ecological civilization’
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The Philosophical Foundations of Ecological Civilization … www.routledge.com The global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together … |
The global ecological crisis is the greatest challenge humanity has ever had to confront, and humanity is failing. The triumph of the neo-liberal agenda, together with a debauched ‘scientism’, has reduced nature and people to nothing but raw materials, instruments and consumers to be efficiently managed in a global market dominated by corporate managers, media moguls and technocrats. The resultant trajectory towards global ecological destruction appears inexorable, and neither governments nor environmental movements have significantly altered this, or indeed, seem able to. Overcoming capitalism is no longer just a matter of overcoming oppression; it is a matter of the survival of civilization, and possibly, humanity.
Through a critical history of analytical and dialectical thinking, Arran Gare argues that to realize the critical potential of Marx’s critique of capitalism, dialectics has to be extended to include speculative and volitional dimensions that can not only challenge but replace, both theoretically and practically, the categories of being structuring the existing global bureaucratic capitalist socio-economic formation. Building on the work of Aleksandr Bogdanov, Joseph Needham and Ernst Bloch and drawing on the philosophy of Schelling rather than Hegel, Gare argues such categories can be supplied by ecology, eco-semiotics, human ecology, political ecology and ecological economics insofar as these advance a process relational ontology. Following Bogdanov, it is argued that at present the real class struggle is between workers of all kinds and managers, most importantly, the global corporatocracy. Following Needham, it is argued that the future has to be conceived as a global civilization transcending European civilization and incorporating the best of all other civilizations. And following Bloch, it is argued that mobilizing of people to overcome their enslavement to the existing order and to create a new socio-economic order will require new inspiring and realistic visions of the future. ‘Ecological civilization’ as promoted by radical Chinese environmentalists, focussing on communities of communities as ‘systems of homes’; that is, the environmental conditions for liberty and the full realization of people’s potential to augment the life of their communities, is shown to provide this vision.
HARDBACK: August 2016 / 260 PAGES / ISBN 978-1-138-68576-5 / $145.00 / £85.00
KINDLE: $41.55 / eBOOK: £24.49
