“Metabolic rift theory” is not so useful
Updated 2 nd February 2024 John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, and Richard York’s 2010 The Ecological Rift: Capitalism's War on the Earth has some interesting nuggets, but overall the book is deeply flawed, of limited political value, and tainted by Stalinism in theoretical approach as well as political conclusions. The book’s core is “the central concept of the... ‘metabolic rift,’ or a rift in the metabolic exchange between humanity and nature. … [T]he essence of a metabolic rift is the rupture or interruption of a natural system.” It’s “necessary to ‘restore’… metabolism to ensure...