Nature and Value Theory

Abstract

Marx's theory of value can be used to provide a rich account of capitalist degradation of the environment and depletion of natural resources. Natural aspects are among the regulating conditions of production that determine the value of commodities. The use of better natural conditions and resources than those used by regulating capitals results in superprofits, appropriated as rents in the case of landed property. Depletion of natural resources and increased pollution result, as part of the regulating conditions of production, ceteris paribus , in an increase in the value of commodities. This increase impacts upon cost of production, profits, rents and wages, and gives rise to various tensions, conflicts and struggles that reshape the appropriation of nature. This dialectic does not allow us to argue for a generic tendency in capitalism towards a “stationary state” or an ecological catastrophe; the possibility of social change and revolution is grounded instead in the many contradictions and undesirable effects of capitalism, including the ecological ones, and in the struggles waged over them.