The ecological issue in Marx and Engels: an analysis of the Marxian and Engelsian perspective of the society-nature relationship

• Grant number: 21/07120-8
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Effective date (Start): October 01, 2021
• Effective date (End): September 30, 2022
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Sociology - Other specific Sociologies
• Principal Investigator: Davisson Charles Cangussu de Souza
• Grantee: Liliane Cristina Nogueira
• Host Institution: Escola de Filosofia, Letras e Ciências Humanas (EFLCH). Universidade Federal de São Paulo (UNIFESP). Campus Guarulhos. Guarulhos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

This project proposes an investigation into the possibility of finding ecological foundations in the society-nature relation developed by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Furthermore, it aims to analyze whether the Marxian and Engelsian critique of the capitalist mode of production offers a methodological basis for understanding the contemporary ecological crisis. The research will focus on the assessment of the eco-socialist movement on current environmental degradation. Bibliographic research will be carried out to briefly rescue the claims of those who identify Marx and Engels as defenders of productivism and those who defend them as major contributors of ecological criticism of productivism. Then, a critical reading of chapters of the selected books will be held, confronting the criticisms and ecological defenses of Marx and Engels, for the understanding of the proposed research problem. To this end, this research will focus on the books The Capital and Philosophical and Economic Manuscripts of 1844 by Karl Marx, on Anti-Dühring and Dialectics of Nature by Friedrich Engels, and finally on Communist Manifesto and German Ideology by both authors. This project aims to contribute to the important debate held in recent decades about the relevance of Marxian and Engelsian thought in the face of contemporary ecological problems. (AU)