Антиномии (May 2022)
The Myth of Karl Marx's Prometheanism: Analysis and Criticism
Abstract
The article deals with the destruction of the widespread myth about Karl Marx as a “Promethean thinker”. Under Prometheism/Prometheanism is the point of view according to which nature is considered as a quantitatively “inexhaustible storehouse”, which must be known and conquered on the basis of scientific and technical knowledge in order to be used to meet constantly growing human needs through continuous growth of production and, accordingly, a permanent increase in the degree of aggressive exploitation of nature while completely ignoring the consequences of this exploitation both for the environment and for human society itself. Since the myth of the “prometheanism” of Marx, which is very tenacious to this day, was previously dispelled in the field of political economy (J.B. Foster, K. Saito, P. Burkett), sociology (A. Salleh, M. Musto), ecology (B. Clark, J. Moore, E. Alvater, K. Saito, T. Grassmann), political science (K. Royce), then in the proposed study the author focused only on some of the philosophical aspects of the problem. In the first part of the article it is shown that Marx (based on some of his statements) is mistakenly criticized by many thinkers for anti-environmentalism; in the second, relying on the texts of Marx himself, it is proved that these fragments torn from the general context of his philosophy are mostly false, because Marx, often praising technological progress, nevertheless, was not a Promethean, as he subjected the social and environmental consequences of the capitalist application of technology and science to radical scientific criticism; Finally, in the third part, through the reconstruction of Marx’s philosophical-anthropological and socio-philosophical ideas, Marx’s true attitude to environmental issues is shown. The author’s arguments are as follows. According to Marx, the ontological basis for the existence of any human society is social metabolism, i.e. the exchange of substances between man and nature through transformative activity, during the deployment of which all the “worlds” in which man exists are drawn into metabolic exchange (nature, society, “second nature” – material and spiritual culture, the world of others, their own inner world). Each socio-historical stage of development has its own specific type of metabolism, i.e. its own special form of ecological interaction between all “worlds”. Based on this method, Marx shows that metabolic rifts, i.e. disturbances in the processes of normal, balanced flow of social metabolism in the totality of all these “worlds” are most characteristic of capitalism due to its structural Promethean intentions (the desire to increase profits, which is associated with the need for permanent growth of production – the imperative “grow or die!”; and hence to increase the exploitation of nature). And in this sense, Marx’s philosophical ecology not only fully corresponds to the modern level of understanding of ecological/environmental problems, but also offers a holistic methodology not only for “explaining” these problems, but also for their “practical solution”.
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