I'd have to look up the quotations but IIRC there are two usages in Marx. One simply refers to concrete labor – i.e., the transformation of nature in accordance with human needs, which at the same time also involves the reproduction and transformation of humans, hence it's a process of "exchange" between humans and nature. The other is more general and signifies human life in general (including labor). I'm not so sure about the second usage so perhaps there's only the first, really. Anyways, in both cases the metabolic process is something fundamental to human life (or even identical with it).
A related concept is that of the metabolic rift, i.e., a deep, perhaps irreparable crisis in the metabolic process caused by the reckless ways in which human civilization makes use of nature (destroying it and thereby undermining the continued possibility of human life).
There's a quote in Marx's unpublished manuscripts (it was brought up at least once on the libcom forums) where Marx says that wherever civilization appears, it eventually leaves behind a desert (i.e., conditions in which the metabolic process and therefore human life is near impossible). The idea is that a communist society would constitute a break with this tradition and establish a rational way of managing the metabolic process in accordance with human needs and laws of nature. Marx sometimes discusses this in relation to capitalist agriculture.
So yeah, according to Marx, we always need the Stoffwechsel before we can have anything else.
Edit: the quote on civilization is in Marx's letter to Engels from 25 March 1868. And it does not mention civilization per se, but agriculture ("Kultur"). See here.
A standard reference in this regard is Alfred Schmidt, The Concept of Nature in Marx. IIRC there's an excellent afterword by Schmidt in a recent edition that collects all of Marx's "ecological" quotes. The book can be downloaded here.
Is this a joke question? It's
Is this a joke question?
It's German for metabolism. Sometimes used by Marx to characterize the process going on between man and nature.
not a joke question but what
not a joke question but what process?
I'd have to look up the
I'd have to look up the quotations but IIRC there are two usages in Marx. One simply refers to concrete labor – i.e., the transformation of nature in accordance with human needs, which at the same time also involves the reproduction and transformation of humans, hence it's a process of "exchange" between humans and nature. The other is more general and signifies human life in general (including labor). I'm not so sure about the second usage so perhaps there's only the first, really. Anyways, in both cases the metabolic process is something fundamental to human life (or even identical with it).
A related concept is that of the metabolic rift, i.e., a deep, perhaps irreparable crisis in the metabolic process caused by the reckless ways in which human civilization makes use of nature (destroying it and thereby undermining the continued possibility of human life).
There's a quote in Marx's unpublished manuscripts (it was brought up at least once on the libcom forums) where Marx says that wherever civilization appears, it eventually leaves behind a desert (i.e., conditions in which the metabolic process and therefore human life is near impossible). The idea is that a communist society would constitute a break with this tradition and establish a rational way of managing the metabolic process in accordance with human needs and laws of nature. Marx sometimes discusses this in relation to capitalist agriculture.
So yeah, according to Marx, we always need the Stoffwechsel before we can have anything else.
Edit: the quote on civilization is in Marx's letter to Engels from 25 March 1868. And it does not mention civilization per se, but agriculture ("Kultur"). See here.
A standard reference in this
A standard reference in this regard is Alfred Schmidt, The Concept of Nature in Marx. IIRC there's an excellent afterword by Schmidt in a recent edition that collects all of Marx's "ecological" quotes. The book can be downloaded here.