Metabolic Rifts, Temporal Imperatives, and Geographical Shifts: Logging in the Adirondack Forest in the 1800s

ABSTRACT

Distinct land-use patterns can radically transform ecological conditions. In the following historical study, the authors employ Marx’s metabolic approach, nested within a political-economic perspective, to assess the ecological and temporal contradictions that emerged between the capitalist logging industry in New York State and the Adirondack forests in the 1800s. They present the environmental, socioeconomic, and technological changes that accompanied the consolidation and intensification of timber operations, expanding the harvesting of trees and the realm of ecological degradation. The authors highlight how the temporal demands of capital conflict with those of trees in the forest and how the social metabolism of capitalist logging violates the universal metabolism of nature, resulting in distinct ecological rifts and geographical shifts in production.

KEYWORDS:

• Metabolic analysis
• social metabolism
• ecology
• political economy
• old-growth forest

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on Contributors

Daniel Auerbach is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Utah. His areas of research include environmental sociology, ecological Marxism, political economy, and social theory. Daniel Auerbach has previously published articles in Sustainability, Climatic Change, and Organization & Environment.

Brett Clark is Associate Professor of sociology and sustainability studies at the University of Utah. He is the coauthor of four books, including The Tragedy of the Commodity (with Stefano B. Longo and Rebecca Clausen, 2015, Rutgers University Press), The Ecological Rift (with John Bellamy Foster and Richard York, 2010, Monthly Review Press), The Science and Humanism of Stephen Jay Gould (with Richard York, 2011, Monthly Review Press), and Critique of Intelligent Design (with John Bellamy Foster and Richard York, 2008, Monthly Review Press).

Notes

1 This quotation is found in Marx (1978), but the general point is also found in Burkett (2014). We can figure out that these historical relations are still very much a part of contemporary ecological Marxism.