Capitalism, Democracy, and Ecology: DEPARTING FROM MARX

The world that was revolutionized by industrialization is being remade by the information revolution. But this is mostly a revolution from above, increasingly shaped by a new class of technocrats, experts, and professionals in the service of corporate capitalism. Using Marx as a touchstone, Timothy W. Luke warns that if communities are not to be overwhelmed by new class economic and political agendas, then the practice of democracy must be reconstituted on a more populist basis. However, the galvanizing force for this new, more community-centred populism will not be the proletariat, as Marx predicted, nor contemporary militant patriotic groups. Rather, Luke argues that many groups unified by a concern for ecological justice present the strongest potential opposition to capitalism. Wide-ranging and lucid, "Capitalism, Democracy, and Ecology" is essential reading in the age of information.