Marx & Metabolism

Metabolizing Marx’s metabolic processes while watching kabaddi shirtless: talk about ruptures! Phil watches his meadow grow while digging into the nesting habits of bats. Matt enthusiastically describes Kabaddi, an Indian sport that combines rugby and red rover with rhythmic breathing and unarmed combat. We watched a few clips of the game and decided that maybe we should just stick with golf (Phil watched this one while Matt was talking). Phil attempts to describe the intent of the podcast in a different way, inevitably fumbled the website link (again!), while Matt just totally pulled a blank.    Marx & Metabolism (15:42) Phil and Matt talk about Marx through a political ecology reading. More specifically, Phil argues that paying attention to the notion of metabolism in Marx’s works is a powerful way to (re)frame his philosophical and political arguments.  This could be a fresh way to apply Marx to our daily lives.Phil kicks us off by reading some quotes and using these to give a short overview of Marx and his understanding of political ecology. Matt suggests change found in the concept of metabolism could lead us away from a ‘structuralist’ way of reading Marx. We then talk around continuity vs ruptures/rifts and Phil hopes he can return to this in a later episode. Phil connects metabolic processes to Epicurean and Stoic philosophies, which was a new way of framing Marx and tracing his philosophic tradition (legacy?) for Matt. After some more ponderous speculation, Matt asks Phil the “So What Dude?” question: How can we apply this dynamic notion of Marxist-Metabolism to our daily lives (to think through political and economic changes, maybe). Phil brings up BitCoin as an example, showing that this seemingly new/novel currency that held the promise of being a great leveler/equalizer actually has gotten (appropriated?, subsumed?) by pre-existing relationships. Phil suggests that Marx can and should continue to be read in new ways and praises Foster for the track he laid out to explore the works from a fresh perspective. After that we (Matt?) decided that he “was done”. Keep it classy. Links For the Marx & Engel complete works, see here. For a controversy surrounding the complete works, see here. John Bellamy Foster “Marx’s Theory of Metabolic Rift: Classical Foundations for Environmental Sociology” (Appearing in AJS, Vol.105(2), 1999). John Bellamy Foster “Marx and the Rift in the Universal Metabolism of Nature” (Appearing in Monthly Review, Vol.65(7), 2013. John Bellamy Foster “Marx’s Ecology” (Monthly Review Press)   Recommendations (59:21) Matt recommended his favorite history podcast: Dan Carlin’s Hardcore History (RSS can be found here). Dan also produces a US-International current events show called: Common Sense with Dan Carlin (RSS feed can be found here). The history show’s episodes are hours long where he takes a sweeping view (contextual) of some historical event or trend in the most engaging way. Some favorite episodes: 3 part series on the Persian Empire, the 5 part Mongol empire episode and the stand-alone episode on the Protestant Reformation called Prophets of Doom.   Phil takes us to a deserted island: Oh no! Look out there! It’s Jenny trapped on a rock, there’s a storm coming, you gotta build a raft to save her AND yourself!! What will you do?? Good thing you have your dehumanized ‘helper’ Friday to push into harm's way! Yes, we are talking about the board game Robinson Crusoe: Adventures on the Cursed Island designed by Ignacy Trzewiczek and published by Portal. Phil and his better half have been playing this game for a few months; the instructions are 40 pages long, there are expansions available and really Matt’s main takeaway is that Friday, the ‘helper’ might be...some kind of ghost. Concluding Thought: Workers of the world unite! Happy May Day 😀 ---------------------- Follow Semi-Intellectual Musings on Twitter: @The_SIM_Pod Email Matt & Phil: [email protected] Subscribe to the podcast: https://thesim.podbean.com/feed/ For full show notes: https://thesim.podbean.com/e/marx-metabolism The show is now on iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/semi-intellectual-musings/id1232065376 The show can also be found on Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=138244&refid=stpr Please leave us a rating and a review, it really helps the show! Music: Song “Soul Challenger” appearing on “Cullahnary School” by Cullah 
Available at: http://www.cullah.com 
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