Friedrich Engels on development and nature: rethinking ecology beyond Western Marxism

This article reconstructs the theory of ecological development that underlies the mature intellectual production of Friedrich Engels. It does so by means of a dialogue between recent scholarly interpretations of his thought, on the one hand, and a contextualized discussion of its reception in Latin America, on the other. Published in the aftermath of the Cuban Revolution, the mature work of Engels enabled Latin American Marxism to challenge mainstream theories of development that framed this concept in terms of mere growth or modernization, and to provide a multilinear understanding of historical and technological change in modern societies. For Engels, the (eco)socialist development of the forces of production would require the construction of a mass movement against capital. Accordingly, the article also unearths his writings on political strategy, and discusses the ways in which they informed anti-dictatorial struggles in Latin America. By bringing together the economic and the political underpinnings of an Engelsian theory of development, the article rethinks ecological socialism beyond Western Marxism – especially after its shift towards degrowth – and points at its implications for building an environmental politics of the working class.