May 9, 2026
Chen Yiwen
Chen Yiwen
A century has passed
since the first publication of Frederick Engels’s Dialectics of Nature in 1925.
Despite being an unfinished manuscript, it reveals Engels’s ambitious vision of
integrating scientific achievements with dialectical thought, also reflected in
his Anti-Dühring, published in 1878. While Dialectics of Nature has long been a
subject of both debate and acclaim in broader academic circles, within
environmental theory, it has traditionally faced little challenge, often being
regarded as a key manifestation of Engels’s ecology. In recent years, however,
the publication of Karl Marx’s excerpt notebooks in the new
Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe (MEGA2) has refocused scholarly inquiry, and as
Marx’s ecology gains increasing attention, criticisms of Engels have
unexpectedly surfaced. Notably, Japanese scholar Kohei Saito has offered
in-depth interpretations of Marx’s ecological perspective, even going so far as
to portray Marx, exaggeratedly, as a proponent of degrowth. At the same time,
he emphasizes what he calls the “subtle but decisive theoretical differences
between Marx and Engels,” arguing that the root of this divergence lies in
Engels’s dialectics of nature.1 In Saito’s view, Engels’s dialectics of nature
represents a worldview centered on uncovering the objective laws of external
nature. This framework, he contends, prevents Engels from fully grasping Marx’s
concept of metabolic rift and its ecological-critical significance, and leads
Engels to develop an apocalyptic notion of the “revenge of nature.”
Saito’s position is noteworthy precisely for its potential to reinforce the notion of a “Marx-Engels divide” endemic to Western Marxism, which has as one of its principal components the rejection of the dialectics of nature.2 His argument underscores the necessity of re-examining the relevance of Engels’s dialectics of nature to contemporary ecological crises, particularly in relation to Marx’s ecological critique. Through a rigorous analysis of Engels’s Dialectics of Nature and related works, we can arrive at a conception of Marxist ecology grounded in material reality—one that avoids positioning Engels’s ecology in opposition to Marx’s. Fundamentally, Marxist ecology posits that the materialist view of history and nature, as well as the dialectics of history and nature, are inextricably linked.3 The ecological critique of political economy is predicated on a scientifically grounded understanding of the general laws governing nature and its historical development. By adopting this totality-based approach, we can better appreciate the theoretical value of the dialectics of nature and more comprehensively grasp the ecological critique inherent in Engels’s metaphor of nature’s revenge, thereby providing the intellectual tools necessary to overcome ecological crises and advance toward an ecological civilization.
Engels Against Marx?
Saito’s critique of Engels’s dialectics of nature provides a lens through which we can trace his line of reasoning and his reinterpretation of Engels. His criticism stems from a reflection on the Western Marxist tradition. In an effort to rescue Marx from the charges of mechanical materialism and economic determinism, many Western Marxist theorists have deliberately emphasized a theoretical division of labor between Marx and Engels, claiming that Marx focused on the social sciences while Engels concentrated on natural sciences. Saito rejects the common characterization of the division of labor between the two thinkers, at least in relation to the late Marx, noting that, after 1868, Marx undertook extensive studies in various fields of natural science, including chemistry, geology, mineralogy, physiology, and botany, as well as the overexploitation of natural resources and environmental degradation, related to his studies of the political economy of agriculture. Marx thereby sought to incorporate the natural sciences into his critique of political economy.
At the same time, Saito argues that Engels himself was the source of the predominant characterization of the division of labor between himself and Marx. As evidence, Saito cites the preface to the 1885 edition of Anti-Dühring, published after Marx’s death. In it, Engels wrote: “Marx was well versed in mathematics, but we could keep up with natural science only piecemeal, intermittently and sporadically. For this reason, when I retired from business and transferred my home to London, thus enabling myself to give the necessary time to it, I went through as complete as possible a ‘moulting,’ as Liebig calls it, in mathematics and the natural sciences.”4 Here, Saito claims, Engels disclosed his own plan for studying the natural sciences, but makes no specific reference to Marx’s engagement with natural science. On this basis, Saito concludes, “The honest Engels (unconsciously) avoided referring to Marx’s serious engagement with natural science and instead simply emphasized their intellectual division of labour.”5 (It should be mentioned that Marx’s consideration of natural science that Saito stresses is comprised mostly of excerpt notebooks, which consist almost entirely of quotations taken from the texts of other authors on which Marx rarely comments.)
Saito extrapolates from this supposed silence on Engels’s part with respect to Marx’s excerpts on natural science—entirely failing to recognize that Engels does point to Marx’s scientific studies in numerous places, as in the preface to volume 2 of Capital, where he refers to Marx’s explorations in agronomy, natural science as a whole, and mathematics—in order to argue that Engels’s alleged silence implied that the two harbored incompatible outlooks in their scientific inquiries.6 In Saito’s view, Marx’s later turn to the natural sciences was primarily driven by a desire to examine the fundamental transformations in natural conditions and the emerging tendencies toward ecological crisis under capitalist development. By contrast, we are told that Engels sought to apply the findings of natural science to comprehend and grasp the general laws of nature, thereby enhancing human control over the external world and achieving a form of human freedom. In line with the practical imperative of respecting objective laws, as emphasized in Dialectics of Nature, Engels proposed the idea of nature’s revenge, cautioning: “let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us.”7
To demonstrate the theoretical divergence between Marx and Engels, Saito contends that Engels improperly revised Marx’s discussion of “metabolism” in Capital. Marx, drawing on Justus von Liebig’s critique of “robbery agriculture,” recognized that capitalist agriculture produced (according to the Ben Fowkes translation) “an irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism, a metabolism prescribed by the natural laws of life itself.”8 Saito, however, claims that Engels improperly edited Marx’s sentence, eliminating the word “natural” at one point, so that it should actually read, according to Saito’s own translation of Marx’s original sentence, “an irreparable rift in the interdependent process between social metabolism and natural metabolism prescribed by the natural laws of the soil.”9 Here, Saito writes, Marx clearly distinguishes between the “social metabolism” driven by capital and the “natural metabolism” governed by ecological laws, underscoring their inherent contradiction and conflict. Saito argues that Engels’s revision obscured the contrast between social and natural metabolism, thereby contributing to the marginalization of Marx’s theory of metabolic rift. Yet, others, such as John Bellamy Foster, have argued that Engels simply eliminated a redundancy in the sentence, given that social metabolism is part of the universal metabolism of nature and Marx clearly indicated in the sentence that the alienated social metabolism is in conflict with the natural laws of life (that is, the universal metabolism of nature).10
Building on this questionable judgment, Saito further claims that Engels’s revised formulation should be seen as an extension of his “revenge of nature” perspective, one that seeks to emphasize the potentially catastrophic consequences of violating natural laws for human civilization. This, according to Saito, stands in essential contrast to Marx’s analysis, which centers on how the law of value under capitalism restructures the natural material metabolism through social metabolic processes and exposes their internal contradictions. In other words, Marx emphasizes the metabolism between humanity and nature from the perspective of specific sociohistorical formations, while Engels, in Saito’s view, approaches the dialectic of “control” and “revenge” between humanity and nature from a more general, transhistorical perspective. From this, Saito makes a second key claim: Marx, unlike G. W. F. Hegel or Friedrich Schelling, was not working within the tradition of natural philosophy that sought to construct an all-encompassing worldview capable of explaining every phenomenon in the universe. Engels, however, aimed to provide a materialist explanation of the universe based on the achievements of the natural sciences. According to Saito, this fundamental difference accounts for their divergent positions in the field of ecological theory.
After outlining the theoretical divergence between Engels and Marx on ecological questions, Saito also stresses the negative consequences of this split: namely, that ignoring Marx’s theory of the metabolic rift while uncritically accepting Engels’s “revenge of nature” view risks sliding into a kind of apocalypticism. According to Saito, unlike Engels, Marx did not equate the metabolic rift under capitalism with nature’s revenge, rather, he recognized capital’s considerable elasticity in shifting and displacing the rift. For Marx, the extreme alienation of the human-nature relationship could, paradoxically, give rise to the revolutionary necessity to resist capital. The realm of freedom envisioned by Marx was not confined to Engels’s notion of mastering and skillfully applying natural laws; instead, it involved transcending the realm of necessity altogether through the collective control and rational regulation of the metabolism between society and nature, ultimately allowing for the full development of individual human capacities. More significantly, in his later years, Marx studied (as did Engels) the works of Carl Fraas, Georg Maurer, and others, through which he explored the various forms of social metabolism in precapitalist societies. Through this inquiry, Marx came to recognize a certain historical superiority in the egalitarian and sustainable modes of production that existed within some rural communes. In doing so, he avoided two problematic tendencies: a reductive explanation of the collapse of all premodern civilizations through the lens of “nature’s revenge,” and the linear view of historical progress that assumes that the mere discovery of natural laws and advancement of productive forces will lead to civilizational improvement. Thus, Saito concludes: “It was precisely due to this difference between ‘Marx’s later writings’ and ‘Engels’ understanding of dialectics’ that the concept of metabolism and its ecological implication were marginalized throughout the 20th century.”11
In summary, Saito’s “Marx-Engels divide” thesis consists of three main arguments: (1) In order to emphasize the importance of the dialectics of nature, Engels deliberately avoided discussing Marx’s progress in natural scientific research; (2) Engels’s dialectics of nature represents a worldview focused solely on understanding transhistorical laws of nature, thereby deviating from Marx’s theory of metabolic rift, which is based on analyzing the contradiction between form (“Form”) and matter (“Stoff”) in specific historical stages; and (3) Engels’s insufficient attention to social and historical specificity led him to underestimate capital’s flexibility and precapitalist ecological rationality, resulting in an apocalyptic “revenge of nature” thesis and a simplistic belief that mastering nature would ensure freedom. As Saito puts it: “Engels ended up overemphasizing some aspects of Marx’s theory, such as ‘rationalism,’ ‘positivism,’ ‘progressive view of history,’ ‘productivism’ and ‘Eurocentrism.’”12
Addressing Saito’s criticism of Engels is not a particularly difficult task, given that scholars have already offered counter-arguments that merit serious consideration.13
Regarding claim (1), there is ample documentary evidence showing that Engels publicly acknowledged and affirmed Marx’s research in the natural sciences. For example, in 1885, the same year the second edition of Anti-Dühring was published, Engels wrote in the preface to the second volume of Capital: “There was another intermission after 1870, due mainly to Marx’s ill health. As usual, Marx employed this time for studies; agronomics, rural relations in America and, especially, Russia, the money market and banking, and finally natural sciences such as geology and physiology, and above all independent mathematical works, form the content of the numerous excerpt notebooks of this period.”14 Even granting that Engels may not have fully grasped Marx’s research plan, it is difficult to argue that he intentionally concealed the work.
Claims (2) and (3) are founded on a misconstruction of the text. Engels’s omission of the adjective “natural” in editing the third volume of Capital did not substantively alter Marx’s intended meaning. In that passage, Marx had already referred to “a metabolism prescribed by the natural laws,” which presupposes the broader process of nature’s material metabolism, and indeed such a reference to nature in this respect is repeated at the end of the sentence that refers to the “irreparable rift.” Social metabolism, meanwhile, refers to humanity’s specific metabolism with the universal metabolism of nature through labor. Furthermore, the identification and explanation of laws is the fundamental task of scientific inquiry and the basis for a critique of social history. Philosophically grasping nature and its objective laws is not in conflict with concretely analyzing capitalism’s ecological contradictions. The “irreparable rift” in the process of social and natural metabolism, after all, is nothing other than the historically specific expression of how capitalist production violates natural laws.
Saito’s core criticism of the dialectics of nature targets its formulation as a worldview focused on universal cosmic motion and characterized by a “philosophical and transhistorical scheme.”15 This framework, in his view, can only conceive of the conflict between humanity and nature statically—thereby failing to offer a realistic analysis of the ecological crisis under capitalism or its potential for transformation. Therefore, it is necessary to focus more directly on the ecological implications of the dialectics of nature, particularly by elucidating its foundational value in shaping an ecological worldview and its significance for a critical diagnosis of capitalist ecology. Saito, however, largely ignores the fact that Dialectics of Nature ends with a discussion of evolution in “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man,” which refers explicitly to ecological crises brought on by capitalism.16
The Dialectics of Nature and the Ecological Worldview
Saito’s critique of Engels directly concerns the interpretation of the worldview expressed in his dialectics of nature and its ecological implications. In Saito’s view, Engels’s dialectics of nature seeks to articulate transhistorical laws inherent in nature itself, thereby providing an ontological and epistemological basis for human control over nature.
Engels sought to construct an overarching worldview encompassing both nature and society. He held that dialectics was not a mere proof-producing instrument, “it contains the germ of a more comprehensive view of the world.”17 Crucially, however, Engels’s dialectics of nature was fundamentally concerned with understanding the totality of the real world and establishing a scientific theoretical foundation for historical transformation. This was directly linked to the proletarian politics of his time.18 As Engels argued, “the materialist conception of history and its specific application to the modern class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie was only possible by means of dialectics.”19 Hence, there was a pressing need to “rescue conscious dialectics from German idealist philosophy and apply it in the materialist conception of nature and history.”20 Therefore, Engels’s theoretical aim was not to explain nature in the manner of bourgeois natural scientists, but rather to draw critically upon their achievements to construct materialist dialectics—thereby achieving a comprehensive perspective on “the real world, both of nature and of history.”21 In other words, the new worldview Engels sought to articulate also implied a new conception of both nature and history.
Against this backdrop, Engels’s dialectics of nature, grounded in a critique of metaphysical thinking and idealist notions, introduced historicity into the domain of nature. It not only explained the dialectical motion and objective laws of the natural world but also emphasized human sensuous activity and the historically shaped relationship between humanity and nature. In doing so, it laid the foundation,based on a scientific worldview, for a critique of the ecological contradictions of capitalism.
(1) The dialectics of nature elucidates the totality, historicity, and lawfulness of the natural world, depicting the dialectical ecological connections within the real world.
First, the dialectics of nature views nature as an interconnected totality. Distinct from the metaphysical mode of thinking, the dialectical view of nature “considers things in their motion, their change, their life, their reciprocal influence on one another,” recognizing that all levels of the natural world not only possess their own distinct material attributes but also exist within a system of mutual interrelation.22 As Engels wrote, “the whole of nature accessible to us forms a system, an interconnected totality of bodies.”23 This understanding of nature’s totality is closely aligned with the idea of emergence. It underscores the complexity of nature and the interdependence and co-evolution of its constituent parts.24 In this light, there are no absolutely isolated individuals in nature; a single natural entity can only realize its own development by engaging in the construction of the ecological whole, through mutual interaction and constraint with others.
Second, from the perspective of the dialectics of nature, the natural world is also a system of processes undergoing historical movement. Engels explicitly rejected the view of nature as absolutely immutable, emphasizing that all of nature exists in a state of eternal coming into being and passing away, in unresting motion and change. He emphasized that natural science has proven that “in the last resort, Nature works dialectically and not metaphysically; that she does not move in the eternal oneness of a perpetually recurring circle, but goes through a real historical evolution.”25 Accordingly, Engels, from the perspective of the evolution of celestial bodies, the earth, life, and humanity, depicted a process of dialectical development that is both the self-evolution of nature and a transcendence beyond the original natural world, culminating in human society. This expresses the view of macro-history that unifies natural history and human history. Such a historical perspective helps us transcend a narrow egoism and to promote the view of the earth as a living community undergoing historical development.
Third, the dialectics of nature reveals the intrinsic connections within nature’s dialectical motion. Engels held that one of the key tasks of theoretical analysis is to uncover the interconnections and objective laws of historical processes, starting from the various material forms and the various forms of motion of matter. By synthesizing the findings of natural science and materially transforming Hegel’s dialectic, Engels articulated three basic laws (or ontological propositions) of dialectics: “the law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa; the law of the interpenetration of opposites; the law of the negation of the negation.”26 In this way, the dialectics of nature reveals a dialectical worldview that unifies nature and history. This worldview posits that “there is a contingent, ever-changing historical process in which each new emergent reality bears within it an incompleteness and various contradictory relations, leading to further transformative developments.”27 Because of nature’s historicity, its general laws take on concrete historical expressions in the real world, and “the eternal laws of nature also become transformed more and more into historical ones.”28 Therefore, unlike the positivist causal laws used for quantification and prediction, the laws of dialectics are philosophical generalizations of the dialectical motion of the world formed through the logical use of human concepts, thus inherently historical in both content and form.
(2) The dialectics of nature reveals the inherently dialectical relationship between humanity and nature and examines the sociopractical potential for the reconciliation of humanity with nature.
First, the dialectics of nature argues for the unity between humanity and nature from the perspective of the historical development of the natural world. Engels believed that human beings are the product of nature’s continuous evolution and differentiation. As a complex organism generated by nature, human existence and development are fundamentally dependent upon the natural world. This is not only because the essential element of life lies in the “continual metabolic interchange with the natural environment,” but also because the interaction between humanity and nature is inseparable from the mobilization and utilization of natural forces through labor. Nature provides the materials, and labor transforms them into wealth.29 From the broader perspective of the dialectical motion of material generation and dissolution, “the time of highest development, the time of organic life and still more that of the life of beings conscious of nature and of themselves, is just as narrowly restricted as the space in which life and self-consciousness come into operation.”30 Human activity can only alter the concrete forms of material existence; it cannot destroy the material cycles and regenerative mechanisms of nature. Therefore, in the most fundamental sense, protecting nature as a place of human habitability is tantamount to protecting the survival and sustainable development of humankind itself. Only by maintaining a sound relationship between humanity and nature can we make rich achievements in civilization.
Second, the dialectics of nature focuses on human labor to explain the uniqueness of human beings within nature and to define the objective limits of human agency. According to Engels, the labor process is where the unity and contradiction between humanity and nature are most clearly expressed and where the totality of nature is concretely constructed in reality. Labor is the prime basic condition for all human existence because, through labor, humans not only dominate nature, creating new living conditions and tools of production and thereby elevating themselves beyond primitive natural unity and general life forms, but also impart purposiveness to nature, initiating a process in which nature is continually transformed into a human life-world. Equally important, Engels emphasized that “we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.”31 The difference between humans and other animals in transforming nature lies in whether they can imprint their will upon the earth and whether they can consciously understand and control the far-reaching impact of their actions on nature in a “premeditated, planned action directed towards definite preconceived ends.”32 In this way, humanity can truly overcome its alienation of nature and reshape it in accordance with sustainable human development. In other words, human uniqueness or superiority does not entail an irresponsible privilege over nature but should manifest as an ecological subjectivity that navigates necessity and achieves both human freedom and sustainable natural development.
Third, the dialectics of nature elaborates the social complexity of the interaction between humanity and nature, and proposes paths of social transformation for improving this relationship. Engels pointed out that labor both deepened human understanding of the natural world and prompted closer human cooperation, giving rise to the social factor. In this process, “by the combined functioning of hand, speech organs and brain, not only in each individual but also in society, men became capable of executing more and more complicated operations, and were able to set themselves, and achieve, higher and higher aims.”33 The socialization of labor also means that the interaction between humanity and nature is no longer simply a biological exchange of matter and energy but a complex process of social metabolism realized through production and consumption. Given the socially and historically conditioned nature of this relationship, solving ecological problems requires a systematic methodological approach. Engels believed that dialectical thinking aims at achieving “the systematic knowledge of the external universe.”34 On this basis, it seeks to promote a comprehensive transformation of the relationship between humanity and nature, as well as among human beings themselves, ultimately leading to their historical reconciliation. Owing to the antagonistic character of capitalist social relations, human productive activity has increasingly become contributed to alienation in the human-nature relationship. Therefore, in order properly to regulate this relationship, what is needed is “a complete revolution in our hitherto existing mode of production, and simultaneously a revolution in our whole contemporary social order.”35
Saito reduces the dialectics of nature to a theory of transhistorical laws inherent in the external world, thereby obscuring its profound socioecological implications. Engels’s dialectics of nature can be more comprehensively understood as a dialectics of the history of nature, embodying a dialectical ecological worldview rooted in the unity of opposites between nature and history, thought and being, and subject and object.36 Thus, though seemingly independent, the dialectics of nature is intrinsically linked to the dialectics of history. By employing natural science to describe the dialectical movement of the natural world, Engels established a holistic materialist dialectic, thereby unifying the Marxist view of nature and history, and of theoretical and practical philosophy. Only by understanding this unity can we fully grasp the unique value of the dialectics of nature in ecological critique, and more clearly articulate that the core of Marxist ecology is not merely the affirmation of the interconnectedness between humanity and nature or the constraints of natural laws on human activity, but rather lies in offering a practical answer to the question of how to achieve harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature in modern society.
The “Revenge of Nature” and the Ecological Critique of Capitalism
By situating Engels’s dialectics of nature within a broader materialist dialectics—and thereby rejecting the rigid dichotomy between dialectical and historical materialism—Marxists can avoid Saito’s misinterpretation of the “revenge” of nature as an apocalyptic, linear critique at odds with Marx’s metabolic rift theory. Saito’s condemnation of Engels’s argument primarily revolves around three questions: (1) Is the “revenge” of nature a metaphorical formulation merely applicable to general historical processes and thus incapable of offering a specific analysis of capitalist production and its ecological consequences? (2) Does this necessarily imply that the ecological crisis under capitalism will inevitably lead to the collapse of civilization, thereby overlooking capitalism’s capacity for self-regulation? (3) Does nature’s “revenge” suggest that full domination of natural laws would be sufficient to reach the realm of freedom? Upon closer examination of Engels’s relevant writings, it becomes difficult to affirm any of these suppositions.
(1) Engels regards the “revenge” of nature as a consequence of irrational human activity while also emphasizing its historically specific causes.
In mentioning metaphorically that “nature [objectively]” takes its revenge on humanity, Engels highlights the destruction of forests in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor, and the Alps to illustrate how human hubris leads to serious ecological consequences.37 This demonstrates that disregarding natural laws for short-term benefits existed even in antiquity, not just in modern capitalism. However, Engels analyzed human-nature interactions not in isolation, but through the social dimensions of production. For instance, he pointed out that the widespread cultivation of potato monocultures in Europe had profound effects on the living conditions of the masses, even resulting in famines.38 In criticizing the imprudent behavior of capitalists and merchants, Engels also attended to the environmental repercussions of such actions. He cited the example of Spanish planters in Cuba who burned down forests on the mountain slopes to increase profits, which in turn led to ecological degradation. These cases reveal the irrational logic underlying capitalist production, which Engels critiqued: “In relation to nature, as to society, the present mode of production is predominantly concerned only about the immediate, the most tangible result; and then surprise is expressed that the more remote effects of actions directed to this end turn out to be quite different, are mostly quite the opposite in character.”39 In other words, the revenge of nature arises not only from a failure to grasp natural laws but also from the inability to escape the recklessness of human activity under unrecognized social laws.
More importantly, Engels stressed that “all hitherto existing modes of production have aimed merely at achieving the most immediately and directly useful effect of labour,” but “this has been put into effect most completely in the capitalist mode of production prevailing today in Western Europe.”40 This occurs because individual capitalists, dominating production, concern themselves only with the immediate effects due to the sole incentive of profit.41 Thus, although environmental degradation predates capitalism, capitalism structurally impedes environmental protection by prioritizing immediate profit. Consequently, “the revenge of nature” is a crisis specific to a social formation where humanity cannot yet consciously regulate its activity and manage ecological consequences.42 It is not merely a critique of human violation of natural laws throughout history but an ecological critique of irrational production under the domination of capital, captured by Marx in the notion of the metabolic rift.
(2) Engels acknowledged capitalism’s efforts to overcome the revenge of nature, while revealing its inherent limitations and socialism’s transformative potential.
Saito argues that, unlike Engels, Marx did not frame the metabolic rift metaphorically as nature’s revenge. Instead, Marx emphasized that capital actively displaces the rifts through technology and global trade, and that alienation would eventually drive the proletariat collectively to mend specific rifts. Therefore, Saito suggests, one cannot a priori assert that capitalism is fated to suffer the revenge of nature in all of its aspects without some recourse.
In fact, Engels never asserted that the revenge of nature represents an inevitable fate that cannot be overcome. Although he noted that natural science predicts a “fairly certain” end for Earth’s habitability, he emphasized we are “still a considerable distance” from that descending turning point.43 Furthermore, Engels recognized that scientific progress increasingly enables humanity to manage production’s consequences. Even in the social realm, he observed that through experience and analysis, “we are gradually learning to get a clear view of the indirect, more remote social effects of our production activity,” affording us the opportunity to regulate them.44 In this sense, Engels acknowledged the potential of a higher society (that is, socialism) to adjust its social and ecological contradictions. The fundamental solution, Engels contended, was to be found in transferring leadership of social production to the proletariat: “that is the socialist revolution.”45 On this point, Engels’s analysis of capitalism’s crises and revolutionary potential aligns fully with that of Marx.
From a dialectical standpoint, Engels emphasized that dialectics must be applied concretely, not as a deterministic formula. Take, for instance, the concept of the “negation of the negation.” On the one hand, this is “an extremely general—and for this reason extremely far-reaching and important—law of development of nature, history, and thought.” On the other hand, it must be understood contextually within historical processes, as the mode of negation depends not only on the general character of the process, but also on “the particular nature of the process.”46 In his critique of Eugen Dühring, Engels clarified that Marx did not use this law to prove historical necessity. Rather, Marx first developed his analysis by exploring historical reality and only then characterized it dialectically. Therefore, treating dialectics as a deductive tool to assert the inevitability of processes—such as public ownership—is a “pure distortion.”47 Similarly, nature’s revenge is a historical phenomenon, not proof of inevitable collapse; it must be confirmed empirically through real development.
In his later writings, Engels was keenly observant of new developments within capitalism and emerging revolutionary trends. In the 1892 Preface to The Condition of the Working Class in England, he analyzed capitalism’s “civilizing characteristics.” He noted that the bourgeoisie had improved sanitation in England to the point where many appalling conditions “have either disappeared or have been made less conspicuous.”48 This demonstrates capitalism’s capacity for self-regulation to avoid some of the worst environmental conditions in certain locales in and in certain periods. However, Engels argued that these improvements merely addressed “minor grievances,” and the true cause of misery lies “not in these minor grievances, but in the capitalistic system itself.”49 Thus, capitalism’s inevitable demise stems from its internal systemic contradictions, not just its temporary negative effects, which may shift in terms of time and locale. Moreover, he noted that this civilizing process generated new forms of struggle, including struggles over the conditions of health and the environment.
(3) Engels stressed that a recognition of natural laws is a necessary but insufficient condition for humanity’s entry into the realm of freedom. Only through the combined advance of social and ecological revolution can true freedom be realized.
Saito argues that Engels’s solution to nature’s revenge lies in mastering natural laws for comprehensive control. He cites Engels’s assertion in Anti-Dühring that as extraneous objective forces “pass under the control of man himself” through science (and scientific socialism), humanity achieves a “leap from the realm of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.”50 Saito contrasts this with Marx, for whom material production “remains a realm of necessity.”51 Saito concludes that Engels held “a unilateral view of historical development.”52 However, this interpretation trivializes and misrepresents Engels.
First, Engels’s concept of the “revenge” of nature targeted human hubris in conquering nature, rather than offering a reductionist view that all civilizations are inherently destructive. On the contrary, his later studies of precapitalist history suggest these societies offer positive elements for future development. He even declared: “only barbarians are capable of rejuvenating a world labouring in the throes of a dying civilisation.”53
Second, for Engels, freedom lies not in escaping necessity, but in mastering it—transforming “necessity-in-itself” into “necessity-for-us.” Since history is governed by “innate general laws,” these laws include both external nature and human social development; when unknown, they appear as alien, coercive forces.54 In this regard, only by properly understanding and applying the objective laws of both nature and society can humanity avoid nature’s revenge and achieve real freedom.
Third, Engels recognized that modern obstacles to freedom stem primarily from social structures, not external nature. He argued that humans become masters of nature only insofar as they become “masters of their own social organization,” thereby governing the social laws that once opposed them.55 Contrary to Saito’s reading, Engels’s passage on the “leap to freedom” emphasized aligning “social causes” with intended outcomes. Thus, true freedom requires a dual transformation: not only regulating the human relation to nature, but revolutionizing irrational production methods to “lift [hu]mankind above the rest of the animal world as regards the social aspect.”56 Only this achieves the reconciliation of humanity with nature and itself.
Finally, there is no fundamental disagreement between Marx and Engels on the concept of freedom. Both viewed sustainable human-nature metabolism as the bedrock of freedom. Marx maintained that material labor itself becomes free only when “external aims are stripped of their character as merely external natural necessity,” becoming “self-realisation” and “real freedom.”57 As Engels argued, “The possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialised production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day by day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties—this possibility is now for the first time here, but it is here.”58 In his view, the key to entering the realm of freedom lies in grasping historical laws and realizing freedom through labor. This aligns with Marx’s conception of overcoming external necessity.
As Paul Blackledge notes, “Prefiguring modern ecology’s concern with humanity’s oneness with nature, Engels’s conception of a dialectics of nature opens a space through which ecological crises could be understood in relation to the alienated nature of capitalist social relations.”59 Although Engels did not refer directly, as Marx did, to the “irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism, a metabolism prescribed by the natural laws of life itself” he did, like Marx, refer to the “robbery” of nature as a source of ecological crisis.60 His ecological critique was highly consistent with that of Marx. Grounded in materialist dialectics, Engels’s theory of nature’s revenge offers a dialectical ecological critique. It interprets the interplay between freedom and necessity in human activity as a historically conditioned process, requiring close attention to concrete historical and social realities. From this perspective, the human–nature relationship is understood as shaped by the interaction of natural limits and social structures/social metabolism. Ecological destruction, therefore, is not an abstract inevitability, but is rooted in economic exploitation and class domination driven by the pursuit of immediate profit. On this basis, the theory identifies the transition to socialism or communism as the fundamental path to overcoming the crisis of the revenge of nature.
Conclusion
The intensification of global environmental problems in our time compels us to revisit Engels’s dialectics of nature and reconsider how Marxist ecology may be further developed. Against this backdrop, Saito offers a critical reflection of Western Marxism’s exclusion of nature and the natural sciences from Marx’s intellectual horizon. In doing so, Saito argues, Western Marxism severely stifled the revival of Marx’s ecology.61 Yet, Saito’s own systematic reconstruction of Marx’s ecology attempts to marginalize Engels’s dialectics of nature in a manner nearly identical to Western Marxism. By characterizing Engels’s dialectics of nature primarily as a philosophical worldview seeking transhistorical laws, Saito runs into the trap of denying all in natural history that cannot be reduced to human history. Worse still, his framework tends to reinscribe the traditional dichotomy between Marx’s “historical/revolutionary dialectics” and Engels’s “natural/scientific dialectics,” even while denying it. The result is to obscure the profound ecological implications and contemporary relevance of Engels’s and Marx’s work, both alone and together.
By engaging critically with Saito’s perspective, we can develop a more constructive insight into the relationship between the dialectics of nature and Marxist ecology. Engels’s dialectics of nature aimed to forge a connection between natural science and philosophy, thereby demonstrating the possibility of achieving a rational understanding of the world as a totality. This framework is crucial for improving the social metabolism and for achieving a harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.62 Humans require both scientific knowledge and broad philosophical thinking in order to comprehend correctly both nature and themselves, enabling them to apply materialist dialectics in becoming rational, practical subjects.
It is hardly surprising that Engels’s and Marx’s ecological ideas are not entirely identical. Nevertheless, their ideas do possess an inherent consistency. Given Engels’s extensive contributions to Marx’s critique of political economy, it is difficult to discuss Marx’s ecology while completely ignoring Engels.63 Regarding materialist ecology, Engels meticulously described the dialectical movement of nature and the resulting unity of natural and human history through the lens of scientific findings, thereby developing a systematic materialist conception of nature and history. Marx also developed this materialist perspective—emerging as early as his doctoral thesis and manifested in concepts like the “inorganic body” and “universal metabolism”—as the foundation of his own ecology.64 Yet, through his distinct approach, Engels made significant contributions to Marxist ecology. On the one hand, Engels established a holistic ecological framework grounded in the universal interconnectedness and dialectical movement of nature. By focusing on the mediation of labor, he elucidated the reciprocal transformation and mutual conditioning between humanity (society) and nature, as well as the historical laws governing this relationship, thus laying the theoretical foundation for a dialectical ecological worldview. On the other hand, proceeding from the historical principles of dialectics, Engels analyzed the dialectical development of freedom and necessity within the broader process of civilization. In doing so, he developed an ecological critique fundamentally opposed to the profit motive of capitalism, and articulated a vision for socioecological transformation toward socialism.
Engels’s dialectics of nature continues to be recognized as profoundly significant. Numerous theorists—including Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, and Joseph Needham—have advanced this dialectical tradition by integrating contemporary scientific insights with practical realities.65 In the sphere of political practice, contemporary China’s concept of ecological civilization also draws deeply upon Engels’s ecological thought. President Xi Jinping has frequently invoked Engels’s warning regarding nature’s “revenge” in discussions on ecological civilization.66 The core principles of eco-civilization include that humanity and nature form a community of life, wherein nature itself constitutes social wealth, and that violating natural laws and damaging the environment inevitably provokes conditions in which “nature takes its revenge on us.” This underscores that ecological prosperity fosters civilizational advancement while ecological decline precipitates civilizational decay. Consequently, development must be planned from the perspective of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature, thereby driving the green transformation of socialist modernization.
In short, resolving unnecessary internal theoretical contradictions is a prerequisite for advancing Marxist ecology. Only by recognizing Engels’s dialectics of nature as a foundational component of this framework can we establish a more robust philosophical basis for accurately comprehending the relationship between nature and society and deepening the ecological critique of capitalism—thereby driving the revolutionary practice of ecosocialism.
Notes
1. ↩ Kohei Saito, Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 6.
Saito’s position is noteworthy precisely for its potential to reinforce the notion of a “Marx-Engels divide” endemic to Western Marxism, which has as one of its principal components the rejection of the dialectics of nature.2 His argument underscores the necessity of re-examining the relevance of Engels’s dialectics of nature to contemporary ecological crises, particularly in relation to Marx’s ecological critique. Through a rigorous analysis of Engels’s Dialectics of Nature and related works, we can arrive at a conception of Marxist ecology grounded in material reality—one that avoids positioning Engels’s ecology in opposition to Marx’s. Fundamentally, Marxist ecology posits that the materialist view of history and nature, as well as the dialectics of history and nature, are inextricably linked.3 The ecological critique of political economy is predicated on a scientifically grounded understanding of the general laws governing nature and its historical development. By adopting this totality-based approach, we can better appreciate the theoretical value of the dialectics of nature and more comprehensively grasp the ecological critique inherent in Engels’s metaphor of nature’s revenge, thereby providing the intellectual tools necessary to overcome ecological crises and advance toward an ecological civilization.
Engels Against Marx?
Saito’s critique of Engels’s dialectics of nature provides a lens through which we can trace his line of reasoning and his reinterpretation of Engels. His criticism stems from a reflection on the Western Marxist tradition. In an effort to rescue Marx from the charges of mechanical materialism and economic determinism, many Western Marxist theorists have deliberately emphasized a theoretical division of labor between Marx and Engels, claiming that Marx focused on the social sciences while Engels concentrated on natural sciences. Saito rejects the common characterization of the division of labor between the two thinkers, at least in relation to the late Marx, noting that, after 1868, Marx undertook extensive studies in various fields of natural science, including chemistry, geology, mineralogy, physiology, and botany, as well as the overexploitation of natural resources and environmental degradation, related to his studies of the political economy of agriculture. Marx thereby sought to incorporate the natural sciences into his critique of political economy.
At the same time, Saito argues that Engels himself was the source of the predominant characterization of the division of labor between himself and Marx. As evidence, Saito cites the preface to the 1885 edition of Anti-Dühring, published after Marx’s death. In it, Engels wrote: “Marx was well versed in mathematics, but we could keep up with natural science only piecemeal, intermittently and sporadically. For this reason, when I retired from business and transferred my home to London, thus enabling myself to give the necessary time to it, I went through as complete as possible a ‘moulting,’ as Liebig calls it, in mathematics and the natural sciences.”4 Here, Saito claims, Engels disclosed his own plan for studying the natural sciences, but makes no specific reference to Marx’s engagement with natural science. On this basis, Saito concludes, “The honest Engels (unconsciously) avoided referring to Marx’s serious engagement with natural science and instead simply emphasized their intellectual division of labour.”5 (It should be mentioned that Marx’s consideration of natural science that Saito stresses is comprised mostly of excerpt notebooks, which consist almost entirely of quotations taken from the texts of other authors on which Marx rarely comments.)
Saito extrapolates from this supposed silence on Engels’s part with respect to Marx’s excerpts on natural science—entirely failing to recognize that Engels does point to Marx’s scientific studies in numerous places, as in the preface to volume 2 of Capital, where he refers to Marx’s explorations in agronomy, natural science as a whole, and mathematics—in order to argue that Engels’s alleged silence implied that the two harbored incompatible outlooks in their scientific inquiries.6 In Saito’s view, Marx’s later turn to the natural sciences was primarily driven by a desire to examine the fundamental transformations in natural conditions and the emerging tendencies toward ecological crisis under capitalist development. By contrast, we are told that Engels sought to apply the findings of natural science to comprehend and grasp the general laws of nature, thereby enhancing human control over the external world and achieving a form of human freedom. In line with the practical imperative of respecting objective laws, as emphasized in Dialectics of Nature, Engels proposed the idea of nature’s revenge, cautioning: “let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature. For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us.”7
To demonstrate the theoretical divergence between Marx and Engels, Saito contends that Engels improperly revised Marx’s discussion of “metabolism” in Capital. Marx, drawing on Justus von Liebig’s critique of “robbery agriculture,” recognized that capitalist agriculture produced (according to the Ben Fowkes translation) “an irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism, a metabolism prescribed by the natural laws of life itself.”8 Saito, however, claims that Engels improperly edited Marx’s sentence, eliminating the word “natural” at one point, so that it should actually read, according to Saito’s own translation of Marx’s original sentence, “an irreparable rift in the interdependent process between social metabolism and natural metabolism prescribed by the natural laws of the soil.”9 Here, Saito writes, Marx clearly distinguishes between the “social metabolism” driven by capital and the “natural metabolism” governed by ecological laws, underscoring their inherent contradiction and conflict. Saito argues that Engels’s revision obscured the contrast between social and natural metabolism, thereby contributing to the marginalization of Marx’s theory of metabolic rift. Yet, others, such as John Bellamy Foster, have argued that Engels simply eliminated a redundancy in the sentence, given that social metabolism is part of the universal metabolism of nature and Marx clearly indicated in the sentence that the alienated social metabolism is in conflict with the natural laws of life (that is, the universal metabolism of nature).10
Building on this questionable judgment, Saito further claims that Engels’s revised formulation should be seen as an extension of his “revenge of nature” perspective, one that seeks to emphasize the potentially catastrophic consequences of violating natural laws for human civilization. This, according to Saito, stands in essential contrast to Marx’s analysis, which centers on how the law of value under capitalism restructures the natural material metabolism through social metabolic processes and exposes their internal contradictions. In other words, Marx emphasizes the metabolism between humanity and nature from the perspective of specific sociohistorical formations, while Engels, in Saito’s view, approaches the dialectic of “control” and “revenge” between humanity and nature from a more general, transhistorical perspective. From this, Saito makes a second key claim: Marx, unlike G. W. F. Hegel or Friedrich Schelling, was not working within the tradition of natural philosophy that sought to construct an all-encompassing worldview capable of explaining every phenomenon in the universe. Engels, however, aimed to provide a materialist explanation of the universe based on the achievements of the natural sciences. According to Saito, this fundamental difference accounts for their divergent positions in the field of ecological theory.
After outlining the theoretical divergence between Engels and Marx on ecological questions, Saito also stresses the negative consequences of this split: namely, that ignoring Marx’s theory of the metabolic rift while uncritically accepting Engels’s “revenge of nature” view risks sliding into a kind of apocalypticism. According to Saito, unlike Engels, Marx did not equate the metabolic rift under capitalism with nature’s revenge, rather, he recognized capital’s considerable elasticity in shifting and displacing the rift. For Marx, the extreme alienation of the human-nature relationship could, paradoxically, give rise to the revolutionary necessity to resist capital. The realm of freedom envisioned by Marx was not confined to Engels’s notion of mastering and skillfully applying natural laws; instead, it involved transcending the realm of necessity altogether through the collective control and rational regulation of the metabolism between society and nature, ultimately allowing for the full development of individual human capacities. More significantly, in his later years, Marx studied (as did Engels) the works of Carl Fraas, Georg Maurer, and others, through which he explored the various forms of social metabolism in precapitalist societies. Through this inquiry, Marx came to recognize a certain historical superiority in the egalitarian and sustainable modes of production that existed within some rural communes. In doing so, he avoided two problematic tendencies: a reductive explanation of the collapse of all premodern civilizations through the lens of “nature’s revenge,” and the linear view of historical progress that assumes that the mere discovery of natural laws and advancement of productive forces will lead to civilizational improvement. Thus, Saito concludes: “It was precisely due to this difference between ‘Marx’s later writings’ and ‘Engels’ understanding of dialectics’ that the concept of metabolism and its ecological implication were marginalized throughout the 20th century.”11
In summary, Saito’s “Marx-Engels divide” thesis consists of three main arguments: (1) In order to emphasize the importance of the dialectics of nature, Engels deliberately avoided discussing Marx’s progress in natural scientific research; (2) Engels’s dialectics of nature represents a worldview focused solely on understanding transhistorical laws of nature, thereby deviating from Marx’s theory of metabolic rift, which is based on analyzing the contradiction between form (“Form”) and matter (“Stoff”) in specific historical stages; and (3) Engels’s insufficient attention to social and historical specificity led him to underestimate capital’s flexibility and precapitalist ecological rationality, resulting in an apocalyptic “revenge of nature” thesis and a simplistic belief that mastering nature would ensure freedom. As Saito puts it: “Engels ended up overemphasizing some aspects of Marx’s theory, such as ‘rationalism,’ ‘positivism,’ ‘progressive view of history,’ ‘productivism’ and ‘Eurocentrism.’”12
Addressing Saito’s criticism of Engels is not a particularly difficult task, given that scholars have already offered counter-arguments that merit serious consideration.13
Regarding claim (1), there is ample documentary evidence showing that Engels publicly acknowledged and affirmed Marx’s research in the natural sciences. For example, in 1885, the same year the second edition of Anti-Dühring was published, Engels wrote in the preface to the second volume of Capital: “There was another intermission after 1870, due mainly to Marx’s ill health. As usual, Marx employed this time for studies; agronomics, rural relations in America and, especially, Russia, the money market and banking, and finally natural sciences such as geology and physiology, and above all independent mathematical works, form the content of the numerous excerpt notebooks of this period.”14 Even granting that Engels may not have fully grasped Marx’s research plan, it is difficult to argue that he intentionally concealed the work.
Claims (2) and (3) are founded on a misconstruction of the text. Engels’s omission of the adjective “natural” in editing the third volume of Capital did not substantively alter Marx’s intended meaning. In that passage, Marx had already referred to “a metabolism prescribed by the natural laws,” which presupposes the broader process of nature’s material metabolism, and indeed such a reference to nature in this respect is repeated at the end of the sentence that refers to the “irreparable rift.” Social metabolism, meanwhile, refers to humanity’s specific metabolism with the universal metabolism of nature through labor. Furthermore, the identification and explanation of laws is the fundamental task of scientific inquiry and the basis for a critique of social history. Philosophically grasping nature and its objective laws is not in conflict with concretely analyzing capitalism’s ecological contradictions. The “irreparable rift” in the process of social and natural metabolism, after all, is nothing other than the historically specific expression of how capitalist production violates natural laws.
Saito’s core criticism of the dialectics of nature targets its formulation as a worldview focused on universal cosmic motion and characterized by a “philosophical and transhistorical scheme.”15 This framework, in his view, can only conceive of the conflict between humanity and nature statically—thereby failing to offer a realistic analysis of the ecological crisis under capitalism or its potential for transformation. Therefore, it is necessary to focus more directly on the ecological implications of the dialectics of nature, particularly by elucidating its foundational value in shaping an ecological worldview and its significance for a critical diagnosis of capitalist ecology. Saito, however, largely ignores the fact that Dialectics of Nature ends with a discussion of evolution in “The Part Played by Labour in the Transition from Ape to Man,” which refers explicitly to ecological crises brought on by capitalism.16
The Dialectics of Nature and the Ecological Worldview
Saito’s critique of Engels directly concerns the interpretation of the worldview expressed in his dialectics of nature and its ecological implications. In Saito’s view, Engels’s dialectics of nature seeks to articulate transhistorical laws inherent in nature itself, thereby providing an ontological and epistemological basis for human control over nature.
Engels sought to construct an overarching worldview encompassing both nature and society. He held that dialectics was not a mere proof-producing instrument, “it contains the germ of a more comprehensive view of the world.”17 Crucially, however, Engels’s dialectics of nature was fundamentally concerned with understanding the totality of the real world and establishing a scientific theoretical foundation for historical transformation. This was directly linked to the proletarian politics of his time.18 As Engels argued, “the materialist conception of history and its specific application to the modern class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie was only possible by means of dialectics.”19 Hence, there was a pressing need to “rescue conscious dialectics from German idealist philosophy and apply it in the materialist conception of nature and history.”20 Therefore, Engels’s theoretical aim was not to explain nature in the manner of bourgeois natural scientists, but rather to draw critically upon their achievements to construct materialist dialectics—thereby achieving a comprehensive perspective on “the real world, both of nature and of history.”21 In other words, the new worldview Engels sought to articulate also implied a new conception of both nature and history.
Against this backdrop, Engels’s dialectics of nature, grounded in a critique of metaphysical thinking and idealist notions, introduced historicity into the domain of nature. It not only explained the dialectical motion and objective laws of the natural world but also emphasized human sensuous activity and the historically shaped relationship between humanity and nature. In doing so, it laid the foundation,based on a scientific worldview, for a critique of the ecological contradictions of capitalism.
(1) The dialectics of nature elucidates the totality, historicity, and lawfulness of the natural world, depicting the dialectical ecological connections within the real world.
First, the dialectics of nature views nature as an interconnected totality. Distinct from the metaphysical mode of thinking, the dialectical view of nature “considers things in their motion, their change, their life, their reciprocal influence on one another,” recognizing that all levels of the natural world not only possess their own distinct material attributes but also exist within a system of mutual interrelation.22 As Engels wrote, “the whole of nature accessible to us forms a system, an interconnected totality of bodies.”23 This understanding of nature’s totality is closely aligned with the idea of emergence. It underscores the complexity of nature and the interdependence and co-evolution of its constituent parts.24 In this light, there are no absolutely isolated individuals in nature; a single natural entity can only realize its own development by engaging in the construction of the ecological whole, through mutual interaction and constraint with others.
Second, from the perspective of the dialectics of nature, the natural world is also a system of processes undergoing historical movement. Engels explicitly rejected the view of nature as absolutely immutable, emphasizing that all of nature exists in a state of eternal coming into being and passing away, in unresting motion and change. He emphasized that natural science has proven that “in the last resort, Nature works dialectically and not metaphysically; that she does not move in the eternal oneness of a perpetually recurring circle, but goes through a real historical evolution.”25 Accordingly, Engels, from the perspective of the evolution of celestial bodies, the earth, life, and humanity, depicted a process of dialectical development that is both the self-evolution of nature and a transcendence beyond the original natural world, culminating in human society. This expresses the view of macro-history that unifies natural history and human history. Such a historical perspective helps us transcend a narrow egoism and to promote the view of the earth as a living community undergoing historical development.
Third, the dialectics of nature reveals the intrinsic connections within nature’s dialectical motion. Engels held that one of the key tasks of theoretical analysis is to uncover the interconnections and objective laws of historical processes, starting from the various material forms and the various forms of motion of matter. By synthesizing the findings of natural science and materially transforming Hegel’s dialectic, Engels articulated three basic laws (or ontological propositions) of dialectics: “the law of the transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa; the law of the interpenetration of opposites; the law of the negation of the negation.”26 In this way, the dialectics of nature reveals a dialectical worldview that unifies nature and history. This worldview posits that “there is a contingent, ever-changing historical process in which each new emergent reality bears within it an incompleteness and various contradictory relations, leading to further transformative developments.”27 Because of nature’s historicity, its general laws take on concrete historical expressions in the real world, and “the eternal laws of nature also become transformed more and more into historical ones.”28 Therefore, unlike the positivist causal laws used for quantification and prediction, the laws of dialectics are philosophical generalizations of the dialectical motion of the world formed through the logical use of human concepts, thus inherently historical in both content and form.
(2) The dialectics of nature reveals the inherently dialectical relationship between humanity and nature and examines the sociopractical potential for the reconciliation of humanity with nature.
First, the dialectics of nature argues for the unity between humanity and nature from the perspective of the historical development of the natural world. Engels believed that human beings are the product of nature’s continuous evolution and differentiation. As a complex organism generated by nature, human existence and development are fundamentally dependent upon the natural world. This is not only because the essential element of life lies in the “continual metabolic interchange with the natural environment,” but also because the interaction between humanity and nature is inseparable from the mobilization and utilization of natural forces through labor. Nature provides the materials, and labor transforms them into wealth.29 From the broader perspective of the dialectical motion of material generation and dissolution, “the time of highest development, the time of organic life and still more that of the life of beings conscious of nature and of themselves, is just as narrowly restricted as the space in which life and self-consciousness come into operation.”30 Human activity can only alter the concrete forms of material existence; it cannot destroy the material cycles and regenerative mechanisms of nature. Therefore, in the most fundamental sense, protecting nature as a place of human habitability is tantamount to protecting the survival and sustainable development of humankind itself. Only by maintaining a sound relationship between humanity and nature can we make rich achievements in civilization.
Second, the dialectics of nature focuses on human labor to explain the uniqueness of human beings within nature and to define the objective limits of human agency. According to Engels, the labor process is where the unity and contradiction between humanity and nature are most clearly expressed and where the totality of nature is concretely constructed in reality. Labor is the prime basic condition for all human existence because, through labor, humans not only dominate nature, creating new living conditions and tools of production and thereby elevating themselves beyond primitive natural unity and general life forms, but also impart purposiveness to nature, initiating a process in which nature is continually transformed into a human life-world. Equally important, Engels emphasized that “we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.”31 The difference between humans and other animals in transforming nature lies in whether they can imprint their will upon the earth and whether they can consciously understand and control the far-reaching impact of their actions on nature in a “premeditated, planned action directed towards definite preconceived ends.”32 In this way, humanity can truly overcome its alienation of nature and reshape it in accordance with sustainable human development. In other words, human uniqueness or superiority does not entail an irresponsible privilege over nature but should manifest as an ecological subjectivity that navigates necessity and achieves both human freedom and sustainable natural development.
Third, the dialectics of nature elaborates the social complexity of the interaction between humanity and nature, and proposes paths of social transformation for improving this relationship. Engels pointed out that labor both deepened human understanding of the natural world and prompted closer human cooperation, giving rise to the social factor. In this process, “by the combined functioning of hand, speech organs and brain, not only in each individual but also in society, men became capable of executing more and more complicated operations, and were able to set themselves, and achieve, higher and higher aims.”33 The socialization of labor also means that the interaction between humanity and nature is no longer simply a biological exchange of matter and energy but a complex process of social metabolism realized through production and consumption. Given the socially and historically conditioned nature of this relationship, solving ecological problems requires a systematic methodological approach. Engels believed that dialectical thinking aims at achieving “the systematic knowledge of the external universe.”34 On this basis, it seeks to promote a comprehensive transformation of the relationship between humanity and nature, as well as among human beings themselves, ultimately leading to their historical reconciliation. Owing to the antagonistic character of capitalist social relations, human productive activity has increasingly become contributed to alienation in the human-nature relationship. Therefore, in order properly to regulate this relationship, what is needed is “a complete revolution in our hitherto existing mode of production, and simultaneously a revolution in our whole contemporary social order.”35
Saito reduces the dialectics of nature to a theory of transhistorical laws inherent in the external world, thereby obscuring its profound socioecological implications. Engels’s dialectics of nature can be more comprehensively understood as a dialectics of the history of nature, embodying a dialectical ecological worldview rooted in the unity of opposites between nature and history, thought and being, and subject and object.36 Thus, though seemingly independent, the dialectics of nature is intrinsically linked to the dialectics of history. By employing natural science to describe the dialectical movement of the natural world, Engels established a holistic materialist dialectic, thereby unifying the Marxist view of nature and history, and of theoretical and practical philosophy. Only by understanding this unity can we fully grasp the unique value of the dialectics of nature in ecological critique, and more clearly articulate that the core of Marxist ecology is not merely the affirmation of the interconnectedness between humanity and nature or the constraints of natural laws on human activity, but rather lies in offering a practical answer to the question of how to achieve harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature in modern society.
The “Revenge of Nature” and the Ecological Critique of Capitalism
By situating Engels’s dialectics of nature within a broader materialist dialectics—and thereby rejecting the rigid dichotomy between dialectical and historical materialism—Marxists can avoid Saito’s misinterpretation of the “revenge” of nature as an apocalyptic, linear critique at odds with Marx’s metabolic rift theory. Saito’s condemnation of Engels’s argument primarily revolves around three questions: (1) Is the “revenge” of nature a metaphorical formulation merely applicable to general historical processes and thus incapable of offering a specific analysis of capitalist production and its ecological consequences? (2) Does this necessarily imply that the ecological crisis under capitalism will inevitably lead to the collapse of civilization, thereby overlooking capitalism’s capacity for self-regulation? (3) Does nature’s “revenge” suggest that full domination of natural laws would be sufficient to reach the realm of freedom? Upon closer examination of Engels’s relevant writings, it becomes difficult to affirm any of these suppositions.
(1) Engels regards the “revenge” of nature as a consequence of irrational human activity while also emphasizing its historically specific causes.
In mentioning metaphorically that “nature [objectively]” takes its revenge on humanity, Engels highlights the destruction of forests in Mesopotamia, Greece, Asia Minor, and the Alps to illustrate how human hubris leads to serious ecological consequences.37 This demonstrates that disregarding natural laws for short-term benefits existed even in antiquity, not just in modern capitalism. However, Engels analyzed human-nature interactions not in isolation, but through the social dimensions of production. For instance, he pointed out that the widespread cultivation of potato monocultures in Europe had profound effects on the living conditions of the masses, even resulting in famines.38 In criticizing the imprudent behavior of capitalists and merchants, Engels also attended to the environmental repercussions of such actions. He cited the example of Spanish planters in Cuba who burned down forests on the mountain slopes to increase profits, which in turn led to ecological degradation. These cases reveal the irrational logic underlying capitalist production, which Engels critiqued: “In relation to nature, as to society, the present mode of production is predominantly concerned only about the immediate, the most tangible result; and then surprise is expressed that the more remote effects of actions directed to this end turn out to be quite different, are mostly quite the opposite in character.”39 In other words, the revenge of nature arises not only from a failure to grasp natural laws but also from the inability to escape the recklessness of human activity under unrecognized social laws.
More importantly, Engels stressed that “all hitherto existing modes of production have aimed merely at achieving the most immediately and directly useful effect of labour,” but “this has been put into effect most completely in the capitalist mode of production prevailing today in Western Europe.”40 This occurs because individual capitalists, dominating production, concern themselves only with the immediate effects due to the sole incentive of profit.41 Thus, although environmental degradation predates capitalism, capitalism structurally impedes environmental protection by prioritizing immediate profit. Consequently, “the revenge of nature” is a crisis specific to a social formation where humanity cannot yet consciously regulate its activity and manage ecological consequences.42 It is not merely a critique of human violation of natural laws throughout history but an ecological critique of irrational production under the domination of capital, captured by Marx in the notion of the metabolic rift.
(2) Engels acknowledged capitalism’s efforts to overcome the revenge of nature, while revealing its inherent limitations and socialism’s transformative potential.
Saito argues that, unlike Engels, Marx did not frame the metabolic rift metaphorically as nature’s revenge. Instead, Marx emphasized that capital actively displaces the rifts through technology and global trade, and that alienation would eventually drive the proletariat collectively to mend specific rifts. Therefore, Saito suggests, one cannot a priori assert that capitalism is fated to suffer the revenge of nature in all of its aspects without some recourse.
In fact, Engels never asserted that the revenge of nature represents an inevitable fate that cannot be overcome. Although he noted that natural science predicts a “fairly certain” end for Earth’s habitability, he emphasized we are “still a considerable distance” from that descending turning point.43 Furthermore, Engels recognized that scientific progress increasingly enables humanity to manage production’s consequences. Even in the social realm, he observed that through experience and analysis, “we are gradually learning to get a clear view of the indirect, more remote social effects of our production activity,” affording us the opportunity to regulate them.44 In this sense, Engels acknowledged the potential of a higher society (that is, socialism) to adjust its social and ecological contradictions. The fundamental solution, Engels contended, was to be found in transferring leadership of social production to the proletariat: “that is the socialist revolution.”45 On this point, Engels’s analysis of capitalism’s crises and revolutionary potential aligns fully with that of Marx.
From a dialectical standpoint, Engels emphasized that dialectics must be applied concretely, not as a deterministic formula. Take, for instance, the concept of the “negation of the negation.” On the one hand, this is “an extremely general—and for this reason extremely far-reaching and important—law of development of nature, history, and thought.” On the other hand, it must be understood contextually within historical processes, as the mode of negation depends not only on the general character of the process, but also on “the particular nature of the process.”46 In his critique of Eugen Dühring, Engels clarified that Marx did not use this law to prove historical necessity. Rather, Marx first developed his analysis by exploring historical reality and only then characterized it dialectically. Therefore, treating dialectics as a deductive tool to assert the inevitability of processes—such as public ownership—is a “pure distortion.”47 Similarly, nature’s revenge is a historical phenomenon, not proof of inevitable collapse; it must be confirmed empirically through real development.
In his later writings, Engels was keenly observant of new developments within capitalism and emerging revolutionary trends. In the 1892 Preface to The Condition of the Working Class in England, he analyzed capitalism’s “civilizing characteristics.” He noted that the bourgeoisie had improved sanitation in England to the point where many appalling conditions “have either disappeared or have been made less conspicuous.”48 This demonstrates capitalism’s capacity for self-regulation to avoid some of the worst environmental conditions in certain locales in and in certain periods. However, Engels argued that these improvements merely addressed “minor grievances,” and the true cause of misery lies “not in these minor grievances, but in the capitalistic system itself.”49 Thus, capitalism’s inevitable demise stems from its internal systemic contradictions, not just its temporary negative effects, which may shift in terms of time and locale. Moreover, he noted that this civilizing process generated new forms of struggle, including struggles over the conditions of health and the environment.
(3) Engels stressed that a recognition of natural laws is a necessary but insufficient condition for humanity’s entry into the realm of freedom. Only through the combined advance of social and ecological revolution can true freedom be realized.
Saito argues that Engels’s solution to nature’s revenge lies in mastering natural laws for comprehensive control. He cites Engels’s assertion in Anti-Dühring that as extraneous objective forces “pass under the control of man himself” through science (and scientific socialism), humanity achieves a “leap from the realm of necessity to the kingdom of freedom.”50 Saito contrasts this with Marx, for whom material production “remains a realm of necessity.”51 Saito concludes that Engels held “a unilateral view of historical development.”52 However, this interpretation trivializes and misrepresents Engels.
First, Engels’s concept of the “revenge” of nature targeted human hubris in conquering nature, rather than offering a reductionist view that all civilizations are inherently destructive. On the contrary, his later studies of precapitalist history suggest these societies offer positive elements for future development. He even declared: “only barbarians are capable of rejuvenating a world labouring in the throes of a dying civilisation.”53
Second, for Engels, freedom lies not in escaping necessity, but in mastering it—transforming “necessity-in-itself” into “necessity-for-us.” Since history is governed by “innate general laws,” these laws include both external nature and human social development; when unknown, they appear as alien, coercive forces.54 In this regard, only by properly understanding and applying the objective laws of both nature and society can humanity avoid nature’s revenge and achieve real freedom.
Third, Engels recognized that modern obstacles to freedom stem primarily from social structures, not external nature. He argued that humans become masters of nature only insofar as they become “masters of their own social organization,” thereby governing the social laws that once opposed them.55 Contrary to Saito’s reading, Engels’s passage on the “leap to freedom” emphasized aligning “social causes” with intended outcomes. Thus, true freedom requires a dual transformation: not only regulating the human relation to nature, but revolutionizing irrational production methods to “lift [hu]mankind above the rest of the animal world as regards the social aspect.”56 Only this achieves the reconciliation of humanity with nature and itself.
Finally, there is no fundamental disagreement between Marx and Engels on the concept of freedom. Both viewed sustainable human-nature metabolism as the bedrock of freedom. Marx maintained that material labor itself becomes free only when “external aims are stripped of their character as merely external natural necessity,” becoming “self-realisation” and “real freedom.”57 As Engels argued, “The possibility of securing for every member of society, by means of socialised production, an existence not only fully sufficient materially, and becoming day by day more full, but an existence guaranteeing to all the free development and exercise of their physical and mental faculties—this possibility is now for the first time here, but it is here.”58 In his view, the key to entering the realm of freedom lies in grasping historical laws and realizing freedom through labor. This aligns with Marx’s conception of overcoming external necessity.
As Paul Blackledge notes, “Prefiguring modern ecology’s concern with humanity’s oneness with nature, Engels’s conception of a dialectics of nature opens a space through which ecological crises could be understood in relation to the alienated nature of capitalist social relations.”59 Although Engels did not refer directly, as Marx did, to the “irreparable rift in the interdependent process of social metabolism, a metabolism prescribed by the natural laws of life itself” he did, like Marx, refer to the “robbery” of nature as a source of ecological crisis.60 His ecological critique was highly consistent with that of Marx. Grounded in materialist dialectics, Engels’s theory of nature’s revenge offers a dialectical ecological critique. It interprets the interplay between freedom and necessity in human activity as a historically conditioned process, requiring close attention to concrete historical and social realities. From this perspective, the human–nature relationship is understood as shaped by the interaction of natural limits and social structures/social metabolism. Ecological destruction, therefore, is not an abstract inevitability, but is rooted in economic exploitation and class domination driven by the pursuit of immediate profit. On this basis, the theory identifies the transition to socialism or communism as the fundamental path to overcoming the crisis of the revenge of nature.
Conclusion
The intensification of global environmental problems in our time compels us to revisit Engels’s dialectics of nature and reconsider how Marxist ecology may be further developed. Against this backdrop, Saito offers a critical reflection of Western Marxism’s exclusion of nature and the natural sciences from Marx’s intellectual horizon. In doing so, Saito argues, Western Marxism severely stifled the revival of Marx’s ecology.61 Yet, Saito’s own systematic reconstruction of Marx’s ecology attempts to marginalize Engels’s dialectics of nature in a manner nearly identical to Western Marxism. By characterizing Engels’s dialectics of nature primarily as a philosophical worldview seeking transhistorical laws, Saito runs into the trap of denying all in natural history that cannot be reduced to human history. Worse still, his framework tends to reinscribe the traditional dichotomy between Marx’s “historical/revolutionary dialectics” and Engels’s “natural/scientific dialectics,” even while denying it. The result is to obscure the profound ecological implications and contemporary relevance of Engels’s and Marx’s work, both alone and together.
By engaging critically with Saito’s perspective, we can develop a more constructive insight into the relationship between the dialectics of nature and Marxist ecology. Engels’s dialectics of nature aimed to forge a connection between natural science and philosophy, thereby demonstrating the possibility of achieving a rational understanding of the world as a totality. This framework is crucial for improving the social metabolism and for achieving a harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature.62 Humans require both scientific knowledge and broad philosophical thinking in order to comprehend correctly both nature and themselves, enabling them to apply materialist dialectics in becoming rational, practical subjects.
It is hardly surprising that Engels’s and Marx’s ecological ideas are not entirely identical. Nevertheless, their ideas do possess an inherent consistency. Given Engels’s extensive contributions to Marx’s critique of political economy, it is difficult to discuss Marx’s ecology while completely ignoring Engels.63 Regarding materialist ecology, Engels meticulously described the dialectical movement of nature and the resulting unity of natural and human history through the lens of scientific findings, thereby developing a systematic materialist conception of nature and history. Marx also developed this materialist perspective—emerging as early as his doctoral thesis and manifested in concepts like the “inorganic body” and “universal metabolism”—as the foundation of his own ecology.64 Yet, through his distinct approach, Engels made significant contributions to Marxist ecology. On the one hand, Engels established a holistic ecological framework grounded in the universal interconnectedness and dialectical movement of nature. By focusing on the mediation of labor, he elucidated the reciprocal transformation and mutual conditioning between humanity (society) and nature, as well as the historical laws governing this relationship, thus laying the theoretical foundation for a dialectical ecological worldview. On the other hand, proceeding from the historical principles of dialectics, Engels analyzed the dialectical development of freedom and necessity within the broader process of civilization. In doing so, he developed an ecological critique fundamentally opposed to the profit motive of capitalism, and articulated a vision for socioecological transformation toward socialism.
Engels’s dialectics of nature continues to be recognized as profoundly significant. Numerous theorists—including Richard Levins, Richard Lewontin, Stephen Jay Gould, and Joseph Needham—have advanced this dialectical tradition by integrating contemporary scientific insights with practical realities.65 In the sphere of political practice, contemporary China’s concept of ecological civilization also draws deeply upon Engels’s ecological thought. President Xi Jinping has frequently invoked Engels’s warning regarding nature’s “revenge” in discussions on ecological civilization.66 The core principles of eco-civilization include that humanity and nature form a community of life, wherein nature itself constitutes social wealth, and that violating natural laws and damaging the environment inevitably provokes conditions in which “nature takes its revenge on us.” This underscores that ecological prosperity fosters civilizational advancement while ecological decline precipitates civilizational decay. Consequently, development must be planned from the perspective of harmonious coexistence between humanity and nature, thereby driving the green transformation of socialist modernization.
In short, resolving unnecessary internal theoretical contradictions is a prerequisite for advancing Marxist ecology. Only by recognizing Engels’s dialectics of nature as a foundational component of this framework can we establish a more robust philosophical basis for accurately comprehending the relationship between nature and society and deepening the ecological critique of capitalism—thereby driving the revolutionary practice of ecosocialism.
Notes
1. ↩ Kohei Saito, Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022), 6.
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