Nature, Class, and Crisis: Locating the State in Ecological Marxism

Ecological Marxism is a growing field that, through influential concepts such as the metabolic rift and capitalism-in-nature, has opened new channels of research into how capitalist accumulation disrupts, recreates, and commodifies socio-ecological relations. However, beyond a few notable exceptions, ecological Marxist scholarship has shown a limited engagement with the state, often theorising it as an instrument of capital or an autonomous actor. Considering the increasingly visible and militarised role that state power is assuming in a global context of geopolitical and socio-ecological crises, as well as the ongoing breakdown of the post-WW2 liberal order, the need to fill this gap is increasingly urgent. This paper argues that the state theory of Simon Clarke and the tradition of Open Marxism can offer a lens to critically engage with the role of the state in both the symbolic appropriation of human and extra-human nature into the logic of capital, and the material patterns of exploitation and extraction that sustain capitalist production. This paper aligns this work with the insights of James O’Connor and suggests how this approach can bolster ecological Marxist theory and strategy.