Karl Marx came up with the term “metabolic rift” to explain the
crack or rift that capitalism has created between social and
natural systems, humans and nature. This rift, he claimed, led
to the exploitation of the environment and ecological crisis.
Marx argued that we humans are all part of nature and he was
also the first one who saw social societies as an organism with
a metabolism similar to that of humans. In the Economic and
Philosophical Manuscripts from 1844, Marx wrote that: “Man lives
from nature, i.e., nature is his body, and he must maintain a
continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die. To say that
man’s physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means
that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature.”
The general idea is that disruptions, or interruptions, in
natural cycles and processes creates an metabolic rift between
nature and social systems which leads to a buildup of waste and
in the end to the degradation of our environment. As people
moved into cities they lost