Sustainability and Metabolic Revolution in the Works of Henri Lefebvre

Abstract

Humanity’s present social–ecological metabolic configuration is not sustainable, and the need for a radical transformation of society to address its metabolic rifts with the rest of nature is increasingly apparent. The work of French Marxist Henri Lefebvre, one of the few thinkers to recognize the significance of Karl Marx’s theory of metabolic rift prior to its rediscovery at the end of the twentieth century, offers valuable insight into contemporary issues of sustainability. His concepts of the urban revolution, autogestion, the critique of everyday life, and total (or metabolic) revolution all relate directly to the key concerns of sustainability. Lefebvre’s work embodies a vision of radical social–ecological transformation aimed at sustainable human development, in which the human metabolic interchange with the rest of nature is to be placed under substantively rational and cooperative control by all its members, enriching everyday life. Other critical aspects of Lefebvre’s work, such as his famous concept of the production of space, his temporal rhythmanalysis, and his notion of the right to the city, all point to the existence of an open-ended research program directed at the core issues of sustainability in the twenty-first century.

Henri Lefebvre's conception of nature-society in the revolutionary project of autogestion

“…Like Said (and Marx), Lefebvre (1976aLefebvre ( [1972: 32-33) is willing to look to history for clues, strategies, and possibilities for a less alienated future without lapsing into conservative nostalgia or 'regret over the lost beauty of the landscape and over the disappearance of the purity and virginity of the natural environment', instead recognizing that a return to a past ruled by natural scarcity is neither feasible nor desirable (Lefebvre, 2003a), while also stipulating that 'this does not mean that it is not necessary to preserve vast 'natural' spaces' (Lefebvre, 1996: 158). This points to how the metabolic rift is imbricated with colonialism and imperialism through both the interdependent destruction and expropriation of land and nature-including, paradoxically, through some neo-colonial conservation interventions premised on 'saving' nature from colonized peoples (Napoletano and Clark, 2020). Here again, autogestion points to a radical alternative by ensuring that the production of space is governed by the bodies present within it, but without elevating the local to an absolute or neglecting the global level at which autogestion ultimately needs to operate.…”

“…The rise of limited projects of autogestion as a matter of necessity in and against spaces condemned to 'austerity' by the neoliberal state-capital alliance in the twenty-first century, including the emergence of workers' self-managed factories in Argentina in the depression following the 2007-8 financial crises (Petras and Veltmeyer, 1950;Vieta, 2014), struggles by revolutionary communitarian subjects for territorial autogestion (Barkin and Sánchez, 2019), and the self-organization of neighborhood brigades in various communities during the COVID-19 pandemic (Wallace, 2020), render Lefebvre's (1969Lefebvre's ( [1968: 90) thesis that autogestion 'indicates the road toward the transformation of everyday existence' deeply relevant to our present situation (Brenner et al, 2008;Napoletano et al, 2020;Smith, 2009). It also reaffirms his hypothesis that 'experience (social practice) shows, in our opinion, that management associations-in their simplest and most interesting form, namely autogestion-appear in the weak points of existing society' (Lefebvre, 2009b(Lefebvre, [1966: 144).…”

“…As a vital aspect of a metabolic revolution, Lefebvre's theorization of autogestion also constitutes an important element of the social transformation needed to confront the metabolic rifts of capital (Napoletano et al, 2020). Lefebvre rarely draws an immediate link between autogestion and the ecological contradictions of capital, but important aspects of his conception of nature-society (that is, the conceptual triad formed by the mediation of nature, society, and their metabolism through human production, resulting in continual qualitative change and sublation), including his use of what is now referred to as Marx's theory of metabolic rift (Foster et al, 2019), strongly suggest that autogestion, as the key to 'appropriation' and 'de-alienation' (Lefebvre, 2009b(Lefebvre, [1966: 150), could act as the foundation for a radical notion of social-ecological sustainability that goes beyond the self-evident diametrical opposition between capital and sustainability (Lefebvre, 2014c(Lefebvre, [1973: 133; Mészáros, 2015: 162).…”

Autogestion and ecological politics in the work of Henri Lefebvre

“…Napoletano et al (2023) have expanded the debate over the ways in which Lefebvre's ‘dialectical approach to nature–society’ can be brought together with his radically democratic conceptualisation of a politics of autogestion in order to confront the social and ecological crises of twenty-first century capitalism. Their article forms part of a broader project in which the authors have argued that Lefebvre's thought can deepen our understanding of the nature–society dialectic and provide crucial methodological tools for critical geography and environmental sociology (Foster et al, 2020; Napoletano et al, 2020, 2022a, 2022b). I have great sympathy with the aims of this project, and a comprehensive integration of the diverse elements of Lefebvre's thinking to draw connections between his understanding of nature–society and his conception of emancipatory politics is long overdue.…”