This series of articles follows on from the logic developed in my latest book, ‘Life on Earth (Past, Present and Future)’. For more details see those at the end of this article. The book dealt with life on earth from its billion year old, bio-chemical and biological beginnings emerging from inorganic planetary materials into single cell Prokaryotic and Eukaryotic forms, and on to the evolution of multi-cellular plants, insects and animals. The research for the book established that in essence life on earth was a biological phenomenon and that all life forms had a common six stage biological process of existence comprising of Nutritional intake; Metabolic processing of the nutrition; Growth and re-growth of cells; a Reproductive process; an Ageing process; and a process of Dying. For ease of use this biological process was abbreviated to (N-M-G-R + A-D).

In addition, sections of that book dealt with the social organisation of the human species from the pre-historic period of hunter-gatherer and herding societies, before focussing on the development of settled agricultural communities. The notable difference between the two modes was that the latter communities became the first (and only) form of species social aggregation in which a hierarchical class forcefully dominated this form of mass society and continues to this day. These class divided societies began in the global west of the world within the middle and near east, Fertile Crescent region. The book then traced the turbulent and brutal historical record of these hierarchical mass societies in considerable detail before pointing out the fundamental contradictions inherent within all examples of this particular social form.

A particularly problematic biological contradiction arose because in addition to the daily needs of their ordinary working communities, the extra quality and quantity (luxury) demands and needs of the elite class, far exceeded what local nutritional and non-nutritional resources could naturally supply. The introduction of this excessive social demand (for palaces, finery, ornamentation, conspicuous consumption, royal entertainment) from local natural resources meant ever larger natural resources (whether already occupied or not) were used, needed and taken.

Territorial expansion and resource acquisition became an existential requirement for the continuation and development all hierarchical mass society settlements, either ancient or modern. This in turn led to annexations, deforestations, internicine wars, slavery and even occasional local genocides by even small city states, such as ancient, Athens, Troy etc. The population/resource pressure was even greater when some of those city states eventually developed into regional empires, such as Egypt, Persia, Macedonia, Greece and Rome etc.

Incidentally, whilst Marx was correct in pointing out the errors of Malthus who in the 19th century had argued that overpopulation was caused by the fact that human reproductive rates appeared to be geometrical and the reproductive rates of the edible species to feed them appeared to be arithmetical. Malthus therefore thought this mismatch would lead to catastrophic overpopulation, famine and starvation, however in my opinion Marx was wrong to call him stupid. I am no fan of Malthus myself, but although Malthus had not understood the problem in full (nor had Marx or anyone else at the time) Maltbus was not stupid or wrong in spotting a potential problem with hierarchical mass society .levels of production and consumption The elements missing from Malthusis’s (and Marx’s) 19th century evaluations were five in number. 1. The increased rate and mass of extraction and consumption of natural resources, due to industrial methods and to elite greed; 2. The increasing rate and mass of industrial pollution; 3. The increasing rate and mass of essential species extinctions along with the habitat disruptions and collapses of other species,; and 4. The finite limits of the planets biosphere.

The Metabolic Rift hypothesis.

Although Malthus is no longer considered relevant, there is a trend of left, pro-Marxist thinking, which considers that the current ecological problem facing life on earth in general has been caused by the capitalist mode of production which they claim has created a metabolic rift between capitalist societies and nature and that this metabolic rift had been previously identified by the revolutionary-humanist thinker, Karl Marx. I have not yet found any convincing evidence of a connection between Marx’s views on production, ecological destruction and a metabolic rift. Indeed, in my research, that term was not used by Marx in any of his works. For this reason it seems to me that the term itself is an entirely modern fabrication by those intellectuals who are grasping at the equivalent of ‘straws’to try to make themselves and Marx relevant to modern ecological concerns.

I suggest that the works of Marx are significant, comprehensive and valuable enough without trying to pin on them a modern version of a form of dogmatic Marxism, particularly as he is unable to disagree and refute such an interpretation. Refutation of mistaken assumptions about him was a process he frequently did while he was still alive. Meanwhile, it is worth considering the argument put forward by this mrtabolic rift trend. It is along the lines of; ‘capitalism is massively disrupting essential exchanges of matter and energy between society and the rest of nature, which is putting the entire Earth System in danger….Metabolic Rifts offers a scientific basis for understanding the deep causes of today’s environmental crises’. Does it? We shall see! The exchange of matter and energy within the entire biosphere of earth includes the bio-chemical carbon and nitrogen cycles which are predominantly regulated by plant organisms, which take in and exude elements of these gasses to produce with other inputs a balanced biosphere.

It is true that deforestation and desertification monoculture production as well as sea pollution disturb the quantity, quality and balance of these natural gaseous processes, but this destabilisation was occuring long before the capitalist mode of production was adopted by hierarchical mass society elites. Just think of how many forests were decimated to supply the ancient fleets of huge triple-decked triemes, operated by all sides in the Greek Peloponnesian wars, or the fleets of huge entertainment and haulage vessels of the many elite orchestrated thousand year long Egyptian Dynasties. Just to float the granite blocks from quarries to the sites of pyramid and palace building, would have cleared a forest or two.

The rifts and disturbances in the carbon and nitrogen cycles continued through the Roman Empire and late middle ages and particularly accelerated during the wooden ship seafaring, and gunship antics of the late medieval merchant trader period. Not a few forests must have been cut down to manufacture the Spanish, Portugese, French, Dutch and English fighting and trading ships of the late feudal and pre-capitalist countries of Europe as they fought each other to control and consume natural materials, wherever the wind, tides and a compass would take them. To claim that the capitalist mode of production within hierarchical mass societies was the factor that introduced the ecological and environmental instability into the bio-chemical balance of life on earth, is to have failed to understand the biological structure of life on earth and the disturbance of it by a particular hierarchical social form of human aggregation, that began long before the merchant capitalists of Holland, Venice started to accumulate capital.

Nevertheless, the concept of metabolism is not commonly used in everyday discussions on politics, social, economic, or medical affairs, so it is worth establishing what the concept normally refers to, when discussing life on earth. Metabolism refers to the ‘chemical changes which take place within or between microscopic biological cells when food or protoplasm is broken down within them and the resulting constituent materials are then reassembled and built up in living organisms to create and replace essential energy and tissue requirements, or excreted as waste.’ This complex metabolic process is a constant feature of all living creatures – without exception – and it is happening to me as I write and to you as you read this sentence and it continues on a 24/7 annual life-long basis. Is it not amazing that these microscopic biological organisms, keep at keeping us alive and functioning on a couple of modest balanced meals per day?

Nevertheless, whether we are familiar with the concept  or not, the terms metabolism and metabolic are those used to identify specific biological processes at the microscopic unseen level, although this does not mean the term could not be used metaphorically to serve other non-biological or social purposes. However, in such an extended use it would then lose its biological specificity. The term ‘rift’ is normally used to designate a physical crack, or an opening, a cleavage such as the ‘rift valley’. The term has also been used to describe a disagreement or discord occuring within human affairs. Such as, for example; ‘my criticism of the use of the term Metabolic Rift might well cause an intellectual ‘rift’ or deepen an existing one between myself and other commentators on the current causes of ecological disturbances and species extinctions.

But, however we define it, the term metabolic-rift is nonetheless the deliberate combining of a description of a biological/organic process (metabolism) with a non-biological inorganic physical process, (cleavages). However, although on first hearing or reading, the term may sound impressive, it I suggest that it does not convey any easily understood or generally accepted meaning. It is tempting, therefore to provisionally consider that it may fall into the intellectual category of ‘a jargon of authenticity’ type aphorism. So for the moment I think it best not to consider what some intellectuals choose to say about Marx, but what Marx himself wrote about the link between human social production under the capitalist mode of production, and the human consumption of natural resources.

Marx on consumption and Industrial production.

“Consumption is also immediately production, just as in nature the consumption of the elements and chemical substances is the production of the plant. It is clear that in taking in food, for example, which is a form of consumption, the human being produces his own body. But this is also true of every kind of consumption which in one way or another produces human beings in some particular aspect.” (Marx. Grundrisse. Introduction. Emphasis added. RR)

And;

“As soon as consumption emerges from its initial state of natural crudity and immediacy – and, if it remained at that stage, this would be because production itself had been arrested there.” (Marx. Grundrisse; Introduction.)

And;

“The actual wealth of society, and the possibility of constantly expanding its reproduction process, therefore, do not depend upon the duration of surplus labour, but upon its productivity and the more or less copious conditions of production under which it is performed…..Just as the savage must wrestle with Nature to satisfy his wants, to maintain and reproduce life, so must civilised man, and he must do so in all social formations and under all possible modes of production.” (Marx. Capital volume 3. Emphasis added. RR)

The possibility of a constantly expanding reproduction processes appears not to have rung any ecological or pollution alarm bells for Marx in the 19th century and sadly his disparaging description of hunter-gatherer peoples as savages wrestling with Nature is just another anthropocentric dismissal of our highly intelligent homo sapien ancestors. Just because such modern arrogance was often par for the course within 19th century intellectual discourse, doesn’t make acceptable or true. More to the point, nowhere, in Marx’s extensive and provisional Grundrisse notebooks is Metabolism mentioned nor rift. Although the phrase; ..”consumption of the elements and chemical substances is the production of the plant”, in the above quote does indicate that Marx was fully aware of the bio-chemical metabolic procesess involved in the metabolism of plant nutrition and human nutrition, without mentioning the term.

Personally, I think it is highly significant that although Marx specifically describes the metabolic process of taking in food, and chemical substances, in order to produce the body of the plant, he makes no specific mention of the term metabolism which is the only appropriate term for the concept he is describing. Nor does he mention the possibility or actuality of a ‘rift’. Moreover, no mention is made of it in the later three volumes of Das Capital nor in the three volumes of Theories of Surplus-value. However, the following quotes from Marx, do indicate his positive assessment of the relationship between capitalist industry and nature, and contain not even a hint of a metabolic rift. I suggest this terminological abscence throws considerable doubts upon the claims being made by some intellectuals. For example;

“Industry is the actual, historical relationship of nature and therefore of natural science to man.” (Marx. Collected Works. Volume 3, page 298 and 303. Emphasis added. RR)

And;

“The earth itself is an instrument of labour. (Marx. Capital volume 1. Page  Emphasis added RR)

And;

“…nature as it develops through industry, even though in an ‘estranged’ form, is true anthropological nature.” (Marx. Collected Works. Volume 3, page 298 and 303. Emphasis added. RR)

The estrangement Marx notes in the last quote above, cannot be construed as an oblique or confused reference to a metabolic rift between humanity and nature in general, because Marx did not express confusion in any of his early notes or later mature works. In this particular case he was referring to the rift between working and producing humanity and a particular mode of production, which had estranged the worker from the means (and purposes) of production. Yet even with the existence of that form of human ‘estrangement’, Marx considered that human capital intensive industry was a true anthropological expression of nature and not a metabolic rift with it. Based upon my own assessment of his extremely extensive writings, had Marx thought differently, he would have said so explicitly.

Indeed, Engels, a close friend and dedicated collaborator with Marx also mentioned the biological process of metabolism without ever using the term itself. In explaining the dialectic process within nature, Engels wrote the following;

“….every organic being is every moment the same and not the same; every moment it assimilates matter supplied from without, and gets rid of other matter; every moment some cells of its body die and others build themselves anew; in a longer or shorter time the matter of its body is completely renewed, and is replaced by other molecules of matter, so that every organic being is always itself, and yet something other than itself.” (Engels. AntiDuhring. )

The ‘matter supplied from without’ is material comprising of molecules which are considered nutritional in larger organisms, and the replacement by other molecules are those proteins, minerals and carbohydrates synthesised by the metabolising process, inside the particular cell. Any ‘rift’ in that metabolic process would be purely an individual, molecular or biological processing failure or breakdown, not a species wide or social system failure. A further problem with dubiously linking the concept of metabolic rift directly with the capitalist mode of production and directly with Marx, is that it assumes that ecological destruction, excessive extraction, production, consumption and pollution were not alteady taking place prior to the onset of capitalism. In fact the historical record of ancient hierarchical mass societies and empires that were being created, were also collapsing and leaving desertification, forest extinctions and soil contamination, all whilst extracting more natural resources that could be naturally or artificially reproduced.

Marx and Feuerbach.

In this last section I also wish to draw attention to an interesting anomaly. In previous parts I have pointed out the negative role of those anti-capitalist intellectuals and activists in the tradition of Karl Marx, such as Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky and their later 20th century followers who had no idea about the importance of understanding the biological essence of humanity nor of humanities absolute reliance on a multi-species, ecologically-balanced biosphere. I include myself in that detailed knowledge deficiency in the first half of my life as worker and activist. In part 3 of this series I also drew attention to the severe limitations of biological and ecological knowledge during the 19th century period in which that generation of anti-capitalist activists grew up and matured. However, it needs to remembered that despite those almost universal limitations there were some intellectuals in the 19th century, that did not succumb entirely to the dualistic bifurcation of humanity and nature which most revolutionary thinkers and activists had done.

In fact one of the intellectuals who differed from Marx in this respect was someone he admired to such a degree that he drew up a series of Theses which he named after this intellectual. They became known as the eleven ‘Theses on Feuerbach’ by Marx and were named in honour of Ludwig Feuerbach, to whom he later wrote a letter which contained the following;

“Dear Sir,
I am glad to have an opportunity of assuring you of the great respect – and if I may use the word – love, which I feel for you…..you have provided …..a philosophical basis for socialism….the concept of the human species brought down from the heaven of abstraction to the real earth, what is this but the concept of society…..with best wishes for your well-being.”
Yours, Karl Marx.

(Marx/Engels. Collected Works.Volume 3. Page 354-357)

Clearly Marx very much appreciated Feuerbach’s approach to the question of understanding Nature and the human species, so it is worth understanding why he had such high regard. The research and one of the books written by Feuerbach which Marx admired bore the title; ‘The essence of Christianity’ and in a chapter on the ‘Creation’ in the Jewish religion of Judaism, Feuerbach had written the following;

“The doctrine of the Creation in its characteristic significance arises only on that stand-point where man in practice makes Nature merely the servant of his will and needs, and hence in thought also degrades it to a mere machine, a mere product of the will. Now its existence is intelligible to him since he explains and interprets it out of himself, in accordance with his own feelings and notions.” (‘The essence of Christianity’ chapter 11, page 112. Emphasis added. RR.)

I think in these days we would classify the essence of the last sentence in the above quote, as the prevalence of an intellectual form of a lack of self-criticism known as confirmation bias. This form of prejudice and bias only selects and accepts evidence and opinion that confirms what is wanted or expected to be true or valid. Political movements of all complexions, left, right and centre, including religions and even Marxisms, are replete with confirmation biases. The self-critical Feuerbach also rhetorically asked the following question;

“The question, Whence is Nature or the world?….Why does it exist? But this wonder, this question, arises only where man has separated himself from Nature and made it an object of will.” (ibid page 113/114)

Feuerbach in the 19th century had recognised that humanity at some stage had “in practice made nature a servant of his will and needs”. Clearly the practice of making nature a servant of humanity being referenced there, had been initiated before, during or after the historic transition from hunter-gatherer nomadic and semi-nomadic communities to settled agricultural farming communities when hierarchical mass society structures had been formed. Prior to that the the human species did not treat nature as an object of will or as a machine. It was a transition between nomadic and settled existence which is mythically recorded in the Torah/Old Testament narratives of having a pastorialist wandering life-style and a mobile Ark of the Covenant.

I suggest it is important to take a moment to note some revealing common industrial language used by Feuerbach and Marx in the above extracts. We have Nature described as an object and a machine by Feuerbach and Nature as an instrument of labour, by Marx. But also note subtle the difference between how they had phrased them. For Feuerbach humanity had decided to treat nature as an object out of unadulterated egoism; for Marx, nature was already assumed to be an instrument of labour and that nature is already “truly anthropologica!” A further interesting point about the origin of Judaic Monotheism that Feuerbach makes, which is relevant to the 20th and 21st century manifestations of ‘estrangement’ and ‘dehumanisation’, as manifested in the Israeli Genocide in Gaza, for example appears in the following.

“The belief in a special Divine Providence is the characteristic belief of Judaism. Water divides or rolls itself together like a firm mass, dust is changed into lice, a staff into a serpent, rivers into blood, a rock into a fountain; in the same place it is both light and dark at once, the sun now stands still, now goes backward. And all these contradictions of nature happen for the welfare of Israel, purely at the command of Jehovah, who troubles himself about nothing but Israel, who is nothing but the personified selfishness of the Israelitish people to the exclusion of all other nations – absolute intolerance, the secret essence of monotheism.” (Feuerbach. The Essence of Christianity’ page 113/114. Emphasis added. RR.)

The actions of Personified selfishness in not sharing land and the absolute intolerance of the indigenous people of Palestine has been manifested by a majority of Zionist Jews of Israel since the Israeli occupation of Palestine in 1948 and has continued for eighty years. But notice that Feuerbach identified that the essence of monotheism – not just its Judaic form – is also absolute intolerance and of course there are other forms of monotheism. Is it not the case, that Christian monotheism in the guises of European countries were personifications of selfishness and absolute intolerance when they ‘coveted’ the land and resources and made war upon the native Plains, Coastal and Forest Indians of North and South America, and also on the indigenous peoples of Africa and Oceana?

And is not also a fact that most fundamentalist Islamist Muslim monotheists personify forms of selfishness and absolute intolerance against non-Muslims and Apostates from their own creed? Although it is abundantly clear that the 2026 missile attack upon Iran was initiated by a Judaic led Israel and Christian led USA, the Islamic led Iranian elite have also demonstrated their own version of personal selfishness and absolute intolerance. In Afghanistan, Syria, Iran and the Gulf States is it not true that these elites have demonstrated absolute intolerance against their own citizens who are opposed to the regime and for those ordinary citizens of other nations who are opposed to their own elites?

The future: Biology or Sociology?

As noted in Part 3, of this series, the true reality of the essence of the human species, once critically and seriously examined is both biological and social and the biological essence is fundamental and primary. Our own personal existence verifies this. Individually, we all start off from a single unfertilised female biological cell, (the ovum) when this biological cell is fertilised by a male biological sperm cell, we each develop into a multicellular biological entity, which continues to live within another multi-cellular biological being, the female human body until birth.

This truly amazing essential biological process of (N-M-G-R) until birth is the special biological case for every species of human being, in every country, for every generation. The bio-chemical, biological essence of all human beings is the same for all members of the human species, there is no other special biological form. The fact that every cell in every body is comprised of an internal association of organelles and sub-units, does not on present definitions, make them a social phenomenon. That functioning integration within cells is known as symbiosis.

Only after birth do we, as a gendered biological species-being, enter into an additional consenting social community and tentatively begin our sociological estrangement and social conditioning. Each species of human biological being goes through the same identical process. None of us at birth subscribe to a religion, a culture, a class, or a prejudiced opinion. None of us are born aggressive, racist, sexist, nationalist, fascist, opinionated, disrespectful, vegetarian or carnivore.

These characteristics are all socially created, socially learned, socially transmitted and socially enforced. The idea that any religion, culture, gender, nation, or ethnicity are inherently and essentially or biologically different or superior to others, such as Jew or gentile, dark or pale skin tone are just socially constructed narcisistic ideologies of religious or secular social origin. They are not natural and are symptoms of social self-delusion with no biological evidence to support them.

Indeed, the global statistics on Covid 19 pandemic deaths, indicated that no countries populations were superior in the potency of their biological immune systems. They averaged out at 1,400 deaths per million of population and the fluctuations between the highest and the lowest were most likely due to the amount of viral exposure each population was subjected to and/or the individual viral load each infected person suffered from. In the same way, the seriousness of other morbidities to the health of each infected person was dependent upon the fitness and relative immune functionality due to age and the existence of poverty. The fact that viruses and bacteria are also biological entities that must consume nutrients and can evolve as they are doing so, means that there is no absolute cure to these type of infections so again prevention and healthy, unpolluted, and unstressed life forms are best suited to the continuation of vibrant communities.

Hierarchical mass societies. The final countdown?

Yet overworked, over stressed, over exhausted, poorly paid working populations are being employed to gouge out ever new or half used resources because that is what all elites need in order to maintain profitable productive output and economic growth. That way all, or most of the elite can continue to increase their wealth. Hiearchical mass societies, unless stopped or by-passed, will continue, as they always have, to increase extraction, production, consumption and pollution. Only now in the 21st century, there is no pristine places to move on to. This year on year process will thus unleash further climate change, shortages of natural resources, epidemics and pandemics.

In addition, there will be further financial crises, economic crises, poverty, social unrest, political authoritarian despotism, wide-scale pollution and ecological species extinctions along with wars and genocides. Moreover, any one of these factors, if large enough or if one or more overlap enough, this too can hasten the final countdown of the hierarchical mass society system. When its internal contradictions start to break through any remaining concensus wishing to conserve the hierarchical mass society form, the beginning of the end will commence – if it has not started already. It’s current and past secular, religious, military, democratic or authoritarian led elitist forms are already at each others throats, some with their fingers ready to reach out toward nuclear missile buttons.

Since the hierarchical mass society system’s elites cannot remove a senile president or two, the only serious alternative is by communities creating alternative socio-economic forms which in practice as well as theory has humans engaging with biological nature as one of its constituent biological parts. The past of arrogant narcisistic led social elite dominated systems is over. We either do little or nothing now or we start changing how we live, think and treat each other and the rest of our biosphere support species. Pioneering alternative small community changes is better than doing nothing or waiting until absolute chaos and desperation drive people into being influenced by aother set of elite demagogues. who promise solutions yet deliver more problems.

The problem is the re-balancing of the human consumption of natural resources, whilst leaving enough reproductive natural resources untouched, so as to be abundantly available for the rest of the biosphere species to survive. The solution is to organise small, local, independent support groups who have fun as well as reading, discussing how to act in ecologically considered ways, who in future can link up with other like minded support groups, without losing their local independence and are able to avoid becoming pawns in some future hierarchical elite-led mass society initiative.

Roy Ratcliffe (April 2026)

Life on Earth’ (Past, Present & Future)
(From a Revolutionary-Humanist & Giaia-centric Perpective)
The above heading is the title of a recent book I have recently published. The back cover of the book bears the following blurb.
“Of all the millions of species of life that have existed on earth over billions of years of cellular and multi-cellular evolution, only the members of one species has consciously and systematically done the following.

Over-polluted, seas, lakes, rivers, air, top-soil and land in general.

Destroyed – on a huge-scale, members of its own species.

Dismembered on a massive scale, members of many other species (forests, animals, insects, fish).

Elevated a minority of its own species to live in obscene luxury.

Relegated huge numbers of its own species (male and particularly female) to low and subordinate status.

Have attained the most profound amounts of knowledge.

However, it is only in the last five or six thousand years, out of the 500,000 plus years of hominid and Homo sapien evolution, that the human species began to initiate such actions and only in the Middle/Near East and Europe.

Until then, the rest of the planet remained populated by humans but largely unpolluted and ecologically undisturbed, by them. Now in the 21st century every corner, every height and every depth of the earth’s biosphere is extremely polluted and ecologically and climatically imbalanced.

In exploring the main species categories of life on earth, this book is intended for those who are puzzled by how in one relatively short period of human evolution human activities have resulted in the six characteristics listed above. The book will also be of interest to those who have begun to consider what can be done to halt and even reverse those unnatural symptoms.”

Apart from a preface and introduction, the book contains the following chapters;

Chapter 1. The inorganic elements of life on earth.
Chapter 2. Cells. Bio-chemical (organic) beginnings.
Chapter 3. The inorganic/organic composition of Soil.
Chapter 4. Plant and photosynthetic organisms.
Chapter 5. Insect Organisms.
Chapter 6. Animal Organisms.
Chapter 7. The social evolution of Hominid life.
Chapter 8. The social evolution of Homo Sapiens.
Chapter 9. Hierarchical Mass Societies.
Chapter 10. Hierarchical mass society reflected in ideology.

CONCLUSION.

This book offers a fully Giaia-centric perspective in that it starts from the propositions that;

“Hitherto, ‘life on earth’ in general has always been studied from the particular perspective of humanity.
The study of humanity from the general perspective of life on earth, has hardly begun.”

This book is the author and bloggers contribution to redressing that historic and devastating imbalance.

It can be obtained in ebook form from Amazon and others at around £2.99 or in paper back form from around £14.99. From Amazon; brownsbfs.co.uk; Bookshop.org or ebay.