ABSTRACT
Metabolic rift is a concept originating in the work of Karl Marx that characterizes the disruption of ecological processes (particularly in agricultural systems) under capitalism. With capitalist industrialization, populations became concentrated in urban centers, so that goods from the countryside were shipped to urban centers, where the nutrients contained in agricultural products ended up in sewers and dumps, rather than being returned to the soil. This created a rift in metabolic processes and undermined the sustained fertility of the earth. Similarly, other cycles (e.g., nitrogen, carbon) have been disrupted by capitalist production, threatening the survival of societies.
