Editing Political ecology (section)

=== Neo-Marxist power perspectives ===

Amongst the foundations of political ecology is the [[political economy]] thought of [[Marxist schools of thought|Marxist]] which centered on the inequalities that emerged from global capitalism. However, the power perspectives of Marx are most likely highlighted even though there are several perspectives of power in political ecology influenced directly or indirectly by Marx.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Svarstad, H., Benjaminsen, T., and Overå, R.|date=2018|title=Power theories in political ecology|journal=Journal of Political Ecology|volume=25|issue=1 |pages=351–363|doi=10.2458/v25i1.23044|doi-access=free|hdl=1956/19789|hdl-access=free}}</ref> The Marxist main focus under capitalism is in relation to class and the stability of reproducing this class relation.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book|last=Isaac|first=Jeffrey|title=Power and Marxist theory: a realist view|publisher=Cornell University Press.|year=1987|location=Ithaca}}</ref> Marx also placed human agency as the most important of his power concept with the human agency being socially conditioned as seen in his quote below:

''"Men make their history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past (Marx 1852:5)".''<ref>{{Cite web|last=Marx|first=Karl|date=1982|title=The eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon|url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18th-brumaire/}}</ref>

Thus, Marx's power theory which formed his perspective of power is the understanding of human agency as being constrained by social structure. As structure produces the potential and extent for power exertion, the human agency is reproducing the structure. This is illustrated by Isaac (1987) using the powerful David Rockefeller (1915 to 2017)<ref name=":1"/> as quoted below:

''"But a social theory of power must explain what kinds of social relations exist and how power is distributed by these relations, such that it is possible for [[David Rockefeller]] to have the power that he has. To do this is not to deny that it is he who possesses this power, nor to deny those personal attributes determining the particular manner in which he exercises it. It is simply to insist that the power individuals possess has social conditions of existence and that it is these conditions that should be the primary focus of theoretical analysis".''<ref name=":1"/>