For more on the distinction between productive and individual consumption see Harvey's lecture 5 on Capital Vol.1

The end of this formulation translates from the german, "Stoffwechsel [metabolism] mit der Natur".

Contemporary ecological Marxists, such as John Bellamy Foster, cite this passage in support of claims that Marx's economic writings understood human relations to the environment in terms of what he called the ‘metabolism’ (Stoffwechsel) between nature and society.

Thus, scholars such as Foster argue that Marx’s ideas offer an historical explanation for the ecological impact of capitalism on a planetary scale.

Locating this metabolic relationship in capitalist practices of resource extraction, food production and waste, the consequences of capitalist production's intervention in the "material re-actions between himself and Nature" produce what has been variously characterized as metabolic rift or metabolic shift