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  1. Home
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  3. Marx in the Anthropocene
  • Cited by 41
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Online publication date:
January 2023
Print publication year:
2023
Online ISBN:
9781108933544
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108933544
Subjects:
Social Theory, Political Economy, Politics and International Relations, Sociology
Information

Book description

Facing global climate crisis, Karl Marx's ecological critique of capitalism more clearly demonstrates its importance than ever. This book explains why Marx's ecology had to be marginalized and even suppressed by Marxists after his death throughout the twentieth century. Marx's ecological critique of capitalism, however, revives in the Anthropocene against dominant productivism and monism. Investigating new materials published in the complete works of Marx and Engels (Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe), Saito offers a wholly novel idea of Marx's alternative to capitalism that should be adequately characterized as degrowth communism. This provocative interpretation of the late Marx sheds new lights on the recent debates on the relationship between society and nature and invites readers to envision a post-capitalist society without repeating the failure of the actually existing socialism of the twentieth century.

Reviews

‘Marx in the Anthropocene is a deeply restorative project, both analytically and politically. Through a detailed examination of Marx’s notebooks on the natural sciences, Kohei Saito reminds us why Marx insisted that the relationship between nature and capitalism was fundamentally unsustainable. The book restores to us a forgotten Marx, one who is eager to learn from precapitalist societies, one who is beginning to see destruction in development. Taking his lead from this longneglected Marx, Saito then builds a powerful argument for degrowth communism, a theoretical approach that aims to reorganize the very notion of abundance to fit the common weal, rather than fit an abstract notion of luxury communism. Marx in the Anthropocene reminds us, again, why anticapitalism is the nutrient that must be urgently added to nature’’

Tithi Bhattacharya - author of Feminism for the 99%: A Manifesto

‘A masterpiece. This is the book we have been waiting for. Saito draws on Marx to deliver a thrilling synthesis of degrowth and ecosocialism. Herein lies the secret to post-capitalist transition. A must-read for every socialist and every environmentalist -it will change both forever’

Jason Hickel - author of Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World

‘After his brilliant essay on Marx’s ecology, Kohei Saito shows in his new pathbreaking book how different Marxist thinkers tried to deal with the environmental, challenges, from an anti-capitalist perspective. As in his previous essay, Saito is able to grasp Marxism as thought in movement, and not as a closed system. His courageous appeal for a ‘degrowth communism’ is a decisive contribution for an ecological Marxism of our times, a communism for the Anthropocene’

Michael Löwy - author of Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe

‘the way Saito mobilises Marxist theory to make a plea for 'the abundance of wealth in degrowth communism' … is as precise as it is gripping'

Timothée Parrique Source: The Conversation

‘In this refreshing and highly significant work, Kohei Saito draws on only recently published writings from Marx’s later notebooks on science and nature which reveal a less Promethean Marx … essential reading for all serious Marxists.’

John Green Source: Morning Star

'To bring Red and Green together … Marx in the Anthropocene directs attention first at environmentalists, then at Marxists, and concludes with a synthesis, making the case for degrowth communism. Throughout the text, the central figure is Marx himself, whom Saito recasts as a deeply ecological thinker and one who argues that destroying the environment is an inherent feature of capitalism. While drawing on familiar texts such as Capital and Critique of the Gotha Program, Saito’s most original contribution to the ecological Marx is to uncover what he calls Marx’s 'ecological notebooks' - largely compiled after the publication of Capital - documenting his particular attention to the natural sciences, the idea of a steady-state metabolism, and non-Western societies. Saito argues that Marx was on his way to developing a theory towards degrowth communism and away from the more productivist and Promethean Marx that has been the more popular conception of Marx and Marxism.'

Source: Los Angeles Review of Books

'Saito’s work - both in Marx and the Anthropocene and his earlier book Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism … stands out for its use of a copious collection of notes that Marx took after 1868 from his readings on biology, botany, chemistry, geology, minerology, and other fields of the natural sciences … Drawing on these newly discovered late works, Saito illuminates a formerly invisible dimension of Marx’s thought - and not a moment too soon as our world begins to catch flame … The days when Marx’s ideas were assumed to be incompatible with environmentalism and in need of greening are thankfully past, thanks in no small part to Saito’s contributions.'

Source: Protean Magazine

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