Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism

Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism

  • Downloads:9598
  • Type:Epub+TxT+PDF+Mobi
  • Create Date:2023-01-23 09:20:45
  • Update Date:2025-09-07
  • Status:finish
  • Author:Kohei Saito
  • ISBN:1009366181
  • Environment:PC/Android/iPhone/iPad/Kindle

Summary

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。

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Reviews

Noritaka Hara

There are some interesting ideas in the book, but too many logic jumps/flaws, and unexplained nor tested superficial concepts - so not up to any hype (in my opinion)。 Basic his idea is that capitalism is the source of climate change, and most of the current measures against it (like a green new deal, SGDs, etc) are built on capitalism and thus will not solve the issue (nothing new)。 Capitalism externalizes cost and creates scarcity to make more money, thus creating inequality (like what Piketty There are some interesting ideas in the book, but too many logic jumps/flaws, and unexplained nor tested superficial concepts - so not up to any hype (in my opinion)。 Basic his idea is that capitalism is the source of climate change, and most of the current measures against it (like a green new deal, SGDs, etc) are built on capitalism and thus will not solve the issue (nothing new)。 Capitalism externalizes cost and creates scarcity to make more money, thus creating inequality (like what Piketty said)。 Since current election-based democracy is controlled by capital, democracy has to change。 To solve this, he cited de-growth communism, which is an idea of Marx late in life。 It basically aims at equality with distributed power based on abundance through commons。 Commons is like a coop or association which is owned and run by producers (like Spain has) and produces "essential products", and bullshit jobs which create unnecessary products to make money will disappear。Many of his arguments are very weak and not thorough, and lack concreteness (he cites many foreign researchers and cases, which is sadly typical tactics to convince the Japanese audience)。 He thinks capitalism is the sole fuel/force that drives people to seek endless consumption。 But I think it could be the opposite - capitalism is just a engine run also by some essential human desire, being currently expressed as endless consumption。 Thus, without taking into account that, just replacing current system based on capitalism (aside from its feasibility) with his hypothetical de-growth communism does not seem plausible path especially for addressing climate change。 。。。more

Miyu

長い積読期間を経てやっと読み終わった記念。「価値と使用価値の乖離」「過度な分業化による個人の無力化」確かに今のシステムには不思議に恐ろしい点が多い

Baasan

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers。 To view it, click here。 最高に興味深い。資本主義とは何か、このまま対策を打たずに進めば、人類をどのような未来が待ち構えているかを説明。資本主義の最後の砦となったSDGsをアヘンに例えて揶揄する。マルクスの思考経過も丁寧に記載していることが他書と比べて特徴的。①気候ケインズ主義を掲げるか、②気候毛沢東でいくのか、或いは対策を打たずに③野蛮状態に陥るのかなどを対策を考えさせられる。著者は必需品(食料、エネルギー、水、医療、教育)のコモンにより運営、管理を提案している。是非皆さんに本書を一読し、我々が営む社会を第三者の目線で診ていただきたい。