Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism

Kohei Saito’s Capital in the Anthropocene (2020) was an unexpected hit in Japan, selling over half a million copies. The work’s English translation (retitled Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto) was published in early 2024. Despite its name closely resembling the original Japanese title of Saito’s best-known work, Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism is, in Saito’s words, “a more rigorous and academic version of the Japanese book” that “builds on wholly new arguments with a more careful reading of materials” (x). For those interested in the academic debates surrounding the purported incompatibility of Marxism and environmentalism (two sides Saito calls “Red and Green,” respectively),…