Marx in the Anthropocene
Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism

The book reveals unknown aspects of Marx's vision of post-capitalism that is adequate to the Anthropocene.

Kohei Saito (Author)

9781108844154, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 11 May 2023

300 pages
23.6 x 16.1 x 2.2 cm, 0.52 kg

'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, Morning Star

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.

Dedication
Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Introduction
Part I. Marx's Ecological Critique of Capitalism and its Oblivion: 1. Marx's theory of metabolism in the age of global ecological crisis
2. The intellectual relationship of Marx and Engels revisited from an ecological perspective
3. Lukács's theory of metabolism as the foundation of ecosocialist realism
Part II. A Critique of Productive Forces in the Anthropocene
4. Monism and the non-identity of nature
5. The revival of utopian socialism and the productive forces of capital
Part III. Towards Degrowth Communism: 6. Marx as a degrowth communist
7. The abundance of wealth in degrowth communism
Conclusion
References
Index.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Economics [KC], Marxism & Communism [JPFC], Social theory [JHBA], Social & political philosophy [HPS], History [HB]