Slow Down

Starred review from October 16, 2023
Saito (Marx in the Anthropocene), a philosopher at the University of Tokyo, warns in this well-reasoned and eye-opening treatise that capitalism is pushing the planet past its breaking point, and calls for drastic action. In addition to imminent climate change, Saito points to the inequalities that undergird the global economy, detailing how the industrialized Global North (which is also the driver of capitalism and the biggest contributor to carbon emissions) plunders the natural resources and exploits the labor power of the Global South. Saito argues that these extractive systems are intensifying, and that nation-states’ attempts to foster sustainability while maintaining economic growth, including the “Green Keynesian” of plans proposed by social democracies (such as the Green New Deal) and even traditional Marxism (which assumes production is not intrinsically destructive), are insufficient. Drawing on Marx’s later works and unpublished writings, Saito proposes a system of “degrowth communism,” which he describes as “a transition from quantity... to quality.” This degrowth society would be characterized by “an economy focused on local production for local consumption” and decarbonization through shorter working hours, in an echo of the shorter workday called for by the original labor movement at the turn of the 20th century. Saito concludes with a call for local, city-led initiatives (pointing to Barcelona as a model) to do what they can to pull their municipalities back from the emissions-spewing global economy. It’s a provocative and visionary proposal.