See all 2 images
Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy Paperback – October 24, 2017
by Kohei Saito (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 15 ratings
See all formats and editions
Kindle
from AUD 20.76
Read with Our Free App
Reveals the ideal of a sustainable ecosocialist world in Marx’s writings
Karl Marx, author of what is perhaps the world’s most resounding and significant critique of bourgeois political economy, has frequently been described as a “Promethean.” According to critics, Marx held an inherent belief in the necessity of humans to dominate the natural world, in order to end material want and create a new world of fulfillment and abundance—a world where nature is mastered, not by anarchic capitalism, but by a planned socialist economy. Understandably, this perspective has come under sharp attack, not only from mainstream environmentalists but also from ecosocialists, many of whom reject Marx outright.
Kohei Saito’s Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism lays waste to accusations of Marx’s ecological shortcomings. Delving into Karl Marx’s central works, as well as his natural scientific notebooks—published only recently and still being translated—Saito also builds on the works of scholars such as John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett, to argue that Karl Marx actually saw the environmental crisis embedded in capitalism. “It is not possible to comprehend the full scope of [Marx’s] critique of political economy,” Saito writes, “if one ignores its ecological dimension.”
Saito’s book is crucial today, as we face unprecedented ecological catastrophes—crises that cannot be adequately addressed without a sound theoretical framework. Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism shows us that Marx has given us more than we once thought, that we can now come closer to finishing Marx’s critique, and to building a sustainable ecosocialist world.
Read less
Report incorrect product information.
Print length
368 pages
Language
English
Publisher
Monthly Review Press
Publication date
October 24, 2017
Next page
Customers who viewed this item also viewedPage 1 of 7Page 1 of 7
Previous page
Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature
Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature
John Bellamy FosterJohn Bellamy Foster
4.7 out of 5 stars 27
Paperback
25 offers from $23.00
Marxist Thought and the City (Posthumanities)
Marxist Thought and the City (Posthumanities)
Henri LefebvreHenri Lefebvre
4.6 out of 5 stars 6
Paperback
$23.97
Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics)
Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics)
Karl MarxKarl Marx
4.6 out of 5 stars 655
Paperback
43 offers from $13.88
Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective
Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective
Paul BurkettPaul Burkett
4.7 out of 5 stars 5
Paperback
14 offers from $14.85
Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe
Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe
Michael LöwyMichael Löwy
4.5 out of 5 stars 16
Paperback
23 offers from $16.00
Next page
Customers who bought this item also boughtPage 1 of 11Page 1 of 11
Previous page
Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature
Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature
John Bellamy FosterJohn Bellamy Foster
4.7 out of 5 stars 27
Paperback
25 offers from $23.00
Marxist Thought and the City (Posthumanities)
Marxist Thought and the City (Posthumanities)
Henri LefebvreHenri Lefebvre
4.6 out of 5 stars 6
Paperback
$23.97
Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Indigenous Americas)
Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Indigenous Americas)
Glen Sean CoulthardGlen Sean Coulthard
4.4 out of 5 stars 43
Paperback
34 offers from $18.64
Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics)
Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics)
Karl MarxKarl Marx
4.6 out of 5 stars 655
Paperback
43 offers from $13.88
Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective
Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective
Paul BurkettPaul Burkett
4.7 out of 5 stars 5
Paperback
14 offers from $14.85
The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth
The Ecological Rift: Capitalism’s War on the Earth
John Bellamy FosterJohn Bellamy Foster
4.7 out of 5 stars 21
Paperback
$26.00
Next page
What other items do customers buy after viewing this item?
Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature
Marx's Ecology: Materialism and Nature
John Bellamy FosterJohn Bellamy Foster
4.7 out of 5 stars 27
Paperback
25 offers from $23.00
Marxist Thought and the City (Posthumanities)
Marxist Thought and the City (Posthumanities)
Henri LefebvreHenri Lefebvre
4.6 out of 5 stars 6
Paperback
$23.97
Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Indigenous Americas)
Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition (Indigenous Americas)
Glen Sean CoulthardGlen Sean Coulthard
4.4 out of 5 stars 43
Paperback
34 offers from $18.64
Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics)
Capital: Volume 1: A Critique of Political Economy (Penguin Classics)
Karl MarxKarl Marx
4.6 out of 5 stars 655
Paperback
43 offers from $13.88
Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective
Marx and Nature: A Red and Green Perspective
Paul BurkettPaul Burkett
4.7 out of 5 stars 5
Paperback
14 offers from $14.85
Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe
Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe
Michael LöwyMichael Löwy
4.5 out of 5 stars 16
Paperback
23 offers from $16.00
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Kohei Saito received his PhD from Humboldt University in Berlin. He is currently a JSPS Postdoctoral Fellow and visiting scholar at the University of California Santa Barbara.
Product details
Publisher : Monthly Review Press (October 24, 2017)
Language : English
Paperback : 368 pages
ISBN-10 : 1583676406
ISBN-13 : 978-1583676400
Item Weight : 1 pounds
Dimensions : 5.9 x 0.9 x 9.2 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #342,637 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#343 in Environmental Policy
#513 in Political Economy
#662 in Communism & Socialism (Books)
Customer Reviews: 4.5 out of 5 stars 15 ratings
Videos
Help others learn more about this product by uploading a video!
Upload video
How would you rate your experience shopping for books on Amazon today
Very poor Neutral Great
Customer reviews
4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
15 global ratings
5 star
76%
4 star
16%
3 star 0% (0%)
0%
2 star 0% (0%)
0%
1 star
9%
How are ratings calculated?
Review this product
Share your thoughts with other customers
Write a customer review
Sponsored
Top reviews
Top reviews
Top review from the United States
Ron M.
4.0 out of 5 stars A Deep Dive Into Marx's Notebooks
Reviewed in the United States on March 3, 2020
Verified Purchase
If you haven't cracked open a book on Karl Marx or Friedrich Engels since you were in college, this is as good a place to start as any. There's been a cottage industry in secondary works devoted to scrutinizing Marx's extensive and largely unpublished notebooks, a running compendium of his thoughts and pet theories. Author Kohei Saito mines them for any indications of what the father of socialism might have written on the subject of Nature and capital's relationship to it. Unsurprisingly, it is as manipulative and exploitive of it as it is of Labor. The reader's joy derives from seeing how Saito, who personally translated this English version of the original published in German, threads the needle from Das Kapital to Feuerbach and beyond.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
Report abuse
See all reviews
Top reviews from other countries
Translate all reviews to English
Alain Vezina
5.0 out of 5 stars L'écologisme de Marx enfin rendu indiscutable. La rupture métabolique ...
Reviewed in Canada on February 25, 2018
Verified Purchase
L'écologisme de Marx enfin rendu indiscutable. La rupture métabolique d'avec la nature apparaît clairement comme une redoutable promesse du capitalisme, identifiée par Marx il y a plus de 150 ans. S'il avait vécu de nos jours, Marx se soucierait de promouvoir la permaculture et le biorégionalisme. Une longue et intéressante discussion de l'évolution de l'agronomie, telle qu'il l'a étudiée sur plus de 15 ans, occupe la partie centrale du livre. Ce livre devrait être perçu comme une lecture indispensable chez tous ceux qui viennent aux études environnementales selon une trajectoire intellectuelle ou académique dominée par les sciences naturelles.
Report abuse
Santiago Andrade
5.0 out of 5 stars Masterful!
Reviewed in Brazil on November 9, 2017
Verified Purchase
Kohei Saito's work is of fundamental importance for deepening the understanding of the ecological dimension of Marx's thought. With this work, the author is part of a consolidated bibliographic tradition and captained by names such as Paul Burkett, John B. Foster, Ian Angus and Fred Magdoff, among others. Saito offers an indispensable perspective on the unfinished construction of the criticism of Marx's political economy, pointing to the main contradiction of capitalism: the disruption of the metabolic exchange between man and nature.
3 people found this helpful
Report abuse
Translated from Portuguese by Amazon
See original ·Report translation
Jürgen Rahlmeyer
5.0 out of 5 stars Ökosozialismus
Reviewed in Germany on April 11, 2020
Verified Purchase
Danke! Gern wieder! Ist auch auf Deutsch erschienen!
Report abuse
=================
Want to Read
Rate this book
1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
Karl Marx's Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy
by Kohei Saito
4.31 · Rating details · 35 ratings · 6 reviews
Reveals the ideal of a sustainable ecosocialist world in Marx's writings
Karl Marx, author of what is perhaps the world's most resounding and significant critique of bourgeois political economy, has frequently been described as a "Promethean." According to critics, Marx held an inherent belief in the necessity of humans to dominate the natural world, in order to end material want and create a new world of fulfillment and abundance--a world where nature is mastered, not by anarchic capitalism, but by a planned socialist economy. Understandably, this perspective has come under sharp attack, not only from mainstream environmentalists but also from ecosocialists, many of whom reject Marx outright.
Kohei Saito's Karl Marx's Ecosocialism lays waste to accusations of Marx's ecological shortcomings. Delving into Karl Marx's central works, as well as his natural scientific notebooks--published only recently and still being translated--Saito also builds on the works of scholars such as John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett, to argue that Karl Marx actually saw the environmental crisis embedded in capitalism. "It is not possible to comprehend the full scope of [Marx's] critique of political economy," Saito writes, "if one ignores its ecological dimension."
Saito's book is crucial today, as we face unprecedented ecological catastrophes--crises that cannot be adequately addressed without a sound theoretical framework. Karl Marx's Ecosocialism shows us that Marx has given us more than we once thought, that we can now come closer to finishing Marx's critique, and to building a sustainable ecosocialist world. (less)
GET A COPY
KoboOnline Stores ▾Book Links ▾
Hardcover, 368 pages
Published October 24th 2017 by Monthly Review Press (first published 2017)
ISBN1583676414 (ISBN13: 9781583676417)
Edition LanguageEnglish
Other Editions (3)
Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy
Karl Marx� (Tm)S Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy
Natur gegen Kapital: Marx' Ökologie in seiner unvollendeten Kritik des Kapitalismus
All Editions | Add a New Edition | Combine
...Less DetailEdit Details
EditMY ACTIVITY
Review of ISBN 9781583676417
Rating
1 of 5 stars2 of 5 stars3 of 5 stars4 of 5 stars5 of 5 stars
Shelves to-read edit
( 793rd )
Format Hardcover edit
Status
March 12, 2021 – Shelved as: to-read
March 12, 2021 – Shelved
Review Write a review
comment
FRIEND REVIEWS
Recommend This Book None of your friends have reviewed this book yet.
READER Q&A
Ask the Goodreads community a question about Karl Marx's Ecosocialism
54355902. uy100 cr1,0,100,100
Ask anything about the book
Be the first to ask a question about Karl Marx's Ecosocialism
LISTS WITH THIS BOOK
Fossil Capital by Andreas MalmFacing the Anthropocene by Ian AngusThis Changes Everything by Naomi KleinDegrowth by Giorgos KallisOur History Is the Future by Nick Estes
Ecosocialism & Degrowth
54 books — 13 voters
The Vulnerable Planet by John Bellamy FosterThe Ecological Rift by John Bellamy FosterThe Enemy of Nature by Joel KovelMarx and the Earth by John Bellamy FosterMarx and Nature by Paul Burkett
Eco-Socialism
19 books — 1 voter
More lists with this book...
COMMUNITY REVIEWS
Showing 1-30
Average rating4.31 · Rating details · 35 ratings · 6 reviews
Search review text
All Languages
More filters | Sort order
Sejin,
Sejin, start your review of Karl Marx's Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy
Write a review
Rhys
Jul 10, 2019Rhys rated it really liked it
A very interesting and well written book on the historical material condition in Marx's thought, and it is an important addition to the emerging ecosocialist movement.
"Recently, some ecosocialists, in contrast to Marx, have come to stress the 'monistic synthesis' of society and nature: “Not the separation from, but the terms of humanity’s place within nature, is crucial to understanding the conditions of capitalist renewal (if any) and crisis.” However, this understanding overlooks Marx’s original insight that the constitutive condition of the capitalist regime is the separation of humans from nature. The unity of humanity and nature exists transhistorically from an abstract general perspective, in that human labor not only always modifies nature, but is also a part of nature and conditioned by it. What Marx’s analysis shows is the historical deformation of the relationship between humans and nature in modern capitalist society, which is based on the alienation of nature. Marx investigates, as the primary task of his political economy, how this material condition of social production is transformed and deformed under capitalistically constituted social relations" (p.258).
(less)
flag7 likes · Like · comment · see review
Naeem
Apr 15, 2019Naeem rated it it was amazing
Review of Kohei Saito’s Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capitalism, Nature and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy
Saito shows that capitalism is the fount of our ecological problems. That therefore ecological problems are best understood through Marx’s framework. He wishes to overcome the stereotype held by many ecologists who see Marx as a naïve Promethean – as someone who believes that humans can overcome all natural limits. He builds on the work of John Bellamy Foster and Paul Burkett whose books revive the overlap between ecological concerns and Marxism. But Saito claims to go further by showing how ecological concerns are essential for Marx’s critique of political economy, his critique of capitalism, and his vision of the future.
The point for Saito is to show how ecology and Marxism are indispensable to each other:
"I will demonstrate that Marx’s ecological critique possesses a systematic character and constitutes an essential moment within the totality of his project of Capital. Ecology does not simply exist in Marx’s thought—my thesis is a stronger one. I maintain that it not possible to comprehend the full scope of his critique of political economy if one ignores its ecological dimension.” [I read this in a format that makes page numbers variable, so no page numbers, sorry.]
I found Saito’s analysis compelling and submitted totally to the details of his analysis. He re-reads notebooks written in the later parts of Marx’s life and shows that Marx’s Promethean optimism was supplanted by his extensive exploration of the natural sciences in order to show how capital accumulation is limited by nature itself. The book is clearly written and well argued. It also illuminates elements well beyond Saito’s explicit themes, for example: Marx’s takes on alienation, religion, value, technological development, and socialism/communism.
I find Saito convincing in the same way I find Foster’s and Burkett’s books compelling. The relationship between humans and nature is foundational for Marx’s entire corpus. Indeed, implicitly or explicitly, every philosophy has to come to terms with this relationship. It is just that Hegel and Marx are explicit with their takes on this relationship.
My problems concern Saito’s willingness, indeed his eagerness to remove the Hegelian elements in Marx’s work. My critique of Saito amounts to one claim: he underplays Marx’s commitments to showing the positive side of capitalism. Saito himself quotes Marx as wishing to show, “the great civilizing influence of capitalism.” And, yet this influence is downplayed by Saito in order to turn Marx into a figure made ready for contemporary popular needs.
If, as I suspect, Saito hides Marx’s Prometheanism, I wonder what might count as a defense of Prometheanism. I aim to provide one below.
Saito wants to analogized how capital treats labor with how capital treats nature. On the face of it, there is perhaps no problem here: both are subjected to the logic of profit making and capital accumulation; both are made subservient to the principle of quid pro quo; both are treated as “fictional commodities” – to use Polanyi’s language.
Saito claims that nature “suffers” just like workers suffer. And, that as the necro-economics of capitalism create a kind of death for laborers, so also capitalism kills nature. I don’t think this analogy holds. We can ascertain human suffering by speaking directly with humans. Not so for nature; nature never tells us anything directly. Any understanding of nature’s suffering requires humans speaking for nature – a speaking which cannot be separated from particular human politics.
The second problem with this analogy is that while humans can die, we can even extinguish our own species (and many more besides). But this is not true for nature -- it cannot die. We can change nature, we can transform it, but we cannot kill it. Not only does this claim violate the first law of thermodynamics (not necessarily a problem for me since I don’t believe in the second law), it also misunderstands the enormity of nature relative to the human. If Saito means that humans can transform the planet so that it is no longer inhabitable by humans or even by all animal species then this is what he should say. The “death of the planet” is only a death for a limited part of nature, not for nature itself.
The question we can ask is why Saito is unable to say this. Why insist on the analogy between labor’s death and nature’s death? This loose use of language either betrays his otherwise tight argument. Or, it betrays his anxiously tight grip on making sure that a Marxian analysis does not slip towards Hegelian ideas.
How so? I will come to that. But first a third problem.
Saito admits that humans differ from other animals because their interaction with nature is self-conscious. Human interaction with nature is called “labor”:
“Marx argues that human beings are decisively different from other animals due to their unique productive activity, that is, labor. Labor enables a “conscious” and “purposive” interaction with the external sensuous world…”
“…it is only humans who are able to change their purposeful interaction with nature in the process of natural and social metabolism.”
Labor allows nature to be, as Saito says, “linked to itself;” and therefore labor humanizes nature. The following logic rests behind these claims, a logic that Saito implies but is uneager to expose:
Nature creates many species; nature creates the human species; nature creates the species that performs labor; labor allows nature to be “linked to itself”; and, labor “humanizes nature.” Therefore, nature creates a species whose purpose to transform and humanize nature.
Another way to say this is as follows: the teleology of nature and humans is bound together. Nature produces the species whose purpose it is to transform nature. Therefore, nature’s purpose is to transform itself via humans. Capitalism act as the dynamic force that brings this change into its hyperactive phase and most productive phase.
All this is implicit and often explicit in both Hegel and in Marx. Saito cannot make too much of this because, stated as such, there is no negative charge to capitalism’s transformation of nature.
Indeed, that charge can be read as positive in the following way: “Capitalism is the means by which nature transforms itself via human institutions. This transformation changes nature from being a brute fact which cannot be accounted for or known thoroughly into something that results from the aesthetic designs of humans. Humans can know nature because they have re-created it.”
It can also be read neutrally: “Capitalism is the means that nature uses to transform itself. However, we do not yet know if human design will change nature for the better or for the worse.”
It is this positive or neutral charge that Saito has to disavow if he is to keep faith with what he thinks of as Marx’s critique political economy. The positive or neutral relationship between capitalism and nature would, thinks Saito, go against Marx’s spirit, and certainly against the mainstream of ecological thinkers (except those taking an explicitly Hegelian line, such as James Lovelock, Frederick Turner, or Murry Bookchin).
For me, much depends on the temporal span within which we make these arguments. If the temporal span is long or infinite then Marx’s Promethean commitments come to full view. Marx rightly rages against the arguments for scarcity provided by Malthus and Ricardo. He understands that scarcity is created not by nature but by society, specifically by the commitment to hierarchy. It is hierarchy that creates scarcity. Displacing the construction of hierarchy to nature makes hierarchy eternal.
There is no denying these elements of Marx as they are a valuable part of his heritage. To his credit Saito highlights these parts of his work. Nevertheless, the grounding of scarcity in society presents a danger; it can make Marx seem a Promethean. Here Saito shows his trump card: those who would do so have to explain why Marx spent so much of his energies trying to find the limits of capital in nature in the later part of his life – the parts of Marx’s life that Saito examines so carefully.
Here I think my explanation of temporal span adds to Saito’s. Suppose we say that Marx worked within three temporal horizons. The first I have mentioned, the infinite abstract theoretical space of logic. Here, scarcity is created by social hierarchy the solution to which is the infinite abundance of human creativity. But Marx can be read to consider two other temporal spans. At first, he seemed to believe that the collapse of capitalism was imminent. When the revolutions around 1848 did not produce the kind of changes he anticipated, he pushed back his idea of how long it might take for capitalism to collapse. It was perhaps this search of this middle range temporal collapse that motivated his search for locating the natural limits of industrial agriculture via the study of the natural science, especially organic chemistry.
My explanation keeps intact, the Hegelian influences in Marx’s thought – especially the rejection of scarcity as nature-given (in the long run) while also explaining Marx’s commitment to a search for the limits of capitalism in nature (in the medium run).
One can have it both ways: Marx the Hegelian with a teleological view of human and natural history which validates human creativity and undermines the convenient assumption of natural scarcity. With Marx the profound critic of capitalism whose political economy and ecology are one.
Saito brings out the logical simultaneity of Marx’s ecology and his political economy. This is his gift to us. But to the degree that Saito feels it necessary to hide Marx’s Hegelian, teleological, and aesthetic themes, the cost of highlight Marx the ecologist is a loss of faith and confidence in Marx’s fuller corpus. This anxiety is the Lacanian Real of Saito’s book.
At the end of the day, I can boil down to these questions: does capitalism only “distort” human purpose? Or does it both “distort” and “realize” that purpose? To assert the distortion without exploring the realization is, I want to assert, to have misunderstood the difference between capitalism and capital. That is, it is not to have understood the difference between the becoming and the being, between the history and logic of wealth production.
(less)
flag3 likes · Like · comment · see review
Andrew
Apr 01, 2019Andrew rated it it was ok
Shelves: history, political-science
I'm guessing this book was not for me. For your reference, I am a public policy Master's student and a Marxist who is not totally opposed to anarchism. I'm currently taking a class on Contemporary Marxism in the lit department where we are discussing completely arcane concepts from many Italian authors, in addition to some classics like Black Marxism. Now that you know where I'm coming from, you know how to measure the rest of this review.
I understand what Saito is trying to do here. He badly wants to convince us that Marx cared about ecology. Which. . . okay?
In other words, let's say he succeeded (spoiler: I'm not saying he succeeded): then so what? Where does that leave us? What does it change? What does it matter? Nowhere does Saito say how this new revelation should shape our behavior going forward. He certainly doesn't explain how it should inform any modern ecological practices. If I'm not mistaken he doesn't actually reference praxis at all. This is as puzzling as it is disappointing in a book called Karl Marx's Ecosocialism which was written in 2017.
Let me repeat that statement: this is a book about ecosocialism WRITTEN IN 2017 which barely mentions the looming climate catastrophe. It is one of the most egregious examples of ivory tower head-up-your-own-assedness I've ever seen.
Ok, so maybe I'm being unfair here. Coming up with actionable steps to battle climate catastrophe was clearly not within Saito's stated scope for this project. I happen to think that makes his stated scope shitty, but hey that's a subjective call. A fairer question would be does Saito succeed within his scope? I'd argue that he doesn't.
Though I'm sure Saito himself would object to this characterization, he basically has two main claims. One is that Marx is unfairly maligned for his earliest writings in which he was cavalier about productivism, essentially ignoring the environmental impact of industrialization. The second is that he came to care deeply about ecology over the last decades of his life, which we would have seen if he had ever finished volumes 2 & 3 of Capital himself.
Saito mostly convinces on the first account, using Marx's notebooks to say that right around the time of the Communist Manifesto Marx began investigating agronomy and became extremely interested in soil health, deforestation, etc. Fine, I'll grant that. His earliest writings were written in ignorance and he changed his mind over time.
The second claim, however, is woefully unsupported. At the end of Part 2 I was left with the impression that the chief supports for this claim is that Marx really liked two agronomists named Liebig and Fraas. Which. . . okay? But Saito neglects to show where Marx incorporated these mens' beliefs outside of a few random passages in Capital and Grundrisse. And worse, he imputes meanings onto phrases that Marx used: -- "nature," "harmony," "unity," etc. -- which it's not at all clear that Marx meant in the same way we use them today. He certainly never mentions "sustainability" or "collapse" or "ecosystem." Ultimately, Saito wildly overstates his case that Marx was preoccupied with environmental issues.
I'll stop there since I'm not being nice. I was unimpressed with both Saito's goal and his execution. I'm giving an extra star for his impressive research, which was clearly painstaking and comprehensive. It just frustrates me endlessly to see brilliant people expend valuable brainpower on such navel-gazing tasks.
Not Bad Reviews
@pointblaek (less)
flag3 likes · Like · comment · see review
HappyHarron
Dec 06, 2017HappyHarron rated it it was amazing · review of another edition
Shelves: leftism
Fantastic analysis, refutes many popular conceptions about Marx's Prometheanism and theory of history. A must read for those interested in not only current scholarship on Marx but how Marx can contribute to leftist eco-politics today. (less)
flag2 likes · Like · comment · see review
Harry Allard
Mar 21, 2020Harry Allard rated it really liked it
Convincingly illustrates Marx's development of ecological ideas, and his recognition of the importance of mankind's metabolism with nature. Really shows Marx's scientific curiosity, which differs greatly from many later, dogmatic communists. Interesting to read Marx's changing understanding of agricultural failure, deforestation, and even climate change. Shatters the claims of a rigid, anthropocentric Prometheanism in Marx's worldview, and highlights the ahistoric nature and short-sightedness of an un-ecological, blindly production-focused communism. (less)
flagLike · comment · see review
Jordan
Apr 21, 2018Jordan rated it really liked it
Meticulously researched and well-argued account of Marx's ecological thought with special attention paid to his notebooks and letters. (less)
flagLike · comment · see review
================
Kohei Saito
Rank Associate Professor
Degree Ph.D. in Philosophy from Humboldt University Berlin
Personal website N/A
Phone +81 6 6605 2275
E-mail saito at econ.osaka-cu.ac.jp (please replace “at” with “@”)
Education
2009 B.A. : Wesleyan University (Government)
2012 M.A. : Free University Berlin (Philosophy)
2015 Ph.D. : Humboldt University Berlin (Philosophy)
Carreer
2016 : Overseas Research Fellow of Japan Society for the Promotion of Science; Visiting Scholar, Department of Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara
2017- : Associate Professor, Graduate School of Economics, Osaka City University
Class Taught
Theories of Modern Capitalism
About Me
My research field is Marxian economics. Every day, I think about how Marx’s theory can be meaningfully applied to today’s society.
Message to Students
Train your logical and critical thinking by reading as many books as possible during your four years at university. I will help you!
Research Field
Economic Thought, Contemporary Capitalism
Research Keywords
Ecology, Welfare State, Basic Income, Capital
Affiliated Academic Organizations
Japan Society of Political Economy; Japan Society for the History of Economic Thought; Society for the History of Social Thought; Hegel Society of Japan
Selected Publications:
Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy (New York: Monthly Review Press, 2017).
“Beyond Recognition in Capitalism: Hegel’s Critique of Fichte’s Category of the ‘Person’ and the Emergence of Antagonistic Totality in the System of Ethical Life,” in Andrew Buchwalter (ed.), Hegel and Capitalism (New York: The State University of New York Press, 2015), pp.35-51.
“Das Fraas-Exzerpt und der neue Horizont der Marx’schen Stoffwechseltheorie,” in: Marx-Engels-Jahrbuch 2014 (Berlin: De Gruyter 2015), pp.117-140.
“Revolution and Democracy: Marxism vs. Post-Marxism”, nyx vol. 5 [written in Japanese].
The winner of the 2018 Deutscher Prize discusses Karl Marx’s radical understanding of capitalism’s deadly disruption of the universal metabolism of nature.