Marx Against Techno-Optimism

In the influential new book Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism, Japanese academic Kohei Saito argues that Karl Marx made a theoretical breakthrough in later life. He abandoned his earlier interest in the development of productive forces and the possibilities raised by this for the realization of socialism. Marx intensively studied a range of topics including soil science and communal societies in this time and became what Saito refers to as a degrowth communist. Relatedly, according to Saito, Marx’s ecological work had a different character to that of Friedrich Engels. Saito bases his analysis on a careful analysis of Marx’s written work, including previously unpublished notebooks as well as theoretical engagements with theories of metabolism and metabolic rift. He shows how this remains relevant today in developing an ecological socialism that is cognizant of natural limits to growth and therefore capable of addressing capitalism’s unsustainable relationship to the natural world. Saito argues strongly that socialists cannot rely on technological solutions to ecological breakdown. His conception of ecological Marxism tends to play down discussions of socialist and working-class strategy. However, it nevertheless contributes much to our understanding of Marx as a non-determinist and non-Eurocentric thinker as well as someone whose work was grounded in materialist ecological thought.