[Séminaire d'axe] Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism

Key theme Seminar - TRANSFORMATION of capitalism

Co-organised by CEE and AIRE, Sciences Po

Sciences Po, 9 rue de la Chaise, 75007 Paris & Zoom*

Registration

With the climate crisis gaining momentum and generating ever more dire consequences, much thought has been put into how to trigger the political transition, and which shape it should take. Turning to Marx, Kohei Saito outlines some radical answers, revealing how deeply Marx's thought integrates the connection between the contradictions of capital and the environmental crises. From this renewed reading of Marx, he builds a theory of a "degrowth communism" leading to a post-capitalist path. The wide attention his book Capital and the Anthropocene caught in Japan then worldwide has spurred renewed debates around the heritage of marxism in a context of ecological breakdown. It has also opened a whole new field of research using Marxism's tools (for example the notion of metabolism and metabolic rifts) to analyse the contemporary forms of capitalism, critically assess the dominant form of "solutions" to the climate crisis, and describe what "going beyond" capitalism might look like.

In this seminar Kohei Saito will present some of his work, with a focus on chapter 4 of his most recent book, Marx in the Anthropocene: towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism, titled "Monism and the Non-Identity of Nature".

Speaker

Kohei Saito is a Japanese philosopher, currently an associate professor at the University of Tokyo.His work focuses on ecology and political economy from a Marxist perspective. His book, Capital in the Anthropocene, which sold over half a million copies by mid-2022, has been credited for inspiring a resurgence of interest in Marxist thought in Japan. A translation to French will be available in Autumn 2024 (Seuil).

Chairs 

Claire Lejeune, Sciences Po, CEE

Meryem Bezzaz, Sciences Po, CEE

*The link will be sent after your registration