Welcome to a world where you only work three to four days a week, and your free time is spent engaging in activities that bring you joy. Imagine a world where overnight shipping, advertisement overload, and private jets no longer exist. Instead, healthcare, education, and clean electricity are free and available to everyone.
This transformative vision is the brainchild of Kohei Saito, a philosophy professor and Marxist scholar whose book “Capital in the Anthropocene” took the world by storm. In this book, Saito boldly criticizes relentless consumption and production, the drivers of economic growth, as the culprits behind the climate crisis and global inequality. Instead, he advocates for degrowth, a deliberate shrinking of the economy to redistribute resources and prioritize human welfare and planetary well-being.
The response to Saito’s book has been unprecedented. Initially published in Japan during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic, the book sold over 500,000 copies and has since been translated into multiple languages, sparking international media attention. The English edition, “Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto,” has now been released in the United States, further amplifying Saito’s radical ideas.
Saito’s concepts have struck a chord among readers across the world. With growing dissatisfaction and discontent among younger generations, many are searching for alternative solutions to address economic inequality and the climate crisis. Saito’s work has resonated with this audience, tapping into a global atmosphere of disapproval with existing frameworks.
In his critiques of capitalism, Saito emphasizes the undeniable link between global inequality, climate change, and capitalism. He highlights how affluent countries have externalized costs to the Global South, and how the global ecological crisis and the pandemic are rooted in the constant expansion inherent in capitalism.
While many decry the need for economic growth to drive climate policies, Saito argues that focusing solely on expanding renewable energy and technology is insufficient. Emphasizing the need to reduce excessive consumption and production, Saito promotes degrowth communism as an alternative. His vision involves abandoning GDP as the single measure of progress and focusing on reducing what is unnecessary. This includes providing essential services like free education, healthcare, and public transportation, while prioritizing sustainability over excessive production and consumption.
Saito’s ideas challenge the dominant discourse on climate and economics, advocating for a reevaluation of our current model and envisioning a society where shared wealth, access to essential goods and services, and a more stable life is prioritized over the relentless pursuit of growth and excess.
