Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism: Capital, Nature, and the Unfinished Critique of Political Economy

Saito’s book is marked by a deep knowledge of Marxist theory, especially the debate over Marxism and ecology. Saito brings a major new source into the debate: Marx’s forthcoming notebooks on ecology. This results in a new interpretation of Marx, one that is timely, given the economic and ecological crises of contemporary capitalism.

—Kevin B. Anderson, author, Marx at the Margins

There are already important studies about ecological aspects in Marx’s theory, but Kohei Saito is the first to go deeply into Marx’s notebooks, discussing Marx’s research process. Saito has not only an excellent knowledge of Marx’s oeuvre, he is also occupied with Marx’s sources. He provides an exciting journey, showing how deeply ecological questions are connected to Marx’s unfinished project of a ‘Critique of Political Economy’.

—Michael Heinrich, author, An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital

In this philologically sophisticated, forensically relentless, and theoretically nuanced analysis, Kohei Saito skillfully and persuasively traces both the continuities in Marx’s critical engagement with nature-human interactions and the successive discontinuities introduced by his break with his erstwhile philosophical consciousness, his turn from a utopian view of technological progress, and his growing recognition of the ecological limits to capital accumulation. Illustrating Marx’s enduring commitment to a unified historical science linking the transformation of nature and social practices, Saito draws creatively on Marx’s excerpt books, personal notebooks, correspondence, draft manuscripts, and published work to show the profoundly ecological nature of his transhistorical account of nature-human interaction and his pointed critique of the ecological harm produced by capital accumulation. This magnificent book shows the heuristic potential of exploring Marx’s intellectual experiments in his theoretical laboratory, expands our understanding of his work over four decades well beyond its ecological aspects, and offers finely-judged comments on other ecosocialist readings of Marx. Like Marx’s Capital, this is a book to study and not just to read.

—Bob Jessop, Lancaster University, UK; author, The State: Past, Present, Future