I was frustrated by this book. Its main argument is that attempts to “green” capitalism are doomed to fail, and only “degrowth” communism can save us from the climate crisis. However, he never really does the work of building his case step by step. I often had the feeling that he was simply asserting what he believed without taking me with him. I’m someone willing to be convinced: however I do think it’s a more complex picture than he makes out. The neoliberalism of the last 40 years and all the other shifts that have taken place have changed the nature of capitalism and capitalist society.
I also think there’s a problem with the author’s use of the idea of “degrowth”. He draws upon a reading of the (unpublished) researches of Karl Marx in his later life to argue that Marx rejected the notion of conquering nature and embraced a communism that would be more in harmony with nature’s limits. However Saito also flirts with the moralistic asceticism of the original promoters of degrowth, and applauds the inefficiency of his own model of communism. This seems to me very muddled. It’s more accurate to say that Marx believed in his later life in a sustainable communism, that would understand nature’s limits and work within them. This book has some good ingredients: global inequalities, the climate crisis, the nature of capitalism, but he doesn’t in the end produce a satisfying dish.