Mitschnitt des Vortrages (engl.) von Prof. Kohei Saito, Tokio: Marx’s Communism in the Age of the Planetary Crisis

im Rahmen der Auerbach Lectures am 09.12. im Japanischen
Kulturinstitut Köln.


Video des Vortrages auf der Seite des Erich Auerbach Institute
for Advanced Studies der Uni Köln: https://youtu.be/iBZs7J4H4XQ


Kohei Saito is Associate Professor of Philosophy
at the University of Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. from Humboldt
University in Berlin. In 2024/25 Saito is fellow at The New
Institute in Hamburg as Chair of the program “Beyond Capitalism:
War Economy and Democratic Planning”. He works on ecology and
political economy from a Marxist perspective. His book, Capital
in the Anthropocene (2020; German: Systemsturz, 2023), has been
credited for inspiring a resurgence of interest in Marxist
thought in Japan, as well as in the USA and Europe.


The Anthropocene is marked by a planetary environmental crisis.
Since we did not act in the last decades despite various
warnings, the time left to respond to the catastrophe has almost
run out. There is an urgent need to rethink the entire paradigm
of society, economy and political, when it is too late to save
the planet. Radical ideas are necessary because the existing
system is not able to offer a solution. Marx’s idea of “degrowth
communism,” though barely known in the past, sets up such a new
theoretical framework beyond green capitalism, environmental
imperialism and colonial extractivism. His last attempt to
consciously overcome productivism and Eurocentrism inherent to
historical materialism represents the same difficulty of the 21st
century, which is characterized by a myth of eternal growth and
infinite technological development.


Quelle:
https://auerbach-institut.phil-fak.uni-koeln.de/veranstaltungen/vergangene-veranstaltungen/auerbach-lectures/09122024-kohei-saito,
abgerufen am 06.01.2025


Vielen Dank an das Erich Auerbach Institut für das Einverständnis
zur Veröffentlichung.