News Degrowth: a plea for new way of life

The message from Kohei Saito, an associate professor at Tokyo University, is simple: capitalism's demand for unlimited profits is destroying the planet and only "degrowth" can repair the damage by slowing down social production and sharing wealth. In practical terms, that means an end to mass production and the mass consumption of wasteful goods such as fast fashion. In Capital in the Anthropocene, Saito also advocates decarbonisation through shorter working hours and prioritising essential "labour-intensive" work such as caregiving. Few would have expected Saito's Japanese-language solution to the climate crisis to have much appeal outside leftwing academia and politics. Instead, the book – which was inspired by Karl Marx's writings on the environment – has become an unlikely hit, selling more than half a million copies since it was published in September 2020.

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Uncle Frank said:

It seems to me that until China , Russia , and India do a lot of work in their countries to fight pollution , anything we do is just pissing into the wind and "feel good" measures.

Click to expand...

Uncle Frank said:

It seems to me that until China , Russia , and India do a lot of work in their countries to fight pollution , anything we do is just pissing into the wind and "feel good" measures.

Click to expand...