Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism:

Capital, Nature, and the

Unfinished Critique of Political
Economy
Karl Marx, author of what is perhaps the world’s most resounding and
significant critique of bourgeois political economy, has frequently been
described as a “Promethean.” According to critics, Marx held an inherent
belief in the necessity of humans to dominate the natural world, in order to
end material want and create a new world of fulfillment and abundance—a
world where nature is mastered, not by anarchic capitalism, but by a
planned socialist economy. Understandably, this perspective has come
under sharp attack, not only from mainstream environmentalists but also
from ecosocialists, many of whom reject Marx outright.

Kohei Saito’s Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism lays waste to accusations of Marx’s

ecological shortcomings. Delving into Karl Marx’s central works, as well as
his natural scientific notebooks—published only recently and still being
translated—Saito also builds on the works of scholars such as John Bellamy
Foster and Paul Burkett, to argue that Karl Marx actually saw the
environmental crisis embedded in capitalism. “It is not possible to
comprehend the full scope of [Marx’s] critique of political economy,” Saito
writes, “if one ignores its ecological dimension.”

Saito’s book is crucial today, as we face unprecedented ecological

catastrophes—crises that cannot be adequately addressed without a sound
theoretical framework. Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism shows us that Marx has
given us more than we once thought, that we can now come closer to
finishing Marx’s critique, and to building a sustainable ecosocialist world.

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
Kohei Saito received his Ph.D. from Humboldt University in Berlin. He is
currently associate professor of political economy at Osaka City University.
He has published articles and reviews on Marx’s ecology, including “The
Emergence of Marx’s Critique of Modern Agriculture,” and “Marx’s
Ecological Notebooks,” both in Monthly Review. He is working on editing
the complete works of Marx and Engels, Marx-Engels-Gesamtausgabe
(MEGA) Volume IV/18, which includes a number of Marx’s natural
scientific notebooks.