2026/01/01 by Justas Patkauskas · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Political Economy and Marxism #Agriculture, Land Use, Rural Development #Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature
paper · doi:10.5840/envirophil2026615160
openalex publication_date 2026/01/01 · openalex created_date 2026/06/19 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/19
Kohei Saito is an eco-Marxist thinker who mobilizes the concept of metabolism to propose an alternative socio-economic trajectory for the Anthropocene. However, a systematic study of his conception of metabolism is lacking. To address this gap, I apply a framework of critical concept analysis to his major works. The analysis identifies three conceptual strata in Saito’s metabolism concept: criticism of the modern lifestyle, structural elaboration of the capitalist accumulation–alienation–externalization paradigm, and material description of the metabolic rift. These strata cohere with the problems of overcoming the Anthropocene and recovering Marx, but the fundamental question traversing Saito’s metabolism is normative: How ought the non-capitalist society organize its metabolism and habits? Rejecting social constructivism and speculative philosophy, Saito posits an original unity between humanity and nature that degrowth communism must recover from capitalist deviation. I argue that the presupposition of natural law underpinning this normative position requires further critical reflection.