JAPANESE TURN TO MARX AMID PANDEMIC, CLIMATE CRISIS

As the global challenge of climate change mounts and the coronavirus pandemic magnifies economic inequalities, Karl Marx, who pointed to the contradictions and limitations of capitalism, is gaining new admirers in Japan, particularly among the young, Kyodo News reported.

The boom has been ignited by a 34-year-old associate professor at Osaka City University who reimagined the theory expounded in the 19th-century German thinker's seminal Das Kapital from the perspective of environmental conservation in a bestselling book published last September.

In it, Kohei Saito argued that the realization of sustainable development goals set by the United Nations (UN) is as impossible as "drawing a round triangle" under modern-day capitalism.

The success of the book resulted in an invitation from Japan's public broadcaster NHK to present a commentary on Marx's foundational theoretical text, known by its full title in English as "Capital: A Critique of Political Economy," on a program aired in January.

Saito presents in Capital in the Anthropocene a theory of "degrowth communism" inspired by Marx, in which he argues that society can stop the perpetual cycles of mass production and mass consumption under capitalism by pursuing a more humanistic path prioritizing social and ecological well-being over economic growth.

The book's success has inspired a renaissance of interest in Marxist thought. Born in Germany in 1818 as capitalism was emerging, Marx aimed to uncover the economic underpinnings of the capitalist mode of production in Das Kapital, the first volume of which appeared in 1867.

Marx analyzed a society in which the exploitation of workers and environmental destruction was becoming more and more severe and predicted catastrophe as a consequence.

He makes use of an expression initially from French, interpreted as, "When I am dead the flood may come for aught I care," in cynically describing the arrogance and selfishness of the capitalist who sees before him only immediate profits while caring nothing for the future after he is gone.

Winner of the prestigious Deutscher Memorial Prize in 2018 for another book he published in English -- translated himself from the original German -- Saito argues that Marx saw the environmental crisis inherent in capitalism but had left his critique of the political economy unfinished.

Marx, in his later years, Saito argues, was keenly aware of the destructive consequences for the environment of the capitalist regime. Saito describes the ecological crisis tendencies under capitalism using the key concept of metabolic rift.

He added: "We have reached the limit of passing the buck to the future," Saito said, suggesting that he is an advocate of the "3.5 percent rule" of small minorities bringing about social, economic and political change through nonviolent protests. "If 3.5 percent of the population rises up nonviolently, society will change. I want to encourage action," Saito said.

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