Slow Down cover art

Slow Down

How Degrowth Communism Can Save the Earth

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Slow Down

By: Kohei Saito
Narrated by: Kohei Saito, Troy Glasgow
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About this listen

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2024

'ACCESSIBLE AND CONVINCING' - SALLY ROONEY

Capitalism by its very nature puts us at odds with the environment. Therefore, argues award-winning Japanese philosopher Kohei Saito, the future must belong to a new form of communism, the only fair and humane existence the limits of nature can support.

Drawing on a revelatory new reading of Karl Marx's enigmatic final writings, Saito shows us how nothing but a transformation of our economic life can save us from climate collapse. There is no alternative: the endless acceleration of capital has run out of road. If we can't slow down, we will crash.©2024 Kohei Saito
Economics Environmental Economics Personal Development Personal Success Philosophy Politics & Government Society Capitalism Socialism Economic disparity Taxation Economic Inequality

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Critic reviews

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2024
Accessible and convincing (Sally Rooney, author)
SLOW DOWN has an almost magic ability to formulate complex thoughts in clear language, as well as to combine strict conceptual thinking with passionate personal engagement. What this means is that Saito's book is not just for anyone interested in ecology or in the problems of today's global capitalism, it is simply indispensable for those of us who want to SURVIVE in short, to all of us (Slavoj Žižek, author)
Marxist philosopher Kohei Saito calls us to reject the logic of economic growth and embrace a different kind of plenty . . . The key insight, or provocation, of Slow Down is to give the lie to we-can-have-it-all green capitalism . . . In place of a command economy, Saito puts forth a model based on local experimentation (E. Tammy Kim)
Kohei Saito is one of the most important scholars in the world. In SLOW DOWN, he delivers a Karl Marx for the climate crisis and a vision of communism for the 21st century. No work could be more vital today (Malcolm Harris, author)
Saito has emerged as the [degrowth] movement's public face . . . His uncompromising provocations are undoubtedly part of the appeal . . . Even degrowth's sceptics may find that Saito's examples of grassroots organising sound agreeably democratic and improvisational . . . such experiments offer something crucial: an enlarged sense of what's possible
Saito unites Marxism with ecology and lights a path out of our present crisis. A powerful book from one of the most compelling young thinkers of our time (Jason Hickel, author)
This necessary and energizing 21st Century manifesto is a truth mirror inviting us to see ourselves and our place in the metastatic growth engine that is our current economic system. Saito is a well-read soothsayer -- one who loves this world, who has done his homework, and who is eager to share a viable way forward (John Vaillant, author)
A masterpiece (Ryuichi Sakamoto, composer and music pioneer)
In a stagnant world where it is difficult to formulate visions for the future, the liberation of imagination offered by Capital in the Anthropocene . . . is a much-needed antidote
Saito has tapped into what he describes as a growing disillusionment in Japan with capitalism's ability to solve the problems people see around them, whether caring for the country's growing older population, stemming rising inequality or mitigating climate change . . . His vision for the future is one in which people - less consumed by their endless pursuit of growth for growth's sake - have the leisure time to spend a workday pursuing new interests
A richly researched, deftly wrought manifesto . . . The acuity of Saitō's argument lies in his defense of degrowth as the only viable option to combat climate change (Hannah Bonner)
All stars
Most relevant
Before listening to this book I considered myself an eco-modernist, but it has gone some way to persuading me to seeing eco-socialism as the answer to climate and environmental destruction, poverty and inequality. It has given me plenty to think about.

Thought provoking and hopeful

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Narrator haa a speech impediment, arrogant and moralising tone. Preferred listening to saito even if English isn't his first language

Readable but unlistenable

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