Abstract:
Kohei Saito, a new-generation Japanese ecological Marxist theorist, incorporates the concept of the "Anthropocene" into his critical theory of capitalist ecology, identifies the ecological crisis of "capitalism in the Anthropocene", and elaborates in depth on the underlying roots of this ecological predicament from the perspectives of surface-level, deep-seated and structural drivers. In this context, Kohei Saito attempts to carry outa social transformation of labor, adhere to the principle of a steady-state economy based on community,advocate climate justice, and construct "degrowth communism" to replace "capitalism in the Anthropocene", aiming to bridge the metabolic rift between humans and nature and realize the harmonious coexistence of humans and nature. On the whole, Kohei Saito’s ecological criticism and reconstruction of "capitalism in the Anthropocene" offer a cutting-edge theoreticalexploration of how generalized ecological Marxism can intervene in and turn toward the issue of the "Anthropocene". However, due to the inevitable theoretical flaws within it, its theoretical influence is greatly diminishied in concrete practice, making it difficult to play a genuinely practical role.