I haven’t read Saito’s books, or looked too deeply into degrowth as a movement. I just read this article and thought it made some good arguments against what it claims are Saito’s understandings of Marx. I’m not sure I agree with everything, but I thought it was interesting enough to share.
I HATE LEIGH PHILLIPS!! He is a right winger! He is a neoclassical economist pretending to be a social democrat pretending to be a socialist! HE ACTUALLY THINKS THERE ARE NO LIMITS TO GROWTH! Absurd! Completely absurd! If we continue to grow our energy use by 2% per year, the oceans will boil from just the waste heat produced in a few hundred years! Just because Malthus was wrong and a piece of shit doesn’t mean there are absolutely zero natural limits on humanity! And if this dude is a right winger - which he is - why the fuck should I presume his interpretation of Marx is correct? I will read Saito’s book eventually and see for myself. But I cannot trust Phillips to be engaging with Saito OR Marx in good faith. This is the guy who got so mad about communists telling him why bananas were cheap that he wrote an article defending private jets (???), not once considering that we should get rid of capitalists (???Marxist???), that EVERYONE should have a private jet (???), and then realized his argument was so bad that actually everyone should have a private jet because hospitals need access to them??? Wow what an incredible mind you have, Leigh Phillips. You are so right! Just like how everyone needs a car so that hospitals have access to them to bring emergency patients in! Except not you IDIOT! THAT’S CALLED A FUCKING AMBULANCE AND EVERYONE HAVING A CAR MEANS MORE TRAFFIC, SLOWER AMBULANCES, AND MORE DEATHS. I HATE LEIGH PHILLIPS!!!