Eco-Socialist Degrowth in Climate Collapse

We are thrilled to announce that distinguished philosopher and political economist Kohei Saito will be coming to Stockholm and ABF-huset in November to give this year’s Stockholm Archipelago Lecture.

The Anthropocene is marked by a planetary environmental crisis. Since we did not act in the last decades despite various warnings, our time to respond to this unfolding catastrophe has almost run out. We need to urgently rethink the entire paradigm of society, the economy and our politics, and radical ideas are necessary because the existing system does not seem to be able to offer a solution. Karl Marx’s idea of “degrowth communism,” which Kohei Saito has reinterpreted through a close reading, provide a new framework beyond green capitalism, environmental imperialism and colonial extractivism. Saito has shown that Marx’s last attempt to consciously overcome the productivism and Eurocentrism inherent to historical materialism represent the same difficulties we face in the 21st century, characterized by myths of eternal growth and infinite technological development. In his talk, Saito will demonstrate what an eco-socialist degrowth framework can provide us to deal with this century’s climate collapse.

Kohei Saito is Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tokyo. He received his Ph.D. from Humboldt University in Berlin. In 2024/25 Saito is fellow at The New Institute in Hamburg as Chair of the program “Beyond Capitalism: War Economy and Democratic Planning”. He works on ecology and political economy from a Marxist perspective. His book, Capital in the Anthropocene (2020) (English translation: Slow Down published 2024), has been credited for inspiring a resurgence of interest in Marxist thought in Japan, as well as in the USA and Europe.

Time: 16:00 – 18:00 Lecture + Q&A. 18:00 – 19:00 Networking with refreshments and an opportunity to engage with organisers and guests in an adjacent venue at ABF-huset.

Date and place: 8th of November 2025, ABF-huset, Sveavägen 41.

The Stockholm Archipelago Lecture Series is the annual flagship event of the KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory. Inspired by the variety of the islands making up the Stockholm Archipelago, the KTH Environmental Humanities Laboratory proposes a vision of the environmental humanities as an open, diverse but nonetheless connected archipelago of disciplines and approaches. David Lowenthal gave the inspiring inaugural lecture in 2012, and since they have hosted thirteen distinguished guests including Indian writer Amitav Ghosh, African philosopher Achille Mbembe and US political scientist Nancy Fraser.