🐌 Kohei Saito’s “Slow Down” de/acc manifesto

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podcast (here), video (here), and here’s my post:

Deceleration Without Collapse: Trade, Power, and Possibility in a Post-Growth World

In the wake of planetary ecological crises, political paralysis, and widespread disillusionment with both neoliberalism and authoritarian statism, a new strand of economic and political thought has emerged: decelerationism, often aligned with the broader degrowth movement. This intellectual current rejects the fantasy that economic growth—whether driven by green technologies or digital efficiencies—can be decoupled from ecological destruction. Instead, it calls for a managed slowing down of industrial throughput, energy use, and material production, combined with new social relations grounded in sufficiency, autonomy, and care.

A central figure in this movement is Kohei Saito, whose books Capital in the Anthropocene and Slow Down have captured wide popular attention in Japan and beyond. Saito blends ecological Marxism, anti-productivism, and a bottom-up communitarian political philosophy to articulate a vision of post-capitalist prosperity without growth. Unlike Green New Dealers who emphasize state-led investment in renewables and infrastructure, or accelerationists who seek emancipation through runaway technological transformation, Saito advocates for a deliberate, democratic contraction of the economy—a slowdown from below.

But if growth is out, and centralized state planning is suspect, what kind of coordination, exchange, and governance might still be possible at planetary scale?

I. Saito’s Critique: Growth, Green Deals, and Techno-Futures

Saito’s main targets include:

  • Green Keynesianism / Green New Deal policies: These rely on the state to stimulate “green growth” through massive investment in renewable energy, infrastructure, and jobs. Saito argues this merely recycles productivist assumptions, shifting the carbon problem to the mining of lithium, rare earth metals, and global supply chains.
  • Techno-accelerationism: Common among Silicon Valley futurists and left-wing Prometheans, this view sees automation, AI, and geoengineering as the solutions to planetary constraints. Saito sees this as a delusion of control—one that accelerates inequality and ecological overshoot.
  • Mainstream Marxism and socialism: He criticizes traditional leftist belief in industrial growth and state planning, calling for a rupture from productivist Marxist legacies, especially those rooted in 20th-century industrial socialism.

II. Degrowth, Deceleration, and Political Power

Saito’s approach contrasts with both state-centric and market-centric models. Instead, he promotes:

  • Commons-based production: Local control of land, tools, and labor, governed democratically and aimed at meeting basic needs, not maximizing output.
  • Community autonomy: Power devolved to self-organized, interdependent groups—drawing inspiration from cooperatives, eco-villages, and indigenous modes of governance.
  • Use-value over exchange-value: Economies rooted in care, maintenance, and reproduction, not profit or competition.

This represents a form of post-capitalist municipalism, akin to what Murray Bookchin, David Graeber, and Silvia Federici have described: localized control, non-hierarchical relations, and feminist and ecological ethics of sufficiency.

III. Trade in a Degrowth World: Problem or Possibility?

A persistent tension in degrowth thought is the role of trade and exchange. If communities are producing what they need locally, what happens to non-local goods—tools, spices, medicines, metals, or knowledge? Does interdependence inevitably reintroduce capitalist dynamics, or is another form of global exchange possible?

Degrowth-compatible trade principles:

  • Biophysical quotas: Trade is limited not by market demand, but by planetary boundaries (e.g., carbon, land use, energy).
  • Embedded emissions and labor standards: Goods traded only if their production meets strict social and ecological criteria.
  • Reciprocity and mutual sufficiency: Exchange based on meeting needs, not extracting surplus.
  • Non-market institutions: No reliance on prices, competition, or financial speculation—trade mediated via protocols, reputation, and social rules.

Precedents and analogues:

  • Solidarity economies in Latin America (e.g., barter clubs in Argentina, mercados solidarios in Ecuador).
  • Fair trade co-ops and food sovereignty networks, especially in indigenous and peasant movements.
  • Digital commons and open source licensing (e.g., Creative Commons, GNU, Open Source Ecology).
  • Cosmopolitan localism (glocalism): Ezio Manzini’s model where communities are autonomous but interlinked through transparent, ethical exchange.

IV. Degrowth WTO? Rethinking Global Governance

A provocative thought experiment: what would a WTO-for-degrowth look like? Instead of facilitating GDP growth, such an institution would coordinate ecological justice, redistribution, and biophysical limits.

Features might include:

  • Global carbon/resource caps: Country-level trade quotas based on emissions or material throughput.
  • Ecological tribunals: Disputes resolved not by market distortion claims, but environmental harm and social exploitation.
  • Mutual aid treaties: Agreements for knowledge sharing, reparations, and redistribution—especially from historically high-consuming countries.
  • Local priority clauses: Ensuring communities can prioritize local production without penalties for “trade distortion.”
  • Commons Exchange Authority: Supporting barter, mutual credit systems, and non-capitalist forms of value transfer.

V. The Authoritarian Risk: Rulemaking Without Markets?

But such a system raises serious questions: without price signals or competitive markets, how are decisions made? Who sets quotas, enforces limits, and adjudicates conflicts?

Dangers of centralization:

  • Technocracy: Environmental accounting and quota systems could become tools of elite governance, opaque to most people.
  • Normative monopoly: Who defines what is “enough” or “fair”? Without pluralism, universalist frameworks can impose particular ideologies.
  • Bureaucratic creep: Managing sufficiency, carbon budgets, and embedded emissions may lead to surveillance, complexity, and inertia.

Saito resists top-down planning in favor of federated autonomy. But this only deepens the coordination challenge: how can we avoid both authoritarianism and fragmentation?

VI. Analogies from Non-Economic Systems

Surprisingly, there are functioning large-scale systems outside of economics that manage complexity without central control or profit motives:

1. Open Source Software

  • Voluntary, decentralized collaboration.
  • Coordination via protocols, version control, and shared norms (e.g. Git, Linux).
  • Maintains quality and innovation without markets.

2. Scientific Research Networks

  • Peer review, open publishing, and citation economies.
  • Distributed expertise, global collaboration, adaptive problem solving.
  • Fast and effective during COVID-19 vaccine development.

3. Jazz Improvisation Ensembles

  • Emergent coherence via mutual listening and shared rhythm.
  • Leadership is temporal, fluid, and context-dependent.
  • Local autonomy within bounded structures.

4. Decentralized Monastic Networks

  • Self-governing communities with shared values (e.g. Benedictine federations, Buddhist sanghas).
  • Resilience through nested autonomy and spiritual purpose.

5. Commons Governance (Elinor Ostrom)

  • Resource management through local rules, monitoring, and sanctions.
  • Polycentric governance scales without hierarchy.
  • Proven in forests, fisheries, and irrigation systems.

These examples suggest that distributed, value-aligned, protocol-driven systems can coordinate at scale without coercion or markets.

VII. Reimagining Coordination: Protocols, AI, and the Moral Economy

To scale degrowth without returning to command economies or growth logics, we need new forms of coordination—technological, cultural, and moral.

Possibilities:

  • Distributed ledgers and DAOs: Use blockchain not for speculation, but for ecological accounting and commons governance.
  • AI as planning infrastructure: Adaptive, transparent tools for managing flows of labor, material, and energy across federated systems.
  • Moral currencies: Measures of sufficiency, care, or ecological repair to replace or supplement prices.
  • Anarchist and Indigenous governance: Deep traditions of non-state coordination rooted in consensus, ritual, and reciprocity.

VIII. Conclusion: A Cosmopolitan Sufficiency

Kohei Saito’s vision pushes us to rethink the deepest assumptions of modern economics: that prosperity requires growth, that coordination requires hierarchy, and that globalization requires capital. The challenge now is not merely to reject these premises—but to build functioning, liberatory alternatives.

A future of sufficiency, solidarity, and shared limits will not arise from collapse or wishful thinking. It demands design, experimentation, and institutional imagination—rooted in the best of human creativity, cooperation, and care.

How far could it go?

If expanded to include all life-sustaining, non-extractive, or regenerative sectors—even those currently commodified—Saito-style “care work” could plausibly encompass 50–60% of the U.S. economy, depending on interpretation. Key inclusions:

Healthcare & social assistance: 18% Education (public + private): 6% Food systems (farming, local distribution, cooking): ~5% Construction & housing (especially retrofitting, local/co-op): ~4% Renewable energy production & utilities: ~3–4% Local transportation & maintenance: ~2% Home goods & furnishing (durable, repairable): ~3% Disaster relief, emergency services, civil service: ~2–3% Arts, recreation, mental health: ~2%

These sectors shift from being capital-intensive to labor-rich, local, slow-growth, and sustainability-focused—more about use-value than exchange-value.

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Further Reading and References

  1. Saito, Kohei – Slow Down (2024): Penguin
  2. Hickel, Jason – Less is More (2020): https://jasonhickel.org
  3. Raworth, Kate – Doughnut Economics (2017): https://doughnuteconomics.org
  4. Graeber, David – Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011): https://www.mhpbooks.com/books/debt/
  5. Bookchin, Murray – The Next Revolution (2015): https://www.versobooks.com/products/1644-the-next-revolution
  6. Ostrom, Elinor – Governing the Commons (1990): Cambridge
  7. Bauwens, Michel – P2P Foundation: https://p2pfoundation.net
  8. Manzini, Ezio – Design, When Everybody Designs (2015): MIT Press
  9. Riofrancos, Thea – Resource Radicals (2020): Verso
  10. Aronoff, Kate – Overheated (2021): https://www.boldtypebooks.com/titles/kate-aronoff/overheated/9781568589478/
  11. Svampa, Maristella – Degrowth and South American Ecosocialism: https://degrowth.info
  12. Open Source Ecology: https://opensourceecology.org
  13. SlowLab & Cosmopolitan Localism: https://www.slowlab.net
  14. Intercontinental Cry – Indigenous Governance: https://intercontinentalcry.org
  15. Schneider, Nathan – Everything for Everyone (2018): https://nathanschneider.info/books/everything-for-everyone/
  16. Creative Commons Movement: https://creativecommons.org
  17. Commons Transition Network: https://commonstransition.org
  18. Federici, Silvia – Re-enchanting the World (2018): PM Press
  19. Decelerationist Manifesto (2013): PDF
  20. Cosmolocalism & P2P Accounting: https://cosmolocal.org

all this via chatgpt (text, image), notebookLM (podcast, emoji), http://www.gan.ai (video avatar) and amol (questions, voice and person template)

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