Kohei Saito, left, and Yuval Noah Harari. Images: Astra Publishing and Penguin Random House, respectively
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
On Frankfurt Wednesday Evening
As information on programming continues to be released by organizers of Frankfurter Buchmesse (October 16 to 20), today’s news is that Israeli historian Yuval Noah Harari and Japanese philosopher and critic of capitalism Kohei Saito will appear together onstage at 7:30 p.m. CEST in Messe Frankfurt’s Harmonie Hall.
This public event is part of a series of presentations called “Frankfurt Calling,” produced in in cooperation with the Goethe University Frankfurt and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
In this program, Saito and Harari are said to be expected to talk about a question of whether “a system overhaul is the only way to a future worth living,” a proposition based more on Saito’s latest book than on Harari’s.
The premise relates to Harari’s Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks From the Stone Age to AI, which is set for a release on September 10 from Penguin Random House in the United States and in Germany as
Harari, of course, is best known for his 2014 Sapiens: A Brief History of Mankind.
Saito, whose Marx in the Anthropocene: Toward the Idea of Degrowth was published in January 2023 by Cambridge University Press, saw his newest work released in January of this year by Astra Publishing House in the States as Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto in a translation by the Montreal-based lecturer and translator Brian Bergstrom.
The German-language edition, Systemsturz: Der Sieg der Natur über den Kapitalismus (System Overthrow: The Victory of Nature Over Capitalism) is published by DTV in a translation by Gregor Wakounig.
The essential idea in Saito’s new book is that capitalism creates artificial scarcity by pursuing profit based on the value of products rather than their usefulness—and by putting perpetual growth above all else.
As Christopher Beam wrote in May (Is America Ready for ‘Degrowth Communism’?) at The Atlantic, “The degrowth movement has swelled in recent years, particularly in Europe and in academic circles. The theory has dramatic implications. Instead of finding carbon-neutral ways to power our luxurious modern lifestyles, degrowth would require us to surrender some material comforts. …
“Saito did not invent degrowth, but he has put his own spin on it by adding the C word. As for what kind of ‘communism’ we’re talking about, Saito tends to emphasize workers’ cooperatives and generous social-welfare policies rather than top-down Leninist state control of the economy. He says he wants democratic change rather than revolution—though he’s fuzzy on how exactly you get people to vote for shrinkage.”
The event is set to see its doors open at 6:30 p.m. on Frankfurt Wednesday, and carries admission fees of €28 and €15 with fees (US$31 and US$16). Ticketing information is here.
More from Publishing Perspectives on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, more on translation and translators is here, and more on international translation and publication rights is here.