Kohei Saito and the Degrowth Shelf: The 10 Best Books, Ranked

For most of the twentieth century, left and right agreed on one thing: the economy should grow. They argued about who would get the gains, not about whether there should be gains at all. Degrowth breaks that consensus. Its claim is that endless growth in rich countries is incompatible with a livable planet, and that a good life doesn’t require it. What sounds like austerity, its defenders argue, is really a different idea of abundance.

The movement has French roots (décroissance) and a strong base in Barcelona, but its most famous voice today is a Japanese Marxist. Kohei Saito, an associate professor of philosophy at the University of Tokyo, turned a reading of Marx’s late ecological notebooks into a bestseller in Japan and then a global argument. This ranking weighs intellectual originality, evidence, and how convincingly each book imagines the alternative.

Where to start

Start with Kohei Saito’s Slow Down for the provocation and Jason Hickel’s Less Is More for the evidence. Then read Giorgos Kallis’s Limits for the philosophy and Kate Soper’s Post-Growth Living for the pleasure.

1. Kohei Saito, Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto (2020; English 2024)

The book that took degrowth mainstream. Slow Down argues that green growth is a fantasy, that capitalism’s need to expand is the root of the climate crisis, and that the late Marx, studying soil science and communal societies, was moving toward something like “degrowth communism.” It’s polemical and readable, and it’s the best place to start.

2. Kohei Saito, Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism (2023)

The scholarly foundation of Slow Down. Marx in the Anthropocene reconstructs Marx’s theory of the “metabolic rift” between society and nature and argues that the standard picture of Marx as a productivist misses his final turn. It’s academic, but it gives the manifesto its intellectual weight.

3. Jason Hickel, Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (2020)

The best English-language introduction. Hickel, an economic anthropologist, combines climate science, economic history and a critique of colonial extraction in Less Is More. Its argument that rich countries can scale down material throughput while improving wellbeing is clearly made and well documented.

4. Giorgos Kallis, Limits: Why Malthus Was Wrong and Why Environmentalists Should Care (2019)

The most philosophical book on the list. Kallis, a leading figure in the Barcelona degrowth school, argues in Limits that we should stop thinking of limits as external scarcity imposed by nature. Instead, limits should be understood as a collective choice of self-restraint, an idea with roots in ancient ethics. It’s short, elegant and surprising.

5. Matthias Schmelzer, Andrea Vetter and Aaron Vansintjan, The Future Is Degrowth (2022)

The most complete overview of degrowth as a body of ideas. The Future Is Degrowth reconstructs the movement’s critiques of growth (ecological, social, cultural, feminist and anti-colonial) and sets out concrete policies and strategies. It’s the book to give someone who wants the whole picture.

6. Kohei Saito, Capital from Zero: Reading Marx in the Age of Climate Catastrophe (English 2026)

Saito’s newest book in English, translated by Brian Bergstrom and published in July 2026. Capital from Zero is a reading guide to Marx’s Capital that brings it into the twenty-first century through Saito’s “degrowth communism.” It’s the follow-up to Slow Down and a good introduction to Marx for readers who never thought they’d want one.

7. Kate Soper, Post-Growth Living: For an Alternative Hedonism (2020)

The cultural argument. Soper, a British philosopher, argues in Post-Growth Living that consumerism is not only destructive but disappointing, and that a post-growth life could offer more pleasure, time and beauty. Her “alternative hedonism” is the best answer to the charge that degrowth means joyless sacrifice.

8. Tim Jackson, Post Growth: Life After Capitalism (2021)

Jackson’s earlier Prosperity Without Growth made the economic case. Post Growth is the more personal, philosophical sequel, built around portraits of figures such as Robert Kennedy and the economist Herman Daly. It’s the gentlest book on the list and one of the most moving.

9. Giorgos Kallis, Susan Paulson, Giacomo D’Alisa and Federico Demaria, The Case for Degrowth (2020)

A short, punchy primer by four leading researchers. The Case for Degrowth answers common objections and proposes policies such as a green new deal without growth, universal basic services and shorter working hours.

10. Serge Latouche, Farewell to Growth (2007; English 2009)

The French classic. Latouche, an economist and critic of development, gave décroissance its modern program. Farewell to Growth is brief and somewhat dated, but it’s where many of the movement’s slogans come from.

Honorable mentions

• Karl Marx’s Ecosocialism by Kohei Saito (2017): the book that first made his name in Marx scholarship.
• Doughnut Economics by Kate Raworth (2017): not strictly degrowth, but an influential model of an economy within planetary boundaries.
• Fossil Capital by Andreas Malm (2016): how steam power and fossil fuels became tied to capitalism.

Degrowth and the philosophers

Mark Fisher’s Capitalist Realism popularized the line that it’s easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism, a line Fisher credited to Fredric Jameson and Slavoj Žižek. Degrowth is an attempt to imagine the second without waiting for the first. Žižek’s Living in the End Times counts ecological breakdown among the four riders of a coming apocalypse, though Žižek has little patience for back-to-nature nostalgia. Peter Sloterdijk’s What Happened in the 20th Century? treats the Anthropocene as the moment humanity became a geological force, and his In the World Interior of Capital describes the comfort-bubble that growth built for the rich world. Byung-Chul Han’s In Praise of the Earth and Vita Contemplativa make the case for slowness from the other direction, as a matter of attention and dwelling rather than economics.

One to watch: Rafael Gallardo

Degrowth asks us to imagine a different economy. Rafael Gallardo’s question is why that’s so hard. In “The Walls of Our Reality”, he argues that life has moved from dreams to goals to systems, so that institutional pathways now pre-structure our options: “The ability to dream has been architected.” Writing at The Rhizome Times, he connects this to Mark Fisher’s capitalist realism and to what he calls “the reality of the virtual,” the information systems that shape what we can desire. His recent podcast note on art and the market takes the same problem into the studio, arguing that artists can no longer stand outside the market. It’s a useful psychological complement to Saito’s economics. His first book, Indoctrination Guide, comes out December 25, 2026, and the digital edition is available to preorder now. Read him at The Rhizome Times.

Worth subscribing

• Dougald Hine, Writing Home: letters and essays from the co-founder of the Dark Mountain Project, on Ivan Illich, the critique of progress and what else is worth doing with our time; try “More Than Enough”. His book At Work in the Ruins (2023) is a fine companion to this list. 6.6K+ subscribers on Substack.
• Cadell Last, Philosophy Portal: idealism and psychoanalysis with a Marxist edge; his recent “The Separation of Marxist Theory-Praxis” pairs well with Saito.

Conclusion

Start with Saito’s Slow Down for the provocation and Hickel’s Less Is More for the evidence. Read Kallis’s Limits for the philosophy and Soper for the pleasure. Degrowth’s critics say it’s politically impossible. Its defenders reply that continuing as we are is physically impossible, and that, of the two, only the political limit can be changed.

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