More Japanese readers look to Marx

Books related to Karl Marx's Capital have gained new admirers in Japan, particularly among young people as they tend to be more conscious of social issues as the COVID-19 pandemic magnifies economic inequalities, media reported.

Media outlets said the boom in Japan was largely ignited by Kohei Saito, an associate professor at Osaka City University, who reimagined the theory expounded in the 19th-century German thinker's seminal Das Kapital from the perspective of environmental conservation in a bestselling book entitled Capital in the Anthropocene.

Saito rediscovers Marx's environmental concerns and their relevance to the critique of a political economy. His work reinforces the argument that Marx saw environmental crisis embedded in capitalism, saying it will be difficult for capitalism, which pursues economic growth by putting burdens on the environment, to resolve the issues of global warming or its economic divide.

Japan's public broadcaster NHK said the book had sold 300,000 copies since it was published in September. Its success resulted in an invitation from NHK for Saito to present a commentary on Marx's foundational theoretical text Capital: A Critique of Political Economy on a program aired in January.

"Many people noticed the contradictions of capitalism when they saw only socially vulnerable people struggling during the coronavirus pandemic," Saito said.

Kyodo News said young people who have no memory of the Cold War, or the mass student protests in Japan in the 1960s, showed a strong interest in Saito's ideas and letters had poured in from those in their 20s and 30s to NHK Publishing, which released Saito's simplified book version of Marx's difficult-to-read work in the lead-up to the broadcast.

The main branch of bookstore chain Maruzen near Tokyo Station even opened a special section entitled "Reviving Marx" because of its success to display books introducing Marxist thought.

Nobuya Sawaki, who is in charge of the Marx book corner, said people purchased about 1,600 copies of the Marx-themed titles in two months in the store and most of them were young men and women.

"The demands of people shuttered away at home due to the coronavirus are driving them to pick up these difficult titles on humanity," Sawaki said.

Agencies contributed to this story.