Reification as Ecological Critique

In Kohei Saito's ecological Marxism, reification explains how formal economic categories lead to ecological crisis. Saito, however, lacks an account of praxis; of the collective political agency capable of overcoming reification. The relationship between reification and praxis was a central motif of Georg Lukács’ early Marxist work. An integrated concept of reification could then fill this gap in Saito's theory, thereby illuminating the political transition towards ecosocialism. Further, by resolving the ambiguous status of “nature” in Lukács critical theory, which currently blocks the possibility of such a conceptual integration, the critique of reification can be extended to the natural sciences.