Synthesizing Marx and Jung for Degrowth

New article by Julien-Francois Gerber
8th International Degrowth Conference - snail

This essay argues that bringing Marxist and Jungian thought together can be surprisingly fruitful. While both traditions are ultimately concerned with human flourishing, they focus on different aspects of reality which would need to be combined for genuine emancipation: the social and the individual, the conscious and the unconscious, objectivity and subjectivity, modernity and ancestrality, science and spirituality.

In this article published in the International Journal of Jungian Studies, Julien-François Gerber presents fragments of a Jungian-Marxian anthropology, around the depth of social struggles, the relations between ideology and archetypes, the psychic costs of capitalism, and Degrowth as the possible political project of this synthesis.

Degrowth as the political project of a Marx-Jung synthesis

He argues that human and non-human flourishing is only possible in a post-capitalist society with a slower pace, a simpler life, and more sharing and caring.

Gerber ends with a plea to bring back the soul to the core of radical activism.

Read the full article online - 'Karl with Carl: Marxism and the Jungian path to the soul'

Julien-François Gerber

Associate professor
Assistant Professor of Environment and Development
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