On Economic Madness
Book Review

Pretz, Luke
http://solidarity-us.org/atc/195/review-harvey/
Date Written:  2018-07-01
Publisher:  Against the Current
Year Published:  2018
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23386

A mostly positive, informative review of "Marx, Capital, and the Madness of Economic Reason" by David Harvey.

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

Marx, Capital, and the Madness of Economic Reason
By David Harvey
Oxford University Press, 2017, 252 pages, $24.95 hardcover.

Marx, Capital, and the Madness of Eco­nomic Reason presents a systemization of Marx's thought that demonstrates the continued relevance of Marx’s work. Harvey also shows how it can be recontextualized in light of the massive technological, social and industrial changes that have taken place since Marx wrote....

For Harvey, and Marx, value is a social relation between objects that is not material in an immediate sense, in that "we cannot dissect a shirt and find atoms of value." The initial overview of value and its many forms, money capital, value embodied in commodities, and its distribution through means of wages, taxes and rents is filtered through Harvey's typical lens of crisis and contradiction arising from disruptions in the circulation and accumulation of value.

At this point we arrive at the core of Harvey's thought and the importance of Harvey's diagram of value in motion. Capitalism is a system constantly in search of accumulation by any means, and thereby the continuous circulation of ever-expanding value through the system.

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