A new book from one of the most cited authors in the humanities and social sciences

Through this edited collection, the contributing authors examine the pertinence and actuality of Marx's general law while analyzing past and present issues in political economy in Latin America and beyond.

Conventional theories of capitalism are mired in a deep crisis: after centuries of debate, they are still unable to tell us what capital is. Liberals and Marxists both think of capital as an ‘economic’ entity that they count in universal units of ‘utils’ or ‘abstract labour’, respectively. But these units are totally fictitious. Nobody has ever been able to observe or measure them, and for a good reason: they don’t exist. Since liberalism and Marxism depend on these non-existing units, their theories hang in suspension. They cannot explain the process that matters most – the accumulation of capital. This book offers a radical alternative. According to the authors, capital is not a narrow economic entity, but a symbolic quantification of power. It has little to do with utility or abstract labour, and it extends far beyond machines and production lines. Capital, the authors claim, represents the organized power of dominant capital groups to reshape – or creorder – their society. Written in simple language, accessible to lay readers and experts alike, the book develops a novel political economy. It takes the reader through the history, assumptions and limitations of mainstream economics and its associated theories of politics. It examines the evolution of Marxist thinking on accumulation and the state. And it articulates an innovative theory of ‘capital as power’ and a new history of the ‘capitalist mode of power’.

Duncan Foley provides an alternative to Keynesian and 'new classical' macroeconomics, based on the Marxian theory of capital.

Geert Reuten offers a systematic exposition of the capitalist system, showing that the capitalist economy and the capitalist state constitute a unity.

The social structure of accumulation (SSA) approach seeks to explain the long-term fortunes of capitalist economies in terms of the effect of political and economic institutions on growth rates. This book offers an ideal introduction to this powerful tool for understanding capitalist growth, analysing the social and economic differences between countries and the reasons for the successes and failures of institutional reform. The contributors cover a wide range of topics, including the theoretical basis of the SSA approach, the postwar financial system, Marxian and Keynesian theories of economic crisis, labour-management relations, race and gender issues, and the history of institutional innovation. Combining newly written essays with classic articles of the SSA school, the book examines the international economy and the economies of Japan, South Africa, and Puerto Rico, as well as the United States.

The global economic crisis and recession that began in 2008 had at least one unexpected outcome: a surge in sales of Karl Marx's Capital. Although mainstream economists and commentators once dismissed Marx's work as outmoded and flawed, some are begrudgingly acknowledging an analysis that sees capitalism as inherently unstable. And of course, there are those, like Michael Heinrich, who have seen the value of Marx all along, and are in a unique position to explain the intricacies of Marx's thought. Heinrich's modern interpretation of Capital is now available to English-speaking readers for the first time. It has gone through nine editions in Germany, is the standard work for Marxist study groups, and is used widely in German universities. The author systematically covers all three volumes of Capital and explains all the basic aspects of Marx's critique of capitalism in a way that is clear and concise. He provides background information on the intellectual and political milieu in which Marx worked, and looks at crucial issues beyond the scope of Capital, such as class struggle, the relationship between capital and the state, accusations of historical determinism, and Marx's understanding of communism. Uniquely, Heinrich emphasizes the monetary character of Marx's work, in addition to the traditional emphasis on the labor theory of value, this highlighting the relevance of Capital to the age of financial explosions and implosions.