The Logic of Capital

This book presents the main economic argument developed by Marx in the three volumes of Capital in a coherent and comprehensive manner. The first part presents the main economic argument contained in the Capital in a coherent and comprehensive manner. It also delves into three long-standing debates in Marxist political economy: the transformation problem, the Okishio theorem, and theories of exploitation and oppression. Starting with discussions of methodology, including dialectics and historical materialism, the book explains key concepts of Marxist political economy: commodity, value, money, capital, reserve army of labour, accumulation of capital, circuit of capital, reproduction schemas, prices of production, profit, interest and rent. Scholars of economics, sociology, geography, political science, anthropology, and other kindred disciplines, will find here an accessible yet rigorous treatment of Marxist political economy.

Beyond rentiership: Standardisation, intangibles and value capture in global production

We examine corporate rentiership in the contemporary economy and suggest that the idea we are in a moment of step-change within capitalism may be premature. Implicit in arguments for a step-change is the claim that the present-day economy emphasises unproductive or rentier forms rather than the more productive and entrepreneurial forms of the past. In contrast, we argue that to understand our current situation we need to focus on the division of labour and most especially on processes of standardisation and the rise of intangible assets. Moving from Marx’s understanding of rent as a class relation, we re-embed rent within the circuit of capital and the realm of value distribution to investigate the class dynamics (among labour, capital and the state) through which giant firms seem to generate value out of rentierism. We argue that these class dynamics include the crucial and unexplored relation between standardisation and intangibles. We suggest standardisation within the division of labour renders people, places, and things interchangeable and that, in contrast, intangible assets differentiate them. When intangible assets emerge as new forms of property, they enable owners to generate scarcity and exert direct and/or indirect control over the wider division of labour. Through examining the combined rise of standardisation and intangible assets within the technical division of labour, we demonstrate how hierarchy within the social division of labour empowers some corporations to capture value produced elsewhere within the circuit of capital.

The secondary circuit of capital and the making of the suburban property boom in postcrisis Chinese cities

Drawing on Harvey’s capital switching thesis, this study develops a heterodox approach from a crucial perspective to China’s post-2016 nationwide property boom. We trace the roots of this suburban property boom to the 2008 global financial crisis and investigate its nature as a solution to China’s post-2008 overaccumulation crisis. By scrutinising the serial policies formed at the central level, we unpack the continuous endeavours of the state in channelling excessive capital into city building and sustaining capital circulation in and out of land. Next, using Jiangyou as a case study and adopting Harvey’s theorisation of making the suburban property boom a state-mediated sociopolitical process to enable the realisation of surplus value in the secondary circuit of capital, we reveal why and how the local state collaborated with the central state, financial institutions and developers to create the suburban property boom. This study presents the actually existing secondary circuit of capital that occurred outside the Western context and in contemporary postcrisis capitalism and develops a state-centric approach to the secondary circuit of capital by bridging regulationist state theory and capital switch theory.

Radical Perspectives on Industrial Policy

This chapter surveys, evaluates, and develops radical perspectives on industrial policy. We examine the differences between mainstream and heterodox approaches to economic and industrial development, and we look at the similarities and differences between structuralist and Marxist approaches. We argue that Marx’s concern is not with sectors but with value and the overall circuit of capital. Radical industrial policy foregrounds class and capitalism, and integrates a distinctive conception of the state. We argue further that radical industrial policy operates at two levels, the analytical and the prescriptive, and we use the climate crisis to illustrate our argument. Radical industrial policy has broad objectives, including fundamentally altering productive structures and dynamics towards labour-centred development. Finally, we briefly survey some experiences of radical industrial policy, loosely dividing them between statist, co-operative, and participatory planning approaches. We also reflect on the limits of industrial policy, especially under globalized and financialized capitalism.

THE URBAN BUBBLE PROCESS IN SPAIN: AN INTERPRETATION FROM THE THEORY OF THE CIRCUITS OF CAPITAL

Urbanization in Spain has advanced rapidly in the last twenty years or so. The phenomenon was particularly pronounced in the period spanning 1990-2007, when the construction of housing on a mass scale was a clear indicator of the second circuit of capital accumulation, with space playing a key role through the work of David Harvey. This led to a property bubble – one of the defining features of the economic and financial crisis in Spain between 2008 and 2013. In this contribution to the subject, we analyse the factors that triggered unchecked speculative urban growth in the context of the financialization of land. In tandem, our conclusions present the new resulting urban and metropolitan map of Spain, which is now characterized by uneven levels of occupancy among regions.

Reproduction and Crisis in Capitalist Economies

An economic crisis in capitalism is a deep and prolonged interruption of the economy-wide circuit of capital. Crises emerge from within the logic of capitalism’s operation, and are manifestations of the inherently contradictory process of capital accumulation. The Marxist tradition conceptualizes two types of crisis tendencies in capitalism: a crisis of deficient surplus value and a crisis of excess surplus value. Two mechanisms that become important in crises of deficient surplus value are the rising organic composition of capital and the profit squeeze: two mechanisms that are salient in crises of excess surplus value are problems of insufficient aggregate demand and increased financial fragility. This chapter offers a synthetic and synoptic account of the Marxist literature on capitalist crisis.

Marx, Technology, and the Pathological Future of Capitalism

This entry begins with a summary of the almost universally accepted “standard view” of technological change in capitalism. Marx’s alternative account of the role of technology in capitalist society is then presented, followed by a survey of essential tendencies regarding technological change associated with each phase in the circuit of capital. The chapter concludes with an examination of four long-term consequences of technological change in the course of capitalism’s historical development: environmental crises, limits to wage labor as a social form, severe global inequality, and persisting overaccumulation difficulties. Together they establish that more than ever the fundamental question confronting our historical moment is the stark alternative: “Socialism or barbarism?”