Reading Marx’s Capital with David Harvey

THE ENIGMA OF CAPITAL AND THE CRISIS THIS TIME

(paper prepared for the American Sociological Association Meetings in Atlanta, August 16th, 2010)

David Harvey

There are many explanations for the crisis of capital that began in 2007. But the one thing missing is an understanding of “systemic risks.” I was alerted to this when Her Majesty the Queen visited the London School of Economics and asked the prestigious economists there how come they had not seen the crisis coming. Being a feudal monarch rather than an ordinary mortal, the economists felt impelled to answer. After six months of reflection the economic gurus of the British Academy submitted their conclusions. The gist was that many intelligent and dedicated economists had worked assiduously and hard on understanding the micro-processes. But everyone had somehow missed “systemic risk.” A year later, a former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund said “we sort of know vaguely what systemic risk is and what factors might relate to it. But to argue that it is a well-developed science at this point is overstating the fact.” In a formal paper, the IMF described the study of systemic risk as “in its infancy.”¹ In Marxian theory (as opposed to myopic neoclassical or financial theory), “systemic risk” translates into the fundamental contradictions of capital accumulation. The IMF might save itself a lot of trouble by studying them. So how, then, can we put Marx’s theorization of the internal contradictions of capitalism to work to understand the roots of our contemporary dilemmas? Continue Reading »

From Profile Books:

In order to gain momentum for the paperback of The Enigma of Capital due to be published next year, we at Profile Books want to know why David’s readers and friends regard him as a seminal figurehead for the left. The response to his 2010 London tour was overwhelming, and we want to listen to your opinions, comments and ideas in order to boost David’s profile as the author with the knowledge and the nerve to take on mainstream ideology. How has David’s writing changed your outlook on your life? How does he compare to other leftist thinkers?

We will give prizes to the best responses, which will include signed copies of the hardback.

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The Introduction to David Harvey’s recent book, A Companion to Marx’s Capital, is now available as a free PDF download:

Introduction to A Companion to Marx’s Capital (135k PDF)

Thanks to Verso for making the chapter available. A Companion to Marx’s Capital is now available on Amazon and in your local bookstores.

“David Harvey provoked a revolution in his field and has inspired a generation of radical intellectuals. Read this book…” Naomi Klein

The biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression has generated a surge of interest in Marx’s work in the effort to understand the origins of our current predicament. For nearly forty years, David Harvey has written and lectured on Capital, becoming one of the world’s foremost Marx scholars.

Based on his recent online lectures, this current volume aims to bring this depth of learning to a broader audience, guiding first-time readers through a fascinating and deeply rewarding text. A Companion to Marx’s Capital offers fresh, original and sometimes critical interpretations of a book that changed the course of history and, as Harvey intimates, may do so again.

“My aim is to get you to read a book by Karl Marx called Capital, Volume 1, and to read it on Marx’s own terms…”

Update: Read a review of A Companion to Marx’s Capital by Charles Mudede in the Seattle Stranger titled ‘The Crystals of Capital‘

From RSA Animate

Watch original lecture.

Continuing the success of Professor Harvey’s online video lectures of Marx’s Capital, Volume I, we are currently raising money to continue the project with new lectures on Capital Volumes II and III.

Inspired by the overwhelming interest in the Volume I lectures, which according to Google Analytics have logged over 700,000 page views from 10,884 cities in 187 countries since June 2008, we are happy to announce the next stage of this project.

Professor Harvey is planning on teaching a semester class on Capital Volumes II and III in the Spring of 2011. With your help, we plan to film, edit, and post a new set of free online videos to this site. To do this, we need to raise our budget of $10,000.

Support this project by making a tax-deductible donation today.