Category: Uncategorized (Page 2 of 7)

Available from Verso Books

I have spent my life interpreting capitalism in order to build an alternative

By David Harvey

In November 2008, at the height of the global financial crisis, Queen Elizabeth visited the London School of Economics. In the course of this visit she asked the assembled economists why they had not seen the financial crisis coming. Not having any immediate answers, the economists consulted and ran seminars. Six months later they sent a collective letter to Her Majesty explaining that some mix of hubris and failure to confront systemic risks lay at the root of their failures. Neglecting systemic risks appears particularly egregious. Most of us would not choose to board an airplane that had not been checked for systemic risks.

My new book, The Story of Capital, seeks to interrogate the internal malfunctions and systemic risks within capital’s mode of production, but it does so with the aid of rather special theoretical tools drawn from Marx’s work on the political economy of capital. While Marx famously proclaimed that our aim should not be to understand the world but to change it, he put an enormous amount of time and effort into understanding that which he sought to change. Indeed, his practice suggests that he believed it vital to understand capital in order to change it.

Read the full article at The New Statesman

Had a very nice chat with Doug Henwood for his Behind the News podcast about my new book, The Story of Capital.

Listen on Doug’s site or Apple Podcasts.

From the Verso website:

This month, in honour of David Harvey‘s ninetieth birthday, we’re publishing a series of short essays on David’s unparalleled contribution on urban geography, anthropology and economics. David’s newest book, The Story of Capital, will soon be available to preorder here.

• Explaining with David – Eric Sheppard
• Geographies of Explanation in Geography – Trevor J. Barnes
• A View from Outside-In – Helga Leitner
• Harvey’s Urbanization of Capital – Richard A. Walker
• The Marxist Restless Analyst – Andy Merrifield
• Harvey and Postmodernity – Ashok Kumar
• On Militant Particularism and Universal Emancipation – Erik Swyngedouw
• Revolutionary Optimism – Melissa W. Wright
• On Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom – Tariq Jazeel
• Capital and/or Capitalist Society? A Tale of Two Totalities  – Nancy Fraser
• On Rebel Cities – Desiree Fields
• The Foundational, the Moving and the Dangerous – Shaina Potts
• Teaching Marx for the Conjuncture – Dave Featherstone
• Limits and Beyond – Eric Sheppard

See all Verso works by Harvey here.

My next book, The Story of Capital: What Everyone Should Know About How Capital Works, will be published on 24 February 2026 by Verso.

I’ve published some personal reflections on Piero Sraffa in the latest New Left Review.

Hosted by The People’s Forum:

“Join us virtually for a close reading of Marx’s Grundrisse with Professor David Harvey. 

We’re excited to present another course studying Marxist thought with Professor Harvey. The course will be structured around the soon to be published A Companion To Marx’s Grundrisse, and will be available to all, wherever you may be located in the world! 

Written during the winter of 1857-1858, the Grundrisse, also known as Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy (Rough Draft), was considered by Marx to be the first scientific elaboration of communist theory.”

The primary text is David Harvey, A Companion to Marx’s Grundrisse, Verso, 2023. The source text is Karl Marx, The Grundrisse, Viking/Penguin edition. Students are invited to work across both texts and to grapple with the intricacies of Marx’s arguments on the nature of capital.

1. Karl Marx, Grundrisse: Foundations of the Critique of Political Economy, Penguin Classics edition, translated by Martin Nicolaus, ISBN: 978-0140445756. 
   
   (The text of the Grundrisse can also be found for free on the Marxists Internet Archive. While any edition of the Grundrisse could work, the page numbers Professor Harvey refers to are from the Penguin Classics edition, so it will be easier to follow along with this edition.)
   
   
2. David Harvey, A Companion to Marx’s Grundrisse. Verso, 2023.

Schedule

Class 1 Companion, pages vii-xxi and 1-35; Grundrisse pages 83-111

Class 2 Companion, pages 36-83; Grundrisse pages 115-238

Class 3 Companion, pages 84-123; Grundrisse pages 239-303

Class 4 Companion, pages 124-148; Grundrisse pages 304-70

Book Launch Book Launch for the Companion with Kanish Goonewardena (Toronto) and Nancy Fraser (New School) as commentators.

Class 5 Companion, pages 149-184; Grundrisse pages 373-458

Class 6 Companion, pages 185-232; Grundrisse pages 459-515

Class 7 Companion, pages 233-261; Grundrisse, pages 516-584

Class 8 Companion, pages 262-294; Grundrisse, pages 584-678

Class 9 Companion pages 295-324; Grundrisse, pages 640-701

Class 10 Companion pages 325- 362; Grundrisse, pages 702-741

Class 11 Companion, pages 363 – 404; Grundrisse 742-893

Class 12 Companion, pages 405-434

[Download course schedule as a PDF]

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