Revitalizing Marxist Theory For Today'S Capitalism

[Part I] As a few alert mainstream and corporate economists rediscover the certain elements of Marx’s analysis of capitalism, the essays in the first part of this volume demonstrate that they have much more to discover. To their discredit, mainstream understandings – whether of capitalism’s growth or of western capitalism’s interrelated long-term stagnation and financialization – are derailed precisely by political aversion to, or ignorance of, Marxist categories and analyses. [Part II] The chapters in the second part extend Marxist insights into assessing the value of the so-called information, or knowledge-based, commodities, and offer a Marxist critique of Lenin, the only world leader who earlier had deeply studied his own country's economy. The part also presents two important works in translation. The first, read by Marx himself, raises serious questions about the relevance of Hegel in the understanding of Capital and offers its own insightful analysis. The other, by a Marxist collective in the 1970s demonstrates the centrality of politics and the class struggle in the allegedly ‘economic’ devalorization of constant capital. [Part III] The final part contains a debate on the merits of ‘positivist Marxism’ sparked by an article in Volume 26.