Article (C-0-B) Beyond added value: re-examining capitalism through its mechanisms of appropriation[Article (C-0-B) Au-delà de la plus-value, relire le capitalisme par ses mécanismes d'appropriation]

This collection brings together analytical summaries of articles by André Moulin (University of Évry, CPN laboratory) focusing on the characterisation of contemporary capitalism and its possible developments. It brings together critical analyses (Category C and D articles from the research programme ‘Actualisation and Mobilisation of Spinoza in the Humanities and Social Sciences'), the common aim of which is to examine the mechanisms of appropriation of the means of production — a perspective systematically absent from mainstream economic analyses, whether liberal, Marxist or heterodox. All these articles are based on a shift in perspective: whilst the economic tradition – including Marx – centres its analysis on the distribution of surplus value (the division of wages and dividends, the exploitation of labour power), the research programme shifts the focus to the prior and more fundamental question of the acquisition of the means of production. Two pivotal questions underpin this shift: who pays for the means of production? and who appropriates them? The answer that the articles patiently construct is paradoxical: in contemporary capitalism, it is not the one who pays who appropriates them — provided that it is the collective of wage earners.