Marx’s political economy from the perspective of dynamical systems theory

The paper advances novel interpretations of Marx’s original insights by situating them within the horizon of contemporary scientific approaches, notably dynamical systems theory and statistical physics. Marx’s dialectical method is a mode of analysis predicated on the insight that relations among parts cannot be adequately grasped in abstraction from the relation between the whole and its constituent elements – a defining feature of modern systemic approaches. This perspective renders it possible to reinterpret many of Marx’s key concepts as emergent properties of economic systems. The paper further contends that Marx conceived capitalist development as an intrinsically dynamic process that precludes the notion of equilibrium as a state of rest. In this light, the centrality of disequilibrium within the Marxian framework brings it into an alignment with contemporary theories of deterministic chaos, wherein systems persistently far from equilibrium are nonetheless amenable to rational analysis through the concept of attractors.