Marx After Marx - History and Time in the Expansion of Capitalism

Harry Harootunian questions the claims of "Western Marxism" and its presumption of the final completion of capitalism. If this shift in Marxism reflected the recognition that the expected revolutions were not forthcoming in the years before World War II, its Cold War afterlife helped to both unify the West in its struggle with the Soviet Union and bolster the belief that capitalism remained dominant in the contest over progress. This book deprovincializes Marx and the West's cultural turn by returning to the theorist's earlier explanations of capital's origins and development, which followed a trajectory beyond Euro-America to Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Marx's expansive view shows how local circumstances, time, and culture intervened to reshape capital's system of production in these regions. His outline of a diversified global capitalism was much more robust than his sketch of the English experience in Capital and helps explain the disparate routes that evolved during the twentieth century. Engaging with the texts of Lenin, Luxemburg, Gramsci, and other pivotal theorists, Harootunian strips contemporary Marxism of its cultural preoccupation by reinstating the deep relevance of history.

About the author

Harry Harootunian is adjunct senior research scholar in the Weatherhead East Asian Institute at Columbia University and Max Palevsky Professor of History Emeritus at the University of Chicago. He is also the author of History's Disquiet: Modernity, Cultural Practice, and the Question of the Everyday Life.

Summary

Revisiting Marx’s seminal conception of capital and production to better critique our diverse global economies.

Report

"A landmark study within Marxist thought. Drawing largely upon Marx's later works for its conceptual tools and theoretical method, this study analyses how different regions under differing circumstances, throw up a plurality of developmental forms all under the general code of capitalist accumulation." Michael Dutton, author of Policing Chinese Politics

Product details

• Authors: Harry Harootunian, Harry D. Harootunian, Harootunian Harry
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.10.2015
• EAN: 9780231174800
• ISBN: 978-0-231-17480-0
• No. of pages: 312
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > History > General, dictionaries; Social sciences, law, business > Political science; Political Ideologies, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / General, POLITICAL SCIENCE / History & Theory, Industrial relations, health & safety, HISTORY / World, HISTORY / Social History, Social & cultural history, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Labor & Industrial Relations, General & world history, Political science & theory, Social and cultural history, General and world history, Political science and theory, Political ideologies and movements, Industrial relations, occupational health and safety, BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Labor / General