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This book critically introduces two compelling contemporary schools of Marxian thought: the New Reading of Marx of Michael Heinrich and Werner Bonefeld, and the postoperaismo of Antonio Negri. Each stake novel claims on Marx's value theory, the first revisiting key categories of the critique of political economy through Frankfurt School critical theory, the second calling the law of value into crisis with reference to Marx's rediscovered 'Fragment on Machines'. Today, 'postcapitalist' conceptualisations of a changing workplace excite interest in postoperaist projections of a crisis of measurability sparked by so-called immaterial labour. Using the New Reading of Marx to question this prospectus, Critiquing Capitalism Today clarifies complex debates for newcomers to these cutting-edge currents of critical thought, looking anew at value, money, labour, class and crisis.
List of contents
1. Introduction: Marxian Value Theory in New Times.- 2. Value, Time and Abstract Labour.- 3. Money and the Exchange Abstraction.- 4. Labour in the Valorisation Process.- 5. Class, Critique and Capitalist Crisis.- 6. Immanence, Multitude and Empire.- 7. The Fragment on Machines.- 8. A Crisis of Measurability.- 9. Creative Industries and Commodity Exchange.- 10. Conclusion: From Postoperaismo to Postcapitalism.
About the author
Frederick Harry Pittsis Lecturer in Management at the School of Economics, Finance and Management, University of Bristol, UK.
Summary
This book critically introduces two compelling contemporary schools of Marxian thought: the New Reading of Marx of Michael Heinrich and Werner Bonefeld, and the postoperaismo of Antonio Negri. Each stake novel claims on Marx’s value theory, the first revisiting key categories of the critique of political economy through Frankfurt School critical theory, the second calling the law of value into crisis with reference to Marx’s rediscovered ‘Fragment on Machines’. Today, ‘postcapitalist’ conceptualisations of a changing workplace excite interest in postoperaist projections of a crisis of measurability sparked by so-called immaterial labour. Using the New Reading of Marx to question this prospectus, Critiquing Capitalism Today clarifies complex debates for newcomers to these cutting-edge currents of critical thought, looking anew at value, money, labour, class and crisis.
Additional text
“The theory of value introduced in this book abandons the dialectic, and seems to justify the capitalist mode of production via a sort of Millian utilitarianism, where the concept of ‘happiness’ is replaced by ‘social validation.’ Eventually, the crises of overproduction – necessary within the capitalist mode of production – would be deduced from ‘social validation,’ i.e., from an effect, and not from intrinsic causal laws.” (Dario Cositore, Contemporary Political Theory, Vol. 19 (4), December, 2020)
Report
"The theory of value introduced in this book abandons the dialectic, and seems to justify the capitalist mode of production via a sort of Millian utilitarianism, where the concept of 'happiness' is replaced by 'social validation.' Eventually, the crises of overproduction - necessary within the capitalist mode of production - would be deduced from 'social validation,' i.e., from an effect, and not from intrinsic causal laws." (Dario Cositore, Contemporary Political Theory, Vol. 19 (4), December, 2020)
