Introduction - Confronting Capitalism: Lessons from Marx’s Capital
Part I Beginning with Capital
2. Marx’s ‘Ultimate Aim’ in Capital Was…
Bertell Ollman
3. Marx and Commodity Fetishism – Some Remarks on Method
Vesa Oittinen
4. Late Marx and the Conception of ‘Accumulation of Capital’
Paul Zarembka
Part II Contending With Value: Money, Price, Temporality, and Space
5. Form Analysis, Space and Spatial Struggle
Bernd Belina
6. The Transformation Problem and Value Form: Methodological Comments
Pertti Honkanen
7. Value Forms and the Structure of the Capitalist System
David Fishman
Part III Financialization, Credit, and Crisis
8. Marx’s Musings on Financial Crises: Credit and Crises in the Mid-19th Century Gold Standard
Laurence A. Krause
9. Marx on Financial Intermediation: Lessons from the French Crédit Mobilier
Joseph Ricciardi
Part IV Crisis in the 21st Century: Cross-National Evidence
10. The Ambiguous Role of China’s Collective Land Ownership Under Global Capitalism
Xiangjing Chen
11. Beyond the ‘Pink Tide’: Dependent Capitalism in Crisis in Argentina and Lessons to
be Learned for Radical Social Change
Mariano Feliz
12. The Final Fiction: Madoff Clawback Suits and Their Implications for Capitalism in the 21st Century
Colleen P. Eren
13. Navigating the Scylla and Charybdis of Precarious Work: Through the Storm of Contingency
Christian Garland
Part V The Past and Present with an Eye on the Future
14. What if Our Schools Are Working?: Base, Superstructure, and Hegemony in Education
Alan Singer
15. Demographic Changes, Pension Reforms, and Absolute Surplus Value: Intertemporal Exploitation in Contemporary Capitalism?
Marcelo Milan
16. Readings of Capital: A Starting Point for Reinventing Socialist Politics?
Ingo Schmidt
Postscript
Index
Marc Silver is Professor of Sociology at Hofstra University, USA
This book analyzes key aspects of Marx’s Capital with an eye towards its relevance for an understanding of issues confronting us in the 21st Century. The contributions to this volume suggest that while aspects of Marx’s original analysis must be adjusted to take into account changes that have occurred since its initial publication in 1867, his overall perspective remains necessary for understanding the nature of crises in 21st century. Part I emphasizes the central concepts Marx employed in Capital, includingexploitation, capital accumulation, commodity fetishism, and his use of dialectics as a method for baring the underlying relations that define capitalism. Parts II and III extend that focus by addressing the concept of value, fictitious capital, credit and financialization. Parts IV and V offer analyses of several concrete manifestations of contemporary crises from national contexts (Europe, Latin America, China, and the United States). The volume argues that we have to combat the imperatives of capitalism to move towards a more humane and egalitarian future.