O Capitalismo Tardio

by Ernest Mandel

Late Capitalism is the first major synthesis to have been produced by the contemporary revival of Marxist economics. It represents, in fact, the only systematic attempt so far ever made to combine the general theory of the “laws of motion” of the capitalist mode of production developed by Marx, with the concrete history of capitalism in the twentieth century.

Mandel’s book starts with a challenging discussion of the appropriate methods for studying the capitalist economies. He seeks to show why the classical approaches of Luxemburg, Bukharin, Bauer and Grossman failed to accomplish the further development of Marxist theory whose urgency became evident after Marx’s death. He then sketches the structure of the world market and the variant types of surplus-profit that have characterized its successive stages. On these foundations, Late Capitalism proceeds to advance an extremely bold schema of the “long waves” of expansion and contraction in the history of capitalism, from the Napoleonic Wars to the present. Mandel criticizes and refines Kondratieff’s famous use of the notion.

Mandel’s book surveys in turn the main economic characteristics of late capitalism as it has emerged in the contemporary period. The last expansionary long wave, it argues, started with the victory of fascism on the European continent and the advent of the war economies in the US and UK during the 1940s, and produced the record world boom of 1947-72. Mandel discusses the reasons why the dynamic upswing of growth in this period was bound to reach its limits at the turn of the 1970s, and why a long wave of economic stagnation and intensified class struggle has set in today.

Late Capitalism is a landmark in Marxist economic literature. Specifically designed to explain the international recession of the 1970s, it is a central guide to understanding the nature of the world economic crisis today.

Genres: Economics, Politics, Nonfiction, Theory, Philosophy, History, Social Science

416 pages, Unknown Binding

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Ernest Ezra Mandel was a German born Belgian-Jewish Marxian economist and a Trotskyist activist and theorist. He fought in the underground resistance against the Nazis during the occupation of Belgium and he became a member of the Fourth International during his youth in Antwerp. Mandel is considered to be populariser of marxism.

Reviews

[Chris Nagel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mandel's analyses of permanent inflation, the arms economy, and the credit system are the best parts of this book. It's amazing how frequently his predictions of ever-broader, ever-deeper crises seem to have become realized. He presents the basic gameplan of capitalists of the period from 1970 to the present: eliminating democratic and collective organizing rights, lowering wages, reconsolidating the industrial reserve army, and continued quasi-colonization of markets and resources. All of that is now with us. Yet he argues in the end that this has already become unbearable (in 1975), and therefore a socialist revolution is well on the way.

The methods of state subvention and tremendous expansion of consumer credit have floated late capitalism ever since, it would appear. There is no reason to think the crises aren't becoming still more acute, because it's obviously impossible to sustain indefinitely a world economic system built on outright fraud, irreparable debt, and universally rapid consumption of resources, while perpetually lowering wages and increasing taxes on working people to pay for the privilege. There is not much more surplus value to be squeezed out, when 1/3 of workers in the most affluent economy in the world barely (or don't) subsist.

Stay tuned.

[Gerhard · Rating 5 out of 5]

I know that Ernest Mandel is not a decolonial thinker. However, decolonial theory is so inter-disciplinary that I have ended up going down some economic theory rabbit holes. Much to my chagrin.

Whereas decolonial theory adopts a racial/epistemic ‘lens’ (also a term that decoloniality regards as Sauron’s Eye in terms of adopting a Western-centric world-view), Mandel is a dyed in the wool Marxist.

I was going to add ‘apologist’ to the end of that sentence. But Mandel’s emphasis on the transnational structures of capital, imperialism, and the role of multinationals has been adopted, with great success, into the decolonial toolbox.

Mandel fixates on how capitalist accumulation and multinationals continue to thrive in ‘late’ capitalism (ironic title, given this was written in the 1970s, and we now have idiots like Elon Musk at the top of the global dung heap).

Decolonial theory insists on looking at who is racialised, how colonial hierarchies survive inside global capital, and how knowledge production itself is colonialised.

I am reminded of Achille Mbembe’s phrase of “planetary entanglement”; decolonial theory is one highly productive means of parsing this entanglement in a way that is relational and deeply affective.

I was worried that Mandel would be heavy going; I did skip over sections and some of his analysis made me cross-eyed. But, for the most part, this is highly accessible and still hugely influential.

[Andrew]

This is dense shit, and I honestly lacked the analytical tools or the shorthand-level familiarity with some very specific Marxist language, the sort of stuff taken from the deep cuts of volumes 2 and 3 of Capital (and I'm pretty sure I have a better grasp over Marxist language than like 99 percent of the reading public) to evaluate it properly. I suppose that more than anything else I was interested in the term "late capitalism," and Mandel uses a far narrower definition than we're used to using now -- one referring specifically to technocratic, postwar capitalism, based on Kondratiev wave theory.

Really, you have to keep in mind that Mandel was writing from a very specific time and place, namely the economic crises of the 1970s, as the postwar order was falling apart. His diagnoses are interesting, but it would be interesting to see what he had to say after 50 years of neoliberalism had destroyed that postwar consensus. I should also point out that everything is viewed through a highly specific orthodox Trotskyist lens, which for a democratic socialist, even a democratic socialist who is generally on board with Marx's economic perspectives and theory of history, makes this of limited use.

[Özgür Balmumcu · Rating 4 out of 5]

İlgili literatürün başat eserlerinden biri. Marx'ın Kapital'inin ve bir kısım Kapitalizm yazınının üzerine okunursa daha tamamlayıcı ve faydalı olur. Giriş ve 18 bölümden oluşan hacimli kitap sermayenin hareket yasalarına ve kapitalist dünya pazarının yapısına ışık tutmakla kalmıyor, modern kapitalizmin gelişiminde artı-kârın kaynaklarını da ortaya koyuyor başlangıçta. Böylelikle geç kapitalizme geçiş yaparken sonraki aşamada bu yeni dönemde sermayenin değer kazanması, teknolojik yeniliklerin hızlanması, tüketim toplumu gibi meseleleri ele alıyor. Finali ise devlet ve ideoloji üzerinden üretim ilişkilerinin bunalımını ortaya koyarak yapıyor. Normalde çok doyurucu ve ufuk açıcı olabilecek olan bu okuma süreci ne yazık ki vasatın altında bir çeviri ile tam bir okuma mücadelesine dönüşüyor. Versus uzun bir aradan sonra kitabın baskısını yenilemesine ve güzel bir baskıyla yeniden bizlere ulaştırmasına rağmen sorunlu çeviriyi elden geçirmeye gerek görmemiş. Anlamadığım şu; bir kitap yeni baskıya hazırlanırken gözden geçirilmiyor mu? Çevirideki sorunları fark etmemek mümkün değil çünkü. Sahi ilk baskısı aynı çeviri ile nasıl çıktı diyeceksiniz ama geçmişte kurgu dışı özellikle de iktisadi kitapların çevirileri çoğunlukla sıkıntılıydı zaten. Böyle bir çeviriyi şimdilerde okura yedirmeye çalışmak garip. Bu alanda yapılan en büyük çeviri hatalarından biri İngilizcenin yazım pratiklerini birebir Türkçeye aktarmaya kalkmak. O uzun bol kesmeli cümleler Türkçede başka bir şeye dönüşüyor. Hele ki kelimeler doğru sıralanmamışsa. Sonuç, sarkan cümleler, kayan anlamlar ve tekrar tekrar okunan paragraflar oluyor. Son yıllarda kurgu dışı kitaplarda bu kadar sıkıntılı bir çeviriye rastlamamıştım.

[Jon · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ernest Mandel was an interesting figure. As a youth he was active in Trotskyist circles, was an antifascist committed to the underground Belgian Resistance during WWII, and was a lifelong Marxist thereafter. Mandel identified as an Orthodox Marxist, was mostly influenced by pre-War Marxism, generally critical of Western developments of Marxism, and archly anti-Stalinist. In Late Capitalism he examines the post-War economy through what you could say is an Orthodox Marxist lens.

Say what you will of the labor theory of value, or even later Orthodox Marxist developments such as Kondratiev Waves (truth be told even this 'theoretical tourist' finds some of the former's far flung determinations too hard to swallow as presented), but the analyses produced through it are far too relevant to dismiss. And as practiced by Mandel in Late Capitalism, the theory has clearly reached a high point. To illustrate this I will briefly write about the accuracy of this book's conclusions (and since the English edition was published 45 years ago, there is plenty to compare against).

I would first like to say that our economy is very different from what it was 45 years ago, and granted, not all aspects of Late Capitalism have aged well. But even where things did not turn out as Mandel's theorizing predicted, his arguments are logical and consistent to such a degree that they clearly derive from the same place as the areas where he was quite uncannily (if not eerily) correct.

So several of Mandel's conclusions did not turn out as he theorized. There are many ideas which jump out, such as greater agitation in the labor movement (where has labor turned out to be in retreat for the last 40 years), or growth in the anti-imperialist movements in the so-called "developing world." But I think one of Mandel's main points, permanent inflation, is this book's largest flaw. Granted, we may live in an economy that has a form of permanent inflation—here in the US it is official policy of the Federal Reserve to target an inflation rate of 2% annually. But the problem is, instead of frequent bouts of "galloping inflation," I think it would be more accurate to to say the specter of deflation is what haunts our age. And even beyond our haunted age, since 1983 the US annual inflation rate has never surpassed 5.4%, and never surged in any way for an extended time (according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics). So despite being a large consequence of our age in this work, inflation has not been a major factor in the ensuing history of our economy.

But against these points, so many of Mandel's conclusions played out in uncanny detail. Examples abound, such as after the formation of the European common currency (which could only be a glimmer in anyone's eye in the mid-seventies), there would follow a crisis caused by the lack of monetary autonomy (which is the heart of the Euro Crisis today, which has plagued the Eurozone since 2010—since member nations have not been able to use monetary policy, such as devaluation, to help their national economies and have instead been forced by the monetary regime to become dependent on foreign lending and the implementation of harsh austerity measures—which have been deathly hard on their economic livelihoods).

Other things Mandel got right were technology monopolies becoming huge profit centers, the massive growth in consumer credit lending, and the expansion of universal surveillance of the population for both marketing and political reasons (he called it an "individual 'card index' for every citizen."). But another major development that one would think could only be dreamed of in the early to mid-seventies is the growth of the services sector. Perhaps this development was underway at that date, but from my understanding it only springs to its current importance in our economy during the era of globalization, starting in the 90's.

Overall I found this book like a breath of fresh theoretical air. Its sharp focus brings a lot of clarity to the current state of our economy, even if you have to overlook the kind of truths that can only be gained from hindsight. Clearly a milestone for Orthodox Marxism (and Marxism in general), Mandel's Late Capitalism proves its continuing relevance, in its own words.

I can only wonder where is our Ernest Mandel, a Mandel for today, who could incorporate developments since then, especially those he missed: disempowering of organized labor (as noted above); international outsourcing of jobs (over 14 million in 2015 alone, according to the US Bureau of Economic Analysis); the growth of the financial sector over and against the real economy; and the crumbling of our national infrastructure. These are questions our current economics do not answer, and the silence over them seems to only cause more problems and pain every year.

[Chelsea Szendi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably most important for all the work that has been built upon its shoulders: Jameson would not be able to advance postmodernism as the cultural logic of late capital without Mandel's analysis of what defines late capitalism.

His work is one of the analyze-the-dizzying-contradiction-of-capital school of Marxist studies, and his solution is simple:

"All these searing problems will remain insoluble so long as control over the forces of production is not wrested from the hands of the capital. The appropriation of the means of production by the associated producers, their planned application to priorities determined democratically by the mass of the workers, the radical reduction of working time as a precondition of active self-administration in economy and society, and the demise of commodity production and money relations are the indispensable steps to their solution."

I agree, but Mandel was still waiting for the mass revolutionary movement of the international working class in 1972.

[Tuncay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Almış olduğum Kapitalizm Tarihi dersinin yoğun olarak odaklandığı nokta bu kitaptır. Özellikle Uzun Dalgalar analizi ile dünya sermayesinin yaşamış olduğu krizleri ve dinamiklerini çok iyi bir şekilde örneklendirerek anlatmaktadır. Şahsi düşüncem, kitabın biraz ağır bir dile sahip olduğudur ve buna ek olarak konular içerisinde Mandel'in başlıklandırma yapmamış olması bu ağırlığı biraz daha artırmaktadır.

Kitabın 1970'lerde çıktığını düşünürsek, o dönemden günümüze gelene değin yaşananların analizinin bulunmadığını belirtmek isterim, ancak bu bir eksiklik olarak düşünülmemelidir. Marksist bir düşünür olan Ernest Mandel, sermayenin krizini çok güzel bir şekilde sunmaktadır.

Hem Dünya açısından hem de Türkiye açısından -bu kitaptan sonra okunmak kaydıyla- özellikle 2008 Çöküşü'ne gelene kadar yaşananlar da Sungur Savran Hoca'nın Üçüncü Büyük Depresyon: Kapitalizmin Alacakaranlığı isimli kitabından öğrenilebilir. Üçüncü Büyük Depresyon

[Alfred Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most interesting stream of thought in this book is that of long waves of capitalism brought about by technological change. not so much a cycle in the Kondratiev sense but increasing and decreasing rates of accumulation and shorter and longer crises. these are brought about by the massive increase in produtivity from technological changes in fixed capital, steam, internal combustion engine, electricity, nuclearetc as well as the cheapening of these to counteract the TRPF. in addition increases in turnover time from increased means of communication.

[Peter Harrison · Rating 5 out of 5]

A superb and detailed analysis of the state of capitalism in the early 1970s from the perspective of a Trotskyist Marxist. It does feel a touch dated, with the emphasis on the economic policies in vogue in about 1975 (in particular policy in relation to inflation). However the outlines of long waves, the third technological revolution, the development of a service economy, and the impact on the industrial cycle remain hugely relevant.

I read this book as a follow up to reading David Harvey on Postmodernism, and as Harvey suggests Mandel provides much of the economic theory that could underpin an understanding of the changes that have driven what we understand as postmodernity.

So slightly outdated but very much worth reading as a book which uses Marx's theories to analyse a more recent period in the history of capitalism, and holds out the beginnings of something that could be used to explain the modern economy.

[Humphrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mandel attempts at once to argue specific critiques of the supposed "prosperity" of the long wave of "late capitalism" beginning with WWII and to provide a sweeping overview of the capitalism in the period. I think he succeeds, though one consequence is that some chapters or parts of chapters will appeal less to some readers than others. I found the opening four chapters compelling (though these will be the more difficult for a newcomer to the field) as well as the chapters on varolization and class struggle, permanent inflation, and credit cycles. Though there are times when I felt the amount of data presented was insufficient, the accuracy of Mandel's assessments and predictions stands him in good stead.

[Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

This has been one of the most challenging, yet edifying, reads of my life. The material is necessarily dense and rife with confusing Marxist terminology, so I’ll begin my review with a few suggestions for any potential readers.

1. USE THE GLOSSARY. The terminology is actually very easy to understand once you know what you’re looking at, however it is a bit challenging to keep things straight in your head if this type of material is new to you. Refer back to the glossary often.

2. Mandel is a very organized writer and you can use this to your advantage. He essentially boils things down into three types of analysis: describing his theories/analysis (the most useful part of the book, what you’re reading for), math/evidence (often the best way to describe concepts, simple charts or basic equations to draw out the qualitative economics of his theories), and rebuttals of other writers (important and necessary for legitimacy but largely skippable).

3. Take notes and annotate. Obvious but necessary.

4. Chapters are essentially self contained, and although they refer back on themselves you can select certain sections and gain the information you need if you’re looking for specific information.

5. Take breaks! I read this over the course of a year with many other books peppered in, it makes a long and challenging read much more approachable. I would read a chapter a day, maybe two or three days in a row at most, take a break, digest the material, and return a few weeks later with the concepts integrated into my understanding.



I don’t have the background in Marxist theory or economics to criticize the book in any meaningful way other than to echo sentiments that others have already put forward in previous reviews, but it won’t stop me from trying.

At the time of reading this book is about 50 years old, and although Mandel is stunningly prescient and nearly every avenue of analysis and criticism can be applied to our modern economy, you do get the sense that he anticipated a political upheaval in the 70’s that never really came. Like others have said, I would of course be fascinated by an analysis of this scale with the last 50 years of history integrated.

It seems to me that Mandel’s analysis has largely been built on over the last five decades and the general ideas that he puts forward were not alien or surprising to me. Indeed the most shocking aspect of this book was how natural many of the conclusions were. Although his ideas have permeated into all avenues of leftist criticism, I would recommend this book purely on the basis of how methodical and comprehensive it really is. This has given me the groundwork for a strong criticism of capitalism and I’m so glad I stuck with it and made it through.

[noblethumos · Rating 5 out of 5]

Late Capitalism is a book written by Belgian Marxist economist Ernest Mandel and first published in 1972. The book is an analysis of the contemporary capitalist system, focusing on the period of economic development that followed World War II.

Mandel argues that the post-war period marked a new phase in the development of capitalism, characterized by a shift from industrial manufacturing to service-based economies and the increasing dominance of multinational corporations. He suggests that this shift has led to a new form of exploitation, as workers are increasingly treated as disposable commodities rather than as valuable contributors to the economy.

Mandel also explores the contradictions inherent in the capitalist system, including the tendency towards economic crises and the widening gap between the rich and the poor. He argues that these contradictions will eventually lead to the collapse of the capitalist system and the emergence of a socialist alternative.

Overall, Late Capitalism is a provocative and influential work of Marxist economics that continues to be widely read and discussed in academic and political circles. It has been praised for its incisive analysis of the contradictions of capitalism and its ability to shed light on the challenges facing contemporary societies. At the same time, it has also been criticized for its overly deterministic view of history and its tendency to oversimplify complex economic and social phenomena.

GPT

[Leonardo]

...en la actualidad el capital continúa acumulando mediante la subsunción en un ciclo de reproducción expandida, pero que cada vez más subsume no el medio ambiente no-capitalista sino su propio terreno capitalista-es decir, que la subsunción ya no es formal sino real. El capital ya no mira hacia fuera sino hacia adentro de sus dominios, y por ello su expansión es ahora más intensiva que extensiva. Este pasaje se centra en un salto cualitativo de la organización tecnológica del capital. Los estadios previos de la revolución industrial introdujeron bienes de consumo hechos-a-máquina, y luego máquinas-hechas-a-máquina, pero ahora nos hallamos confrontados a materias primas y víveres-hechos-a-máquina, en suma, naturaleza-hecha-a-máquina y cultura-hecha-a-máquina.

Imperio Pág.205-206

[Nate · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marx explained classical capitalism, Lenin explained imperialist capitalism, and Ernest Mandel in this book brings Marxist analysis up to date by explaining the distinctions and implications of Late Capitalism, the era of capitalism in which we are living today.

This is one of Ernest Mandel's most important books, written for an educated Marxist audience. One should have a good understanding of Marxist terminology and economics before attempting to read this book.

[Aslihan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most coherent and ncompassing analysis of the capitalist world economy. Despite many many parallels with dependency theory, it excells in linking different levels of operation in capitalism, comparing a brief and intact periodization of it, and finally, by updating Marx's analysis towards an inquiry of contemporary capitalism. Must read for those interested in political economy.

[Saramb · Rating 5 out of 5]

Still need to re-read this book to really get a grasp on all the Mandel explores in this book. Mandel's dedication to Marx's methodology is apparent in the fluidity of his writing and analysis. I really appreciate this work.

[Ben · Rating 5 out of 5]

Takes Marxist economic theory into the 20th century. I would only recommend tackling this after reading all volumes of Capital.