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Modern Imperialism, Monopoly Finance Capital, and Marx's Law of Value: Monopoly Capital and Marx's Law of Value
The complete collection of Samir Amin's work on Marxism value theory
Unlike such obvious forms of oppression as feudalism or slavery, capitalism has been able to survive through its genius for disguising corporate profit imperatives as opportunities for individual human equality and advancement. But it was the genius of Karl Marx, in his masterwork, Capital, to discover the converse law of surplus behind the illusion of the democratic, supply-and-demand marketplace, lies the workplace, where people trying to earn a living are required to work way beyond the time it takes to pay their wages. Leave it to the genius of Samir Amin to advance Marx's theories―adding to them the work of radical economists such as Michal Kalecki, Josef Steindl, Paul Baran, and Paul Sweezy―to show how Marxian theory can be adapted to modern economic conditions.
Amin extends Marx's analysis to describe a concept of “imperialist rent” derived from the radically unequal wages paid for the same labor done by people in both the Global North and the Global South, the rich nations and the poor ones. This is global oligopolistic capitalism, in which finance capital has come to dominate worldwide production and distribution. Amin also advances Baran and Sweezy’s notion of economic surplus to explain a globally monopolized system in which Marx's “law of value” takes the form of a “law of globalized value,” generating a super-exploitation of workers in the Global South. Modern Imperialism, Monopoly Finance Capital, and Marx's Law of Value offers readers, in one volume, the complete collection of Samir Amin’s work on Marxian value theory. The book includes texts from two of Amin's recent works, Three Essays on Marx’s Value Theory and The Law of Worldwide Value, which have provoked considerable controversy and correspondence. Here, Amin answers his critics with a series of letters, clarifying and developing his ideas. This work will occupy an important place among the theoretical resources for anyone involved in the study of contemporary Marxian economic and political theory.
Unlike such obvious forms of oppression as feudalism or slavery, capitalism has been able to survive through its genius for disguising corporate profit imperatives as opportunities for individual human equality and advancement. But it was the genius of Karl Marx, in his masterwork, Capital, to discover the converse law of surplus behind the illusion of the democratic, supply-and-demand marketplace, lies the workplace, where people trying to earn a living are required to work way beyond the time it takes to pay their wages. Leave it to the genius of Samir Amin to advance Marx's theories―adding to them the work of radical economists such as Michal Kalecki, Josef Steindl, Paul Baran, and Paul Sweezy―to show how Marxian theory can be adapted to modern economic conditions.
Amin extends Marx's analysis to describe a concept of “imperialist rent” derived from the radically unequal wages paid for the same labor done by people in both the Global North and the Global South, the rich nations and the poor ones. This is global oligopolistic capitalism, in which finance capital has come to dominate worldwide production and distribution. Amin also advances Baran and Sweezy’s notion of economic surplus to explain a globally monopolized system in which Marx's “law of value” takes the form of a “law of globalized value,” generating a super-exploitation of workers in the Global South. Modern Imperialism, Monopoly Finance Capital, and Marx's Law of Value offers readers, in one volume, the complete collection of Samir Amin’s work on Marxian value theory. The book includes texts from two of Amin's recent works, Three Essays on Marx’s Value Theory and The Law of Worldwide Value, which have provoked considerable controversy and correspondence. Here, Amin answers his critics with a series of letters, clarifying and developing his ideas. This work will occupy an important place among the theoretical resources for anyone involved in the study of contemporary Marxian economic and political theory.
280 pages, Paperback
Published February 22, 2018
About the author
Samir Amin
291 books339 followersSamir Amin (Arabic: سمير أمين) (3 September 1931 – 12 August 2018) was an Egyptian-French Marxian economist, political scientist and world-systems analyst. He is noted for his introduction of the term Eurocentrism in 1988 and considered a pioneer of Dependency Theory.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
April 26, 2024
Very important contributions. Will have to return to this a lot as I learn more- still need to study many of the points of contention dealt with in here. An interesting argument on complex vs abstract labor- not sure if I agree yet but is more convincing than the confusion of value of labor power and value produced by labor that often is presented. The argument around interest rates and the representation of the collective interests of capital are very important. They deal with a problem I'd struggled with reading volume 3 of Capital- Marx's relegation of the problem to only 'supply and demand' was surprising given his emphatic criticism of that surface-level approach in other areas.
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September 11, 2019Egyptian Historian, Economist and Diplomat Samir Amin wrote different books like "Unequal Development" and "Imperalism and Unequal Development" about "modern imperialism". This book contains new thoughts and new observations of Samir Amin. Samir Amin thinks about Marx's "Capital" to understand to define new changes in "the world capitalism". Marx's thoughts about "the concept of value" are important for Samir Amin to understand the development of capitalism in 21. Century. Changes in financial relations in the world can be understood with Marxist concepts, Samir Amin explains.
March 20, 2021
While there are problems overall with Amin's research, this small collection of essays is a valuable contribution to Marxist thought. Amin attempts to extend Marx's projected arguments in the last 4 volumes of _Capital_ and also to reconcile and update Marxist theory into the age of globalization and finance capital. He makes several good points (his contribution, along with Andre Gunder Frank and others, toward understanding uneven development and imperialism is absolutely necessary scholarship in any case) that should be assimilated into contemporary critiques of capitalism.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews