Capitalism in the 21st Century: Through the Prism of Value

by Guglielmo Carchedi, Michael Roberts

Contemporary capitalism is always evolving. From digital technologies to cryptocurrencies, current trends in political economy are much discussed, but often little understood. So where can we turn for clarity? As Michael Roberts and Guglielmo Carchedi argue, new trends don’t necessarily call for new theory. In Capitalism in the 21st Century , the authors show how Marx’s law of value explains numerous issues in our modern world. In both advanced economies and the periphery, value theory provides a piercing analytical framework through which we can approach topics as varied as labour, profitability, automation and AI, the environment, nature and ecology, the role of China, imperialism and the state. This is an ambitious work that will appeal to both heterodox economists and labour movement activists alike, as it demonstrates the ongoing contemporary relevance of Marxist theory to current trends in political economy.

Genres: Economics, Nonfiction, Theory

288 pages, Paperback

Published December 20, 2022

Reviews

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent in every respect except on the class nature of Russia.

[Jon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Roberts is somewhat different than many other writers on Marxist economics because, since he was a professional economist in the City of London for over four decades, he has a great deal of practical knowledge—as opposed to most Marxist authors who are generally heavy on the academic (or theoretical) end of the pole.

That is not to say this work is light on the theoretical. Roberts and Carchedi (it is unclear which content was added by which author) have taken to task many theories across several fields, including global warming, degrowth, the pandemic, MMT, crypto, crises, imperialism, robotics, AI, and epistemology.

Their position is fairly orthodox Marxism—from the labor theory of value to the tendency of the rate of profit to fall—which they very helpfully back up with a lot of large datasets for empirical evidence. Overall, in painting a portrait of how relevant orthodox Marxist theory is to our contemporary world, I think they have written something genuinely insightful and easily proves their point.

And one last thing I'd like to mention (because of my particular interests) is their dialectic, which on the one hand is relatively simple, here limited to analysis of social phenomena, but on the other is also very nuanced:

Dialectical logic too, at least as submitted here, is based on three basic principles. First principle: social phenomena are always both realised and potential, For example, a commodity is only potentially such, as long as it is not offered for sale, that is, as long as it does not realise its potential use value and value.

This holds also for knowledge. In the analysis of both the objective labour process and the mental labour process the inputs have been considered as realised entities.

[...] Second principle: realised social phenomena are always both determinant and determined. If these two principles are combined, given two phenomena, A and B, a relation is said to be dialectical if A in its realised form contains B as a formless potential so that A is the realised condition of existence of B; and B, upon its realisation, becomes the realised condition of reproduction or super-session of A. A is determinant and B is determined.

The third principle follows logically from the first two: social phenomena are subject to constant movement and change. The picture of social reality that emerges from dialectical thinking is a temporal flow of realised (both deter-mining and determined) contradictory phenomena continuously emerging from and continuously going back to a potential state. This dynamic and thus temporal and contradictory movement escapes formal logic. Formal logic pertains only to the realm of the realised. Dialectical logic pertains also to the realm of the potential. Moreover, dialectical logic too deals with the realised, but at any given time realised phenomena can be either determinant or determined.

[Rishab jagetia · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was exactly what I searched for--an extensive treatise explaining the theory of value and how it applies to understanding modern-day capitalism. I found its explanation of the financialization of the economy and subsequent dependence on asset profits, which end up at different level than productive profits, bifurcating economy and straining options for government (ex housing), incredibly useful to understand in today's economy, as well as some hopeful leads for a Socialism of the future. However, it was too dry for me, and I don't think I had the theoretical background to understand this.

I also didn't find much use of the Money chapter and altogether feel like most of the knowledge I read has slipped out of my mind.