Value, money and capital. The critique of political economy and contemporary capitalism

Abstract

This book aims to offer a still relatively unknown but potentially high-impact re-reading of Marx and Marxist debates. This will be achieved in the following ways. On the one hand, the book will address, in an original and innovative fashion, various classic and more recent debates in the Marxian critique of political economy, including: value-theory, the commodity-nature of money, complex or skilled labour, the determination of the value of labour-power, the nature of extraordinary surplus value, and the concrete forms of monetary circulation and the credit system. In revisiting these various controversies, the book will shed new light on what still are fundamental dimensions and processes of the capitalist economy, thus providing a fresh perspective on its contradictory foundations and developmental tendencies.On the other hand, the book will offer original insights into aspects of contemporary capitalism based upon its unique and novel take on recent debates surrounding the relevance of Marxism today. Those other intellectual controversies include: the increasingly intellectual character of commodity-producing labour, the emergence of global value chains, the relevance of ground-rent bearing commodities, and the specific, uneven developmental dynamics of ?resource-rich? countries in the global process of capital accumulation.We firmly believe that the book throws into relief the need for solid general theoretical and methodological foundations, in order to develop a critical scientific understanding of the recent transformations of the capitalist mode of production. Furthermore, it contributes to the renewed vitality of critical studies of the economic works of Karl Marx. It is intended for a readership interested in contemporary debates within Marxism, as well as for those scholars in the wider fields of political economy, economics, development studies and economic sociology, who are seeking for an alternative critical approach to the current configuration of the global capitalist economy.