Critiquing Capitalism Today

This book critically introduces two compelling contemporary schools of Marxian thought: the New Reading of Marx of Michael Heinrich and Werner Bonefeld, and the postoperaismo of Antonio Negri. Each stake novel claims on Marx's value theory, the first revisiting key categories of the critique of political economy through Frankfurt School critical theory, the second calling the law of value into crisis with reference to Marx's rediscovered 'Fragment on Machines'. Today, 'postcapitalist' conceptualisations of a changing workplace excite interest in postoperaist projections of a crisis of measurability sparked by so-called immaterial labour. Using the New Reading of Marx to question this prospectus, Critiquing Capitalism Today clarifies complex debates for newcomers to these cutting-edge currents of critical thought, looking anew at value, money, labour, class and crisis.

1. Introduction: Marxian Value Theory in New Times. - 2. Value, Time and Abstract Labour. - 3. Money and the Exchange Abstraction. - 4. Labour in the Valorisation Process. - 5. Class, Critique and Capitalist Crisis. - 6. Immanence, Multitude and Empire. - 7. The Fragment on Machines. - 8. A Crisis of Measurability. - 9. Creative Industries and Commodity Exchange. - 10. Conclusion: From Postoperaismo to Postcapitalism.