RFH Ep. 66 How Not to Evaluate the Relevance of “Capital”

Prominent critics claim that changes in capitalism since Marx’s time have made his analyses in Capital less relevant. They say that the world no longer looks like the world described in Capital, or that important aspects of capitalism are overlooked or left underdeveloped by Marx. The co-hosts discuss Andrew’s essay, “How Not to Evaluate the Relevance of Marx’s Capital,” which challenges such claims. He argues that they miss the mark because they presume, incorrectly, that Capital is a descriptive work or a book about (all of) capitalism. He and Brendan then discuss Silvia Federici’s claim that Marx “ignored” women’s reproductive work, and Paul Baran & Paul Sweezy’s claim that Marx’s falling-rate-of-profit theory is no longer relevant in the age of “monopoly capital.” Andrew argues that these claims are wrongheaded, partly because they mischaracterize Capital’s genre.