The enigma of capital And the crises of capitalism

David Harvey, 1935-

Book - 2010

"Since the moment the deeply unsettling financial disaster erupted in September 2008, a crisis of confidence has gripped the economic mind. Experts of all stripes, from Alan Greenspan on down, were at a loss to explain what had happened. David Harvey saw this moment coming. A legendary scholar and critic of capitalism, he has been warning of problems for decades. Now, in The Enigma of Capital, Harvey provides a sweeping and brilliantly clear explanation of how the disaster happened, and how we can avoid another like it. Unlike other commentators, Harvey does not focus on subprime loans or mortgage securitization as the root cause of the calamity. Instead, he looks at something that reaches far deeper into the heart of capitalism--the f...low of money through society. He shows how falling profit margins in the 1970s generated a deep transformation. With government assistance, capital was freed to flow across borders, and production moved to cheaper labor markets, depressing workers' incomes in the West. But as more and more money moved out of the laboring classes and into the pockets of the wealthy, a problem arose--how could the workers afford to buy the products which fueled the now-global economy? To solve this problem, a new kind of finance capitalism arose, pouring rivers of credit to increasingly strapped consumers. Moreover, these financial institutions loaned money to both real-estate developers as well as home buyers--in effect, controlling both the supply and demand for housing. But when the real-estate market collapsed, so did this financial edifice, an edifice that dominated our economy. We cannot afford to simply shore up this financial system, Harvey writes; we need to undertake a radical overhaul. With this landmark account, he offers a richly informed discussion of how we can turn our economy in a new direction--fairer, healthier, more just, and truly sustainable"--Publisher's description.

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Subjects
Published
Oxford [England] ; New York : Oxford University Press 2010.
Language
English
Main Author
David Harvey, 1935- (-)
Item Description
"Published in the United Kingdom in 2010 by Profile Books Ltd."--Title page verso.
Physical Description
viii, 296 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Bibliography
Includes bibliographical references (pages 263-267) and index.
ISBN
9780199758715
9780199836840
  • Preamble
  • 1. The Disruption
  • 2. Capital Assembled
  • 3. Capital Goes to Work
  • 4. Capital Goes to Market
  • 5. Capital Evolves
  • 6. The Geography of It All
  • 7. Creative Destruction on the Land
  • 8. What is to be Done? And Who is Going to Do It?
  • Appendices
  • Sources and Further Reading
  • Index
Review by Choice Review

Harvey (anthropology, Graduate Center, CUNY), whose books include A Brief History of Neoliberalism (CH, Oct, 06, 44-1213), Cosmopolitanism and the Geographies of Freedom (CH, May'10, 47-5170), and Spaces of Global Capitalism (2006), is one of our deepest and most creative social theorists. Unfortunately, many of his books require some degree of prior training to make them accessible. This volume is different. It is not beyond upper-division undergraduate students, and although it is not packed as densely as Harvey's earlier works, it contains material that will be useful for advanced scholars. After an introductory chapter on the present financial disruption, the book follows capital in successive chapters, showing how it is assembled and how it produces, sends goods to market, and finally evolves. The penultimate chapters put the subject in the context of geography and the environment, respectively. Harvey concludes the book with provocative questions and recommendations about what needs to be done and who will do it. Stocking this book is highly recommended. It will be well used and well appreciated. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduate through research and faculty collections. M. Perelman California State University, Chico

Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review

Harvey, longtime academic teaching Karl Marx's Das Capital, discusses capital flow, which is the lifeblood of all capitalist societies, spreading throughout the world like blood circulating through the human body, noting that the body dies when the blood flow stops. The author contends that many economists, executives, and politicians may not fully understand the nature of capital flows as the global institutions and lenders suck the life blood out of people everywhere, especially the poor, and central bankers' actions result in excess liquidity, falsely believing such transfusions will cure capital-flow problems. We learn about the disruptions and destruction of capital flow and the author's suggested guiding norms (which he readily admits are utopian), including respect for nature, radical equality in social relations, and technological and organizational innovations oriented toward the common good rather than supporting military power and corporate greed. Although this is clearly a view from the Left, and all readers will not agree with Harvey, he nevertheless offers thought-provoking analysis and ideas in this excellent but challenging book.--Whaley, Mary Copyright 2010 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

"At times of crisis," notes eminent Marxist geographer Harvey (Spaces of Global Capitalism), "the irrationality of capitalism becomes plain for all to see." Harvey excels at a revealing and constructive analysis of global capitalism at a moment when its integration-and the attendant widespread susceptibility to its disruptions and downturns-has never been tighter or the post-cold war Western economic model for the world economy more discredited. The narrative delineates with admirable clarity the arcane details of the current financial crisis, while rehearsing the rise of capitalism as a historically specific "process" plagued by fundamental dilemmas. A Marxist perspective comes augmented and nuanced by wide reference to scholarship, close readings of Marx and Engels, and instructive examples of capitalism's basic tendencies in episodes like Henry Ford's notorious Fordlandia venture in the Amazon. While certain to be controversial even on the broad left, Harvey's analysis joins other recent attempts (such as Raj Patel's The Value of Nothing) to re-think the current economic and political regime from its roots, while identifying and variously championing ready alternatives already manifesting themselves within it. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved