The Law of Worldwide Value: Second Edition / Edition 2

by Samir Amin

Overview

In this extensively revised and expanded edition of the 1978 classic, Samir Amin suggests new approaches to Marxian analysis of the crisis of the late capitalist system of generalized, financialized, and globalized oligopolies following on the financial collapse of 2008.
Considering that Marx’s Capital—written before the emergence of imperialism as a decisive factor in capitalist accumulation—could provide no explanation for the persistent “underdevelopment” of the countries of the “global South,” Amin advances several important theoretical concepts extending traditional Marxian views of capitalist evolution. Most strikingly, he proposes adding to the model of reproduction in Volume II of Capital a Third Department of Production devoted to surplus absorption and explores the concept of “imperialist rent” by extending the Marxian “law of value” in the form of a new “law of globalized value.”
Amin sees the present crisis as a moment in the second long crisis of the capitalist system, dating from the early 1970s (the first long crisis, he maintains, lasted from 1873 until 1945). He sees no exit from repeatedcrises under capitalism except the descent into barbarism. The challenge is not to escape from the crisis of capitalism—a hopeless project—but to escape from capitalism in crisis. And Amin reasserts his historical optimism as to the socialist project, expecting a “second wave” of socialist attempts that will stem from the self-liberating efforts of the nations and peoples of the South and will lead to an awakening of the Northern popular classes to join the awakening of the global South. This book has an important place among the theoretical resources for anyone involved in the study of contemporary Marxian economic and political theory.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781583672334
Publisher:	Monthly Review Press
Publication date:	12/01/2010
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	1,024,534
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.34(d)

About the Author

Samir Amin was one of Africa’s leading Marxists and world-systems analysts. He is well known for his work on non-Eurocentric Marxism, imperial rent, the global monopoly phase of capitalism, delinking; his call for a Fifth International of workers and peoples and his anti-imperialism.

Table of Contents

Introduction to the English Edition 9

Chapter 1 The Fundamental Status of the Law of Value 15

1 An Illustration with a Simple Model of Accumulation 18

2 Realization of the Surplus Product and the Active Function of Credit 22

3 Given the Hypothesis of Unchanging Real Wages, Is Accumulation Possible? 23

4 From Prices of Production to Market Prices 28

5 The Unavoidable Detour by Way of Value 30

6 Is an Empiricist Approach to Accumulation Possible? 33

7 Sraffa's Schema 33

8 Economic Laws and the Class Struggle 44

9 Is the Law of Value Outdated? 50

Annex to Chapter 1 An Algebraic Model of Expanded Reproduction 55

Chapter 2 Interest, Money, and the State 61

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From the Publisher

“A substantial contribution to Marxist analysis . . . without a doubt a significant advance.”
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A substantial contribution to Marxist analysis . . . without a doubt a significant advance.”
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From the Publisher

"A substantial contribution to Marxist analysis . . . without a doubt a significant advance."

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