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the complete review - economics

The Enigma of Capital

by
David Harvey

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B : useful examination of capitalism, but not particularly helpful re. alternatives/ways out

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Harvey is a polymath who has been a professor of geography and anthropology, and ventures into economics in this elegant, if ultimately unconvincing, book. Not long ago, he might have found it difficult to get much attention outside leftwing academia but his market has expanded. (...) Although some of it comes over as standard issue leftism, Harvey’s analysis is interesting not only for the breadth of his scholarship but his recognition of the system’s strengths." - John Gapper, Financial Times
  
  
• "Harvey argues that each major capitalist crisis has been worse than the last one, and more difficult to surmount. He accepts that capitalism, with all its resilience and inventiveness, is quite capable of overcoming this crisis too; but he is sceptical, and believes that this is the moment that a revived anti-capitalist movement can seize the opportunity to put forward a realistic alternative to capitalism as a way of organising the economy. This is perhaps where the argument is least convincing. (...) But this book is a welcome addition to the literature on the crisis. It provides a lucid and penetrating account of how the power of capital shapes our world, and sets out the case for a new radicalism and a vision of alternatives." - Andrew Gamble, The Independent
  
  
• "The real test of Harvey’s 1982 theory of crisis is how well it serves in the face of the thing itself. The Enigma of Capital can be read as an effort to meet the challenge. Naturally, its success or failure depends on whether it can offer a more comprehensive and persuasive account than rival theories. On the score of comprehensiveness there can be little doubt that Harvey’s work and that of other Marxists goes beyond the alternatives." - Benjamin Kunkel, London Review of Books
  
  
• "In a sturdy and truculent book, Harvey calls for war on the bosses. (...) Harvey's Marxian language is as antiquated as heraldry (.....) His chief interest, as one might expect from an urban geographer, is in cities. (...) My belief, for what it is worth, is that city dwellers cannot understand the world. Insulated from reality by complex and expert systems of provision and police, baffled by fashion and spectacle, city dwellers can distinguish neither the sources of their existence nor the consequences. How much the less, it follows, can an urban geographer." - James Buchan, New Statesman

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       In The Enigma of Capital David Harvey uses the recent 'crisis of capitalism' (from 2007 to the present, largely in the US and Europe) -- as well as the examples of past crises -- to make his arguments against capitalism itself. Harvey argues that there is a: "3 per cent compound growth rate that constitutes the capitalist juggernaut", as capitalism functions and feeds on itself by constant growth (with three per cent the magical/necessary minimum for economic satisfaction) -- a growth that, periodically (and, of course, over the long term), is impossible to sustain and leads -- so Harvey -- to increasingly severe crises. The most recent one, fueled especially by property speculation, again shows some of the weaknesses and problems with capitalism -- as does the growth of the financial sector (especially in the US) over the past few decades, which has been taking an increasingly large share of economic gains (i.e. an increasing percentage of corporate profits come from the financial sector) while the working class has seen no gains for some three decades in the US, as wage repression has meant all gains from increasing productivity has accrued to the top earners.
       A central part of the vicious circle of capitalism for Harvey is the problem of surplus capital, which has to go somewhere (and earn -- at least -- those magic three per cent) in order to keep the cycle going. The American financial crisis, even now, deep into 2010, has nothing to do with too little liquidity -- corporations (and banks) are awash with money -- but previously overextended (and under-paid) consumer-workers aren't spending enough to get the business cycle moving again; surplus capital is picky, too. As he notes:

In midsummer of 2009, one third of the capital equipment in the United States stood idle, while some 17 per cent of the workforce were either unemployed, enforced part-timers or 'discouraged' workers. What could be more irrational than that.

In the field of institutional arrangements, therefore, a whole new conception of property -- of common rather than private property rights -- will be required to make radical egalitarianism work in a radically egalitarian way. The struggle over institutional arrangements, then, has to move to the centre of political concerns.

there is no resolute and sufficiently unified anti-capitalist movement that can adequately challenge the reproduction of the capitalist class and the perpetuation of its power on the world stage.

- M.A.Orthofer, 14 December 2010

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Links:

• Profile Books publicity page
• Oxford University Press publicity page
• Profile in the New Humanist
• Interview in the International Socialist Review

• Financial Times
• The Independent
• London Review of Books
• Marx & Philosophy
• New Statesman
• Occupy Everything
• Socialist Review
• Tendance Coatesy

• Faculty page

• See Index of books dealing with Business and Economics

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About the Author:

       David Harvey was born in 1935; he teaches at CUNY.

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© 2010-2011 the complete review

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