For over forty years, David Harvey has been one of the world's most trenchant and critical analysts of capitalist development. In The Enigma of Capital, he delivers an impassioned account of how unchecked neoliberalism produced the system-wide crisis that now engulfs the world. Accompanying this was a shift towards privatization, an absolute decline in the bargaining power of labor, and the dispersion of production throughout the developing world. The decades-long and ongoing declinein wages that accompanied this turn produced a dilemma: how can goods - especially real estate - sell at the same rate as before if workers are making less in relative terms? The answer was a huge expansion of credit that fueled the explosive growth of both the financial industry and the real estate market. When one key market collapsed - real estate - the other one did as well, and social devastation resulted. Harvey places today's crisis in the broadest possible context: the historicaldevelopment of global capitalism itself from the industrial era onward. Moving deftly between this history and the unfolding of the current crisis, he concentrates on how such crises both devastate workers and create openings for challenging the system's legitimacy. The battle now will be between the still-powerful forces that want to reconstitute the system of yesterday and those that want to replace it with one that prizes social justice and economic equality. The new afterword focuses on the continuing impact of the crisis and the response to it in 2010.
The Enigma of Capital:And the Crises of Capitalism
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"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."--Publishers Weekly
"A lucid and penetrating account of how the power of capital shapes our world."--Andrew Gamble, Independent
"Elegant... entertainingly swashbuckling... 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
"Brisk and persuasive... Looking at the Unites States, it is hard to see anything as Benign as the New Deal coming out of the present situation. If it does, it will probably owe a good deal to David Harvey's students."--The Literary Review
"[T]he recent near-collapse of the global economic system has added new plausibility to Marxist analysis, and David Harvey is certainly its most elegant and persuasive spokesperson . . . Harvey's [The Enigma of Capital] reminds us of the fundamental instability of the capitalist system, despite its remarkable innovations."--Tikkun
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
About the Author
David Harvey is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He is among the top twenty most cited authors in the humanities and is the world's most cited academic geographer. His books include The Limits to Capital, Social Justice and the City, and The Condition of Postmodernity, among many others.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
By Nic
Format:Hardcover
This is one of the most accessible, lucid and informative books I have ever read. By far the most convincing analysis of the current economc crisis I have come across, but more than that, Harvey's ability to move across different 'moments' of the body politic and to weave an analysis of social evolution is unmatched. A very open and non dogmatic approach to Marxist historical materialism, which also adds a critical geographical analysis/component to that framework. Should appeal to people from a range of disciplines and to the expert and non expert alike.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a relatively accessible account of the crisis. Harvey brings to the contemporary crisis his unique methodological approach: "historical geographical" materialism. While his insistence on the importance of the spatial aspects of capital accumulation is to be recommended, some of his historical assumptions are questionable. David McNally's Global Slump is a good contrast.
1 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
I found there was an awful lot of information in the book. Dr Harvey really explored a lot of things that have gone on in the world and it fit in with the study I am doing on Western Civilization. I found particularily interesting his frequent referral to Karl Marx and the book Capital which was required for another course. Harvey explained Marx better than Marx, and I have to agree. When it came to his solutions for the world I found it more than a bit unrealistic; although I appreciate what has been done in China and east Asia I know that they had to vere off pure communisism in order to reach the success they are now achieving. Although he is a geographer, he does not discuss the potential in his own country or in Canada and feel his emphasis on the negative is overdone.
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