Beyond Capital (2 Volumes)

Like Capital, this is the author’s life work. He shows how the philosophers from Locke to Hegel have assumed the permanence and immutability of capitalism and takes issue with its apologists from Malthus to Hayek, exposing their special pleading with masterly scorn. He explains the destructive consequences of global capitalism from chronic unemployment to massive indebtedness and the necessity for armaments production. As with Capital, the author’s commitment and concern for the exploited shines through. The Review of Metaphysics stressed it about an earlier work, Marx’s Theory of Alienation, commenting: ‘In the hands of a creative thinker, conviction and passion can give wings to the freedom struggle. Mészáros’s book is a “Winger” — one of the most far-reaching books on the subject of Marx’s theory of alienation since Lukács’s seminal History and Class Consciousness!’ Mészáros defines the capital system as embracing private ownership, and Soviet type postcapitalism; both share the same hierarchical structure, the same destructive tendencies and the same exploitation of the labour force. Capitalism may appear to be triumphant world-wide but Beyond Capital is a devastating exposure of a system which can only renew itself at the cost of increasing its problems and can only delay but not avoid its eventual collapse. The theoretical scope and intellectual rigour of Beyond Capital is matched by its practical importance; Beyond Capital is a major contribution to the development of socialist strategies in these times of despondency and crisis of the historical left.