Marx's Nightmare

It's high time we realized that there is hardly a thinker who has more perceptively sketched the outlines of a future that is our present. Contrary to what is repeated by those who would like to refute Marx without having read him, the economic predictions deduced from the analyses in Capital have, for the most part, been validated. This book demonstrates this with rare clarity, tracing the history of capitalism over the last hundred years in the light of Marxian theses. The concentration and centralization of capital, the creation of a world market and a global division of labor, right up to the emergence of Chinese power, are all in Marx. Joint-stock companies, investment funds, hedge funds, the development of speculation not on actual profits, but on expectations of future profits, junk bonds-in short, all the ways in which capital seeks to overcome the barriers inherent in the capitalist relationship-are all set out in some detail in Capital. Marx was right, for the worse. But capitalism keeps rising from its ashes. Revolution is a long time coming. Have we reached the end of history? Are rebellions nothing more than a flash in the pan on a joyless horizon? Are we condemned to watch the stock market yo-yo like helpless spectators? The author prefers not to resign himself to this. He shows how, by subjecting the entire planet to its law, by turning billions of Indians, Chinese and Africans into proletarians, by exploiting every possible field of accumulation, capitalism is preparing for the moment when the logic of surplus value will indeed collapse. In the meantime, this book examines a few avenues for a radical alternative.