The negative of capital: the Marxian concept of economic crisis

In: Historical materialism book series volume 308

Abstract

"The complex exposition of the concept of economic crisis in Capital and its preparatory manuscripts gave rise to different interpretations about the causes and modalities of crises themselves. Are their causes chronic under-consumption, inter-sectoral disproportionality or a fall in the profit rate? Are they merely possible or absolutely inevitable? Jorge Grespan's work renews these traditional debates by treating the concept of crisis as the negative of the concept of capital. By means of a thoroughgoing exposition of Marx's masterwork, his book reconstitutes the steps by which Capital's exposition progressively enriches its content and form. To this end, dialectical categories such as measurelessness and relative necessity are mobilised and developed"--