The Fragile Juggernaut

Marx & Engels on Capitalism, Class Struggle and Crisis

Series: 

Author:
Harry Cleaver
Whether loving or hating it, many visualize capitalism as an unstoppable juggernaut. For those of us who would defeat it, we must identify its weaknesses. Fortunately, Marx and Engels’ writings on “crisis” reveal them. They show how its endless imposition of exploitative and alienating work creates such antagonistic conflicts everywhere as to make it, ultimately, a far more fragile monster than it first appears. Each of its efforts to shape social relationships, subordinating them to the work of commodity production and its control over society, has been and can be thrown into crisis by those of us resisting its way of life and seeking to create more appealing alternatives.
Copyright Year:
2025
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978-90-04-70863-1
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18 Nov 2024
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ISBN:
978-90-04-70836-5
Publication:
21 Nov 2024
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About MyBook
Harry Cleaver is Associate Professor, Emeritus, at the Department of Economics, University of Texas at Austin and author of Reading Capital Politically (AK Press/Anti-Thesis, 1979 and 2000), Rupturing the Dialectic: The Struggle Against Work, Money, and Financialization (AK Press, 2017) and 33 Lessons on Capital: Reading Marx Politically (Pluto Press, 2019).
Foreword
Preface

1 Introduction
 1 Work, the Vulnerable Heart of Capitalism
 2 “Class” and Class Struggle
 3 Capitalism, the Fragile Juggernaut
 4 What Constitutes a Crisis?

2 Marx & Engels’ Studies of Crisies, 1843−1895
 1 The Early Studies: 1842−1852
  1.1 Paris and Manchester
  1.2 Brussels
  1.3 Paris
  1.4 Cologne
  1.5 London
 2 Years of Theory, 1857−1867
  2.1 From Notes to Weighty Tomes
  2.2 The First International (1864–1876)
 3 After Capital, 1867−1895
  3.1 A New Terrain of Struggle: Electoral Politics
  3.2 Continuing Conflicts within the First International
  3.3 War and the Paris Commune
  3.4 Revisions and Translations
  3.5 Working Class Parties and Debates
  3.6 Marx: Critique of the Gotha Program
  3.7 Engels: Anti-Dühring
  3.8 Engels: Socialism: Utopian & Scientific
  3.9 Engels: the Dialectics of Nature
  3.10 Periodical Crisis Becomes Permanent Stagnation?
  3.11 The Second International
  3.12 Engels: Sources and Circulation of Crises

3 Marx’s Theory of Accumulation
 1 A “Labor” Theory of Value?
 2 The Material Circuits of Accumulation
 3 Three Observations
 4 Omnipresent Conflict; Omnipresent Struggle
 5 Conditions of Reproduction
 6 Accumulation in Terms of “Value”
  6.1 The Substance of Value
  6.2 The Measure of Value
  6.3 The Form of Value

4 The Possibilities of Crisis
 1 Markets & Crisis
 2 And in Capitalism Per Se
 3 Possibilities of Crisis in the First Stage of the Circuit: Investment
  3.1 Possible Crises in Gathering Enough Money, M
  3.2 Possible Crises in Hiring in the Labor Market, L – P
  3.3 Possible Crises of Hiring in the Labor Market, M – LP
  3.4 Possible Crises for Buyers of the Means of Production, M – MP
 4 Possibilities of Crisis in the Second Stage of the Circuit: Production
  4.1 Possible Crises with Labor-Power, LP in … P …
  4.2 Possible Crises in Means of Production, MP in … P …
  4.3 Possible Crises Caused by a Rising Organic Composition of Capital
  4.4 Possible Crises Due to a Tendency for the Rate of Profit to Fall
 5 Possibilities of Crisis in the Third Stage of the Circuit: Sales
  5.1 Possible Crises in Selling Slaves, C(LP) – M′
  5.2 Possible Crises in Selling C(MS)’ or C(MP)’
  5.3 Credit, Debt, and Commercial Crisis
  5.4 Summarizing

5 Predispositions to Crisis
 1 Predispositions in the First Stage of the Circuit: Investment
  1.1 Forces Limiting Access to Money for Investment, M
  1.2 Forces Interfering with the Supply of Labor-Power, LP
  1.3 Forces Causing a Shortage in the Supply of the Means of Production, MP
 2 Predispositions in the Second Stage: Production
  2.1 Predispositions to Breakdowns in Labor-Power, LP
  2.2 Predispositions to Breakdowns in the Means of Production, MP
  2.3 Predispositions to Increasing the Organic Composition of Capital
  2.4 Predispositions to a Falling Rate of Profit Tendency and Its Crises
 3 Predispositions in the Third Stage of the Circuit: Sales
  3.1 Predispositions to Crises in Selling Slaves, C(LP) – M′
  3.2 Predisposition to Crises in Markets for C(MS)’ or C(MP)’
  3.3 Predispositions to Credit Crises
 4 The Circulation of Breakdown
  4.1 Quantitative and Qualitative Change
  4.2 Circulation of Crisis within Individual Circuits
  4.3 Circulation of Crisis among Interconnected Circuits
 5 Linkages among Tendencies

6 Offsetting Strategies and Their Contradictions
 1 Force
 2 Laws: Writing and Enforcing
 3 Ideology: Ideas, Institutions and Behavior
 4 Strategic Ideas
 5 Apologetic Ideas
 6 Structural Changes
 7 Offsets in the First Stage of the Circuit: Investment
  7.1 Getting Enough Money
  7.2 Fixing the Supply of Labor-Power
  7.3 Offsetting Crises in Buying the Means of Production, M – MP
 8 Offsets in the Second Stage of the Circuit: Production, … P …
  8.1 Countering Breakdowns in Labor-Power
  8.2 Countering Breakdowns in the Means of Production
  8.3 Offsets to Crises Due to Rising Organic Composition of Capital
  8.4 Offsets to the Falling Rate of Profit Tendency
 9 Offsets in the Third Stage of the Circuit: Sales
  9.1 Dealing with Crises in Selling Slaves, C(LP) – M′
  9.2 Dealing with Crises in Selling C(MS)’ or C(MP)’
  9.3 Dealing with Crises in Selling the Means of Production, C(MP)’ – M′
  9.4 Countering Credit and Commercial Crises
 10 Offsets to the Circulation of Breakdown
  10.1 Dealing with Qualitative Change
  10.2 Blunting Circulation within Individual Circuits
  10.3 Blunting Circulation among Interconnected Circuits

7 Crises as Solutions to the Contradictions of Accumulation
 1 In the First Stage of the Circuit: LP – M/M – LP
 2 In the Second Stage of the Circuit: …P…
 3 In the Third Stage of the Circuit: C′ – M′

8 Crisis and Revolution
 1 Revolution: Another Amoebic Term
 2 “Revolution” as Used by Marx and Engels

Appendix 1: Note to Polish Readers (2016)
Appendix 2: Annotated Bibliography of Marx and Engels’ Writings on Crisis
Index
Everyone interested in Marx, Engels, class struggle or crisis: university scholars, students, libraries, those involved in the labor movement, civil rights or ecological struggles.
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