surplus value

graphs and book cover

Dmitry Pozhidaev reviews Capitalism in the Twenty-first Century Through the Prism of Value, by Guglielmo Carchedi and Michael Roberts, which aims to explain 21st-century capitalism through Karl Marx鈥檚 value theory.

We're all familiar with the old maxim: 鈥渢he rich get richer while the poor get poorer鈥. It is said as often with resignation as it is as a call to action.

Left unquantified it remains abstract but it is much easier to get worked up when the sheer scale of material inequality is in front of your face. Hence the growing outcry surrounding Oxfam's recent annual reports on global inequality that clearly demonstrate the concentration of world resources in the hands of the 0.1%.