Capital (PDF)

The 2008 financial crisis has come to be known as the Great Crisis. Just when the world thought that, with the Fall of the Berlin Wall, Marxism would die and be buried, the Great Crisis of the first decade of the 21st century, has triggered a renewed interest in Marxism. This book looks at Marx's seminal work - Capital, A Critique of Political Economy - from an energy perspective. By combining the thoughts of this great thinker with those of scholars on energy, both past and present, this book serves to enhance the scientific thought of Marx, by using energy as a conceptual and analytical tool. With the capitalist economy taking repeated beatings since 2008, mainstream economic science is also under critical scrutiny for the unpredictable manner in which it has thus far analysed the global capitalist system. The invisible hand and self-interest theses of Adam Smith and his adherents are proving to be unworthy of their 250 year ideological grip on mankind and the natural environment. The 500 year-old capitalist system itself is showing signs of wear and tear, and so are its sciences that have thus far attempted to analyse it, if not uphold it. With the growing acknowledgement of energy as a central entity in all of aspects of life, disciplines such as economics are giving rise to interdisciplinary sciences such as econophysics; and sociology may see a revival of its founding discipline - sociophysics. All disciplines, it seems, will have to incorporate energy as a field of study in their curricula. Marx's thoughts in Capital are an amalgamation of science, philosophy, history, sociology, political economy, and anthropology, among others. Capital: An Energy Perspective provides a fresh look at the physical workings of the capitalist economy - by using Marx's Capital as a framework of interpretation and analysis.