This study offers a close examination of Marx's dialectical method of analysis through the lens of current debates in cultural studies, political economy, and critical sociology. It seeks to reanimate Marx's theoretical reconstruction of the capitalist formation from the point of view of recent social dynamics within advanced consumer economies.
Beverley Best researches the modalities of contemporary capitalist society and how these modalities are expressed in conventions of perception and representation, dynamics of collective subjectivity, aesthetic ideologies, and cultural forms and practices. Her recent work focuses on the deep value dynamics of financialization, as well as the social and ideological formations of that historical process. Dr. Best has also pursued studies of analytical methods such as critical theory, critique of political economy, and dialectics. She is currently preparing a monograph titled, The Automatic Fetish: Perceptual Economies of Capital.