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Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism

David Harvey

4.07 · Rating details · 913 ratings · 84 reviews

"What I am seeking here is a better understanding of the contradictions of capital, not of capitalism. I want to know how the economic engine of capitalism works the way it does, and why it might stutter and stall and sometimes appear to be on the verge of collapse. I also want to show why this economic engine should be replaced, and with what." --from the Introduction
To "What I am seeking here is a better understanding of the contradictions of capital, not of capitalism. I want to know how the economic engine of capitalism works the way it does, and why it might stutter and stall and sometimes appear to be on the verge of collapse. I also want to show why this economic engine should be replaced, and with what." --from the Introduction
To modern Western society, capitalism is the air we breathe, and most people rarely think to question it, for good or for ill. But knowing what makes capitalism work--and what makes it fail--is crucial to understanding its long-term health, and the vast implications for the global economy that go along with it.
In Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, the eminent scholar David Harvey, author of A Brief History of Neoliberalism, examines the internal contradictions within the flow of capital that have precipitated recent crises. He contends that while the contradictions have made capitalism flexible and resilient, they also contain the seeds of systemic catastrophe. Many of the contradictions are manageable, but some are fatal: the stress on endless compound growth, the necessity to exploit nature to its limits, and tendency toward universal alienation. Capitalism has always managed to extend the outer limits through "spatial fixes," expanding the geography of the system to cover nations and people formerly outside of its range. Whether it can continue to expand is an open question, but Harvey thinks it unlikely in the medium term future: the limits cannot extend much further, and the recent financial crisis is a harbinger of this.
David Harvey has long been recognized as one of the world's most acute critical analysts of the global capitalist system and the injustices that flow from it. In this book, he returns to the foundations of all of his work, dissecting and interrogating the fundamental illogic of our economic system, as well as giving us a look at how human societies are likely to evolve in a post-capitalist world.
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Published April 4th 2014 by Oxford University Press, USA (first published February 18th 2014)

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May 19, 2015 Emma Sea rated it really liked it

Shelves: neoliberalism, auckland-library, economics, capitalism, political-science

Far superior in every way to schlock like This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs. The Climate.

I want to write a lengthy and detailed review to convince people to read this, but I just don't have time right now, so listen, READ THIS. ...more

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Mar 22, 2016 Anna rated it liked it

Shelves: environment, nonfiction, economics, politics

I don’t know whether to be more surprised at myself or at this book. On the face of it, we should be made for each other - an account of the often-ignored structural contradictions of capitalism, couched in accessible language rather than impenetrable psychoanalytic theory. Yet here I am giving it three stars. There were certainly many thought-provoking points within ‘Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism’, however in most cases I fear they have already been better expressed elsewhe I don’t know whether to be more surprised at myself or at this book. On the face of it, we should be made for each other - an account of the often-ignored structural contradictions of capitalism, couched in accessible language rather than impenetrable psychoanalytic theory. Yet here I am giving it three stars. There were certainly many thought-provoking points within ‘Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism’, however in most cases I fear they have already been better expressed elsewhere. My complaint, loath though I am to make it, is that the writing style is stolid and clunky, bleeding the energy and conviction from the very important points being made. While reading it, I wondered whether I was being unduly snobbish, or just fussy, but came to conclusion that there must be something askew when it takes me so much effort (and a five hour train journey) to finish an ostensibly accessible book on one of my favourite topics. An example to show you what I mean:

That it has done so over the last forty years by some mix of labour-saving technological changes and an alleatory globalisation is obvious even as conditions of fiercer international competition have put downward pressures upon profit rates in spite of rising rates of exploitation of labour power.

Why, in the name of all that’s holy, are there no commas in that sentence? Anyhow, I should praise some of the actual ideas advanced. For one, Harvey discusses the interesting notion of how capital ‘literally creates its own space and time’, which is also covered in Malm’s Fossil Capital: The Rise of Steam Power and the Roots of Global Warming. Perhaps my favourite part concerned the tendency to monopoly, which is to my mind a fundamental idiocy of neoclassical economics (something, I should add, that this book doesn’t concern itself with; it is about practise rather than than theory). As Barker puts it, ‘monopoly power is foundational rather than aberrational to the functioning of capital and [...] exists in a contradictory unity with competition’. The way I think of it, rational profit maximisation immediately implies a drift to monopoly. Competition bleeds away profit, so when rational actors can act in a monopolistic/oligopolistic fashion, surely they will. Free market theory treats competition like a fundamental physical force, something that is always actively present, such that monopolistic behaviour is impossible. It really isn’t. I think the theoretical contradiction is between the rational actor model of behaviour and the assumption that competition is the rule and the monopoly a rare exception.

Of the seventeen contradictions advanced in the book, the one I inevitably took the closest interest in concerned the environment. At first I felt Harvey was downplaying environmental problems in general and climate change in particular, however on balance I think his stance makes a dispiriting sort of sense:

I do not preclude apocalyptic-seeming moments in this process. The frequency of severe weather events is increasing, for example. But catastrophic localised events can readily be accommodated by capital since a predatory ‘disaster capitalism’ is raring to respond. Capital in fact thrives upon and evolves through the volatility of localised environmental disasters. Not only do these create new business opportunities. They also provide a convenient mask to hide capital’s own failings: it is that unpredictable, capricious and wilful shrew called ‘mother nature’ who is to blame for misfortunes that are largely of capital’s making.

I’m not wild about the way that is expressed, but the underlying point is solid. It raises the question: which falls first, capitalism or civilisation itself? How long can capitalism hold out against catastrophic climate change? The tragic fact is, of course, that it’s probably already held on for long enough to have passed dangerous tipping points. Still on the environmental theme, Harvey again echoes Malm in noting that capitalism moves pollution around the planet to wherever is cheapest.

Perhaps to some extent I focused on my dissatisfaction with the writing rather than the ideas here because the latter are so depressing. Harvey attempts to end on a positive note and even includes an epilogue of ‘Ideas for Political Praxis’. Despite this, the overriding message is that capitalism’s flaws do not prevent it sustaining itself very effectively, albeit at vast cost to the majority of humanity and the environment. Indeed, it seems that as the contradictions deepen, the defensiveness becomes all the more violent and destructive. The contradiction that really sums things up, in my view, concerns the extraordinary growth of wealth inequality. The richest 0.1% are simultaneously defending neoliberal capitalism with great vociferousness and creating a huge problem for it. As Harvey explains, such concentration of wealth results in sclerotic economic growth, quite apart from being socially disastrous and morally indefensible. Again, though, I’m sorry to say that this has been better explained elsewhere. ...more

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Sep 10, 2018 Murtaza rated it liked it

Despite him being a very bad writer, David Harvey will always have my respect for predicting the 2008 financial crisis in uncanny terms in his 2005 book Neoliberalism. This book is in many ways a restatement of Marx's arguments from Capital and a few other works. While Harvey is ostensibly a "popularizer" of Marx's texts, his writings are actually quite repetitive and circular. To be charitable sometimes abstract concepts need to be expressed in ways that are unintuitive.

According to dialectic v Despite him being a very bad writer, David Harvey will always have my respect for predicting the 2008 financial crisis in uncanny terms in his 2005 book Neoliberalism. This book is in many ways a restatement of Marx's arguments from Capital and a few other works. While Harvey is ostensibly a "popularizer" of Marx's texts, his writings are actually quite repetitive and circular. To be charitable sometimes abstract concepts need to be expressed in ways that are unintuitive.

According to dialectic views of history, systems that contain "contradictions" will inevitably doom themselves to failure. Harvey lays out seventeen alleged contradictions in short chapters here that he says will cause serious turmoil, if not the assured end, of capitalism in the foreseeable future. I don't really buy the Marxist idea that there is any kind of perfect and non-contradictory socioeconomic system to be had. It sounds quite Utopian and I feel that Jon Ralston Saul's exhortation to live with complexity and get used to living with it makes a lot more sense.

Having said that, Harvey makes some good points here about the way that our speculative valuations of things (see: housing) are making it impossible for many people to get the "use values" that such things are created for. He articulates well the suffocating nature of a world in which every human interaction has been monetized, and where every single object and event in the world is mediated through the existence of an immanent-transcendent thing known as "capital," which is constantly in a state of conflict with labor. Our working time is devoted to capital, and our leisure time is also devoted to it: spending, wanting, touristing and so forth. Capitalism is a totalitarian system in the sense that it is truly "total" and its inhabitants have difficulty even conceiving of existence outside of its terms. I don't think anyone could fail to be outraged by the knowledge that the extension of huge amounts of credit by banks is a way to get ordinary people to soak up the products of companies that, at the same time, don't want to pay the wages that would otherwise allow people to buy their stuff without borrowing. In other words they'd rather have people dig their own graves of debt than pay the wages that would allow the capitalist system to function according to its own logic.

Its not unfair today to point out that capital is effectively the "God" of the world in which capitalism exists and most of us inhabit today. There is a famous saying to the effect that it is "easier to imagine the end of the world than to imagine the end of capitalism." I think this is truer than we suspect. This is also why reading this book and understanding Marxist critiques of capitalism generally is a surprisingly spiritual experience, even if the solutions offered are oftentimes vague and sometimes pernicious. Critically understanding the present and being given a framework to do so powerfully reorients ones views of daily life and the meaning of ones existence. Marxism does this, and as such its easy to see why it became an alternate religion for so many people in the 20th century. I think that ultimately it runs up against a wall of new materialistic problems after correctly de-alienating people from the immediate ones caused by the reigning economic system. But even those who dislike Marxism (or, more commonly, disliked the regimes that have over the past century claimed to act according to its dictates) have to respect the powerful intellectual achievements of many of its proponents.

Harvey doesn't do much to explain how to extricate ourselves from our present quasi-totalitarian dilemma. He does however articulate what I think are broadly held grievances about the monetization of all human life and activity. It helps to look at the world around you, the physical things, and understand where they came from, what conditions they were made in, whose labor produced them, and why. Doing so can help you be more "awake" to the world rather than sleepwalking through it as most of us are liable to do when not thinking critically. It also helps to understand the power dynamics that continue to operate on all of us very subtly, taking away our labor (all "things" are labor) and unjustly transforming it into the property of a select few who labor very little. ...more

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Jun 17, 2014 Jeff rated it it was ok

Look, I really truly think that David Harvey is one of the most brilliant socio-economic theorists and commentators of this century. So my review of this particular book does not represent my view of his writings on the whole. But I found this book to be dreadfully repetitive and, I suppose, overly wordy. I think the best summary is: it presents a bunch of ideas that Harvey has done a much better job presenting in his other talks/works, and introduces almost no new ideas above and beyond these a ...more

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Apr 02, 2014 Sara rated it it was amazing

Shelves: empire

The foundational violence of wealth

[Through my ratings, reviews and edits I'm providing intellectual property and labor to Amazon.com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for $74 billion and $274 million profits. Intellectual property and labor require compensation. Amazon.com Inc. is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors' work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company's sites.]

Th The foundational violence of wealth

[Through my ratings, reviews and edits I'm providing intellectual property and labor to Amazon.com Inc., listed on Nasdaq, which fully owns Goodreads.com and in 2013 posted revenues for $74 billion and $274 million profits. Intellectual property and labor require compensation. Amazon.com Inc. is also requested to provide assurance that its employees and contractors' work conditions meet the highest health and safety standards at all the company's sites.]

There is no wealth without violence. No matter how many degrees of separations we build between actually murderous actions and our bank account. Accumulation is and has always been a violent process, even if now less visibly so - thanks to technology and finance that manufacture telescopic distances in between the economic dramatis personae. In order for wealth to build somewhere, someone has to suffer somewhere else. We are all conquistadores.

Then you might be interested in the details. Marx's Capital provides them all (apart, crucially, from energy's role).

Can violence ever be stopped? Yes, says Harvey, provided that you abolish wealth. Which leads to a very premature end of the revolutionary project.

What's missing from this riveting book is actually a sound analysis of class today. Who is going to lead the revolution? Who is NOT in our contemporary societies a rentier, profiteering from (violent) rent extraction? Capital's anti-revolutionary silver bullet is its cunning ability to turn the tables of class distinctions. Is for example the immigrant childminder described in the book who owns three houses in Brooklyn a proletarian any more? Anyone working in finance, media and entertainment, academia, consulting, energy, third sector, public administration, etc. is a rentier, whether they manage to save or not. Anyone who benefits from low energy and commodity prices is a rentier. This is much more powerful than governmentality, or the internalization of social control. Having a vested interest in violence only makes you long for someone garbing in principled storytelling the reality of the situation. And here is where the industry of "it's all neoliberalism's fault" kicks in.

Of course, if no revolution is possible or underway, making violence a bit less safe and respectable and ferocious can still be worth pursuing.

...more

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May 07, 2016 Matthijs Krul rated it really liked it · review of another edition

In many ways it's Harvey redux - another solid, grounded, but by now familiar reproduction of the fundamentals of Capital (and the Grundrisse, in this case). This is a good thing insofar Harvey is good at it and the angle of 'contradictions' is a very helpful one. Compared to previous books, this work focuses less on Marxist theory per se and more on the more immediate political and economic 'strategic' aspects of capital, be it still in a pure form.

It has some of what I see as Harvey's typical In many ways it's Harvey redux - another solid, grounded, but by now familiar reproduction of the fundamentals of Capital (and the Grundrisse, in this case). This is a good thing insofar Harvey is good at it and the angle of 'contradictions' is a very helpful one. Compared to previous books, this work focuses less on Marxist theory per se and more on the more immediate political and economic 'strategic' aspects of capital, be it still in a pure form.

It has some of what I see as Harvey's typical weaker points. His emphasis on, so to speak, demand side aspects of capitalism with accompanying underconsumptionist views of crisis, and his increasing moralism about 'consumerism' and the like. But his strengths are also fully on display here: his characteristic ability to combine complexity with clarity and nuance with revolutionary vigour. It ends, in fact, with something of a paean to Fanon and the anticolonial movement - something that should do away with Harvey's image as a 'softy' (which seems to have come about just because he does not substitute militant rhetoric for understanding complex problems).

Additional strong points more particular to this book are the discussion of ecology, where Harvey goes against the tendency to think the ecological crisis will necessarily be the end of capitalism, and the discussion of the rising significance of rents and rentierism in contemporary capitalism. The latter certainly bodes ill for 'productive' capital's abilities to expand in the future. Finally, it is notable that Harvey engages here integrates more explicitly the centrality of reducing working hours via automation (though he rightly notes this is not a stand-alone solution) and the implications of 'redundant populations' - associated respectively with the 'accelerationist' trend and with the Endnotes collective, though he does not name them.

I'd say even if one is familiar with Harvey's oeuvre it may well be worth a read. Certainly a good primer for those leftists who want to know what they're up against and why it seems so hard to get any traction on the 'system' as a whole. ...more

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Jul 22, 2015 Martina added it

I like Harvey but this was overly wordy.

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Oct 07, 2014 Rhys rated it really liked it

This was certainly a clear extension of his recent works on Rebel Cities and his companions to Capital.

The contradictions developed by Harvey are not surprising, though some of his tough perspectives and advice to progressives was at times:

"The enormous increase in and nature of the complicitous activities of the humanist NGOs over recent decades would seem to support Althusser’s criticisms. The growth of the charitable industrial complex mainly reflects the need to increase ‘conscience launderi ...more

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Oct 28, 2017 Stephen Redwood rated it it was amazing

Shelves: economics, politics, society

This is not a polemic against, but rather an investigation of the contradictions inherent in capitalism. Although there are Marxian foundations to some of the analysis, it’s not a constraint to the analysis, nor the other sources that Harvey draws on. A strong intellect and a ton of thought provoking facts, deployed in the service of challenging many of the assumptions many of us assume define the natural order or necessary evils of how things operate in capitalist systems. The chapter on the im ...more

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Apr 29, 2014 Claudio Saavedra rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: marxism

Harvey at his best. You don't need to agree with all of his analysis or his ideological basis to recognize the depth of his understanding of the inherent contradictions in capital. This book is a must-read for anyone looking to understand the state of the world today and how capitalism shapes not only our relation to the material, nature, and others, but also our own ideologies and beliefs. ...more

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Aug 31, 2017 Kevin Tole rated it it was amazing

Shelves: life-now, non-fiction, history, politics, classics, favourites

David Harvey is a Marxist. David Harvey is also a geographer. Before you blow your cheeks out and wonder at that you also have to take in that David Harvey teaches at an American University, a country that does it's very best to revile any thought of Marx and to banish any sense in understanding of his writings under the belief that it can't be true because of the collapse of the Soviet Union. All your assumptions will probably be wrong on many levels.

Harvey has consistently been THE academic to David Harvey is a Marxist. David Harvey is also a geographer. Before you blow your cheeks out and wonder at that you also have to take in that David Harvey teaches at an American University, a country that does it's very best to revile any thought of Marx and to banish any sense in understanding of his writings under the belief that it can't be true because of the collapse of the Soviet Union. All your assumptions will probably be wrong on many levels.

Harvey has consistently been THE academic to illuminate the thoughts and research of Marx and find that his writings from the early and mid 19th century still present a validity which can be applied to modern life and weighed up in the scales of not only academia but also praxis for everyday life. Having now finished this book from 2014, I find myself thinking that A, B and C should read this and planning to buy copies for D and E for Christmas. The second-hand book market should be a happy hunting ground.

Harvey has consistently nailed his colours to the mast and produced a string of books and lectures (they're out there also freely available on U-Tube) from 1973's 'Social Justice in the City' to 2016's 'The Ways of the World'. He is one of the few people to have fully read the three volumes of 'Capital', to have digested the contents and to have commented intelligently on them for the benefit of us all. This book really asks the question skirted around in many of his preceding books on whether Capitalism has a future. He does so by using dialectical methods and through delineating the contradictions inherent in capital and Capitalism. Now before you switch pages saying 'if-you-don't-like-it-you-can-move-somewhere-else' you ought to realise that the message within this book is fundamental for the survival of mankind. Nothing less than that as his final contradiction, the big daddy of them all, is Capital's relationship to Nature and the Environment. If we don't want to drown in our own shit and suffocate in our own effluent then we'd better start to REALLY take heed and forget about our 'champions / leaders' lip service in successive conferences at various glitzy locations, all high profile affairs with major publicity. Of course, it's never US that will drown and suffocate, but if we want our grandchildren or the grandchildren of our granchildren to have any hope of existence then its WE that have to do something NOW.

I could go through the book and delineate Harvey's description of the inherent contradictions but that would be taking the task away from you the reader. YOU have to go out there and read this book. My copy is now annotated, underscored and marked out the successive pieces of evidence and logic that make this a compelling read and champion for not only a better way of life but also a way of saving humanity from either blowing itself up, strangling each other in successive bloody revolutions or drowning in our own effluent.

Read it................. and weep.
Because ultimately it is a very depressing statement.
Because.............. at heart.................. you know that nothing will get done........ or at best we will again apply sticking plasters over amputations whilst we all sit and wait to die. ...more

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May 19, 2019 Morgan Timme rated it liked it

If you can parse through the abysmal writing, Harvey makes some keenly insightful observations about the often-overlooked foundations of capital, and the problems its contradictions cause. The concepts he works through are dense, but important. Many people know that something isn't working in the system. Some understand the general workings of that system. But very few understand the way capital actually functions, and the reason that churns out such disparate results. For someone who wishes to If you can parse through the abysmal writing, Harvey makes some keenly insightful observations about the often-overlooked foundations of capital, and the problems its contradictions cause. The concepts he works through are dense, but important. Many people know that something isn't working in the system. Some understand the general workings of that system. But very few understand the way capital actually functions, and the reason that churns out such disparate results. For someone who wishes to understand the inner workings of why the global capitalist system functions the way it does, and hopefully change it for the better, the concepts he proposes are highly enlightening.

That being said, the author sure doesn't do you any favors to understand the dense subjects he covers. Most of the book consists of grotesquely wordy explanations with zero illustrative examples. It begs the question who in the world his intended audience was. For a book trying to impassion left-wing populism and decrying the tyranny of the experts, it sure knows how to make itself absolutely unreadable to the general public. The author also tends to make acerbic blanket statements with no evidence to back them up. He relies on quotes from previous 'experts' (am I the only one who has no idea who most of these people are?) as evidence, but provides no real-word empirical proof.

Additionally, his finger is simply not on the pulse of today's society. He often just misses the mark, failing to account for future trends that seem now to be on the horizon, or harshly judging outdated examples of a much-changed current landscape. Given the recent release date, I take this to be a function of the author veering into territory in which he is not an expert, such as in technological trends or global philanthropy.

Some questions I would love to discuss:
What would the ramifications of space exploration be on Harvey's ideas on the contradictions of capital? Would population settlement and resource use on other planets mean effectively no limitation on the compounded growth of capital? How would that affect Harvey's argument? ...more

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Nov 23, 2021 Paige McLoughlin rated it it was amazing

Shelves: economics, history, late-capitalism, politics, british-isles, usa-and-canada, education, humanities, modernism, philosophy

Excellent book. I have a background in the Analytic Philosophy tradition so before some smarty pants says contradictions are false and a bad guide to the economy, The author and Marxists, in general, are not using contradiction in the Aristotelean P vs Not P sense of the word. A contradiction in the sense used is forces in a process that pull a system in different often opposing directions and are a stressor on that system that tends to lead to crisis. Contradictions between wages and profits co ...more

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Feb 18, 2018 Sarah rated it it was ok

This was one of the most painful books I went through - I couldn't even finish it! Albeit totally valid and convincing in his argument about the evils of capitalism, I found Harvey's style of writing too too TOO flowery. Each concept (contradiction - Harvey calls them) was actually quite simple. But it took strong doses of concentration and critical reasoning to figure out what he was saying. This book is definitely not for the faint-hearted! Good luck :P ...more

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Apr 05, 2021 Gary Bannon rated it liked it

A lot of the stuff covered in this book is covered extensively in his podcast so not much new stuff here if you’ve listened. Good overall summary however his take on the worlds current environmental issues is quite badly explained and can seem like he us downplaying the seriousness of the situation at times.

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May 22, 2020 Xiiz rated it really liked it

woke now

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Sep 22, 2014 Seward Park Branch Library, NYPL rated it really liked it

Shelves: seward-park-library-staff-picks, adult-picks

I've admired David Harvey since reading his 'The Condition of Postmodernity'. For those familiar with David Harvey's oeurve, 'Seventeen Contradictions' and it's contents will not come as a surprise to the dedicated Harvey-ite.

Then again, all it really takes is a basic familiarity with Marxist principles as expressed in 'Capital' a work intimidating in both size and scope. This is Marx for the 21st century, nothing more, nothing less (particularly the first 7 contradictions). If you're looking fo I've admired David Harvey since reading his 'The Condition of Postmodernity'. For those familiar with David Harvey's oeurve, 'Seventeen Contradictions' and it's contents will not come as a surprise to the dedicated Harvey-ite.

Then again, all it really takes is a basic familiarity with Marxist principles as expressed in 'Capital' a work intimidating in both size and scope. This is Marx for the 21st century, nothing more, nothing less (particularly the first 7 contradictions). If you're looking for the next big *original* idea from the left, this isn't gonna be it.

This is not a huge concern for me—innovation for innovation's sake reeks of the creative distruction at all costs which comes under heavy fire from Harvey at many points during 'Seventeen Contradictions', and a retro fitting of 'older' ideas can be (and is in this case) a cool glass of water. What I admire about Harvey is his way of expressing a grounded critique of capital (nothing short of the project Marx himself undertook) through direct prose. Usually when I think of Marxist writing I think of the twisting and turning (though deeply profound) tracts on 'rational man' by the Frankfurt School. In his particular brand of Marxism, I think that Harvey has much in common with his German-Jewish radical brethren of yesteryear in that he is well aware of the tenacity of capital and its ability to persevere despite the deterministic predictions of Marx himself. Harvey, however, is somewhat more optimistic.

Harvey admits that without action on our part, capital *will* continue to persevere. The problem (or solution) is that, no matter what course of action is taken, it will not persevere in the same way as it has been, but will evolve as it has tended to do in some way or another. *How* this evolution occurs is up to us. Will we maintain a democratic society through an insistence on egalitarianism and tightening of income disparity, or plunge deeper into the oligarchy we seem to be falling into? Funnily enough, the contradictions that 'Seventeen Contradictions' refers to would be resolved with either of the two scenarios (once the oligarchy has dispensed with that pesky democracy, that is)—so I ask, "which do you prefer"?

One of the major take-aways I got from this book is that the contradiction between use value and exchange value is paramount. I think it's pretty clear that Harvey himself considers this to continue to be the most important and cruel contradiction of capital from the revolutions of 1848 to the present day.

Finally, this book extends a query as to what we consider to be the tendrils of freedom. We must consider, is it a freedom 'to-do' or a freedom 'from want' that allows for a truly democratic society? I opt for the priority of the latter. Upon such foundations we can build a society we can *all* truly be proud of.

-AF

P.S—This book will make you want to re-read your Karl Polanyi. Possible New Year's resolution? ...more

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Sep 23, 2014 Andrew Fairweather added it

Shelves: economics, non-fiction, philorhetical-critical, well-red

I've admired David Harvey since reading his 'The Condition of Postmodernity'. For those familiar with David Harvey's oeurve, 'Seventeen Contradictions' and it's contents will not come as a surprise to the dedicated Harvey-ite.

Then again, all it really takes is a basic familiarity with Marxist principles as expressed in 'Capital' a work intimidating in both size and scope. This is Marx for the 21st century, nothing more, nothing less (particularly the first 7 contradictions). If you're looking fo I've admired David Harvey since reading his 'The Condition of Postmodernity'. For those familiar with David Harvey's oeurve, 'Seventeen Contradictions' and it's contents will not come as a surprise to the dedicated Harvey-ite.

Then again, all it really takes is a basic familiarity with Marxist principles as expressed in 'Capital' a work intimidating in both size and scope. This is Marx for the 21st century, nothing more, nothing less (particularly the first 7 contradictions). If you're looking for the next big *original* idea from the left, this isn't gonna be it.

This is not a huge concern for me—innovation for innovation's sake reeks of the creative distruction at all costs which comes under heavy fire from Harvey at many points during 'Seventeen Contradictions', and a retro fitting of 'older' ideas can be (and is in this case) a cool glass of water. What I admire about Harvey is his way of expressing a grounded critique of capital (nothing short of the project Marx himself undertook) through direct prose. Usually when I think of Marxist writing I think of the twisting and turning (though deeply profound) tracts on 'rational man' by the Frankfurt School. In his particular brand of Marxism, I think that Harvey has much in common with his German-Jewish radical brethren of yesteryear in that he is well aware of the tenacity of capital and its ability to persevere despite the deterministic predictions of Marx himself. Harvey, however, is somewhat more optimistic.

Harvey admits that without action on our part, capital *will* continue to persevere. The problem (or solution) is that, no matter what course of action is taken, it will not persevere in the same way as it has been, but will evolve as it has tended to do in some way or another. *How* this evolution occurs is up to us. Will we maintain a democratic society through an insistence on egalitarianism and tightening of income disparity, or plunge deeper into the oligarchy we seem to be falling into? Funnily enough, the contradictions that 'Seventeen Contradictions' refers to would be resolved with either of the two scenarios (once the oligarchy has dispensed with that pesky democracy, that is)—so I ask, "which do you prefer"?

One of the major take-aways I got from this book is that the contradiction between use value and exchange value is paramount. I think it's pretty clear that Harvey himself considers this to continue to be the most important and cruel contradiction of capital from the revolutions of 1848 to the present day.

Finally, this book extends a query as to what we consider to be the tendrils of freedom. We must consider, is it a freedom 'to-do' or a freedom 'from want' that allows for a truly democratic society? I opt for the priority of the latter. Upon such foundations we can build a society we can *all* truly be proud of.

P.S—This book will make you want to re-read your Karl Polanyi. A possible New Year's resolution! ...more

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Jun 18, 2014 Dale rated it liked it

Shelves: politics, nonfiction, economics

This is basically an application of Marxist dialectic to the present conditions of capitalism. The first part of the book, "Foundational Contradictions", deals with the contradictions already identified 140 years ago in "Capital", updated for the present time. That time being one of another transitional period for capitalism, in which rent extraction from developed capitalist countries has (probably) surpassed resource extraction from the third world as the primary engine of capitalist developme ...more

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Sep 15, 2017 Cameron Wilson rated it it was ok

I've been thinking about this book since I read it a while back and I've realized I really am not a fan of David Harvey period. There are many intro guides to Capital and Marxist thought, from Ben Fine to Ernest Mandel, Paul Sweezy, Joan Robinson, to the Marx-Engels reader. Most of those are illuminating and more succinct than this book was or Harvey seems to be in general. Harvey doesn't clarify much, and at the beginning of this book he restates old classical orthodoxy on the origins of money, ...more

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Mar 06, 2016 Tara Brabazon rated it it was amazing

David Harvey is a cool, clear, rigorous and considered scholar. The format of this book - configured around the 17 contradictions of capital - is ideally structured to demonstrate this balance, reflection and interpretative flair.

Most sentences in this book are quotable. Most can be the foundation for outstanding further analysis and consideration. I was profoundly impressed - and deeply moved - by his theorization of freedom and alienation.

For anyone interested in capital, capitalism and the di ...more

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May 29, 2016 Sunil rated it really liked it

Shelves: economics-business

Having watched some of david harvey's lectures on Capital, the thoroughness of the points being argued for were expected. An understanding of Capital is needed to fully appreciate this work. Reading this convinces you that the system is flawed and makes you appreciate how issues and struggles in the world today (e.g. the struggle over the working day or the need to mobilise workforces in asia and africa) are intrinsically linked to capitalism. I did find 17 points a bit overkill - 10 or so would ...more

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Feb 01, 2017 Viki Sonntag rated it it was amazing

Harvey renders a very clear accounting of the contradictions of capitalist system. Highly recommended for those who want a big picture view of economic globalism and how it plays out in our politics.

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Jul 31, 2020 Rian rated it really liked it

Echoing just about every socialist alternative member you may have made the misfortune to speak to, David Harvey doesn't like the contemporary left:

"What remains of the radical left now operates largely outside of any institutional or organised oppositional channels, in the hope that small-scale actions and local activism can ultimately add up to some kind of satisfactory macro alternative. This left, which strangely echoes a libertarian and even neoliberal ethic of anti-statism, is nurtured in

Echoing just about every socialist alternative member you may have made the misfortune to speak to, David Harvey doesn't like the contemporary left:

"What remains of the radical left now operates largely outside of any institutional or organised oppositional channels, in the hope that small-scale actions and local activism can ultimately add up to some kind of satisfactory macro alternative. This left, which strangely echoes a libertarian and even neoliberal ethic of anti-statism, is nurtured intellectually by thinkers such as Michel Foucault and all those who have reassembled postmodern fragmentations under the banner of a largely incomprehensible post-structuralism that favours identity politics and eschews class analysis."

What follows is a bizarrely patronising "cruise ship analogy" - that the focus of the left should be on the "engine" of capital, and not the squabbling of those who travel on the cruise ship (that is, actual people in society and their interactions). You also see this in passages such as "much of the anti-capitalist.. prefers... in [contemporary] times to wage its war at the micro scale, where autonomista and anarchist formulations and solutions are most effective, leaving the macro level almost bare of oppositional players". Identity politics thus simply do not rank as important to Harvey - that can all be explained by capital.

Given Harvey's passion for calling out how the horseshoe effect (how those on the far left and the right, and especially those who are not that compromising, generally end up sharing a lot of political viewpoints - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horsesh...), it's surprising to see such an uncompromising approach to identity politics.

Gratefully, a backing off of this position is seen on the final page, where Harvey concedes that an "alliance of interests" is needed with other isms and anti-isms, so identity politics may actually have a use after all. More tellingly, throughout the book Harvey draws on but does not acknowledge what he derides as "identity politics". This is especially evident in the chapters on social reproduction and freedom, where Harvey expressly invokes and discusses post-structuralism (including even Foucault, whom he cites approvingly despite begrudging the left for becoming such a hodgepodge). Perhaps also the strangest passage in the book was also a swipe at Margaret Thatcher for being born to a grocer and for training as a chemist (how oddly classist?)

So if you ignore all of that, this book takes a really great concept: defining and exploring only one idea (contradictions in capital) and then running with it, in different contexts. It covers a lot of extraordinarily complicated ideas and talks about them lucidly and intelligently. So far as Harvey is only read when he talks about things to do with capital, he is great. ...more

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Dec 18, 2020 Katrina Sark rated it liked it · review of another edition

Prologue: The Crisis of Capitalism This Time Around
p.ix – Crises are essential to the reproduction of capitalism. It is in the course of crises that the instabilities of capitalism are confronted, reshaped and re-engineered to create a new version of what capitalism is about. Much gets torn down and laid waste to make way for the new. Once-productive landscapes are turned into industrial wastelands, old factories are torn down or converted to new uses, working-class neighbourhoods get gentrified Prologue: The Crisis of Capitalism This Time Around
p.ix – Crises are essential to the reproduction of capitalism. It is in the course of crises that the instabilities of capitalism are confronted, reshaped and re-engineered to create a new version of what capitalism is about. Much gets torn down and laid waste to make way for the new. Once-productive landscapes are turned into industrial wastelands, old factories are torn down or converted to new uses, working-class neighbourhoods get gentrified.
Crises are not singular events.

Introduction: On Contradiction

p.3 – Contradictions are by no means all bad and I certainly don’t mean to imply any automatic negative connotation. They can be a fecund source of both personal and social change from which people emerge far better off than before. We do not always succumb to and get lost in them. We can use them creatively. One of the ways our of a contradiction is innovation. We can adapt our ideas and practices to new circumstances and learn to be a far better and more tolerant person from the experience.

p.3-4 – A contradiction can often be the “mother of invention.” But notice something important here: resort to fossil fuels relieved one contradiction but now, centuries later, it anchors another contradiction between fossil fuel use and climate change. Contradictions have the nasty habit of not being resolved but merely moved around.

p.4 – The contradictions of capital have often spawned innovations, many of which have improved the qualities of daily life. Contradictions when they erupt into a crisis of capital generate moments of “creative destruction.”
Crises are moments of transformation in which capital typically reinvents itself and morphs into something else.

But crises are also moments of danger when the reproduction of capital is threatened by the underlying contradictions.

p.6 – We can live perfectly well within a fetish world of surface signals, signs and appearances without needing to know all that much about how it works (in much the same way that we can turn on a switch and have light without knowing anything about electricity generation). It is only when something dramatic happens – the supermarket shelves are bare, the prices in the supermarket go haywire, the money in our pocket suddenly becomes worthless (or the light does not go on) – that we typically ask the bigger and broader questions as to why and how things are happening “out there.”
...more

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Oct 18, 2020 Paul moved to LibraryThing rated it it was ok

I don't know why all the Marxists I read so far gave the impression that when they point out some characteristic of capitalism they are being clever. No one is disputing these, and none of them are some hidden feature you have suddenly uncovered. In fact on most of them fans of capitalism will wholeheartedly agree with you.

And yes, most of them are just that, characteristics, not contradictions - this attempt to redefine a basic word is tortuous and pointless.

Almost the whole book is describing ...more

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May 21, 2019 Federico Nemmi rated it really liked it

Shelves: marxism-anarchism-leftism

One does not to agree with the conclusions of Harvey (and I certainly didn't like the anti-technology strike that his conclusions take, nor all the abstract talk about alienation) to love this book. This is a much needed book: in a cultural landscape where the "there is no alternative" seems to be the only answer one can get when wondering about our economic system, a book pointing out where and why capital(ism) may fail and broke is like a breeze of fresh air. Harvey is clear and didactic witho ...more

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Feb 10, 2021 WILLIAM COWHEY rated it really liked it

I feel a little out of my depth here since I'm a baby leftist and have yet to read a lot of theory, particularly Marx. This seemed like more or less a modern recap of Marx's ideas and what current day leftists should do with them. However, this was definitely not an easy read, when I read books I usually like to read large chunks at a time, but I had to take a break after each chapter as they were a struggle to get through. If you're a beginner looking for an introduction to leftist theory I wou ...more

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Jun 09, 2020 Daniel Schulof rated it really liked it

Excellent as an overview of the various conceptual problems inherent to capitalist economies. Less persuasive on the (obviously more difficult) prescriptive material. The style can be challenging -- it never veers into technical language or math but it can be dense/demanding. Still appropriate for anti-capitalist-curious lay readers. I think it would have been improved by transitioning from conceptual critiques into real-world examples/applications.

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Aug 25, 2021 Baknel Macz rated it really liked it

Logical and thorough take down of capitalism and gives the many reasons why it is doomed to fail. Touches on a lot of feelings and ideas that many will be intuitively aware of and explains how many of the antagonisms we feel are inevitable due to the structure of our society. Found the language a little more confusing than it had to be at times, and would have been made clearer with maybe more concrete clear examples. Still really enjoyed it.

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About David Harvey

David Harvey

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David Harvey (born 1935) is the Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). A leading social theorist of international standing, he graduated from University of Cambridge with a PhD in Geography in 1961.

He is the world's most cited academic geographer (according to Andrew Bodman, see Transactions of the IBG, 1991,1992), and the author o ...more

Books by David Harvey

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“What separates Rand from Marx is that the latter saw the true flourishing of individual creativity as best accomplished through collaboration and association with others in a collective drive to abolish the barriers of scarcity and material necessity beyond which, Marx held, the true realm of individual freedom could begin.” — 3 likes

“Capitalists too, as the novelist Charles Dickens noted, liked to think of their workers as 'hands' only, preferring to forget they had stomachs and brains.

But, said the more perceptive nineteenth-century critics, if this is how people live their lives at work, then how on earth can they think differently when they come home at night? How might it be possible to build a sense of moral community or of social solidarity, of collective and meaningful ways of belonging and living that are untainted by the brutality, ignorance and stupidity that envelops labourers at work? How, above all, are workers supposed to develop any sense of their mastery over their own fates and fortunes when they depend so deeply upon a multitude of distant, unknown and in many respects unknowable people who put breakfast on their table every day?” — 2 likes

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