Marxist Economic Theory

by Ernest Mandel

CONTENTS: Introduction - Labour, Necessary product, Surplus Product - Exchange, Commodity, Value – Money, Capital, Surplus-value – The Development of Capital - The Contradictions of Capitalism - Trade – Credit – Money – Agriculture- Reproduction and the Growth of National Income - Periodical Crises - Monopoly Capitalism - Imperialism – The Epoch of Capitalist Decline – The Soviet Economy – The Economy of the Transition Period – Socialist Economy – Origin, Rise and Withering Away of Political Economy- Bibliography – Index

Genres: Economics, Politics, Nonfiction

797 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1962

About the author

Ernest Ezra Mandel was a German born Belgian-Jewish Marxian economist and a Trotskyist activist and theorist. He fought in the underground resistance against the Nazis during the occupation of Belgium and he became a member of the Fourth International during his youth in Antwerp. Mandel is considered to be populariser of marxism.

Reviews

[Roxy The Bolshevik Girl · Rating 3 out of 5]

A robust account of the Marxist critique of political economy and its extension. The early chapters are weak, due to Mandel having a overly substantivist account of Value, and relying on hackneyed accounts of barter.

The book is strongest in the later chapters, giving fascinating accounts of capitalist agriculture, imperialism, the transitional period, and a spirited defence of socialist planning. Worth a read, but not my first choice.

[Daniel]

Just started the second volume. (1st volume is not yet available to me) It's great so far. Dealing with the right of monopoly finance capital at the moment.