The Automatic Fetish: The Law of Value in Marx's Capital

(Paperback)

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The Automatic Fetish demonstrates the clarity and coherence of Marxs critique in Capital III against the perennial tendency to shrug it off as a posthumous bundle of notes. Far from an incomplete theoretical system, Best identifies and elaborates a specific theory of movement and appearances (a perceptual physics) that lies at the heart of the matter of the third volume of Capital, and that forms the conceptual bridge between Capital I, II, & III. In addition to the coherence of Marxs project, Best demonstrates the need for demonstration: Marxs theoretical system in Capital cannot be posited or described; rather, it must be demonstrated, and this is what Best does, step by step, through an exposition of each Part of Book Three. Neither a back to basics nor newfangled reconstruction, The Automatic Fetish eschews novelty to show why, once again, Marx deserves to be read carefully. By unreconstructing Marx, Best demonstrates how the analytical power of Marxs critique is as relevant today as it ever was for the analysis of the capitalist mode of production, which is still in the process of immiserating and destroying everything there is. The Automatic Fetish is an apologia of Marx without apologies.

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Beverley Best has reinvented Capital, Volume III. -- Fredric Jameson

Author Bio

Beverley Best works on Marxs critique of political economy and teaches in the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University, Montral. She is the author of Marx and Dynamic of the Capital Formation: An Aesthetics of Political Economy, and co-editor (with Werner Bonefeld and Chris OKane) of The Sage Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. She is the vice-president of the Marxist Literary Group.