Unmasking Mammon

I had the privilege of reviewing Hadas Thier’s new book, A People’s Guide to Capitalism: An Introduction to Marxist Economics (Haymarket), for The Bias magazine.

Link to my review here. The book is a timely and succinct overview of Marx’s argument in Capital (mostly volumes 1 and 3). Now more than ever, we need not just a robust moral critique of capitalism but a scientific theory of how it works and how to challenge its dominance.

Here’s a short excerpt of the review:

Thier’s goal is to help us demystify the unassailable realm of the dismal science, so that we might better challenge it. But this entails going beyond the reductionistic parameters set by mainstream economics itself. For as Thier writes, ‘Marx was more interested in uncovering the underlying dynamics of capitalism: what drives value, how it is produced, and for whom.’ These underlying dynamics take us to the heart of the mechanisms of capitalist inequality; they show us what capitalism is compelled to do, just as they prompt strategies of conceiving and fighting for more just alternatives.

Check out Thier’s book here.