What are economic crises? Are they only possible or inevitable? Are they caused by chronic under-consumption, inter-sectoral disproportionality, or a fall in the profit rate? In his study of the concept of crisis in Marxs Capital, Jorge Grespan sets out to answer these questions.
Marxs complex exposition of the concept of economic crisis in Capital and its preparatory manuscripts gave rise to different interpretations about the causes and modalities of capitalist crises. The Negative of Capital renews these urgent debates by treating the concept of crisis as the negative of the concept of capital. In this thoroughgoing exposition of Marxs masterwork, Jorge Grespan reconstitutes the steps by which Capitals exposition progressively enriches its content and form. To this end, dialectical categories such as measurelessness and relative necessity are mobilised and developed.
Jorge Grespan is Professor of Theory of History at the Universidade de Sćo Paulo Brazil. He has published many articles, books, and book chapters in Portuguese and Spanish. His publications in English include About the Beginning and End of Capitalism, in Marx's Capital. An Unfinishable Project? (Leiden, Brill, 2018), and The renewal of Marxist Historiography through the Study of Enslavement. The Case of Brazil, in What is Left of Marxism, (Berlin, De Gruyter, 2020).
