Mathias Greffrath
was born in 1945, studied sociology and psychology and lives in Berlin. He worked as an editor for radio, Die Zeit and Wochenpost. He has been writing articles and radio plays as a freelance author for 20 years. In recent years, in addition to economic issues, he has focussed on the history of the Enlightenment, the future of work and the human image of brain research.
Globalisation, financial crash, climate, poverty revolts, weak growth - there is no end to the multiple crises that Western societies are experiencing. Is capitalism at the end? This question is now also being discussed among the elites at global economic summits.
Reason enough to read Capital again. The book that reveals the laws of motion of capitalist societies,
has criticised the blank spots of economic science and sharpened the concepts with which we can understand the world in which we live.
The phenomena of our present day seem far removed from the world in which Karl Marx wrote his book. But Capital not only explains the seed forms from which this world emerged, but also identifies the mechanisms of its destruction, its finiteness - and the forces to overcome it - in the history and dynamics of the capitalist mode of production, which has increased the world's prosperity in unimaginable ways.
Does this still apply in the age of turbo capitalism?
Sociologists, journalists, politicians, philosophers and economists have re-read Capital. Starting from one chapter of the work at a time, they draw the lines to the present and reflect on the topicality and limits of Marx's theory, subjectively, essayistically and with a view to the political possibilities of today. Because that, according to Marx, is what matters: Not only to interpret the world, but to change it.
Moderation Robert Misik, Author
- RE: Capital
Political economy in the 21st century
Published by Mathias Greffrath
240 pages, published in March 2017, Verlag Antje Kunstmann
ISBN 978-3-95614-172-0