Understanding the Fundamentals of Capital, the Crisis and the Alternatives: Marx's Legacy Beyond Revolutionary Marxism

This article critically engages with Peter Burnham's recent call for a ‘return to fundamentals’ and specifically to Marx as a basis for understanding the global financial crisis (GFC) and its still unfolding aftermath. The article criticises Burnham's ‘Open Marxist’ account of Marx's capital theory and his reading of the crisis in terms of ‘depoliticisation’ and the reassertion of the law of value over the state. The article focuses on Schumpeterian and Keynesian theories of crisis and crisis management as derived from fundamentals. It argues that Keynes, in particular, offered a theory of crisis that, while consistent with Marx's circuit theory of capital, was also distinct in its focus on money. In short, Keynes politicised money and its management. How the current global crisis is ultimately resolved depends crucially on understanding both the limits and possibilities for the repoliticisation of money in the post-neoliberal era.