Behind the Crisis

Guglielmo Carchedi, doctorate (1965) in Economics, University of Turin, Italy, has worked at the United Nations in New York and has taught at the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of numerous articles and books in several fields of Marxist analysis and research.

• Foreword1. Method1.The need for dialectics2. Dialectical logic and social phenomena3. The dialectics of individual and social phenomena4. Class-analysis and the sociology of non-equilibrium 5. A dialectics of nature?6. Formal logic and dialectical logic7. Induction, deduction and verification2. Debates 1. Recasting the issues2. Abstract labour as the only source of surplus-value3. The materiality of abstract labour4. The tendential fall in the average rate of profit5. The transformation ‘problem’6. The alien rationality of homo economicus3. Crises 1. Alternative explanations2. The cyclical movement3. The subprime debacle4. Either Marx or Keynes4. Subjectivity1. Crisis-theory and theory of knowledge2. Neither information-society nor service-society3. Individual knowledge4. Social knowledge5. Labour’s knowledge6.Knowledge and value7. The general intellect8. Science, techniques and alien knowledge9.Trans-epochal and trans-class knowledge10. Knowledge and transitionAppendix 1. The Building Blocks of SocietyAppendix 2. Objective and Mental Labour-ProcessesAppendix 3. Marx’s Mathematical ManuscriptsReferencesIndex

"Tackling recent controversies ... Carchedi's reflection, dispelling received ideas about knowledge and contemporary capitalism, evidences the fallacy of post-workerist presuppositions, re-opening the debate on knowledge, the labour process, and value theory." – Marco Boffo, University of London, in: Marx & Philosophy, 2011