Capitalism's Contradictions

Henryk Grossman (18811950) was the most important Marxist economist of the Twentith Century. He was a founding leader of the Jewish Social Democratic Party of Galicia and later a member of the Polish Communist Workers Party. After holding posts as a senior public servant and professor in Poland, he was a member of the Institute for Social Research in Germany and, following the Nazi takeover, in exile. Dr Rick Kuhn is an honorary associate professor in Sociology at the Australian National University and long term socialist activist, who has written extensively on Marxist theory as well as Australian politics and political economy. His Henryk Grossman and the Recovery of Marxism won the 2007 Deutscher Prize.

• AcknowledgementsiiiIntroduction by Rick Kuhn1Simonde de Sismondi and his economic theories25Fifty years of struggle over Marxism 1883–193271Marx, classical political economy and the problem of dynamics111The evolutionist revolt against classical economics163W. Playfair, the earliest theorist of capitalist development197References215Index239

“Grossman was an invaluable contributor to the development of Marxist political economy since Marx’s death in 1883. An activist in the Polish Social Democrat party and later in the Communist party in Germany, Grossman, in my view, made major contributions in explaining and developing Marx’s theory of value and crises under capitalism.” —Michael Roberts, author of The Long Depression“Henryk Grossman (1881-1950) was one of the most significant Marxist theoreticians in the fields of political economy and the history of scientific thought in the first half of the twentieth century. . .the publication of this collection of five long essays or ‘monographs’, mostly devoted to the history and development of economic theory, is very welcome."—Pete Green, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books