The Enigma of Capital: and the Crises of Capitalism
The Enigma of Capital: and the Crises of Capitalism
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DOI：
10.1177/0094306110404516g
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发表时间：
2011-05
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影响因子：
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通讯作者：
Cameron Whitley
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作者：
Cameron Whitley
书评：哈维，大卫。2010.资本之谜与资本主义危机纽约，北京：北京大学出版社. ISBN 13：9780199758715大卫·哈维，公共知识分子和马克思主义地理学家，2010年出版了《资本之谜和资本主义危机》。虽然这本书与美国经济大衰退直接相关，但对于任何对经济危机的历史扩张和全球社会反应（包括占领华尔街运动）感兴趣的人来说，这本书仍然是一本必不可少的读物。这本书是建立在确定什么是资本和如何不稳定是资本主义的内在组成部分;这一想法是什么哈维确定为'危机倾向'的性质的制度。哈维经常以他的公开演讲而闻名，他写这本书是为了让广大读者能够接触到，为不熟悉马克思主义、新自由主义和相关概念的学者和外行提供了一本有趣的读物。在《资本之谜》一书中，读者不仅可以找到对资本运动的详细的批判性和历史性分析，还可以找到对这一过程的全新描述和创新性实例。了解哈维作品的人可能对《资本的极限》（1982）最为熟悉，这本书通常被认为是哈维的代表作，为他后来的许多作品提供了理论基础。《资本之谜》与《资本的局限性》在很多方面有很大不同。最重要的是，《资本之谜》是在经济危机期间撰写和出版的。哈维利用这一危机时刻来确定导致其当前状态的政治经济学的历史趋势。这本书的组织让人想起2005年出版的《新自由主义简史》，其中哈维不仅将新自由主义定义为“一种政治经济实践理论，提出在以强有力的私有产权，自由市场和自由贸易为特征的制度框架内，通过解放个人创业自由和技能，可以最好地促进人类福祉”（第2页），但也确定了自1960年代以来全球采用新自由主义的情况。在《资本的极限》中，哈维断言资本主义可能因为技术创新而没有极限;然而，他在《资本之谜》中修正了这一主张，提出了“3%复合命题”。本文认为，为了使资本主义产生可接受的回报，它必须每年增长3%。这种增长的复合性质意味着，原始增长是永远需要的。哈维认为，“复合增长永远是不可能的，过去30年来困扰世界的问题表明，持续资本积累的极限正在逼近，除非创造无法持续的虚构，否则无法超越。（第227-228页）为了支持他的论点，哈维使用系统方法来确定资本主义的七个辩证相互关联的部分，或者他称之为“活动领域”：技术和组织形式，社会关系，制度和行政安排，生产和劳动过程，与自然的关系，日常生活和物种的再生产以及“世界的精神概念”。这七个维度在历史上共同发展，资本和资本积累产生于这些领域内和之间的运动。危机的根源在于这些领域内部和之间资本流动和积累的障碍。…
BOOK REVIEW: Harvey, David. 2010. The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis of Capitalism. New York,. NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN13: 9780199758715David Harvey, a public intellectual and Marxist geographer published, The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis of Capitalism in 2010. While particularly relevant directly following the United States' Great Recession, this book is an academic tour de force that continues to be an essential read for anyone interested in the historical expansion of the economic crisis and the global social response, including the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The book is built upon identifying what capital is and how instability is inherently part of capitalism; this idea is what Harvey identifies as the 'crisis -prone' nature of the system. Often noted for his public discourse, Harvey has written this book to be accessible to a broad audience, providing an interesting read for both academics and laymen unfamiliar with Marxism, neoliberalism and related concepts. In The Enigma of Capital, audiences will not only find detailed critical and historical analyses of the movement of capital, but will also find fresh descriptions and innovative examples of the process.Those who know of Harvey's work may be most familiar with The Limits to Capital (1982), often noted as Harvey's magnum opus, which provides the theoretical foundations to many of his subsequent texts. The Enigma of Capital differs significantly from The Limits to Capital in a number of ways. Most importantly, The Enigma of Capital was written and published during an economic crisis. Harvey uses this juncture of crisis to identify the historical trends in the political economy that led to its current state. The organization of the book is reminiscent of A Brief History of Neoliberalism as published in 2005, in which Harvey not only defines neoliberalism as, "a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade" (p. 2), but also identifies the global adoption of neoliberalism from the 1960s forward. In The Limits to Capital, Harvey asserts that capitalism may not have a limit because of technological innovations; however, he revises this claim in The Enigma of Capital, proposing the "3 percent compound thesis". The thesis argues that in order for capitalism to produce acceptable returns, it must grow by three percent per annum. The compounded nature of this growth implies that raw growth is perpetually needed. Harvey contends that, "compound growth forever is not possible and the troubles that have beset the world these last thirty years signal that the limit is looming to continuous capital accumulation that cannot be transcended except by creating fictions that cannot last" (p. 227-228).In support of his thesis, Harvey uses a systems approach to identify seven dialectally interrelated parts of capitalism or what he terms "activity spheres": technologies and organizational forms, social relations, institutional and administrative arrangements, production and labor processes, relations to nature, the reproduction of daily life and the species and 'mental conceptions of the world'. These seven dimensions co-evolve in history, where capital and the accumulation of capital arises from movement within and between these spheres. Sources of crises are found in the barriers to capital movement and accumulation within and between these spheres. …