Rethinking Capital

Authors: Richard Dien Winfield



Provides a comprehensive theory of capital, showing how capital involves relations of economic freedom that put in jeopardy the very rights in whose exercise they consist

Broadens understanding of the ethical dimension of commodity exchange, production, capital accumulation, and competition

Offers readers a thorough critique of the three volumes of Marx’ Capital, as well as a positive alternative to the other major schools of modern economics

This book develops a comprehensive systematic economic theory, conceiving how the dynamic of market relations generates an economy dominated by the competitive process of individual profit-seeking enterprises. The author shows how, contrary to classical political economy and contemporary economics, the theory of capital is an a priori normative account properly belonging to ethics. Exposing and overcoming the limits of the economic conceptions of Hegel and Marx, Rethinking Capital determines how the system of capitals shapes economic freedom, jeopardizing the very rights in whose exercise it consists. Winfield thereby provides the understanding required to guide the private and public interventions with which capitalism can be given a human face.  

Table of contents

Front Matter
Pages i-xii

Introduction
Pages 1-10

Capital in General
Front Matter
Pages 11-11
The Elementary Interaction of Commodity Exchange
Pages 13-41
From Money to Capital
Pages 43-69
The Immediate Production Process of Capital in General
Pages 71-103
Value Production
Pages 105-127
Manufacturing and Mechanization
Pages 129-154
The Accumulation of Capital in General
Pages 155-183

The Circulation of Capital
Front Matter
Pages 185-185
Capital Circulation in General
Pages 187-221
The Turnover Process of Capital
Pages 223-256
Marx’s Misconception of the Reproduction of Social Capital
Pages 257-274
From Capital Circulation to the Competition of Individual Capitals
Pages 275-285

The System of Interacting Capitals
Front Matter
Pages 287-287
The Elementary Dynamic of Competition
Pages 289-317
The Adaptation of Production and Marketing to Competition
Pages 319-365
Competition and the Types of Individual Capitals
Pages 367-406
Competition and the Division of Classes
Pages 407-421
Capital’s Challenge to Right
Pages 423-447

Back Matter
Pages 449-461