Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy

Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Endorsements
Contents
List of figures
List of tables
Preface and acknowledgements
1 Introduction: resumption of history, return of choice
	War clarifies
	Pandemic reveals
	Neoliberal financialised capitalism: the end of the capitalist road
	Classes and nations against neoliberalism and towards socialism
	The crisis and the opportunities?
	Outline of the book
2 Capitalism as contradictory value production
	Marx’s critical political economy
		Value production and its two axes
		Socialising labour and developing the productive forces
	Enter neoclassical economics
	Policy of theoretical reconciliation produces ‘Marxist economics’
	Capitalism in society and history
		The historical specificity of capital
		The history and geography of contradictory value production
	Contradictions
		Contradictions of value production
		Contradictions beyond value production
3 The geopolitical economy of capitalism and socialism
	Capitalism and revolutions
	The matrix of political and geopolitical struggle
		Class competition and struggle
		International competition and struggle
	The unfolding of uneven and combined development
	The Thirty Years’ Crisis
		Crisis of imperialism
		Crisis of capitalism
	The socialistic golden age
		Political economy
		Geopolitical economy
		Descent into crisis
4 Neoliberalism and its financialisations
	The financial foundations
	The long downturn
	Pace and pattern
		Contrasts and complementarities
		Neoliberalism beyond the capitalist core
	The overstretched productive economy
	Financialisations: profits, demand and the dollar
		Financialisations and profits
		Financialisations, demand, wages and inequality
		Dollar-denominated financialisations
5 The unexpected reckoning
	Pandemics and social contracts
	China’s socialism in the pandemic stress text
	The neoliberal choice: herd immunity or herd immunity
	How to lose both lives and livelihoods
	The economic crisis
	The monetary policy response
	The fiscal policy response
		Biden’s stimulus
		The less neoliberal and financialised major capitalist economies
	Inflation and war
6 Know your enemy: between pseudo-civic neoliberalism and (neo)fascism?
	The end of neoliberalism?
	Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
	Neoliberalism and its avatars
	Corporate power or competitive markets
	The emergence of pseudo-civic neoliberalism?
	Or the start of a new authoritarian capitalism?
7 Capitalism in the balance of international power
	The US war against Russia over Ukraine
	The United States’ impossible imperial project
	Origins of the US hybrid war on Russia
	Multiple boomerangs
		Destroying the Russian economy?
		Destroying creditor power or undermining the dollar creditocracy?
		Defeating Russia?
		Strengthening alliances?
	Ukraine as theatre and proxy
	The future of capitalism in the balance
8 Conclusion: what is to be done?
	Building back (pseudo-civic) neoliberalism
		‘Mission economy’: the theory of pseudo-civic neoliberalism
		Modern monetary theory: camouflaging financialisations
		Universal basic income: questionable entitlement
	Political hope in search of an agent
	Brains and numbers
		The emergence of social democratic neoliberalism . . .
		. . . and the working class turn to populism
	Class and left politics today
		Planning, capitalism and socialism
		Parties or network politics?
		The left, nations and anti-imperialism
	People’s and peoples’ demands for socialism today
Index