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The Spectre of Capital: Idea and Reality

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Published Jul 2022

Christopher J. Arthur

Author: Christopher J. Arthur
What is money? What is capital? The Spectre of Capital tackles such fundamental questions at a deep philosophical level. It argues that the modern world is ruled by a ‘spectre’, the spectre of capital. This insight is rooted in an original combination of the ideas of Marx and Hegel. It presents the most sophisticated argument to date for ‘the homology thesis’, namely that the order of Hegel’s logical categories, and that of the social forms addressed by Marx’s Capital, share the same architectonic. The systematic-dialectical presentation shows how capital becomes a self-sustaining power.

Biographical Note

Christopher J. Arthur studied at the Universities of Nottingham and Oxford. He formerly taught philosophy at the University of Sussex. He is the author of Dialectics of Labour: Marx and his Relation to Hegel (Blackwell, 1986), and of The New Dialectic and Marx’s Capital (Brill, 2002).

Readership

Specialists in Marx (of his Capital especially) and Hegel (of his Logic especially), in the critique of political economy, and post-graduate students in philosophy.

Table of Contents

Preface
Abbreviations

Introduction

Part 1 Object and Method

1 Capital and Social Form

2 Capital and the Actuality of the Ideal

3 Systematic Dialectic

4 The Two Dialectics of Capital: Analytic and Synthetic

5 With What Must the Critique of Capital Begin?

Part 2 The Ideal Constitution of Capital

Division I Capital in Its Notion
6 Commodity

7 Money

8 Capital

Division II Capital Relation
9 Circulation

10 Production

11 Reproduction

Division III The System of Capital
Introduction to Division III

12 Capital as a System of Capitals

13 The System of Industrial Capital

14 The Dual Ontology of Capital

15 Absolute Capital

16 Capital and Its Others: Labour and Land

17 The Spectre

18 Review of the Presentation

19 Beyond Capital and Class

Appendix 1: Commentary on Hegel’s Logic
Appendix 2: Tables
Glossary
Select Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Subjects