Finance and Economics: Verso Student Reading

Book strip #1

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  Mute Compulsion

  by Søren Mau

  Despite insoluble contradictions, intense volatility and fierce resistance, the crisis-ridden capitalism of the 21st century lingers on. To understand capital’s paradoxical expansion and entrenchme...
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  The Automatic Fetish

  by Beverley Best

  The Automatic Fetish traces Marx’s analysis of capital, step by step, through the material compiled posthumously as the third volume of Capital. Identifying the critique of value as the central thr...
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  A Companion To Marx's Capital

  by David Harvey

  In recent years, we have witnessed a surge of interest in Marx’s work in the effort to understand the origins of our current predicament. For nearly forty years, David Harvey has written and lectur...
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  Our Lives in Their Portfolios

  by Brett Christophers

  Banks have taken a backseat since the global financial crisis over a decade ago. Today, our new financial masters are asset managers, like Blackstone and BlackRock. And they don't just own financia...
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  Reading Capital

  by Louis Althusser, Étienne Balibar, Roger Establet, Pierre Macherey and Jacques Rancière

  Translated by Ben Brewster and David Fernbach

  Originally published in 1965, Reading Capital is a landmark of French thought and radical theory, reconstructing Western Marxism from its foundations. Louis Althusser, the French Marxist philosophe...
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  Revolutionary Mathematics

  by Justin Joque

  Our finances, politics, media, opportunities, information, shopping and knowledge production are mediated through algorithms and their statistical approaches to knowledge; increasingly, these metho...
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  Democratizing Finance

  Contributions by Selen Güler, Mark Igra, Michael A. McCarthy, Mary Mellor, Lenore Palladino, Sarah Quinn, William H. Simon and David M. Woodruff

  Edited by Fred Block and Robert Hockett

  What if our financial system were organized to the benefit of the many rather than simply empowering the few? Robert Hockett and Fred Block argue that an entirely different financial system is both...
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  Keystroke Capitalism

  by Aaron Sahr

  Translated by Sharon Howe

  Contemporary capitalism produces more and more money, debt, and inequality. These three trends have a common cause: the privilege of private banks to create money by means of accounting - by the st...
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  Levers of Power

  by Tarun Banerjee, Michael Schwartz and Kevin A. Young

  It’s no secret that the 1%—the business elite that commands the largest corporations and the connected network of public and private institutions—exercise enormous control over the US government. W...
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  The Imperial Mode of Living

  by Ulrich Brand and Markus Wissen

  With the concept of the Imperial Mode of Living, Brand and Wissen highlight the fact that capitalism implies uneven development as well as a constant and accelerating universalisation of a Western ...
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  Money

  by Michel Aglietta

  Translated by David Broder

  As the financial crisis reached its climax in September 2008, the most important figure on the planet was Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. The whole financial system was collapsing, without a...
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  Critical Encounters

  by Wolfgang Streeck

  From the acclaimed author of How Will Capitalism End? comes an omnibus of long-form critical essays engaging with leading economists and thinkers. Critical Encounters draws on Wolfgang Streeck’s in...
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  The Origin of Capitalism

  by Ellen Meiksins Wood

  In The Origin of Capitalism, a now-classic work of history, Ellen Meiksins Wood offers readers a clear and accessible introduction to the theories and debates concerning the birth of capitalism, im...
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  Buying Time

  by Wolfgang Streeck

  The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 still has the world on tenterhooks. The gravity of the situation is matched by a general paucity of understanding about what is happening and ho...
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  How Will Capitalism End?

  by Wolfgang Streeck

  In How Will Capitalism End?, the acclaimed analyst of contempo­rary politics and economics Wolfgang Streeck argues that the world is on the cusp of enormous change. The marriage between democracy a...
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  Post-Growth Living

  by Kate Soper

  The reality of runaway climate change is inextricably linked with the mass consumerist, capitalist society in which we live. And the cult of endless growth, and endless consumption of cheap disposa...
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  Owning the Future

  by Adrienne Buller and Mathew Lawrence

  The question of ownership is the critical fault line of our times. During the pandemic this issue has only become more divisive. Since March 2020 we have witnessed the extraordinary growth of asset...
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  The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems

  by Nancy Folbre

  Why do patriarchal systems survive? In this groundbreaking work of feminist theory, Nancy Folbre examines the contradictory effects of capitalist development. She explains why the work of caring fo...
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  Nine Lives of Neoliberalism

  Edited by Philip Mirowski, Dieter Plehwe and Quinn Slobodian

  Neoliberalism is dead. Again. After the election of Trump and the victory of Brexit in 2016, many diagnosed the demise of the ideology of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Augusto Pinochet, and the...
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  Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste

  by Philip Mirowski

  At the onset of the Great Recession, as house prices sank and joblessness soared, many commentators thought that neoliberalism itself was in its death throes. And yet it seems that—post-apocalypse—...
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  Rentier Capitalism

  by Brett Christophers

  In this landmark book, the author of The New Enclosure provides a forensic examination and sweeping critique of early-twenty-first-century capitalism. Brett Christophers styles this as ‘rentier cap...
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  The Limits to Capital

  by David Harvey

  Now a classic of Marxian economics, The Limits to Capital provides one of the best theoretical guides to the history and geography of capitalist development. In this edition, Harvey updates his cla...
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  The Fall and Rise of American Finance

  by Scott Aquanno and Stephen Maher

  The Fall and Rise of American Finance traces the collapse and reconstitution of American financial power from the disintegration of robber baron J. P. Morgan’s vast empire to the rise of finance be...
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  Spaces of Global Capitalism

  by David Harvey

  Introduction by Hans Gebhardt and Peter Meusberger

  Fiscal crises have cascaded across much of the developing world with devastating results, from Mexico to Indonesia, Russia and Argentina. The extreme volatility in contemporary economic fortunes se...
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  The Production of Money

  by Ann Pettifor

  According to leading economist Ann Pettifor, one of the few people to predict the 2008 financial crisis, money is not a commodity but a promise. This radical reconsideration of the power of money m...
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  The New Spirit of Capitalism

  by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello

  Translated by Gregory Elliott

  In this major work, sociologists Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello go to the heart of the changes in contemporary capitalism. Via an unprecedented analysis of the latest management texts that have fo...
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  The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born

  by Nancy Fraser

  Contributions by Bhaskar Sunkara

  Across the globe politics as usual are being rejected and faith in neoliberalism is fracturing beyond repair. Leading political theorist Nancy Fraser, in conversation with Jacobin publisher Bhaskar...
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  Historical Capitalism

  by Immanuel Wallerstein

  In this short, highly readable book, the master of world-systems theory provides a succinct anatomy of capitalism over the past five hundred years. Considering the way capitalism has changed and ev...
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  Never Ending Nightmare

  by Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval

  How do we explain the strange survival of the forcesresponsible for the 2008 economic crisis, one of the worst since 1929? How do we explain the fact that neoliberalism has emerged from the crisis...
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  The Morals of the Market

  by Jessica Whyte

  Drawing on detailed archival research on the parallel histories of human rights and neoliberalism, Jessica Whyte uncovers the place of human rights in neoliberal attempts to develop a moral framewo...
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  The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg, Volume I

  by Rosa Luxemburg

  Edited by Peter Hudis

  Translated by David Fernbach, Joseph Fracchia and George Shriver

  This first volume in Rosa Luxemburg’s Complete Works, entitled Economic Writings 1, contains some of Luxemburg’s most important statements on the globalization of capital, wage labor, imperialism, ...
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  In the Long Run We Are All Dead

  by Geoff Mann

  In the ruins of the 2007–2008 financial crisis, progressives the world over clamoured to resurrect the economic theory of John Maynard Keynes. The crisis seemed to expose the disaster of small-stat...
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  Thomas Piketty's 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century'

  by Stephan Kaufmann and Ingo Stützle

  Translated by Alexander Locascio

  US Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman described Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century as “perhaps the most important book of the last decade”. It has sparked major international debates...
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  The Knowledge Economy

  by Roberto Mangabeira Unger

  Adam Smith and Karl Marx recognized that the best way to understand the economy is to study the most advanced practice of production. Today that practice is no longer conventional manufacturing: it...
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  Sinews of War and Trade

  by Laleh Khalili

  On the map of global trade, China is now the factory of the world. A parade of ships full of raw commodities—iron ore, coal, oil—arrive in its ports, and fleets of container ships leave with manufa...
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  Fictitious Capital

  by Cédric Durand

  Translated by David Broder

  The 2007–08 credit crisis and the long recession that followed brutally exposed the economic and social costs of financialization. Understanding what lay behind these events, the rise of “fictitiou...
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  Capitalism, Socialism, Ecology

  by André Gorz

  Translated by Chris Turner

  In this major new book, Andre Gorz expands on the political implications of his prescient and influential Paths to Paradise and Critique of Economic Reason. Against the background of technological ...
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  Fossil Capital

  by Andreas Malm

  The more we know about the catastrophic implications of climate change, the more fossil fuels we burn. How did we end up in this mess?In this masterful new history, Andreas Malm claims it all began...
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  Capital Is Dead

  by McKenzie Wark

  In this radical and visionary new book, McKenzie Wark argues that the all-pervasive presence of data in our networked society has given rise to a new mode of production, one not ruled over by capit...
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  The Last Neoliberal

  by Bruno Amable and Stefano Palombarini

  This book analyses the French political crisis, which has entered its most acute phase in more than thirty years with the break-up of traditional left and right social blocs. Governing parties have...
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  The Cost of Living Crisis

  by Costas Lapavitsas, James Meadway and Doug Nicholls

  We are living through a cost of living crisis, with interest rate hikes and the prices of everyday consumables and energy bills sky-rocketing. Why is this happening? Sometimes we are told that wage...
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  Alternatives to Capitalism

  by Robin Hahnel and Erik Olin Wright

  What would a viable free and democratic society look like? Poverty, exploitation, instability, hierarchy, subordination, environmental exhaustion, radical inequalities of wealth and power—it is not...
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  Value

  Edited by Diane Elson

  This influential collection of essays focuses on the elusive concept of “value,” and aims to answer the question “Why is Marx’s theory of value so important?” Aboo Aumeeruddy and Ramon Tortajada ...
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  The State of Capitalism

  by The EReNSEP Writing Collective and Costas Lapavitsas

  The health emergency that broke out in 2020 is a landmark event in the development of capitalism, confirming the underlying change signalled by the Great Crisis of 2007-9. The Pandemic Crisis has c...
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  Marx on Money

  by Suzanne de Brunhoff

  The republication of Suzanne de Brunhoff’s classic investigation into Karl Marx’s conception of “the money commodity” shines light on commodities and their fetishism. The investigation of money a...
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  A Theory of Capitalist Regulation

  by Michel Aglietta

  Translated by David Fernbach

  Aglietta's path-breaking book is the first attempt at a rigorous historical theory of the whole development of US capitalism, from the Civil War to the Carter presidency. A major document of the "R...

Book strip #11

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  The Rise and Decline of Patriarchal Systems

  by Nancy Folbre

  Why do patriarchal systems survive? In this groundbreaking work of feminist theory, Nancy Folbre examines the contradictory effects of capitalist development. She explains why the work of caring fo...

Book strip #12

• 

  Nine Lives of Neoliberalism

  Edited by Philip Mirowski, Dieter Plehwe and Quinn Slobodian

  Neoliberalism is dead. Again. After the election of Trump and the victory of Brexit in 2016, many diagnosed the demise of the ideology of Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan, Augusto Pinochet, and the...

Book strip #13

Book strip #14

• 

  The Limits to Capital

  by David Harvey

  Now a classic of Marxian economics, The Limits to Capital provides one of the best theoretical guides to the history and geography of capitalist development. In this edition, Harvey updates his cla...

Book strip #15

• 

  Spaces of Global Capitalism

  by David Harvey

  Introduction by Hans Gebhardt and Peter Meusberger

  Fiscal crises have cascaded across much of the developing world with devastating results, from Mexico to Indonesia, Russia and Argentina. The extreme volatility in contemporary economic fortunes se...

Book strip #16

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  Equal Shares

  by John E. Roemer

  Contributions by Richard Arneson, Fred Block, Harry Brighouse, Michael Burawoy, Joshua Cohen, Nancy Folbre, Andrew Levine, Mieke Meurs, Louis Putterman, Joel Rogers, Debra Satz, Julius Sensat, William Simon, Frank Thompson and Thomas E. Weisskopf

  Edited by Erik Olin Wright

  “Nice idea, but it doesn’t work in practice.” How often have socialists had this claim thrown back at them? And now, after the events of 1989, many of the Left are openly wondering what a defensibl...

Book strip #17

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  The Origin of Capitalism

  by Ellen Meiksins Wood

  In The Origin of Capitalism, a now-classic work of history, Ellen Meiksins Wood offers readers a clear and accessible introduction to the theories and debates concerning the birth of capitalism, im...

Book strip #18

• 

  The Production of Money

  by Ann Pettifor

  According to leading economist Ann Pettifor, one of the few people to predict the 2008 financial crisis, money is not a commodity but a promise. This radical reconsideration of the power of money m...

Book strip #19

• 

  The New Spirit of Capitalism

  by Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello

  Translated by Gregory Elliott

  In this major work, sociologists Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello go to the heart of the changes in contemporary capitalism. Via an unprecedented analysis of the latest management texts that have fo...

Book strip #20

• 

  The Old Is Dying and the New Cannot Be Born

  by Nancy Fraser

  Contributions by Bhaskar Sunkara

  Across the globe politics as usual are being rejected and faith in neoliberalism is fracturing beyond repair. Leading political theorist Nancy Fraser, in conversation with Jacobin publisher Bhaskar...

Book strip #21

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  Prisoners of the American Dream

  by Mike Davis

  Prisoners of the American Dream is Mike Davis’s brilliant exegesis of a persistent and major analytical problem for Marxist historians and political economists: Why has the world’s most industriall...

Book strip #22

• 

  Historical Capitalism

  by Immanuel Wallerstein

  In this short, highly readable book, the master of world-systems theory provides a succinct anatomy of capitalism over the past five hundred years. Considering the way capitalism has changed and ev...

Book strip #23

• 

  How Will Capitalism End?

  by Wolfgang Streeck

  In How Will Capitalism End?, the acclaimed analyst of contempo­rary politics and economics Wolfgang Streeck argues that the world is on the cusp of enormous change. The marriage between democracy a...

Book strip #24

• 

  Never Ending Nightmare

  by Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval

  How do we explain the strange survival of the forcesresponsible for the 2008 economic crisis, one of the worst since 1929? How do we explain the fact that neoliberalism has emerged from the crisis...

Book strip #25

• 

  Money

  by Michel Aglietta

  Translated by David Broder

  As the financial crisis reached its climax in September 2008, the most important figure on the planet was Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. The whole financial system was collapsing, without a...

Book strip #26

• 

  Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste

  by Philip Mirowski

  At the onset of the Great Recession, as house prices sank and joblessness soared, many commentators thought that neoliberalism itself was in its death throes. And yet it seems that—post-apocalypse—...

Book strip #27

• 

  The Morals of the Market

  by Jessica Whyte

  Drawing on detailed archival research on the parallel histories of human rights and neoliberalism, Jessica Whyte uncovers the place of human rights in neoliberal attempts to develop a moral framewo...

Book strip #29

• 

  The Complete Works of Rosa Luxemburg, Volume I

  by Rosa Luxemburg

  Edited by Peter Hudis

  Translated by David Fernbach, Joseph Fracchia and George Shriver

  This first volume in Rosa Luxemburg’s Complete Works, entitled Economic Writings 1, contains some of Luxemburg’s most important statements on the globalization of capital, wage labor, imperialism, ...

Book strip #30

• 

  In the Long Run We Are All Dead

  by Geoff Mann

  In the ruins of the 2007–2008 financial crisis, progressives the world over clamoured to resurrect the economic theory of John Maynard Keynes. The crisis seemed to expose the disaster of small-stat...

Book strip #31

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  The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money

  by Geoff Mann

  John Maynard Keynes’s General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money revolutionized economics. But it can be dense and cryptic, an intimidating work for the uninitiated. This companion volume app...

Book strip #32

• 

  Thomas Piketty's 'Capital in the Twenty-First Century'

  by Stephan Kaufmann and Ingo Stützle

  Translated by Alexander Locascio

  US Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman described Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the Twenty-First Century as “perhaps the most important book of the last decade”. It has sparked major international debates...

Book strip #33

• 

  Buying Time

  by Wolfgang Streeck

  The financial and economic crisis that began in 2008 still has the world on tenterhooks. The gravity of the situation is matched by a general paucity of understanding about what is happening and ho...

Book strip #34

• 

  The Knowledge Economy

  by Roberto Mangabeira Unger

  Adam Smith and Karl Marx recognized that the best way to understand the economy is to study the most advanced practice of production. Today that practice is no longer conventional manufacturing: it...