The Failure of Capitalist Production: Underlying Causes of the
Great Recession
by Andrew Kliman
Pluto Press, November 2011. Paperback / 256pp. / ISBN-13: 978-0745332390
(also available in hardcover)
Description:
The reasons behind the global financial crisis and the Great Recession are
the subject of much debate.
This is the first book to conclude, on the basis of in-depth analyses of
official U.S. data, that Marx’s
crisis theory can explain these events.
Marx believed that the rate of profit has a tendency to fall, leading to
economic crises and recessions.
Many economists, Marxists among them, have dismissed this theory out of
hand, but Andrew Kliman’s
careful data analysis shows that the rate of profit did indeed decline
after the post-World War II boom.
He shows that free-market policies have failed to reverse that decline.
This fall in profitability led to
sluggish investment and economic growth, mounting debt problems, desperate
attempts of
governments to fight these problems by piling up even more debt –
ultimately ending in the Great
Recession.
Kliman’s conclusion is simple but shocking: short of socialist
transformation, the only way to escape
the “new normal” of a stagnant, crisis-prone economy is to restore
profitability through full-scale
destruction of the value of existing capital assets, something not seen
since the Depression of the 1930s.
Audio:
Kliman and Doug Lain discuss the book on Lain's Diet Soap Podcast #125:
Crisis and Capitalism's System
Failure, at http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/ . (The interview is about 70
minutes long.)
Upcoming Talk:
Kliman will discuss the book in Takoma Park, Maryland on Thursday, December
8 at 7:30 p.m. The event
will take place at the Takoma Park Community Center Auditorium, 7500 Maple
Avenue, Takoma Park,
Endorsements:
Clear, rigorous and combative. The Failure of Capitalist
Production demonstrates that the current
economic crisis is a consequence of the fundamental dynamic of capitalism,
unlike the vast bulk of
superficial, contemporary commentary that passes for economic analysis. –
Rick Kuhn, Deutscher
Prize winner, Reader in Politics at the Australian National
University and long-time
activist
One of the very best of the rapidly growing series of works seeking to
explain our economic crisis. While
recognizing the role that capitalism in general (and the falling rate of
profit, a version of surplus-value for
Marx) plays in periodic crises, and the role that particular events play in
triggering each crisis, Kliman’s
account emphasizes the ‘reforms’ adopted in the United States during
the 1970s and 1980s that offered
temporary relief for the economic downturn of that time only to worsen the
systemic contradictions that
ensure a still bigger crisis the next time around. The scholarship is
exemplary and the writing is crystal
clear, itself a very impressive achievement for works in this area. HIGHLY
RECOMMENDED!
– Professor Bertell Ollman, Department of Politics, NYU, author of
Dance of the Dialectic
Among the myriad publications on the present day crisis, this work stands
out as something unusual.
Kliman cogently argues against the view of the crisis, held by the
conventional left, according to which the
present crisis is ultimately rooted in the financialization of the
capitalist economy–so that capitalism itself
is not in question–and hence still reparable by correcting the financial
problems through the abandonment
of the neo-liberal policies pursued by the authorities globally. An
excellent theorist, Kliman has proved in
this work that he is also equally at ease with applied political economy.
He ends his book–unusually here
again–by refuting the reformist position of many on the left by affirming
the need for and the possibility of
building an alternative to capitalism–a libertarian society. –
Paresh Chattopadhyay,
Université du Québec à Montréal
Audio:
Kliman and Doug Lain discuss the book on Lain's Diet Soap Podcast #125:
Crisis and Capitalism's System
Failure, at http://dietsoap.podomatic.com/ . (The interview is about 70
minutes long.)
Synopsis of Book & Excerpts from Chap. 1 have been
posted in With Sober Senses, at
Purchase info.:
In the U.S.: The book IS available now in the U.S., but Amazon is
evidently holding it until the official release date.
Marxist-Humanist Initiative is currently offering the book for the lowest
price around, at
Palgrave Macmillan is also offering it (or will soon offer it) at a
discount at
It is also available from the whole gamut of online booksellers.
Inspection and review copies:
To request an inspection copy, please send the following details to
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the level of the course (level one, two, three or post-graduate), the start
date of the course, expected number
of students on the course, name of local (or university) bookshop, and full
university address (this is where the
book will be sent). Pluto needs all these details to be able to be able to
process a request. Inspection copies are
provided with an invoice that is cancelled if the book is adopted for a
course, or returned in a resalable
If you would like to request a copy of The Failure of Capitalist
Production in order to review it for a journal or
other publication, please email Pluto’s publicity manager, Jon Wheatley, at
[log in to unmask], providing
your contact details and the name of the publication you intend to review
the book for.
