The Enigma of Capital: and the Crises of Capitalism

BOOK REVIEW: Harvey, David. 2010. The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis of Capitalism. New York,. NY: Oxford University Press. ISBN13: 9780199758715David Harvey, a public intellectual and Marxist geographer published, The Enigma of Capital and the Crisis of Capitalism in 2010. While particularly relevant directly following the United States' Great Recession, this book is an academic tour de force that continues to be an essential read for anyone interested in the historical expansion of the economic crisis and the global social response, including the Occupy Wall Street Movement. The book is built upon identifying what capital is and how instability is inherently part of capitalism; this idea is what Harvey identifies as the 'crisis -prone' nature of the system. Often noted for his public discourse, Harvey has written this book to be accessible to a broad audience, providing an interesting read for both academics and laymen unfamiliar with Marxism, neoliberalism and related concepts. In The Enigma of Capital, audiences will not only find detailed critical and historical analyses of the movement of capital, but will also find fresh descriptions and innovative examples of the process.Those who know of Harvey's work may be most familiar with The Limits to Capital (1982), often noted as Harvey's magnum opus, which provides the theoretical foundations to many of his subsequent texts. The Enigma of Capital differs significantly from The Limits to Capital in a number of ways. Most importantly, The Enigma of Capital was written and published during an economic crisis. Harvey uses this juncture of crisis to identify the historical trends in the political economy that led to its current state. The organization of the book is reminiscent of A Brief History of Neoliberalism as published in 2005, in which Harvey not only defines neoliberalism as, "a theory of political economic practices that proposes that human well-being can best be advanced by liberating individual entrepreneurial freedoms and skills within an institutional framework characterized by strong private property rights, free markets, and free trade" (p. 2), but also identifies the global adoption of neoliberalism from the 1960s forward. In The Limits to Capital, Harvey asserts that capitalism may not have a limit because of technological innovations; however, he revises this claim in The Enigma of Capital, proposing the "3 percent compound thesis". The thesis argues that in order for capitalism to produce acceptable returns, it must grow by three percent per annum. The compounded nature of this growth implies that raw growth is perpetually needed. Harvey contends that, "compound growth forever is not possible and the troubles that have beset the world these last thirty years signal that the limit is looming to continuous capital accumulation that cannot be transcended except by creating fictions that cannot last" (p. 227-228). In support of his thesis, Harvey uses a systems approach to identify seven dialectally interrelated parts of capitalism or what he terms "activity spheres": technologies and organizational forms, social relations, institutional and administrative arrangements, production and labor processes, relations to nature, the reproduction of daily life and the species and 'mental conceptions of the world'. These seven dimensions co-evolve in history, where capital and the accumulation of capital arises from movement within and between these spheres. Sources of crises are found in the barriers to capital movement and accumulation within and between these spheres. …