150 years after its publication, Marx’s Capital remains stunningly relevant today. In essence, it is a research program launched by Marx without ever having been completed, and which is basically an ongoing project, as its object is, as Marx himself explains, the “ideal average” of the capitalist system, the causal relationships that characterize this system, and operate below the surface of each and every capitalism.
This volume (available only online) comprises the seven contributions and their corresponding commentaries presented at the conference 150 Years ~ Karl Marx’s ‘Capital’: Reflections for the 21st Century, held on 14 and 15 January 2017 in Athens by the Marxist journal Theseis and the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation, Office in Greece. The conference was organized on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of the first edition of Karl Marx’s Volume 1 of Capital and was the result of the organizers’ common conviction that Capital remains an important, if not the most important, analysis of economic and social power relations, their driving forces and evolutionary trends.
Speakers at the Conference, in the order of presentation, were Michael Heinrich, Spiros Lapatsioras and Dimitris P. Sotiropoulos, Michael A. Lebowitz, Étienne Balibar, Marta Harnecker, Dimitri Dimoulis και Soraya Lunardi, John Milios. Discussants were Dimitris Papafotiou, Christos Vallianos, George Economakis, Panagiotis Sotiris, Petros Psarreas, Michalis Skomvoulis, Vassilis Droucopoulos. Find the videos online here.
The conference left its footprint at the discussions about the relevance of the Capital today. This volume seeks to have an effect on the international debate with regard the critique of capitalism and the prospect of an alternative society.
Since 1982, Theseis has published studies in Marxist theory and analysis, many of which focus on the different interpretations and applications of Capital from contemporary theorists or currents of thought. Since 2013, the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung’s Office in Greece has been hosting reading courses on Capital, seeing an increasing level of interest, especially among young scholars. The aim of the conference was exactly to highlight the relevance and significance of Karl Marx’s major work.
