The Metaphysics of Capitalism

Andrea Micocci argues that capitalism can be conceptualized as a limited and limiting socialized mode of thought, an intellectuality whose dialectical features are effectively identified by using the proxy of political economy, both Marxist and mainstream. Political economy, a representative instance of dialectical thinking, mirrors the dialectical nature of capitalist economic and political relationships. According to Micocci, nondialectical occurrences in capitalism are simply excluded from normal social, economic, and intellectual activities, which are performed in a metaphysical, intellectually isolated environment. In capitalism, the material, that is, nature itself, is not considered as a whole but only as occasional instances. Micocci describes capitalism as an intellectually constructed culture (a metaphysics) that preserves itself, and props itself up, by means of its iterative (market-like) functioning. Book jacket.

Andrea Micocci is professor of economics at the University of Malta, Link Campus. He also teaches political philosophy at the Jean Monnet faculty of Seconda Universita di Napoli (SUN), San Leucio.