Marx and the Dynamic of the Capital Formation An Aesthetics of Political Economy

This study offers a close examination of Marx's dialectical method of analysis through the lens of current debates in cultural studies, political economy, and critical sociology. It seeks to reanimate Marx's theoretical reconstruction of the capitalist formation from the point of view of recent and emerging social dynamics within advanced consumer economies. The book consists of two parts: part one reconstructs the defining movement of Marx's analytical approach as a function of abstraction. It demonstrates how Marx's method articulates a specific theory and practice of representationone of the several dimensions through which it expresses an "aesthetic sensibility"; part two opens up to a broader analysis of the continuing pertinence of Marx's method in the analysis of contemporary global capitalism wherein cultural production takes centre stage.

Beverley Best is Assistant Professor of Sociology at Concordia University in Montreal.