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The Automatic Fetish:The Law of Value in Marx's Capital
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Why the neglected third volume of Capital holds the key to Marx's theory of value
The Automatic Fetish traces Marx’s analysis of capital, step by step, through the material compiled posthumously as the third volume of Capital. Identifying the critique of value as the central through line of the entire work, Beverley Best elaborates a theory of movement through which the capital machine generates social forms of appearance as the inversion of its inner operating mechanisms. Neither a return to basics nor a new-fangled reconstruction, The Automatic Fetish eschews novelty to show once again that Marx rewards careful study.
- ‘If I had to choose one book that would make the case for the relevance of Marx’s critique of political economy to the humanities, this might very well be it’ Colleen Lye, co-editor of After Marx
- ‘The contribution of The Automatic Fetish is hard to exaggerate’ Nicholas Brown, author of Autonomy
- ‘Will make a significant contribution to the wider field of materialist theory’ Joshua Clover, author of Riot. Strike. Riot
- ‘In Best’s hands, Capital becomes not only fascinating but useful, down to its last detail. Written with clarity, focus, and urgency, Best has “unreconstructed” Marx for our times’ Richard Dienst, author of The Bonds of Debt
- ‘A groundbreaking book’ Werner Bonefeld, author of A Critical Theory of Economic Compulsion
- ‘That rare work of theory whose practical implications just sing out loud … Surely among the most useful books on Capital III ever written’ Christopher Nealon, author of The Matter of Capital
- ‘Brilliant, eloquent, and precise. Best has given us one of the most profound re-readings of Capital to have appeared in a generation and an essential source’ Neil Larsen, author of Determinations
Reviews
Beverley Best has reinvented Capital, Volume III.
Beverley Best's excellent analysis of Volume Three of Capital addresses a mostly neglected terrain of Marxist scholarship and achieves something very special. Her critique of the economic categories of price, rent and interest cracks their economic objectivity and lets the light in. All social life is essentially practical, including economic forms such as production prices. This is a groundbreaking book.
The Automatic Fetish is a revelation. Following the red thread of Marx's value theory through Volume 3 of Capital, Beverly Best makes an overwhelming case that far from being a collection of arcane posthumous drafts made even more obscure by Engel's heavy hand, the third volume of Capital is a lucid culmination of the analysis Marx began in Volume 1. She shows us that Marx clearly identifies industrial profit, interest, ground rent, and wages as essentially similar expressions of the social relationship he called surplus value. She also shows us that Marx explains how we are induced, day after day, to see those phenomena as utterly separate - that is, to see them fetishistically. But conflicts over land, anti-gentrification battles, commodity bubbles, wage struggles: they all look different when they become so clearly visible as aspects of the same dynamic. The Automatic Fetish is that rare work of theory whose practical implications just sing out loud. It is surely among the most useful books on Capital III ever written.
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The Automatic Fetish is that rare, double accomplishment that serves the need of the generalist reader while educating the specialist. Those new to Capital Vol III will find here a companion indispensable to helping them make their way. Meanwhile Marxologists still wondering whether Marx has a value theory of ideology will find here a most compelling answer in the affirmative. If I had to choose one book that would make the case for the relevance of Marx's critique of political economy to the humanities, this might very well be it.
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The Automatic Fetish is the most intelligent book I have read in years. It is, all at once: a reliable guide to the the third volume of Marx's Capital; a stunningly fresh and inspiring interpretation of that often diffuse and refractory text; a convincing explication of our current historical juncture; and perhaps most surprisingly, the elaboration of a theory of ideology that Best finds implicit in Marx's mature writings, one that stands as a corrective to other conceptions of ideology, both within and outside the Marxist tradition. The contribution of The Automatic Fetish is hard to exaggerate. It belongs on a shelf with Alfred Sohn-Rethel's Intellectual and Manual Labor - whose rigor, on my view, Best's book surpasses.
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While the first volume of Capital is supported by several excellent guides, the challenging and vital Volume 3 has to this point not received similar attention. Beverly Best's Automatic Fetish sets out to rectify this and generously meets a real need. It is sure to become an invaluable companion for co-thinkers, a reading group staple, and will make a significant contribution to the wider field of materialist theory.
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Beverly Best gives us many good reasons to read Marx's Capital all over again by giving Volume Three the careful attention it deserves. Best guides us through Marx's account of capitalism as a whole, demonstrating its unmatched theoretical coherence and undimmed political relevance. We find that it is necessary to take this path precisely because so much criticism has been designed to avoid it. In Best's hands, Capital becomes not only fascinating but useful, down to its last detail. Written with clarity, focus, and urgency, Best has "unreconstructed" Marx for our times.
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Brilliant, eloquent and precise. Beverly Best has given us one of the most profound re-readings of Capital to have appeared in a generation and an essential source, especially for anyone now undertaking a serious study of volume III. Along the way, The Automatic Fetish redeems the much maligned base/superstructure methodology by discovering the astonishing truth of its "perceptual physics": "The capitalist base disappears into the superstructure."
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This work is nothing short of a masterful reading of Marx’s form-analysis and defends the continued relevance of Marx’s work in the twenty-first century.
, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books -
A beacon in this world.
, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books -
This work is nothing short of a masterful reading of Marx’s form-analysis and defends the continued relevance of Marx’s work in the twenty-first century.
, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books