A Marxist Take on the Financial Collapse, Illustrated

Tags: capitalism, class, corporations, globalization, government/the state, marx/marxism, political economy, capitalist, internal contradiction, labor, 11 to 20 mins
Year: 2010
Length: 11:10
Access: GOOD Blog

Summary: The GOOD Blog describes the video as "another of those fantastic RSAnimate videos from London's Royal Society for the Arts, the Marxist sociologist David Harvey explains how the 'internal contradictions of capital accumulation,' not human nature or faulty institutions, are the actual root cause of the recent financial collapse (along with a host of other economic crises)." The clip would work well in a class grappling with Marxism and the continuing relevance and application of Marxist theory. In my view, the clip is particularly useful when attempting to broaden the discussion to the way capitalism works on a global scale. The clip can be used in conjunction with Harvey's new book, The Enigma of Capital: and the Crisis of Capitalism, and a fifteen minute audio interview he recently gave to Wisconsin Public Radio about the causes of the financial crises.

Harvey's argument dovetails nicely with Mark Blyth's argument about class politics and the true meaning of "austerity," which is also posted on The Sociological Cinema.

Submitted By: Lester Andrist

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