Transcript: David Harvey on Capital

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It’s been more than a century and a half since Karl Marx published the first volume of Capital. It’s a massive, intimidating tome — one that many readers might be tempted to skip. Radical scholar David Harvey doesn’t think you should.

Harvey has taught Capital for decades. His popular courses on the book’s three volumes are available for free online and have been watched by millions around the world; they were the basis for his companion books to volumes one and two. Harvey’s latest book, Marx, Capital, and the Madness of Economic Reason is a shorter companion to all three volumes. In it, he deals with the fundamental irrationality of a capitalist system whose functioning is supposed to be anything but.

Harvey spoke with Daniel Denvir for Jacobin Radio’s podcast The Dig, about the book, capital’s simultaneous creative and destructive forces, climate change, and why Capital is still worth wrestling with.

Read the full transcript from Jacobin here.