The Automatic Fetish

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

Beverley Best works on Marx’s critique of political economy and teaches in the department of Sociology and Anthropology at Concordia University, Montréal. She is the author of Marx and Dynamic of the Capital Formation: An Aesthetics of Political Economy, and co-editor (with Werner Bonefeld and Chris O’Kane) of The Sage Handbook of Frankfurt School Critical Theory. She is the vice-president of the Marxist Literary Group.

Acknowledgements Introduction: Unreconstructing Marx: The Perceptual Physics of Capital Part I THE PHYSICS OF CAPITAL AND THE MYSTIFICATION OF SURPLUS-VALUE 1 Rate of Profit: Production 2 General Rate of Profit: Competition 3 Falling Rate of Profit: Crisis Part II SHAPESHIFTING: CAPITAL’S SOCIAL FORMS (WHERE MYSTIFICATION OF SURPLUS-VALUE DEEPENS AT THE SURFACE) 4 Transformation of Profit I: Commercial Profit 5 Transformation of Profit II: Interest 6 Transformation of Profit III: Ground-Rent Conclusion: The Revenues and Their Sources: The Three Faces of Surplus-Value Index