[lbo-talk] Harvey in Berkeley

Mike Beggs mikejbeggs at gmail.com
Fri Oct 8 17:17:34 PDT 2010


On Fri, Oct 8, 2010 at 11:51 PM, Eric Beck <ersatzdog at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the report, Chuck. Your description of the four sections
> makes the lecture sound excellent. (It also makes it sound like an
> outline of Anti-Oedipus.) It reminds me that I need to read Harvey's
> real writings. I've only read his book and short pieces on
> neoliberalism, which I think are generally very bad.

I'm the biggest fan of Harvey's stuff from the 1980s and his geography. 'Limits to Capital' is still one of the best books on 'Capital' there is. I love his stuff on 19th century Paris. 'The Condition of Postmodernity' was the single book most responsible for getting me interested in economics. But I regret to report that 'The Enigma of Capital' is not his best work. Frankly, it's a complete mess. He keeps on half-heartedly developing ad hoc systems of categories, referring to a few news reports (in a loose sense - there are few actual references in the book, even for direct quotes), then dropping the schema and moving on to something else.

I think the problem in 'Enigma', besides it being a rush-job, is that he neglects mid-range theory - he obviously knows his concepts (see 'Limits to Capital') and he can read a newspaper, but there is no linkage between the two so it's a jumble. I also think it's a shame that except for snide remarks he sees no reason to deal with economics or finance beyond what he gets from 'Capital' - it means the likes of De Long have an easy time because he makes easily-avoidable errors. For example he mixes up bank deposits, reserves and capital, and he uses 'surplus' to refer interchangeably to quite different concepts.

Mike Beggs



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