Geert Reuten – författare

The second volume of Marx's Capital is entitled The Circulation of Capital . Here a collection of original essays, by internationally known scholars, treat its themes, bringing to bear on all its parts the latest textual findings, methodological resources and accumulated knowledge of Marxian theory.

In The Unity of the Capitalist Economy and State, Geert Reuten offers a systematic exposition of the capitalist system, showing that the capitalist economy and the capitalist state constitute a unity. In its critique of contemporary economics, the book argues that in order to comprehend the capitalist system, one requires a full synthetic exposition of the economic and state institutions and processes necessary for its continued existence. A synthetic approach also reveals a range of components that are often obscured by partial analyses. In its systematic character, Reuten's work takes inspiration from Marx's provisional outline of the capitalist system in Capital, while also addressing fields that Marx left unfinished—such as the capitalist state.

What would an alternative to contemporary capitalism look like? In this book, Geert Reuten sets out a detailed design of a democratic society organised in worker cooperatives, followed by an equally detailed democratic transition to it, thereby making a convincing case. In Reuten’s design, Workers constitute the single economic class. However, unlike in capitalism, there is no class that owns the means of production. The legal structure of worker cooperatives is such that workers have full rights to the fruits of the cooperative without owning it, and yet the state does not own the cooperatives either. Interestingly, worker councils in the economic and state domains vote on all economically relevant matters. In Reuten’s work, the free choice of occupation and of specific consumer goods is even larger than in capitalism.

In this book Geert Reuten presents 21 of his previously published essays on the three volumes Marx’s Capital, dating from 1991–2019. The essays largely take the form of a summary of Marx’s text (a Volume or its Parts or Chapters) followed by an appreciation and (when required) a reconstruction. The book thus offers an overview of each of the three volumes of Capital, including their interconnection, as well as a focus on specific Parts of Capital. Throughout the general overviews and more focused analyses, Reuten emphasises Marx’s systematic-dialectical method and his monetary value-form analysis.

What would an alternative to contemporary capitalism look like? In this book, Geert Reuten sets out a detailed design of a democratic society organised in worker cooperatives, followed by an equally detailed democratic transition to it. In Reuten's convincing design, Workers constitute the single economic class. However, unlike in capitalism, there is no class that owns the means of production. The legal structure of worker cooperatives is such that workers have full rights to the fruits of the cooperative without owning it, and yet the state does not own the cooperatives either. Interestingly, worker councils in the economic and state domains vote on all economically relevant matters. In Reuten's compelling vision, the free choice of occupation and of specific consumer goods is even larger than in capitalism.