The Automatic Fetish: The Law of Value in Marx's Capital

The Automatic Fetish demonstrates the clarity and coherence of Marx’s critique in Capital III against the perennial tendency to shrug it off as a posthumous bundle of notes. Far from an incomplete theoretical system, Best identifies and elaborates a specific theory of movement and appearances (a “perceptual physics”) that lies at the heart of the matter of the third volume of Capital, and that forms the conceptual bridge between Capital I, II, & III. In addition to the coherence of Marx’s project, Best demonstrates the need for demonstration: Marx’s theoretical system in Capital cannot be posited or described; rather, it must be demonstrated, and this is what Best does, step by step, through an exposition of each Part of Book Three. Neither a “back to basics” nor newfangled reconstruction, The Automatic Fetish eschews novelty to show why, once again, Marx deserves to be read carefully. By “unreconstructing” Marx, Best demonstrates how the analytical power of Marx’s critique is as relevant today as it ever was for the analysis of the capitalist mode of production, which is still in the process of immiserating and destroying everything there is. The Automatic Fetish is an apologia of Marx without apologies.

Table of Contents:
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

About the Author :
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.

Review :
Beverley Best has reinvented Capital, Volume III. Beverley Best's excellent analysis of Volume Three of Capital addresses a mostly neglected terrain of Marxist scholarship and achieves something very special. Her critique of the economic categories of price, rent and interest cracks their economic objectivity and lets the light in. All social life is essentially practical, including economic forms such as production prices. This is a groundbreaking book. The Automatic Fetish is a revelation. Following the red thread of Marx's value theory through Volume 3 of Capital, Beverly Best makes an overwhelming case that far from being a collection of arcane posthumous drafts made even more obscure by Engel's heavy hand, the third volume of Capital is a lucid culmination of the analysis Marx began in Volume 1. She shows us that Marx clearly identifies industrial profit, interest, ground rent, and wages as essentially similar expressions of the social relationship he called surplus value. She also shows us that Marx explains how we are induced, day after day, to see those phenomena as utterly separate - that is, to see them fetishistically. But conflicts over land, anti-gentrification battles, commodity bubbles, wage struggles: they all look different when they become so clearly visible as aspects of the same dynamic. The Automatic Fetish is that rare work of theory whose practical implications just sing out loud. It is surely among the most useful books on Capital III ever written. The Automatic Fetish is that rare, double accomplishment that serves the need of the generalist reader while educating the specialist. Those new to Capital Vol III will find here a companion indispensable to helping them make their way. Meanwhile Marxologists still wondering whether Marx has a value theory of ideology will find here a most compelling answer in the affirmative. 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. The Automatic Fetish is the most intelligent book I have read in years. It is, all at once: a reliable guide to the the third volume of Marx's Capital; a stunningly fresh and inspiring interpretation of that often diffuse and refractory text; a convincing explication of our current historical juncture; and perhaps most surprisingly, the elaboration of a theory of ideology that Best finds implicit in Marx's mature writings, one that stands as a corrective to other conceptions of ideology, both within and outside the Marxist tradition. The contribution of The Automatic Fetish is hard to exaggerate. It belongs on a shelf with Alfred Sohn-Rethel's Intellectual and Manual Labor - whose rigor, on my view, Best's book surpasses. While the first volume of Capital is supported by several excellent guides, the challenging and vital Volume 3 has to this point not received similar attention. Beverly Best's Automatic Fetish sets out to rectify this and generously meets a real need. It is sure to become an invaluable companion for co-thinkers, a reading group staple, and will make a significant contribution to the wider field of materialist theory. Beverly Best gives us many good reasons to read Marx's Capital all over again by giving Volume Three the careful attention it deserves. Best guides us through Marx's account of capitalism as a whole, demonstrating its unmatched theoretical coherence and undimmed political relevance. We find that it is necessary to take this path precisely because so much criticism has been designed to avoid it. 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. Brilliant, eloquent and precise. Beverly Best has given us one of the most profound re-readings of Capital to have appeared in a generation and an essential source, especially for anyone now undertaking a serious study of volume III. Along the way, The Automatic Fetish redeems the much maligned base/superstructure methodology by discovering the astonishing truth of its "perceptual physics": "The capitalist base disappears into the superstructure." This work is nothing short of a masterful reading of Marx's form-analysis and defends the continued relevance of Marx's work in the twenty-first century. A beacon in this world. This work is nothing short of a masterful reading of Marx's form-analysis and defends the continued relevance of Marx's work in the twenty-first century. The Automatic Fetish is clearly a strong work of Marxist theorizing.