David Harvey, Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism, Profile Books, London, 2014, 336 pages, £14.99 hardback, ISBN 9781781251607.

The Seventeen Contradictions is an x-ray of tensions, trends and tendencies in capital and capitalism that empowers us to look forward. Taking the still ongoing 2008 economic crisis as a starting point, Harvey investigates how the capitalist economy that produces such crises is embedded in contradictions. Seventeen of these are discussed throughout the book.

Some of these contradictions are regarded 'Foundational' (see Part One of the book), whereas others are deemed to be 'Moving' (Part Two). While the former, as Harvey suggests, are constant features of capital in any space and time,  the only thing considered to be constant about the latter is that they are unstable and always changing (page 89). The third and last set of contradictions examined by Harvey is the 'Dangerous' ones, and here the economic system of endless compound growth meets nature.

The contradictions are always interrelated, and also understood dialectically as “seemingly opposed forces … simultaneously present within a particular situation, an entity, a process or an event” (page 1). And there are no a priori negative connotations. By contrast, the book contains a rather positive undertone, as the contradictions are places to look for progressive change and possibilities.The book is more original in terms of form than of content. Many, if not most, of the inquiries in the contradictions will not be new to readers already familiar with Harvey’s work. We find, for example, accumulation by dispossession in contradictions #4 and #10, class struggle being important in more-than-workplaces (like in urbanization and housing) in #5, space-time compression in #6 and #15, as well as spatial fixes and the making and destroying of capitalist geographical landscapes in #11. Housing and urbanization are extensively used as examples, for instance, in #1 and #3, and we also find Second Empire Paris in #13. Similarly to his take on crises from late 1970s onwards, contradictions are never solved within capitalism but merely moved around in time and space (page 4). Also characteristic of Harvey is that the capitalist state is discussed in some detail (see #3), but then left at a certain point, as Harvey is “not here trying to write out a general theory of what the capitalist state is all about” (page 47). Readers familiar with Marxist crisis theory can be surprised that one of the more (in)famous contradictions is not included in the book: the Law of the Tendential Fall in the Rate of Profit (i.e. the contradiction between technological change and rates of profit). Readers more familiar with Harvey´s take on crises, however, would be less surprised, as this is not a theory he favors.

Table 1: David Harvey's 'Seventeen Contradictions'.

Not everything in Seventeen Contradictions, however, is easily traceable to earlier work. In the concluding chapter Harvey emphasizes the need for a revolutionary humanism (see also #17). By this he means that social change cannot be reduced, for example, to the iron law of economics or technology; it is rather “through conscious thought and action [that we can] change both the world we live in and ourselves for the better” (page 282). Inspired by André Gorz, Frantz Fanon and Antonio Gramsci, Harvey thus discusses alienation in relation to production, consumption, everyday life and nature.

The beauty of the book lies primarily in its mode of presentation. Written in an easy prose that never becomes blunt, and making use of many up-to-date examples, the book makes for an accessible read also to those who are not very familiar with Harvey and Marxism. The broad scope, or an “x-ray into the contradictions of capital”, as Harvey defines it (page 294), precludes in-depth analysis, and in this sense the book can be criticized for its simplifications and for being superficial (the restricted use of references could add to this argument). But such a reading would miss the point and the more innovative aspects of the book. The way Harvey discloses the contradictions of capital within contemporary capitalism makes for a highly interesting introductory book in the field, as well as a guide for action.

The book is a great guide for social change, or rather, a guide for where to start looking for possibilities and opportunities. As the “future is already largely present in the world around us” (page 219), Harvey offers seventeen places where we should seek for future change. In this sense the book offers hope – not primarily because social movements or labour unions are strong, but because the economic system is inherently prone to crisis.

One aspect that could have perhaps been further developed, or handled differently, is Harvey’s “clear distinction between capitalism and capital” (page 7, emphasis in original). Capitalism is here defined as “any social formation in which processes of capital circulation and accumulation are hegemonic and dominant in providing and shaping the material, social and intellectual bases for social life” (page 7). This includes questions of race and gender. The aim of the book, however, is to investigate not capitalism but capital– the “economic engine” – to “isolate and analyse the internal contradictions of capital” (page 10, emphasis in original). Harvey uses the metaphor of a ship sailing the ocean:

“But it is not my interest here to get into all of this [e.g. gender, race, etc., author comment]. In the bowels of the ship there is an economic engine that pounds away day and night supplying energy to it and powering it across the ocean” (page 9).

The distinction between capital and capitalism, however, becomes blurry when Harvey enters the actual contradictions, which at times are much more about capitalism than capital (see #3, #13, #14 and #17). Furthermore, employing the metaphor of a boat’s engine conveys (at least to me) a feeling of economic determinism, in contrast to the humanist tradition to which Harvey associates himself. Finally, it is also somewhat unclear why nature is internal to capital, but gender and race are external—and part of capitalism. Since Harvey is mobilizing this distinction so explicitly, one would have expected further clarifications.

The book ends with a short four-page epilogue called “Ideas for Political Praxis” where each of the seventeen contradictions is given seventeen corresponding conclusions or ideas for political action. It is interesting to read this against Thomas Piketty’s recent hype (2014), whose ideas seem perfect for social democrats (the author calls for a better regulated and taxed capitalism), as well as Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff’s book (2009), which argues for reduced public debt/GDP ratios. Yet, Harvey reveals the complexity in capitalism in ways that are superior to both Piketty and Reinhart and Rogoff. Multiple but dialectically related contradictions are part of a system of endless compound growth, in which tensions between use and exchange value, labour and capital, monopoly and competition, freedom and domination, for example, are played out in a particular relation to nature and spatio-temporalities, creating and destroying whatever is needed in order to produce profits. And all these processes interact with each other. Grasping this complexity and turning it into a political agenda is no easy task. While Piketty hits a social democratic string and Reinhart and Rogoff are invoked by the supporters of austerity and fiscal consolidation, Harvey remains a Marxist with a call for a society beyond capitalism. This makes me recall Schumpeter’s comment on Ricardo and Keynes: that people embraced their theories primarily because they agreed with their recommendations. None of Harvey’s ideas for praxis are hitting any strings among the elites or powerful groups.

The seventeen “ideas” are fairly general, and considering that Harvey seems heavily inspired by Gorz, one could think that he is suggesting some “non-reformist reforms”. But Harvey’s “Ideas for Political Praxis” are precisely that, ideas the rest of us can take over. Over the past few years we have repeatedly heard the quote (often stemming from Jameson, sometimes from Zizek, and some other times from Haraway) that it is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. After reading the Seventeen Contradictions one will definitely find it easier to imagine the end of capitalism than the end of the world. In this sense, Harvey provides a great platform from where to start to make revolutionary demands. 

References

Piketty T (2014) Capital in the Twenty-first Century. Cambridge MA and London: Harvard University Press.

Reinhart C M and K Rogoff K (2009) This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press.