Abstract
This text discusses and explains the relation between the urban crisis today and the antivalue in respect to the conceptual framework by David Harvey, a well-known British geographer. He approaches this theme in many of his books, including ‘Marx, capital and the madness of economic reason’, published in Brazil, in 2018. This text uses this book as a starting point for the discussion of how the contemporary world, which is increasingly urban, is dominated by the Empire of antivalue, especially in the form of a growing debt. The antivalue, in the form of capital holder of interest, plays a crucial role in the accumulation of capital, articulating production, circulation and realization of commodities, promoting and facilitating the geographical movement of capital and the transfer of capital between economic circuits and cycles of production. However, debt is the favorite form of antivalue under capitalism today. In addition to being supported and granted by the State in a variety of ways, including through public debt, debt imprisons all economic agents in perpetual servitude. Debt follows the tendency of continuous production of value and surplus value under capitalism, a movement that Harvey calls bad infinity. Antivalue in its form of debt is also called fetishism of capital, which defines the contradictory situation in which money alone seems to have the magic powers to create more money. The consequences of growing debt to the urban crisis go beyond the necessity of solving fiscal problems of the State. The need to produce value and surplus value, in addition to the service of the debt generates urban spaces marked by gentrification and segregation. In sum, the text discusses the urban crisis today in the context of the domination by the financial-real estate complex, basing the discussion on Marx’s theory of value and the concept of antivalue, as presented by David Harvey.
Highlights
An analysis of David Harvey's intellectual works is neither obvious nor easy
That we have briefly reviewed some of the founding characteristics of capitalism that Marx described and Harvey presented in many of his works, it is crucial to understand how fixed capital investments are formed, given that they are so important to how the built environment is developed in cities and that they are capable of both alleviating and exacerbating the urban crisis
We are coming toward the end of this essay and, thereby, we come back to the urban crisis problem and how it is related to anti-value
Summary
An analysis of David Harvey's intellectual works is neither obvious nor easy. He is constantly dialoguing back and forth with the works of Karl Marx in search of a better critical reading and to adapt to the present context. That we have briefly reviewed some of the founding characteristics of capitalism that Marx described and Harvey presented in many of his works, it is crucial to understand how fixed capital investments (including real estate) are formed, given that they are so important to how the built environment is developed in cities and that they are capable of both alleviating and exacerbating the urban crisis This is another contradiction in capitalism, a mode of production doomed to crisis. This is yet another contradiction in a system that can lead to over-accumulation crises, which, in general, includes the production of goods with no buyers, decreasing profit margins, unused capital, and unused surplus labour.
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