Some problems with Marxism

Abstract

This article examines three key concepts in the analysis of the problems of capitalist development in the first two decades of the 21st Century. First, extractivist capitalism or capitalist development in its extractivist form, which refers to the advance of capital invested in the acquisition of land and the extraction of natural resources for export in primary commodity form. Second, the debate around the theory of value-labor that has assumed renewed strength in the context of the advances of extractive capital as part of the development of productive forces. Third, the concept of superexploitation advanced by Ruy Marini, with reference to mechanisms that allow for the remuneration of labor on the periphery of the world system at a level below the value (the value of labor power, the commodity that workers seek to exchange against capital for a living wage). Fourth, the formation of a global reserve army of intellectual labor, qualified to participate in the construction of scientific knowledge concentrated in centers of technological innovation. Finally, the article addresses the dynamics of productive and social transformation that accompanies each advance of capital in the development process.