Taking Up the Challenge of Living Labour. A ‘Backwards-Looking Reconstruction’ of Recent Italian Debates on Marx’s Theory of the Capitalist Mode of Production

The following long-form essay argues, consistently and insistently, from the point of view of the ‘process of capital as a whole’, Marx’s ‘kapitalistischer Gesamtprozess’, the object of theoretical analysis in Volume III of Marx’s Capital. The chapter argues from the point of view of the analysis and theoretical reconstruction of the comprehensive process of the reproduction and accumulation of capital, and does so by critically addressing current debates not only among Marxists, but also with and among other critical theoretical economists. A specific perspective is taken—that of a critical Italian economist within the broader Marxian tradition, with considerable openness to economists from other lines of scientific thinking, like Piero Sraffa. Yet this latter specific perspective is best understood— and, ultimately, judged—on the basis of what it is capable of bringing to light.