One fundamental assumption seems to underlie – explicitly or implicitly – every critique of Brenner I have seen: that there can be no such thing as a Marxist theory of competition, the ‘horizontal’ relation among many capitals, that does not presuppose the ‘vertical’ class relation between capital and living labour. To start with the relation between capital and living labour is the only way to establish one's Marxist credentials. In support of that assumption, more than one critic has invoked Marx's (...) comment that competition does not produce or explain capitalist laws of motion but merely executes them, as their visible manifestation in the external movements of individual capitals. Predictably, too, some critics have gleefully turned against Brenner the charge he has famously levelled against other Marxists: that his focus on competition and the market makes him a ‘neo-Smithian’. (shrink)

This article is the introduction of the volume The Many-Headed Hydra. The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic, to be published by Amsterdam, a historical investigation of the multi-ethnique class which formed the cheap workforce which made possible the rising of capitalism and of modern transatlantic economy, since the beginning of 17th century. A motley crowd made by merchants, pirates, workers, women, soldiers, convicted criminals, religious radicals, etc. developed forms of resistence and mutual cooperations, in order to escape the deep (...) exploitation of the workforce, taking place in an economy already globalised. The authors tell the story of the role played by these wretched of modern world and of their fight for liberty. (shrink)

Theories and Narratives will interest all readers for whom the role of history in the understanding of contemporary civilizations is an essential issue.