Confronting Capitalism: How the World Works and How to Change it – Vivek Chibber

I picked up this book on account of it having been written by an author I had read another book by, that I quite enjoyed (Postcolonial Theory and the Spectre of Capital). The table of contents also looked like it might first give an overview of Marxist theory, and give an introduction to its relevance in the modern day. The former is useful as I’m still not that well-read in Marxist ideas, and the latter is good in the sense that I’m not interested in political theory for its own sake, I want to understand its potential influence on the world. I think it met my hopes and provided these things. I will give an overview of my main takeaways I had.

Section 1 and 2 focused on explaining Marxian ideas in layman’s terms. I thought this quite good despite having read through such basics before. Firstly, I didn’t know much of the terminology in English. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, condensing it all to its most basic was useful in giving a broad overview, a summary. When I did read about all of this before, each section concept was explained in sections at least the length of this entire book – making it easy to lose sight of how the different bits fit together, so to speak. If looking for a detailed explanation of how the CMC’ turns into MCM’ turns into MMCM’M’ blah blah blah this isnt the right book; it tends to explain things in less abstract terms. Not to say abstraction isn't important – it very much is – but too much detail at once tends to confuse me, and its refreshing to get a simplified version.

The last sections, 3 and 4 (‘Capitalism and Class Struggle’ and ‘Beyond Capitalism’) took the aforementioned theoretical ideas and tried to connect them to contemporary political strategies. My read of the central argument was that both a popular labour movement and a labour oriented party are necessary for workers in western democratic states to better their conditions. The popular labour movement in question was suggested to be trade unions; this was engaging to read about as I admittedly have read little about them specifically. Chibber mostly discusses the US, and finds both party and movement to be lacking/non-existent. Excitingly enough, though Chibber sees this as unlikely to change due to the underlying economic conditions present in industrialised western states being static, the last few months have challenged this a little, I think – thanks to the current US administration drastic shifts in the economy appear a lot more plausible. 

I don’t think I was the target audience for this book. I have read much more detailed Marxian theory before and am not American. However, I thought it a good summary of the theory. Likewise the US audience didn’t bother me, as thanks to the internet I’m (non-consensually?) bombarded with enough US politics to understand what is being discussed anyway. Additionally, due to me having a more academically oriented background, I think I can neglect the real political applications of a lot of the ideas being discussed – hearing what amounted to a manifesto describing their potential use and relevance was very helpful. The final chapter offered a set of book recommendation, not just listed out but described. I might find this helpful in finding future reading. Certainly would recommend to people tryna get a introduction to Marxist theory ig, very clearly explained stuff.