Heterodox Economics Reading List

29 Jun 2021 - Anarchist Arborist

This is a reading list for Heterodox political economy. I have not read it all myself; in fact this has been a collaborative work with several others. See the note at the end for thanks. If you have further texts on degrowth, I would greatly appreciate them. Note as well that mutualism is a specifically anarchist philosophy.

Various Anarchist Economics, short texts

• Queering the Economy by Stephanie Grohmann.
• Turning Modes of Production Inside Out by David Graeber.
• On “Exchange” by Joseph Déjacque.
• The Accumulation of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics edited by Deric Shannon, Anthony J. Nocella II and John Asimakopoulos. (A collection of short works)
• The Capitalist System by Mikhail Bakunin.

Various Anarchist Economics, long texts

• Prison Labor: Capitalism Without Markets by Joseph Parampathu.
• Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber.
• Toward an Anthropological Theory of Value by David Graeber.
• The State: Theory and Praxis by Kevin Carson.
• Let’s Destroy Work, Let’s Destroy the Economy by Alfredo M. Bonanno.
• Fields, Factories and Workshops by Pyotr Kropotkin.

Mutualism, short texts

• The Distorting Effects of Transportation Subsidies by Kevin Carson.
• Decentralized Economic Coordination: Let A Hundred Flowers Bloom by Kevin Carson.
• Economic Calculation in the Corporate Commonwealth by Kevin Carson.
• Markets not Capitalism edited by Gary Chartier and Charles W. Johnson. (A collection of shorter works)

Mutualism, long texts

• What is Mutualism? by Clarence Lee Swartz.
• What is Property? by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
• The System of Economic Contradictions: or, The Philosophy of Poverty by Pierre-Joseph Proudhon.
• Studies in Mutualist Political Economy by Kevin Carson.
• The Homebrew Industrial Revolution: A Low-Overhead Manifesto by Kevin Carson.

General Heterodox, short texts

• What do Bosses Do?: The Origins and Functions of Hierarchy in Capitalist Production by Stephen A. Marglin.
• Planetary Boundaries: Exploring the Safe Operating System for Humanity by Johan Rockström et al.
• The “Ownership of the Firm” is a Myth by David Ellerman.
• Environmental Sustainability in a Sraffian Framework by Robin Hahnel.

General Heterodox, long texts

• Debunking Economics by Steve Keen.
• Parecon: Life After Capitalism by Michael Albert.
• Progress and Poverty: An Inquiry into the Cause of Industrial Depression and Increase of Want with Increase of Wealth: a Remedy by Henry George.
• The Deficit Myth by Stephanie Kelton.
• Production of Commodities by Means of Commodities by Piero Sraffa.

Anthropological/Philosophical, short texts

• The Notion of Expenditure by Georges Bataille.
• On the Nature of Capital by Thornstein Veblen.
• The Wandering of Humanity by Jacques Camatte.
• On the Economy Considered as Black Magic: A Metaphysical Critique by Tiqqun.

Anthropological/Philosophical, long texts

• The Accursed Share by Georges Bataille. (Three Volumes)
• The Theory of the Leisure Class by Thornstein Veblen.
• The Theory of Business Enterprise by Thornstein Veblen.
• The System of Objects by Jean Baudrillard.
• For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign by Jean Baudrillard.
• The Consumer Society by Jean Baudrillard.
• Capital and Community by Jacques Camatte.

Case Studies/History

• How the West Came to Rule by Alexander Anievas and Kerem Nişancıoğlu.
• What Was the USSR? by Aufheben.
• Sorghum and Steel: The Socialist Developmental Regime and the Forging of China by Chuang.
• Red Dust: The Transition to Capitalism in China by Chuang.
• Social Contagion by Chuang.
• Capitalism and Class Struggle in the USSR: A Marxist Theory by Neil C Fernandez.
• Global Political Economy of Israel by by Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan.

Other Important Texts

• Seeing like a State by James C. Scott.
• Against the Grain by James C. Scott.
• The Myth of the Machine by Lewis Mumford. (2 volumes)

Degrowth, short texts

• Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era edited by Giacomo D’Alisa, Federico Demaria and Giorgos Kallis. (A collection of short works)
• In Defence of Degrowth by Giorgos Kallis.
• Unworking edited by Peer Illner. (A collection of short works)

Degrowth, long texts

• Degrowth: The Economy by Giorgos Kallis.
• Farewell to Growth by Serge Latouche.
• Less is More; How Degrowth Will Save the World by Jason Hickel.
• Ecosocialism: A Radical Alternative to Capitalist Catastrophe by Michael Löwy.
• Growth by Vaclav Smil.

Value Form Theory, short texts

• The Logic of Gender by Endnotes.
• Communization and Value-Form Theory by Endnotes.
• Gleaning the Welfare Fields by Chuang.
• Marx’s Refusal of the Labour Theory of Value by David Harvey.
• Crisis & Critique: Vol 3, Issue 3 edited by Slavoj Žižek et al. (Collection of academic essays)
• The Test of Communism by Jasper Bernes.
• The Belly of the Revolution: Agriculture, Energy, and the Future of Communism by Jasper Bernes.
• Value and its Abolition by Bruno Astarian.
• On Nicolas’ “Introduction” to the Grundrisse by Moishe Postone.
• Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value by Isaak Illich Rubin. (Collection of essays.) [Listed Twice.]
• Value: The Representation of Labour in Capitalism edited by Diane Elson. (Collection of essays.)

Value Form Theory, long texts

• An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s Capital by Michael Heinrich.
• Time, Labor, and Social Domination: A Reinterpretation of Marx’s Critical Theory by Moishe Postone.
• The Origin of Capitalism:A Longer view by Ellen Meiksins Wood.

Marxian Ecology

• The End of Cheap Nature by Jason W. Moore.
• Marx in the Anthropocene by Kohei Saito.

New Theories of Imperialism

• Value Chains: The New Economic Imperialism by Intan Suwandi.
• Wars and Capital by Eric Alliez, Maurizio Lazzarato and Ames Hodges.
• Imperialism in the 21st Century by John Smith.
• Capital and Imperialism by Utsa Patnaik and Prabhat Patnaik.

Social Reproduction Theory

• Contract and Contagion by Angela Mitropoulos.

Marxism, short texts

• Wage Labour and Capital by Karl Marx.
• Karl Marx’s Capital by Carlo Cafiero.
• A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx.
• Essays on Marx’s Theory of Value by Isaak Illich Rubin. (Collection of essays.)

Marxism, long texts

• Capital: a Critique of Political Economy by Karl Marx. (Three Volumes)
• Theory in History: Essays on Modes of Production by Jairus Banaji
• The Grundrisse by Karl Marx.
• Black Marxism: the Making of the Black Radical Tradition by Cedric J. Robinson.
• The Invention of Capitalism: Classical Political Economy and the Secret History of Primitive Accumulation by Michael Perlman.
• The Accumulation of Capital by Rosa Luxemburg. (I’ve been told this is controversial)
• The Law of Accumulation and Collapse of the Capitalist System by Henryk Grossman.
• Socialism in Marx’s Capital: Towards a Dealienated World by Paresh Chattopadhyay.

Capital as Power, short texts

• Capital as Power: Towards a New Cosmology of Capitalism by Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan.
• From Commodities to Assets: Capital as Power and the Ontology of Finance by Jesús Suaste Cherizola.
• Growing Through Sabotage: Energizing Hierarchical Power by Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan.

Capital as Power, long texts

• Capital as Power: a Study of Order and Creorder by Shimshon Bichler and Jonathan Nitzan.
• Inflation as Restructuring: A Theoretical and Empirical Account of the U.S. Experience by Jonathan Nitzan. (Chapter 5 and later. It is a thesis, so expect some irrelevant components.)

Some notes on the various texts:

• Veblen is seen as a positive theorist of capitalism for some, as well as he has various points where he endorses phrenology.
• Proudhon’s racism and sexism are also present in what I understand to be minor ways in his text; see Déjaques for a critique of this. If this is an incorrect assessment of how present the antisemitism and sexism are in the texts, please let me know so I can amend this note.
• Marx and Engels held to colonialist views of economics and development. Overall, a much better approach is found in How the West Came to Rule.
• The various anarchist economics are indeed various; I don’t think there is someone who will agree with everything put forwards by the authors in that section.
• The texts Sorghum and Steel and Red Dust by Chuang form two parts of three of their historical account of the development of capitalism within the developmental regime of China. The third part is forthcoming.
• Aufheben’s What was the USSR? is a similar, though methodologically distinct approach taken to the development of the USSR. It engages far more with various theorists of what the USSR’s economy should have been classified as.
• Bakunin’s The Capitalist System could have easily been placed in the Marxist section. That text in particular demonstrates how Bakunin agreed with Marx’s critique of capitalism, not just that he agreed. Note should be taken that Bakuinin was technically an anarchist collectivist, not an anarchist communist. Anarchist communists like Kropotkin and Malatesta actually were highly critical of Marxian economics.

From the original author:

Thanks goes out to: Teuton and Ry for their help with Capital as Power, Anne for his help with VFT, Rosencrone and Rosenklippe for works on mutualism, Windows for his help with Camatte, Tiqqun and Fernandez, Sloth for xir’s recommendation of The Notion of Expenditure, Matryoshka for the assistance with texts on degrowth, [and] some Marxists, who shall remain anonymous because they were at least mildly insufferable, for their help expanding my non-VFT section on Marxism.