Marx’s Capital in the information age
Abstract
This article argues that a media and communication studies perspective on reading Marx’s Capital has thus far been missing, but is needed in the age of information capitalism and digital capitalism. Two of the most popular contemporary companions to Marx’s Capital, the ones by David Harvey and Michael Heinrich, present themselves as general guidebooks on how to read Marx, but are actually biased towards particular schools of Marxist thought. A contemporary reading of Marx needs to be mediated with contemporary capitalism’s structures and the political issues of the day. Media, communications and the Internet are important issues for such a reading today. It is time to see Marx not just as a critic of capitalism but also as a critic of capitalist communications.
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Biographies
Christian Fuchs is Professor at and Director of the University of Westminster’s Communication and Media Research Institute; editor of the open access journal tripleC: Communication, Capitalism & Critique; author of Reading Marx in the Information Age: A Media and Communication Studies Perspective on Capital, Volume 1. http://fuchs.uti.at; @fuchschristian
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Article first published online: November 18, 2016
Issue published: February 2017
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